Tag Archives: no sugar breakfast

A Year of No Sugar: Post 33

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After the harshest, wettest, and snowiest Vermont winter in recent memory, everyone I know is ravenously ready for Spring. It’s to the point that the sixty degree high on Sunday made us all delirious with hope, and conversely, made Monday morning’s rather ordinary snowfall seem much more ominous and depressing than it really ought to have been.

“It’s just a ‘sugar snow’,” my husband Steve announced. Apparently that was the word at Mach’s, our local general store, that morning. It’s a funny term I hadn’t heard before, and I wasn’t sure to what it referred: the fact that it literally looked like a sprinkling of sugar across the transitional brown and green mess of a landscape, or the fact that it’s “sugaring time,” when the rising and falling temperatures wreak havoc with the tree sap, allowing for the hallowed practice of maple syrup production to take place on scales large and small throughout the state.

It is hard to underestimate the impact that maple syrup, and it’s related products— maple (“Indian”) sugar, maple sugar candy, maple cream, maple “creemies” (soft ice cream), maple cotton candy, maple roasted nuts, and so on— have on the culture, economy, and collective unconscious of Vermont. Just look at our state quarter: a guy straight out of Vermont-stereotype casting, sporting a plaid jacket and sugaring with buckets the old fashioned way. (Although metal sap buckets are still used here and there, the preferred modern method for serious producers involves a much less bucolic plastic sap line which runs from tree to tree.)

If you’ve never had maple syrup fresh, by which I mean straight out of the boiling-down process, this is an experience you must try to have in your lifetime, because there is no other taste in the world like it. There is some sort of magic that is happening just then, as the water is evaporated out of the sap slowly, hovered over for hours in the warmth of the sugarhouse, that you can actually taste at no other time than right then. Likely, you will have wind burned cheeks and be stamping your muddy feet, when someone hands you a Dixie cup containing a tablespoon or two of warm, pure gold. Warning: your taste buds may very well be spoiled forever.

Every year our family looks forward to the best maple-themed event we’ve encountered yet: the Merck Forest annual maple sugaring breakfast. A fundraiser for this non-profit “working landscape” of cabins, trails, hunting, livestock and farming, the event featured their first warm syrup of the season poured liberally over some very good pancakes and sausage (which used to be from their own farmed hogs, but sadly is now brought in from elsewhere.) On this day, the large, recently-built sugarhouse is crammed with chairs and long tables, coats and mittens splayed everywhere, the air redolent with smells of sweet syrup, pork fat, and hot black coffee. The line always, always extends out the warm door and into the whiteness outside. Folks are arriving in their snow boots, on snowshoes, on skis or by horse-drawn cart. In the corner of the busy room are displays and dioramas explaining the sugaring process, as well as usually some young and fuzzy Vermont man strumming a guitar. Every so often a volunteer will take groups of kids outside to let them take turns tapping a tree.

When I saw the banner for the event this year hanging from Dorr’s red barn in Manchester, I was sad. Although there’s a lot I love about this project— trying an experiment, doing something differently and then writing about it, finding interesting new ways to eat, feeling healthier and more informed, bonding together as a family— I can’t say there isn’t a loss involved too. And because we are here in Vermont, that loss is inextricably intertwined with the sap of the maple tree. It would probably be going too far to say that we are alienated from our culture or our neighbors or our other family by our decision to shun sugar for a year, but it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that where there is gain, there must also be loss.

“It’s only for a year,” I say to myself, a little anxiously, hoping that for all the effort and denial involved that we will have found this experiment to be worth it in the end. “I mean, come on,” I think, “it’s only sugar, right?” Meanwhile the “sugar snow” lays delicately outside my window, waiting to melt.

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PS- At least we can still have great pancakes: this weekend Steve innovated his own version of a Joy of Cooking pancake recipe, omitting the sugar and adding in banana, blueberries and unsweetened coconut. You will truly not believe how good these are until you try them- they really are so good as to make the syrup issue superfluous.

Steve’s Heresy Pancakes*

Whisk together in a large bowl:

  • 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3 bananas mashed with a fork
  • 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
  • .5 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 cup unsweetened grated coconut
  • 1 cup blueberries, frozen is perfect.

Whisk together in another bowl:

  • 1.5 cups whole milk
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  • 2 large fresh eggs
  • .5 teaspoon vanilla

Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and gently whisk them together. Heat pan to medium low and cook till both sides are nice and golden!!

(*what, no Vermont maple syrup? Heresy!)

A Year of No Sugar: Post 28

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I had Walleye for lunch and dinner yesterday- a first for me. Apparently Walleye is very big out here in Minnesota.

But wait, you say, Minnesota? What happened to Philly? What, for that matter, happened to Vermont? Well, life moves pretty fast out here in No-Sugar Land…

So yes, Minnesota. Turns out my Dad’s back problems have reached epic proportions and it’s time for the experts to be superseded by the experts. So he and I have come to Mayo Clinic. I have been told that the Mayo Clinic employs 56,000 people in the city of Rochester, Minnesota, which leaves me speechless. (remember: I live in a thriving Vermont metropolis of around 1,000 people.)

And this also, of course, means more travel: the No Sugar Lifestyle’s no-so-best-friend. But I’m slightly better prepared this time: for one thing I had the foresight to leave the kids at home, with my husband. I have a much easier time with the concept of going hungry myself, than I do with imposing hunger on my children- especially when actual, viable food is staring them right in the face.

Also very helpful is the box of Kashi cereal I packed in my suitcase. One of the biggest lessons I learned on our trip to Philadelphia last week was that the hardest meal of the day for no-sugar is breakfast… hands down. Just take a look at it and you’ll see what I mean: there’s cereal (added sugar), toast or bagels (added sugar), juice (is sugar), waffles (added sugar, and that’s even before the syrup), muffins and danishes (oh, come on!),… Pretty much black coffee and eggs without toast and without bacon are what you get left with. Ew.

Which leads me to a confession to make on this account. Last week on our PA. trip the breakfast situation got so dire that I had to enact the “Philadelphia Breakfast Exemption” which read as follows: Don’t ask about the bread. Just don’t.

Evidently our hotel has never heard of the “complimentary breakfast” phenomenon that is sweeping the rest of the western world, so we ate almost every day at a small diner around the corner that felt very “retro”… two formica u-shaped counters were lined with swiveling chrome stools. Honestly, for the first time in our project I was too intimidated to ask about the sugar content of the menu items… I’m not sure if it was the Russian waitress with three stars tattooed behind her right ear, the two local guys who came in every morning and ordered coke with their French Toast, or the fact that there would simply be nothing left for us to eat but eggs with eggs and eggs on the side, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Instead, we stuck to the things we knew were safe: bland unsweetened oatmeal, grapefruit, and of course eggs. Okay, we had whole wheat toast and we had bagels. Judging by my experience at sugar-hunting to date, I’d say there was a really, really good chance there was some amount of sugar in those bread products. Which was why the “Philadelphia Breakfast Exemption” was key to our sanity. I was determined, however, not to let it happen again.

Having already learned my lesson the hard way, this week I felt prepared. I proudly smuggled my cereal into the complimentary breakfast bar this morning, brazenly making use of their styrofoam bowls, plastic spoons and paper napkins (evidently our hotel has never heard of the “catastrophic environmental meltdown” that’s sweeping the rest of the western world) as well as a heap of raisins which were originally betrothed to some instant sugar-containing oatmeal, before being abducted and eloping with 7 Whole Grain Nuggets at the last minute.

So I’m guilty of a shotgun wedding, I’m afraid. Well, at least they didn’t end up with the Walleye.

A Year of No Sugar: Post 19

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Hooray! One month down; a mere eleven more to go. I thought this might be a good moment to pause and reflect on some of the things that are working for our family so far:

-Popcorn! We’re big on snacks around here, so in addition to the ever-present bowl of apples (local) and clementines (decidedly not), I’ve found popcorn to be a reliable no-sugar option. Whereas we used to buy a box of microwave bag popcorn at the supermarket fortified with about four-thousand mysterious ingredients, now we buy popcorn kernels by the pound from Ryan- a vendor at the Dorset Farmer’s market. We pop it with a little canola oil, add olive oil or butter and salt and voila! I never used to be a huge popcorn fan, but now I’m a new convert.

-Hummus!! The kids are big fans of this chick pea and tahini dip which never tastes right when we buy it from the store- I make it myself in the Cuisinart from a can of chick peas, some garlic, olive oil, salt, lemon juice and tahini. Paired with corn chips or crackers it goes so fast around here that I have yet to put any away in the fridge for later.

-Oatmeal made with milk and topped with fruit has become a breakfast staple. Sure, it’s a pain having to turn the stove on and actually cook before I’m even fully awake, but I’m getting used to it. In the last month we’ve tried oatmeal with fresh cut-up strawberries, blueberries and frozen organic raspberries on top. Raspberries seem to lend the best juicy sweetness to the oatmeal.

-Steve’s famous banana ice cream has been a lifesaver when we’re feeling deprived and in need of a dessert option. In the last month we’ve had it at least three or four times. We’ve lucky to have the Champion Juicer in our appliance arsenal, because I’m not sure how else one would achieve that soft-serve texture that it creates from the frozen banana flesh. We’re SO excited about it that we tried to make some for a friend and her kids a few nights ago even though we didn’t quite have enough banana-freezing time, and thus ended up with more of a banana pudding- which actually I thought was almost as good. (Our friend and her kids however- who aren’t as sugar-starved as we are apparently- seemed less than impressed.)

-Raisin cookies! In my mostly-fruitless search for some genuine no-sugar dessert recipes online, I found this recipe for cookies made with raisins and apples. You have to work a little harder than with most cookie recipes- the fruit gets cooked before being added to the dry ingredients, and the mixed batter must then chill in the fridge overnight… but it really does result in a cookie! Without sugar! Okay, this might be the banana pudding effect at work again; I probably wouldn’t try to stack these up against Nestle Tollhouse or anything, but for a no-sugar dessert these are sweet and chewy and definitely cookies. I wasn’t sure how I’d make a whole year without cookies!

–Anything to not feel deprived. One pivotal thing I’ve learned over the last month is that so much of our battle is psychological: we’re often fine eating at home, but when we are surrounded by friends at school or skating or movie night at the school, all having snacks or treats we aren’t, suddenly things get exponentially harder. Therefore, when we’re at skating I make it a point to let the kids buy an apple or banana from the snack bar. No, the fruit isn’t organic, in fact it doesn’t even look very good, and yes, it is ridiculously expensive ($1.50 for an apple, anyone?) but when I suggested to my six-year-old that we could bring better fruit from home she objected immediately. “It’s more fun to buy it here, Mommy.” Okay. We aren’t buying the soft pretzels or hot cocoa or french fries or gatorade that everyone else is- but at least we can buy something from the concession stand too. And sometimes that can make all the difference.