Tag Archives: no sugar diet

A Year of No Sugar: Post 6

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I am now a savory person living in a sweet world. Do I feel deprived? Well- I cannot tell a lie. A bit. Yes. Definitely.

Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m speaking relatively here. Are there lots of topics probably way more important than whether or not Eve Schaub got to put honey in her coffee this morning? Yes.

That being said, I wouldn’t be bothering with our family “experiment” if I didn’t think it had value. In fact, if you listen to the lecture which inspired the idea of attempting our family year without sugar, you might just wonder why more people aren’t talking about sugar and it’s omnipresence in the contemporary western diet- quickly becoming the contemporary diet of all industrialized nations. In this talk posted on YouTube, “Sugar: the Bitter Truth,” pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Robert Lustig makes the case for sugar being the root of every evil from obesity and Type 2 diabetes to hypertension, cardiovascular disease and stroke. If we could find a way to reduce the incidences of all of these maladies, wouldn’t it be worth talking about? If there’s another way to look at- or perhaps even opt out of- the treadmill of diet and disease in our culture, shouldn’t we be talking about it?

So when I say deprived, I mean relatively so. I know- there’s a tiny little violin playing somewhere just for me. And yet, it’s funny the things over which one feels more mournful than others. Last night at dinner at our favorite local restaurant, I managed not only to forgo the Oh-My-God Bread Pudding, (gasp!) but when our dear friend Carol enjoyed it, amazingly enough, it really didn’t phase me. Really! However, it was another matter entirely this morning as I stared longingly at the Crispy Hexagons cereal box on the shelf… (forgot to toss those out- darn!)

Another phenomenon I’ve noticed is the “waiting for the other shoe to drop” feeling I’ve been getting at recent meals: it’s as if I’ve just seen three quarters of a play when suddenly- the curtain goes down and everyone goes home. It is so thoroughly ingrained in me to expect a little- or a big- sweet finale at the end of a meal, but especially at the end of a labor-intensive home-cooked meal or a rare evening-out meal, that I find myself experiencing a sort of phantom dessert syndrome. “What, no fireworks? No crème brulee or tiramisu? Not so much as a mint?” my brain chemistry complains.

Yep, one week and my brain is already talking to itself. Well, this should be an interesting year.

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A Year of No Sugar: Post 5

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Health Food??

Today I spent a fair amount of time at BJ’s Warehouse in the attempt to buy food. This is a really good idea, at the rate at which I am getting rid of food around here.

Happily- I did manage to fill my cart, but not without some serious label reading. More than once I picked up a package which listed sugar as the umpteenth ingredient (gotcha!) only to go back to the drawing board and find another brand of the same sort of item which (hooray!) did not. Two seemingly identical bags of pistachios revealed their true nature when flipped over: one had sugar listed among a myriad of other ingredients, the other listed pistachios and sea salt.

See, now was that so hard? Is is so hard to just put food in our food? I mean, I’m just saying.

But forgive me: I’m tired and cranky from all that small type and realizing I had to throw my favorite breakfast cereal out this morning (Crispy Hexagons, how could you?) Okay, some sugar items are pretty blinking obvious- Nutella, hello?- but I continue to be blindsided by many others, ie: the number of items from the health-food store/section of the supermarket that I have now been forced to take an honest, unflinching look at… call it the Evaporated Cane Syrup Brigade, if you will. What? You mean I can’t have peanut butter Clif bars anymore?? Wait, nobody told me that!

Meanwhile, last night when dinner was over our five-year-old started describing the kind of little thingies-with-the-something-inside she would like for dessert and I gently reminded her about the “family project.” She was sad for a moment- but quickly rebounded, much to my surprise. Despite our preconceptions about the love affair between children and sugar, I’m beginning to wonder if the family project may actually end up being harder on Mom and Dad. After all, we’ve been around a lot longer, we’ve had a lot longer to get hooked.

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A Year of No Sugar: Post 3

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I am quickly coming to the realization that prepared foods are going to be pretty much off the table. I deduced this last night when I got out some of our favorite canned chicken chili to have over brown rice for dinner and gueeeeessss whaaaat. Yup- ingredient number seven, right between onion and tomato paste. Who knows how much that ingredient-number-seven sugar that really amounts to? A teaspoon? A tablespoon? Does it matter?

So, once again, we were having sugar with our dinner without really intending to. Greta, our ten year old, who got teary only the night before when we talked about starting the “family project,” was incensed.

“I can not be-LIEVE we’re having sugar for dinner,” she proclaimed loudly, with the conviction of a truly gifted proto-teenager. I found myself in the very odd position of pleading with her: “It’s just for tonight…” I rationalized, “It isn’t very much.” I promised we would do better as we got more acclimated to the new way of eating… which is to say I ‘ll be cooking more meals from scratch than ever before.

Part of me loves this idea- after all, I love to cook and bake. Then again, one of my favorite things to cook and bake is dessert. Huh. Also- the planning involved with so many home-made meals, not to mention the dirty pots and pans that result, is my not so favorite part. So a re-tooling is definitely in the cards for my meal methods.

Meanwhile, I had my first cup of tea with no honey in it this morning- cue the shrieks and screams. Oh, the horror. For me, altering one of my beloved little morning rituals, this was a HUGE step. My mind keeps waiting for that sweet kick at the end of every sip, and- alas- it never comes. Still, the caffeine was reliable, and a little milk helped too. Hey, I thought, I can do this. M-m-m-m-maybe.

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Information About The No Sugar Project