Jack LaLanne was a man ahead of his time… do you think we’re healthier now than when he made these broadcasts?
Tag Archives: no sugar kids
A Year Of No Sugar: Post 64
“But wait!” I hear you asking, “What was the dessert was for June?” See- I knew you were paying attention. Life got busy and I never did write about what our one dessert for the month of June was.
Just for fun, here is the list thus-far of what I call our “Desert Island Desserts”:
- January: Ilsa’s-Turning-Six Chocolate Cupcakes
- February: Not-Quite-For-Valentine’s Chocolate Mousse
- March: Oh-My-God-Sour Cherry Pie
- April: Greta’s-Great-Grandma’s Famous Chocolate Cake
- May: Eve’s-Childhood Rhubarb Pie
- June: ???
- July: Well-We’re-Going-To-Say-Peach Gelato
So what about June? Well, for the first time, and by special request, we had our first non-homemade dessert of the year. To celebrate Father’s Day we went- as we have for the last few years- to A&W.
My husband Steve adores A&W. A few years ago when he discovered that there was an A&W in Lake George- a scant 45 minutes away from our house- and that it was a nifty car park one with window trays and everything- well we had to go eat there! Right away!! Consequently A&W is the only “fast food” restaurant our kids are familiar with. They don’t even have indoor seating- if you’re like us and choose not to eat in your car they have picnic tables. Consequently, they are only open for the oh-so-fleeting and ever-so-touristy Lake George summer.
Just as well. You can’t eat food like that very often- retro or not- without feeling like a parade float. But we usually manage to amble over there a few times per summer; obviously, this year would be different. But I almost balked when Steve suggested it for our monthly treat… oddly enough, I think in the back of my mind I just assumed I would make all the monthly desserts this year. However, as of June, Steve was the only one of our family who had yet to pick a dessert. And it was Father’s Day. How could we refuse?
I am happy to report that our one and only fast food meal of the year was a success: there were burgers with “special sauce,” onion rings and french fries, even a chicken nugget or two. The girls had games on their colorful meal bags to entertain them which was entirely unnecessary since: a.)the waiting time for our meal seemed to be about three minutes, b.)the food comes in the “meal bag” (should I eat? Or play?) and, c.)they were far too busy marveling at the novelty of having exotic delicacies like ketchup and juice for the first time in six months to require further entertainment.
The piece d’ resistance at any A&W of course, is the root beer floats: Ta DA! Our official June dessert. All of us got one but Ilsa, who was pining away for an ice cream cone instead. Now, after six months drinking nothing but water and milk, you can imagine what a sensory shock root beer in a frosty glass with drippy, swirly vanilla ice cream pumped into it would be… pretty much the gastronomical equivalent of taking an Amish Family to a Las Vegas burlesque show.
Wow, it was good. Wow, it was s-w-e-e-t.
As we enjoyed our treat, we tried not to dwell on the fact that most of the other clientele showed evidence of eating this type of food all too often. Even the young, multi-pierced waitresses were sporting a fair bit of what Dr. Robert Lustig calls a “soda belly.”
Later, when at last Ilsa got to choose her small soft serve ice cream cone- her first ice cream cone of the year, mind you, what flavor do you think she chose? Bubblegum. Bubblegum! She promptly pronounced it “delicious,” and offered me a lick so I could silently pronounce it “abominable.” So sickly, fakey sweet with that most artificial of aftertastes… oy! Talk about going from one end of the spectrum to the other.
Still, the kids were beside themselves, and after months of being the big meanie it felt good to give them one meal of unmitigated freedom. At one point Ilsa commented, “Mom, Father’s Day is turning out really fun.”
And Steve? He was one happy dad. Who knew root beer could do all that?
A Year Of No Sugar: Post 54
Now that we are creeping up on- dare I say it?- halfway through our Year of No Sugar (!!!) there is a very pleasant law of dietary inertia setting in, that is: a person not eating sugar tends to stay not eating sugar. Compared to our shaky beginnings on January first, we’ve acclimated significantly to the challenges of shopping differently, eating differently, and talking to people about it. I still make mistakes, dumb ones, like just the other day when, for variety’s sake, I picked up a package of Applegate Farms organic ham slices at the health food store instead of the usual Applegate Farms organic roasted turkey, without double-checking the ingredients… um, Eve, hel-lo? Still, we’ve gotten to a point where we might be what you’d call… fairly well used to it.
To celebrate meeting the nebulous milestone of being “fairly well used to it,” Greta, my eleven year old daughter and I did a short presentation for her fifth grade class which we might’ve titled “Yeah, Like, What the Heck is Greta’s Family Doing, Again?” I was nervous. I realized that for all the talking and reading and thinking and agonizing I’ve done on this subject, I haven’t spoken before a group about it at all. Sure they’re fifth graders, not a congressional inquiry, but nonetheless I had visions of difficult biochemistry questions being lobbed at me by kids who aren’t about to give up their chocolate-covered Twinkies without a fight.
Worse, as I made up my notes for the talk, I was having trouble striking the right chord somewhere in between being the world’s most boring health teacher (“Can anyone tell me the incredibly fascinating difference between lactose and galactose? Hmmm?”) and scaring the pee out of them (“Well, according to what I’ve been reading, sugar causes obesity, heart disease, liver disease, diabetes, prostate and breast cancer, not to mention elephantitis of the pores, rampant yellow toe fungus, the end of the world and not getting asked to the junior prom!!! AIIIGHHHH!”)
Most of all, I worried about the same thing all mothers of pre-teen girls worry about: budding eating disorders. The last, last, LAST thing I wanted to do in the course of discussing important topics like the national epidemic of obesity, was to inadvertently encourage some fifth grade girl not to eat. Have I put enough pressure on myself yet? Just wait till I have to talk to The New York Times– I’ll melt into a little savory puddle on the floor.
But I think it went okay, after all. I focused on some key terms and statistics I thought might perk their interest: how every man, woman and child consumes on average 2.7 pounds of sugar per week (I held up a five pound bag of sugar to demonstrate one person’s two week allotment. Interestingly, the kids seemed rather unfazed by this), what a “Western Disease” is (guesses included “pneumonia” and “malaria”- so good we talked about this one), and how doctors decide whether a person is a healthy weight, overweight, or obese. I mean, you hear about an “epidemic of obesity,” but what does that really mean?
I put the BMI (Body Mass Index) formula on the board: weight in pounds times 703, divided by the square of your height in inches. Amazingly, the kids really perked up at this. There were sudden shuffling noises as kids grabbed for pieces of paper and pencils, presumably so they could calculate their own BMI, although I have to admit that I wasn’t about to start figuring out what sixty-six squared is on paper. I demonstrated how I got my own BMI by plugging in my own height and weight… and whipping out my handy dandy calculator.
The other two most popular part of the hour was more predictable: when Greta distributed my most recent dextrose dessert effort: carob chip brownies. I was delighted to see that everyone ate their entire brownie- which to me equals success, not just for my changed palate, but to kids who may very well view sugar as one of the four food groups. That’s one of the things you can still say about kids at this age- they haven’t learned to varnish their opinions yet in the name of politeness. Most fifth graders aren’t going to eat a yucky brownie just to be polite to someone’s mom.
Eve O. Schaub 