This was asked of me of me by amazingly wonderful Mary Fran:
I'm curious. How far have you taken your no sugar thing? If a recipe calls for sugar (not a dessert...but a typical every day dinner/meal recipe) will you just ignore that recipe or ingredient and either not make it or skip it....or will you use it (as long as it's only a small amount)
Well, since I’ve only been at this no sugar nonsense a week, the short answer is I just haven’t been eating any desserts, no chocolate, no cookies, no treat thingys for sure. Yesterday, I did make myself some toast and I went to grab the jar of peach jam, left over from my summer crop, but then opted not to put that one. Since I made the jam myself I knew exactly how much sugar there was in it, and I’ll just say that even in low sugar jam, there still A LOT of sugar.
So, far in my meals, of which I’m making 90% of, I never add sugar. Typically, if a savory dish is calling for sugar, I’d leave it out anyway. I don’t really find adding sugar to a dish just to sweeten it a bit necessary at all. I’d rather opt to add more spice to bring out flavors, not sugar. If the recipe calls for a lot, more than a couple tablespoons, I’d probably pass on it or really cut back on the sugar.
I drink coffee but just with a touch of milk in it, I never got in the habit of sweetening my coffee.
I don’t drink sodas so I haven’t had to cut that out.
I do eat foods that have some sugar in them, for instance the cereal I had for breakfast or the 3g of sugar that’s in my cottage cheese. It would be extremely hard for me to cut all those out. But I do look carefully at sugar content and if it seems like it has a lot in it, like this yogurt, I’ll pass on it.
So, basically this little experiment of mine was a good way to cut out the desserts and snacking food that I shouldn’t have been eating anyway.
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11 comments:
I'm so impressed with you! In my opinion sugar is worse than cigarette smoking... except that we don't give our kids cigarettes!
I totally agree with you on sugar, it makes me incredibly depressed/lethargic etc.
I never add sugar to a recipe either. More spice is always more tasty to me. And it would probably be totally impossible to eleminate all sugar because of things like cottage cheese, and such. It sounds like you are finding something that works for you, and is better also.
Great job :) If we could even eliminate just half of what we normally eat from our daily diet, we'd be so much better off! I read labels diligently and can't believe how much sugar is in "healthy food".....I think the general rule is to try to keep things under 5 grams of sugar or less.
I really should cut down on sugar too!
Sugar is like a drug in my body. If I have a drop, I crave more and more until I make myself sick. I only add it to a few things and I try to sweeten things up naturally wherever possible. I'm so glad there are others out there doing the sugar avoidance thing too. I don't feel so alone
I like your experiment, its great. Within a month I really want to do a week of cutting out ALL sugars, including those in cereal and bread etc. It would be super difficult though. Your experiment is much more practical! It's inspiring.
Ages ago when I did the whole WW thing, they talked about "sugar points" and how it was good to limit them (I think it was to 14 points a week). Basically, if sugar is listed in the first 3 ingredients, the points were considered sugar points. It definitely made me hyper aware of how much sugar is in normal stuff that I would never have thought of.
Great experiment/challenge. I cut down majorly about a year ago and now I feel the effects (lethargy etc) pretty quickly.
That's impressive that you are committed to not taking in any sugar at all. Do you still use sweeteners? I use splenda with a few things like my green tea.
Sugar is a difficult thing to cut out. When I even eat a little bit of it, or even caffeine, I feel terrible. My body isn't used to that stuff anymore.
When I stopped drinking the regular soda, Mt Dew of all choices, I would get these terrible headaches all the time. I could not figure out what was wrong with me, then I realized that it was from the lack of caffeine in my diet. And caffeine is something that I do not miss these days! I feel SO better without it!
Good call! I try to avoid the stuff!
Thank you. And I must say, your clarification makes me admire you that much more for your 'expirement'! :-) Way to go on the jam. I also make my own jellies and jams and there is sure one heck of a lot of sugar in there!
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