Thanks for all the support from my loyal blog readers! All three of you! :)
A few things I’ve noticed:
1. I don’t crave sugar so much as the dessert habit. After each meal I find myself feeling the need for a dessert of some sort. I’ve started having a small handful of almonds, which satisfies the need, but I’d like to actually break the habit altogether. Obviously I’m not actually hungry immediately after a meal.
2. Although we don’t “officially” start until Feburary, we are all noticeably cutting back already.
3. Eve and I read a lot of labels at the grocery store this week! We found very few crackers with no added sugar and only one type of cereal. Grape Nuts. Grandpa knew what he was doing! :)
4. After looking at a pack of peanut butter sandwich crackers (unhealthy for many reasons), Eve said, “Oh, why does everything that tastes good have to have sugar in it?!?” She’s starting to understand.
5. Alan said that he had some yogurt yesterday, the kind he normally eats but hasn’t since this sugar conversation, and he said it tasted way too sweet.
6. When we talk about sugar, are we looking for added sugars in the ingredients list or any sugar on the nutrition panel? I’m not sure what we are supposed to be doing, but for now we are just looking at added sugars. Almost everything has some sugar in it.
That is all. Off to work. Have a healthy day. <3
Grape Nuts rock! My standard work lunch for years was a mixture of GNs, nonfat yogurt, almonds, raisins and pomegranate seeds. Yummy!
Oh yeah, and blueberries too! (Knew I left something out!)
I don’t think you can tell ‘added’ sugar from natural sugars on a package label. The ingredient list helps…but I know milk has sugar…but that’s not ‘added’ sugar..it’s part of the product. I think bread needs sugar to rise. And fruit etc. has sugar…so I think you can’t always achieve 0 gr. of sugar in a product..like 100% fruit juice has sugar but that’s natural….I guess I”m saying you have to think about the product to guess is the sugar is ‘added’ or natural…and pick a cereal with low sugar..for pete’s sake..no one can live on grape nuts! (apologies to the purists in my family…LOL)
Depends on your goal. Ideally you want products with as few ingredients as possible (5 or fewer is my goal and that’s tough to achieve!), all of which you can pronounce and recognize as food. You don’t want any added sugars. Breads, crackers, etc. will be the toughest to find but they’re out there. You just have to look. Search engines are your friends. :) Mom is right about natural sugars – just make sure they’re an intended part of the food. Like fruit juice is a really shot of sugar without the fiber: better to have some cut up fruit and drink water instead. Oh and YES with the after dinner sweet. We’re on day 22 and that’s still a challenge. Your family rocks!
I reread your question: ingredients list.
Natural sugars are fine. Except try to keep things with high concentrated natural sugars like dried fruit as “sometimes” treats and not everyday snacks.