Food Additives - Feeding My Sunshine

On Our Table: Cutting Out Refined Sugar

Oh, sugar… how I love thee. We’ve had some fun times. Like the years I stuffed candy in an empty pillowcase and ran from house to house every Halloween. And the time I had ice cream delivered to my door in college when I had the flu. And every road trip that was made perfect by a Cherry Limeade with the ice that never melts. Not to mention our daily visits… in my coffee, a sweet afternoon treat or something to nibble on with my nightly tea.

My whole life, your were there in the good times and the bad. You helped comfort me when I needed it most. But I’m starting to see your evil ways. This relationship isn’t working out anymore. And this time it’s not me, it’s you.

© Olga Kriger | Dreamstime.com

Does this sound familiar to anyone? I’ve known for a long time that sugar has a hold on me like no other. I seek it out, enjoy it, and then hit a huge slump. Cycle, rinse, repeat.

So sugar and I are breaking up. Probably not forever, but at least for the month of June, where I am joining Mandi’s Break the Sugar Habit Challenge over at Life Your Way.

For the specifics, I am planning on removing refined sugar from my diet while still allowing natural sugars – mainly honey and maple syrup. This goes along with my “baby-steps” attitude and will be easier for me to stick with. Also, though honey and maple syrup still have calories like sugar, they are both lower on the Glycemic Index, which will result in not as much blood sugar variation as refined sugar.

This weekend I’ve done some preparation for the change. I thought about where I am currently adding refined sugar in my diet and ways to replace them. My biggest sources of refined sugar are:

Desserts (Chocolate, Ice Cream, etc): This will be difficult, since their main purpose is to be sweet. I will abstain mostly and think of ways to adapt recipes using only natural sugars. I’ll probably be eating mostly fresh fruit but maybe some Baklava too!
Ketchup: We already use a natural ketchup with no HFCS, but that still has regular sugar in it. I did find a bottled ketchup with no added sweetener and I’m interested to see how it tastes. (I also found sugar-free ketchup and ketchup sweetened with agave at my natural food store). I would like to attempt a homemade ketchup this month too.
Barbecue Sauce: I don’t eat barbecue often, but it is June. Prime time for backyard barbecues. Most of my recipes include brown sugar, which is not on the plan. I’ll probably tinker with my recipe to include honey. All of bottled bbq sauces at my grocery store had either refined sugars or artificial sweeteners, even those labeled “Honey.”
Sandwich Bread: Most of the 100% Whole Wheat store bought bread that I saw included sugar, but I found one without. I’ll also be breaking out the yeast this month to get into making my own.
My morning latte: Oh, this one is going to be hard. I used to be a Starbuck’s addict. Spending way too much money and consuming way too many empty calories. I’ve toned it down over the past few years, and now all I have is one homemade vanilla latte per day. Decaffeinated and made with my own vanilla syrup (a blend of white and brown sugars with high quality vanilla extract). I’m hoping a latte made with maple syrup and some vanilla is equally as good.

I’m the only one in my family that will be fully participating. The rest of the family will certainly gain the benefits, but I’m not going to be a stickler. I’m looking forward to this little experiment and will make sure to give updates on my progress throughout the month.

I’ll be updating more frequently on Facebook. Head over there and “like” my page for updates on how cutting out sugar is working for me.

Removing HFCS and Other Additives from our Kitchen

Moving one more step forward with our goal to eat Real Food, I decided to fully remove high fructose corn syrup(HFCS) from our kitchen. There has been a lot of debate in recent years, with one side arguing that HFCS contributes to obesity and the other side claiming that it is just the same as table sugar. The information out there is overwhelming, and while I know I don’t want to eat it anymore, I’ve been doing a bit of research to figure out why I don’t want to eat it anymore.

HFCS is a sweetener that is made from corn and is used in a large amount of processed foods on the market. While table sugar is comprised of 50% fructose and 50% glucose, HFCS is made up of approximately 55% fructose and 42% glucose, plus some other sugars. Science is not a strength for me, so I understood little of what I was reading on Wikipedia. Basically HFCS is close to table sugar, but not quite the same chemically.

Opponents to HFCS say that while sugar is bad in any form, HFCS has contributed to a rise in obesity over the years, and can also contribute to heart disease, diabetes and chronic disease. On the Corn Refiners Association website Sweet Surprise, an abundant amount of information is included advocating the use of HFCS. After reading their list of the benefits of HFCS, I realized my stance on this debate. Most of the benefits listed are not actual benefits at all, to me at least. Many of the benefits would be the same with sugar, like better taste and increased flavor. The other benefits they included were a reason why I’m moving to a Real Food diet. Things like “moisture control,” “retards spoiling,” “stability” and “extends product freshness” are all creative ways for saying this can sit on your shelf for a long time. Longer that it really should, which is great for food manufacturers, but probably not so good for me.

So the other day I set out to remove HFCS from my kitchen. I didn’t think this would be too bad, since I had done the same thing about 2 years ago. Back then, I was able to do it pretty easily with the exception of a few items. I haven’t been paying too close attention to food labels for a while, so I was interested to see what I would find. As I started reading labels, I found some other food additives that I was wary of and I pulled those out too. So the pictures throughout this post are of food that I removed that includes:

Most of it I was actually glad to see go. The ramen, chicken noodle soup (both MSG) and the fruit bars (food dye) were from when my tonsils were removed and, honestly, I never want to revisit that stage of eating again. The ranch dressing (MSG), Nilla Wafers and Hershey’s syrup (both HFCS) were for special events and we didn’t really eat them again. The rest was a mix of random items that we never used and other items that were staples for us. We use a lot of panko bread crumbs (partially hydrogenated oil) on chicken and fish, but it seems I can easily make my own version at home.

I don’t think I will miss these items, since I know I can either make my own version, or we weren’t really eating them to begin with. You can also find products that don’t contain these ingredients, as long as you do a bit of reading at the grocery store. I have found it easy to find bread and ketchup made without HFCS at conventional grocery stores, but it is harder for pickles and relish. Some pickle brands were labeled “no sugar added” but that just meant they had artificial sweeteners. I finally found some at a natural food store, and then recently found some in a conventional store in the organic section.

My husband wasn’t very happy to see all this food going to waste, but I wasn’t really interested in eating it anymore. Any food that was unopened was set aside for the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive this weekend, where you can leave non-perishable food items by your mailbox for your letter carrier to collect.

This didn’t remove all of the processed food in our home, but it’s a good start. What foods do you have in your kitchen that could be switched out?