Bye Bye Sugar!

It's our family birthday! It has now been over a year since Pete and I gave up all refined sugars (white, powdered, corn syrup, anything that makes up most of our food choices).

Why? We get this question a lot. Some people are very good at "moderation." For years we tried all kinds of strategies to lower our sugar intake. We tried making sugar a weekend thing, having one serving a day, three a week, etc. They all failed because we are basically gluttonous people. :-)

So last October/November Pete was up late one night feeling shell-shocked from the pan of brownies that we had just consumed and made a discovery. He ended up on a website about drug and alcohol addiction. It was scary how similar the feelings we had about sugar were to drugs and alcohol. This was not a AA site. It was more intense. It suggested we just stop and never go back.

What?!?!?

Pete was pretty excited about his discovery and tried to share it with me the next day. I was less than enthused. After a couple of days (with Pete praying) I finally looked at the website (actually, Pete took me to the website and showed it to me). I thought - "Crap, we're really going to have to do this."

So we made a commitment and it was hard. What made it especially hard was trying to find substitutes for the things we used to enjoy that used natural sugars (honey, maple syrup, etc.). I made some "not so delicious almond butter and carob bars with honey for coaches training. We choked these down while sitting at table with bowls of M&M's right in front of us.

Fast forward a year...
It's great. I've learned to make brownies, cakes, blondies, pancakes, frosting and most recently cookies out of natural sugars that taste incredibly good. Next blog, I'll share a recipe for a natural dessert.