Lotus in the Mudd

Our latest journey is to remove sugar from our home entirely.  Sugar, agave, and honey.  My husband found a great documentary that tells  you all about sugar and its effects on the body and mind.  Your body treats these sugars exactly the same and mainly turns it into fat storage which can lead to diabetes, heart disease, and obesity and several other ailments.  Out of all the health claims over the years I hadn't heard this one.  I knew about red meat, white flour, processed foods, and too much fat in our diets but they rarely talked about sugar.  When we learned about high fructose corn syrup, we  conciously stopped buying things that had it in them and we thought we were really doing a good thing.  After all, health claims came out that sugar was safer than HFCS.  Boy were we every fooled. We learned all of the new hidden names for sugar : barley malt, dextran, dextrose, diatase, ethyl maltol, fructose,maltodextrin, lactose,  and this is just to name a few. So, when I go out shopping for groceries I am confronted with a colossal task.  Now,  I read every lable, even canned veggies.  I picked up a can of plain kidney beans and was shocked to see sugar on the ingredient list.  What is sugar doing in cooked beans? So,  what exactly can I buy.  It made me remember one of Michael Pollan's comments from "Food Rules".  He says you should just keep to the outer aisles of the supermarket.  This aisle includes the meat, dairy,  vegetable and fresh bread departments.  Avoid the middle aisles because it is mainly packaged foods and this is where marketers hide all the additives. 

I challenge you to start reading all of your food labels and I think you will really start questioning what these ingredients are and if you should be eating them. We have and the trasformation has been miraculous.  My husband has lost about 20 lbs after taking sugar out for only two weeks now.  When you cut sugar out, you realize just how hooked you are.  During the day when you feel a little low on energy what do you think of? Well,   we would walk into the kitchen, open the fridge and a couple cabinets and reach for the most available food source.  We almost always have cookies on hand, so typically that is what it would be for those in between meal energy lows.  My two kids 11 and 9 have been doing pretty good.  We found Sweetleaf Stevia helps to get past some of the tough times  although it is hard to bake with.  They love the licorice aftertaste.  Their transformation has been more about their emotional wellbeing.  They seem more stable and less moody. AND, they have way more focus! 

We chose to make this change right before Easter which was a bit of a challenge. We went to a friend's house for the day and the kids decorated cookies and hid eggs,  some of which were filled with candy.  We, decided to keep our comments minimal with our children so that they could learn how to monitor themselves.  Our youngest didn't do too well.  She helped herself to many goodies throughout the day and on the ride home, this is what we heard:  "  I don't fee very good,   My stomache hurts and I feel like throwing up.  I will never do that again."  Mind you this was with no prompting from us.  WOW,   what an incredible lesson!