Sugarfree: easy as ABC.

People tend to think giving up sugar borders on the almost impossible (Truth be told some days it feels like that to me too). Some seem to thing it's fad kind of thing, or a detox if you like. It gets placed in the same category of the soup diet maybe.  It's no fad. It's detox but it lasts a lifetime. And here's my A-Z on keeping it possible.

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A: Almonds. Keep Activated almonds in your handbag/car/office drawer for on-the-go nibbling. Almond spread on rice cakes for a three o'clock hunger buster. And almond milk is a protein rich addition to smoothies. (I'd suggest making your own - supermarket varieties of almond milk contain inulin which spikes blood sugar levels the same way sugar does).

B: Breakfast. We all know that starting the day with breakfast is important.  But don't go thinking that flakes that turn you in to a bright red K are suitable. Make it a sugar free meal. I consider this my number 1 factor  in staying "clean". Because I have a completely sugar free breakfast, I don't set off those little alarm bells in my appetite screaming for more fructose.

C: Coconut. Shredded coconut or coconut flakes are great on oats and yoghurt (be careful when buying shredded coconut/coconut flakes etc - many contain added sugar. Look for organic/preservative free). Coconut milk (homemade is easy) is great smoothies. Coconut oil is the best option for cooking. And as a bit of a sweet treat drink every now and then - coconut water.


D: Drink. It's an age old remedy, but often if you think you're hungry, you could be thirsty. Have a glass of water.


E: Experiment. Unfortunately quitting sugar means ditching a lot of your common pantry items. But it's a great way to start experimenting with new foods and flavours. I'm a stickler for following a recipe, but since quitting sugar I've played around a lot more in the kitchen. I've had some failures, but I've had some good wins too!


F: FAT! Yep, I said it. (However, permission not granted for a trip to the golden arches for a burger: buns and sauces are sugar-laden). Stop being scared of fats. We've been trying low fat foods for years and no-one is getting any healthier from it. Go back to full fat yoghurts, full cream milk and snack on a bit of cheese. Eat good fats from avocados, nuts and coconut oil. Your body will tell you when you've had enough.


G: Green tea. The benefits of green tea are huge. Check them out. I tend to drink it just before I have lunch. It stops me picking at the food I am preparing and apparently can lower the GI of the food you eat. So why not?  (FACT ALERT: -  green tea should not be made with boiling water. If, in the past you've found green tea too bitter, allow your water to cool for 10 minutes or so before steeping).

H: Health Food Shop. Make a visit to your health food shop. They stock a lot of products suitable for the sugar quitter. But beware - just because it's in a health food shop doesn't always mean it's healthy! Be sure to read the labels.


I:"I" It's all about you. Don't try to convert people to your sugar free lifestyle. Rather, think about (and maybe talk about) how go this change has been for you. "I used to be addicted to sugar"; "I am so much calmer now"; "I am finding it really quite easy."; "I feel so much healthier". Soon, others might want to be the "I" too. 

J: Juicing. I know it can be a pain - chopping up all those vegetables, slurpping down a drink that you can barely handle, only to then have a stack of bits and pieces to wash up. But done a few times a week it's a great way to add some vegetables to your diet. Find yourself some juice recipes that you like (ginger and mint can make the nastiest of juices tasty!) and slurp away. (Resist temptation to juice fruit - it removes any of the good nutrients and just leaves you with the sugar...)

K: Kale. I've only recently jumped on board the kale train. This nutritious vegetable is fabulous with a bit of oil and sea salt and roasted in the oven for 10 mins... the result crispy kale chips to snack on any time of the day!


L: Labels - get to know how to look for sugar and all of its sneaky little alternate names. Check for how much sugar is in a product. I don't eat anything over 6g of sugar per 100g.  And I pretty much avoid artificial sweeteners.


M: Menu. Planning on eating out? Many restaurants now have their menus available online. Have a geezer sometime before you go, so you can carefully choose what you are going to eat. Be aware of sauces, marinades and chutneys - they are usually huge sugar hits.  

I have to add another M: Make Your Own. A fabulous way to avoid sugar is to make your own. Most of our processed and packaged foods contain sugar and salt to act as a preservative... so invest in some good cookbooks (or experiment!) to help you make your own of just about anything. Sauces, milks, muesli bars, muffins, dressings etc etc can all be made sugar free.

N: Nuts. Perfect snack-anywhere food. As mentioned above, my nut of choice is activated almonds, but I'm not against the occasional cashew or pistachio. I also like to put hazelnut meal or toasted walnuts on porridge and yoghurt. 

O: Organic foods. Going sugar free steers you onto a path of unprocessed foods. While you are avoiding sugar, you may as well avoid all the nasty chemicals that are sprayed over our fresh foods too. Use farmers markets, health food shops or grow your own.


P: Pears. In my first 8 weeks of being off sugar I banished fruit altogether (which was easy because I wasn't a big fruit eater any way). Now that I don't have any other sweetness in my diet, a low fructose piece of fruit (such as the humble pear) is a delicious treat. I have these straight up, diced up with yoghurt or grilled. PPPPerfect!

Q: Quality Foods. Get away from the supermarket and into some quaint quality food suppliers. Often smaller producers don't need to add loads of sugar to preserve their goods, so you can stumble across some really lovely foods that are much lower in sugar than their mass produced cousins.

R: Research. I've had times when my will power for sugarfreeness has waned. But knowing what I know now about sugar, it's addictive qualities and what it can do to my body, makes it really hard to back pedal on the idea. Do your research about sugar, sugar alternatives and suitable recipes and you'll stay on track.

S: Soda Water. As a reformed Pepsi/Pepsi max addict (although I didn't think I was that addicted until I tried to give it up), a soda water is now my drink of choice when I feel like something a bit zippy. And in desperate times, I'll add a splash of cordial.


T: Tea... Herbal teas are awesome. Enough said.

U: Understand why you are quitting sugar. It makes it so much easier to stick to if you understand the basics of what is wrong with sugar and how you personally react. I know that sugar in my diet makes me moody. It makes me undignified around food and sends me on a rollercoaster of pantry hunting.

V: Vegetables. Bit of a no brainer really... eat loads of them.


W: Water. Drink water. It cleans out your system, keeps you hydrated, helps with hunger... 


X: Xylitol. Ok this one only makes it in here because there wasn't any other options for "X". Xylitol is an artificial sweetener with a question mark over it's head for safety and addictive characteristics (which most artificial sweeteners do). However, in desperate times I have grabbed a chocolate bar sweetened with Xylitol. But I'd keep these very few and far between. Suggestions welcome for another X idea, so I can scrap Xylitol from my list. 

Y: Yoghurt. Yoghurt is a fabulous snack. And if you choose a full fat natural variety (of course no sugar) you'll find you don't need as much as you may have had otherwise. Experiment with flavouring it yourself with cinnamon, coconut flakes, berries or nuts.


Z: zzzzz. Get plenty of sleep. It makes it much easier to make good food choices when you're on top of your game.

Now I know my ABC's, next time won't you sugarfree with me?

If not sugar then what?

When I tell people that I have quit sugar, it is surprising how many respond with "well, what do you eat then?". Clearly, people are aware how prevalent sugar exists in our western diets. Most are aware that sugar isn't good for us. But very few can contemplate cutting it out. Possibly due to that question alone - what would one consume if it weren't for sugar?

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So, as boring as it may seem I thought I'd give you a bit of a snap shot of my day to day culinary delights:

Breakfast: I almost always start the morning with a lemon tea (slice of lemon in hot water). Then what used to be a breakfast of muesli, fruit and flavoured yoghurt has now been replaced with rolled oats (cooked on stove) in full cream milk, topped with natural yoghurt (I'm loving Barambah Organics at the moment) and a generous sprinkling of cinnamon. I often follow this with a slice of Aussie Farmers Direct multigrain sourdough, with a smear of coconut oil. (Of which there are many, but so far my choice is Niulife - it's extra virgin, organic, unrefined and just damn tasty.)


Midmorning: As a mum of young children, mothers group morning teas, shopping centre trips and cafe stops for mental sanity are rife. So my mid morning snack would have once been anything in the field of a chia latte, hot chocolate, black tea with sugar along with a muffin, sweet slices or biscuits (NB: plural... I never stopped at one). These days, mid morning will often pass without hanger pangs. On occasion, I might grab a "Cheds" biscuit (less sugar than their first cousin the Country Cheese) with the kids  and with much gratitude, my mothers group has been retrained to put out a plate of saladas with cheese or vegemite. It doesn't showcase our 'housewifeyness' quite as well, but it does do our waistline wonders.

Lunch: Thankfully quitting sugar for me coincided with the warmer months, so it worked well with my usual lunch time salad. I make a colourful mix of spinach leaves, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, red onion, celery, radish (give or take any number of these things) with a tablespoon or so of apple cider vinegar, then topped with shaved turkey, danish feta and the new addition of chia seeds. (I've blogged about the benefits of these here). In the past this would have been frantically followed with chocolate, a sweet biscuit, or meringues (basically I'd rummage around for the sweetest thing in my pantry). Nowadays, it's a much more civilised (and delightfully sweet) licorice root tea. 

Mid arvo: I'm normally hungry come 4 o'clockish, so that's when I reach for a rice cake or two with a smear of almond spread. Otherwise I might have a slice or two of cheese.

Dinner: Well, like anyone, this can vary. But I avoid packaged sauces (so for example if I make a chicken parma I'll crush fresh tomatoes for the sauce). My all time love, sweet chilli sauce, has been turfed (almost 50% sugar) so pasta dishes usually have a light dressing of lemon juice and maybe some oil. I'm yet to use Tamari, but come winter time this will be the best option for my beloved stir fries. If I make a pizza, I'll use passata instead of the higher sugared tomato paste, or depending on the toppings, I might use oil or pesto. I use a lot more herbs than ever before and lemon and garlic seem to make their way into most dinner dishes I make. 

Over and above this, for Christmas I "arranged" for myself (and by "arranged" I mean that I bought it, gave it to my husband and instructed him to give it to me Christmas morning) a copy of Lee Holmes' Supercharged Foods. As a result, all of the above has been invigorated over the past week with things such as Tropical Blueberry Smoothie (a breakfast, lunch or snack option), a Green Renewal Juice and Super Seeded Bread. I'm absolutely loving the book (great present, thanks husband) as it is inspiring me to fine tune my diet even further with vitamin rich, wholesome, body loving, SUPERCHARGED foods!


So there you have it. A day in the life of my tummy. Goes to show how one can survive without sugar really quite merrily!
 

Wholesome foods Pt 2: coconut oil

Last post I talked about the benefits of Apple Cider Vinegar. Whilst that makes it's way to my salad every lunch time, there's something that's new to my palate that pops up at almost every meal: Coconut Oil! I'd never tried (in fact, never even heard of) this little pot of wonder until a few weeks ago.

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Coconut makes an appearance in many forms in my diet now. So much so, I am beginning to understand why in Sanskrit the coconut palm (kalpa vriksha) means "tree which gives all that is necessary for living".

I sprinkle coconut flakes* on my yoghurt, shredded coconut* on my oats, I treat myself to coconut water once or twice a week and I use coconut oil for everything from buttering my toast, roasting my vegetables, coating my fish and even moisturising my face.

(*Organic if possible and check ingredients for sugar - I've found many that are loaded with additional sugar.)

The coconut oil is the oil extracted from the kernel or meat of matured coconuts. It's true it has a high level of saturated fat. But it's a naturally occurring fat, not a trans fat. It's actually been suggested that due to the medium-chain fatty acids, coconut oil may assist in losing weight. These MCFA's are easily digested, go directly to your liver for energy conversion (rather than being stored as fat) and can stimulate the body's metabolism. My online mentor (unbeknowns to her) Sarah Wilson talks more about coconut oil  here.

Aside from the magic of helping with weight loss, coconut oil has a stack of other benefits:

• Coconut oil is a rich source of fibre, vitamins and minerals
• It boosts energy
• It's an antioxidant, therefore boosts the immune system
• Aids digestion (beneficial for Crohn's and IBS sufferers) 
• Can provide relief from yeast infections
• Great moisturiser (time saver... I moisturise, whilst spreading it on my toast!)
• Helps alleviate skin conditions such as eczema  
• Conditions hair/controls dandruff
• Supports and regulate thyroid function (my thyroid is a lazy underactive sort)
• Helps reduce sign of aging (whoop whoop)
• Lowers cholesterol and high blood pressure
• Helps regulate blood sugars
• Put on cuts and wounds to prevent infection
• Relieves symptoms of urinary tract infections
• Helps in absorption of calcium and magnesium = stronger bones!

My brand of choice thus far is NuiLife Coconut Oil. It's unrefined (meaning it hasn't undergone any processing, bleaching or deoderising and so it still contains the favourable fatty acid balance - which is the big health benefit of the stuff in the first place). Yep it tastes like coconut, but it's delicious on some multigrain sourdough, it tastes like coconut ice straight up, but when I've cooked with it, the flavour isn't overpowering. 

So here's to the tree that gives all that is necessary for living!