How Sweet It Isn’t: What happened to me when I gave up sugar – Part 1

“For my daughter’s recent cookbook, I wrote my sugar story.

 I promised not to share it with my readers until her book was released.
Buy it here
rachelscookbook
Now here is my story. (It’s long so we’ve broken it into 3 segments.)
I would love to hear about your struggles/victories over sugar!”

 

 

My Year Without Sugar and How my Body Reacted

Truly, it’s not surprising that I have a sugar addiction.

It is surprising to me that I refer to it now as an addiction. Like any addict I lived in denial for years.

From a very young age, my loving paternal grandmother showered me with sugar. She entered puberty at the onset of the Great Depression, with its scarcity of sugar. The greatest gift she could give was food, especially sugar.

The only sweetener she had regular access to growing up was honey and that was reserved for medicinal purposes. My great-grandmother was a closet alcoholic so any sugar that came into the house was diverted to a crock in her bedroom for fermenting fruit.

Then came World War II and the rationing of sugar. By then Grandma was married, poor, and homesteading. Grandpa demonstrated his love by keeping bees, which ensured an extra large sugar ration (for the bees) and abundant honey (for Grandma).

By the time I was born, my immediate ancestors were as well off as they had ever been. And that meant abundant food. Not fancy food. Mostly homegrown food. But the one thing that was prevalent was sugar.

Do you know how easy it is to shower (grand)children with sugar love?

Grandma always served three desserts. Desserts were planned and prepared long before the main meal. She might serve chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream and raspberry Jello. Or she would offer a choice of two kinds of pie, always apple, and sometimes raisin, cherry, or saskatoon (or a slice of each) with ice cream. She may also have had homemade cookies in case you didn’t get enough sugar. And there was nothing like a cup of hot chocolate to soothe the soul!

Sunday after church we would stop at the North Hill Store where we each got to spend one of our two dimes; the first dime had already fallen dutifully into the collection plate. We often chose a bag of penny candy painstakingly selected and ceremoniously placed into the tiny paper bag by Mr. LaBarre. He had a soft spot for us as we were purportedly well-behaved for children, and he would sneak in an extra piece or two of our favourites. Sometimes we would spend our money on a cream soda, orange or grape crush and a bag of chips or a chocolate bar.

Looking back it’s not at all surprising that I associate sugar with pleasure. Grandma was devoted to me and she showered me with love and sugar. Love and sugar go together. Pleasure!

Much of my energy as a child went into securing sugar. Within moments I spent all found-money at the corner store. I invariably inhaled my portions; my brother would slowly savour his sweets or even hoard them for later, which meant that I had to concentrate on how I might manipulate the treasure from his greedy grip. Occasionally that would result in his sharing or even surrendering entirely. (Not likely).

I was a sugar pig.

Processed food became mainstream when I was a child. Like other 60’s mothers, my mother bought into their promise of convenience, although her limited budget prohibited her from completely stocking our shelves with junk. Kool-aid, Tang, and cereal (with toys inside the boxes) were all part of our diet, at least sporadically.

Luckily we were poor and we grew our own vegetables, raised our own eggs, picked and put-up wild berries, and supplemented our homegrown chicken diet with meat from the odd deer that Dad would bag in the fall.

I developed a taste for fresh vegetables from the garden. A favorite activity was playing hide and seek in a pea patch on a hot afternoon. I would munch on peas while I hid or even as seeker, (one can become quite famished playing hide and seek!)

I liked the raspberry patch even more. As sweet as fresh peas can be, there’s nothing like ripe raspberries picked while the dew still clings like blobs of transparent mercury on the knobby surface of the berry. They’re especially good when they’ve been sun-warmed for a couple hours. Heaven is gumming a handful of raspberries (not chewing to avoid lodging their tiny seeds into your teeth) and letting the sweet syrup trickle down your throat.

My infatuation for sugar led to my childhood dream for the future: that I would live in Calgary (check), that I would have my own car (check) and the back seat would be filled with cinnamon buns and chocolate bars! I’ve likely eaten enough chocolate bars to fill many backseats!

By the time I turn 21, I am married, pregnant with my second daughter. I’m in Safeway with my toddler in the cart. In the produce department I admire the fresh peaches. But alas! They are expensive. I begin to push away.

I look into my cart.

I see doughnuts. I see cookies.

Like a bolt of lightning I am struck by the notion that if I put back the junk, I can afford the peaches.

That epiphany changes the course of my shopping forever. I begin allocating more of my grocery budget to fresh whole food. I bake our treats, usually substituting some whole grain flour for the white flour and cutting the sugar at least in half. Nobody ever notices. If they do they don’t say anything or stop eating what I make.

I actively guard my children from too much sugar. It‘s not always easy in the face of my Grandma (whose sugar showering continues with my children) and my in-laws, who are of the same generation as my grandma. I am often accused of being a mean mom when I forbid sugar or even when I simply limit it.

“Awww!” The guilty (great-)grandparent whines when I declare “no sugar to be sent home!”

“I just made these lovely squares.” (to child) “You like the mocha balls, don’t you?”

I remember once getting into the car after visiting Grandma and my girls are giggling in the back seat. What’s so funny? Despite my orders that the girls are not to have candy, Grandma has sneaked them each a chocolate bar as we slipped out the door.

I grouse but inside I smile because I know exactly how those girls feel. I know the feeling of being in cahoots with Grandma. I know that a loving heart committed the crime. I know the rush of pleasure: love in a sweet package!

Even if sugar is poison, is it really a sin when it comes from such great love?

At their dad’s parents’ house, cookies, cakes, and squares are served up to five times per day. (Mid-morning coffee, dessert at noon, mid-afternoon snack, dessert at supper, and bedtime snack!) Only breakfast doesn’t include them but sugar is well-represented with toast and jam, pancakes and syrup, and/or porridge with brown sugar.

I remember stuffing myself so full at their Sunday dinners my stomach would protest painfully. My sister-in-law would hold her abdomen and cry in agony, “I am so full!” Our gluttony often struck me as hypocritical in this evangelical Christian home. But I didn’t stop.

My girls’ grandpa thought bonding time with his granddaughters was a trip to the Co-op coffee shop for a long john (a huge block of a donut covered in chocolate or maple icing). They did too.

I saw them developing the same addiction to sugar that afflicted me. One long john contained more than their full day’s allowance of sugar, fat and calories and contributed almost no nutrition.

But I couldn’t really blame them for their attraction to doughnuts…

…..continued next week

Vacation Weight Gain: Ten Tips to Keep Holiday Food from Going to “Waist”

woman-measuring-her-waist-100202732Post-vacation blues are not limited to dreading returning to work. Vacationers often lament gaining “ten pounds” on their vacations.

There is no need to gain weight on vacation. While it’s harder to adhere to a healthy diet when travelling, it’s not impossible. Here are some tips to avoid food going “to waist”!

  1. Stay the course. Your health is your greatest asset and doesn’t take vacations. A devil-may-care attitude about what you consume will cost you on many levels. Bingeing at buffets daily WILL affect your health, (although I’m all for a good feast once in a while!) Keep up your exercise regime as much as possible.
  2. Don’t over-imbibe. Alcohol is packed with empty calories that go straight to belly fat. In moderation your body can handle it but starting poolside happy hour at 10AM will fatigue your body. Drinking every day impairs your body’s repair-ability.
  3. Ask for special concessions and preparations. Restaurants are surprisingly accommodating if you ask. On our recent family trip to Disneyland, we found the park over-the-top helpful when we asked about their gluten and dairy-free options. At one restaurant on Main Street Disneyland, the chef himself took our order and assured us he, alone would prepare our meal. (Note: they did not advertise gluten-free, but many places in SoCal had GF menus).
  4. Always get a bar fridge in your hotel room, because…
  5. …the grocery store is your first stop. Buy cut-up veggies, fruit, nuts, healthy dips, almond milk. Keep them in the bar fridge (see #4). Not only can you save big bucks on food by shopping at the grocery store for some of your meals and snacks, it’s easier to eat clean when healthy snacks are available. (Pack baggies to carry and store snacks).
  6. Oh, and buy a case of bottled water. We often don’t drink enough water on vacation; dehydration triggers feelings of hunger. Keeping cold ones in the bar fridge helps you stay hydrated. Coffee, soft drinks, and alcohol all contribute to dehydration.
  7. Plan daily snacks. Packing a cooler bag with some fruits, nuts and veggies can head off the hangries that strike and help you avoid the temptation of unhealthy options generally available at tourist attractions.
  8. Make smoothies. I carry a small blender (Magic Bullet) when I travel with my grandtoys. They love smoothies for breakfast, desserts and snacks and it’s a great way to use overripe fruit. This trick saves huge money on breakfasts!
  9. Watch your portions. Restaurants, especially in the USA, serve mountains of food on one plate. My husband and I often share dishes and still have leftovers! If you can’t share, ask for a carton and immediately put half away to take with you. Also, it’s not a crime to leave some of your fries on the plate. If more people stopped eating, the portions might shrink!
  10. Scout restaurants in the area that have healthy choices. In California, we ate several times at Soup Plantation, a soup and salad restaurant, (called Sweet Tomatoes in Arizona). They featured gluten-free lemon muffins when we were there. The grandtoys were in heaven! We also ate frequently at Mother’s, which is a Southern California health food store chain with attached vegetarian restaurant. The grandtoys had Mother’s gluten-free pancakes and French toast several times as well as consuming a few peanut butter banana smoothies. I had baked sweet potatoes (better than fries), plates of steamed seasonal veggies and pita pockets filled with  shredded beets, carrots, with avocado and tomatoes. Yum!
photo belongs to www.ShelleyGoldbeck.com
photo belongs to www.ShelleyGoldbeck.com

Bonus Tip #11: Get back on the horse. It’s inevitable that your eating habits (aka diet) will be disrupted when you’re on vacation. So what if you come home a few pounds heavier? Resume your healthy practices and you’ll soon be back to your svelte self. Hopefully you tried some new healthy foods you can add to your repertoire.

Sumptuous Strawberries: 4 Good Reasons to Eat Strawberries.

Photo owned by www.shelleygoldbeck.com
Photo owned by www.shelleygoldbeck.com

June is strawberry month. Some strawberries even have the name “June-bearing”; others are everbearing. (Better than overbearing!) But they all start in June.

1. Strawberries1 contain numerous trace minerals and vitamins including 71% of RDA* for Vitamin C, 18% of manganese, and 6% of folate.

2. Strawberries are 90% water and therefore, low in calories with just 33 calories in 100 grams. They make a satisfying snack.

3. Strawberries are also rife with phytonutrients, microscopic substances that have anti-inflammatory or anticancer properties. Their brilliant red colour contributes to their healthiness.

4. Strawberries are high in fibre, rivaling whole grains with their yummy taste. Strawberry consumption is associated with a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Sadly, strawberries are among the most heavily sprayed crops. With reportedly up to 90 chemicals, they routinely make the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen2, 3 list of the most contaminated produce. Chemical sprays harm the soil, the water, the workers in the fields and the eaters of the fruit, including my grandchildren!

Grow your own strawberries easily. When they’re not part of a huge monoculture (fields and fields of the same plant), they suffer from few diseases. Birds and other creatures like to eat strawberries so you may need to cover them with nets to get your share. They self-propagate profusely so you can share plants with others and you can constantly rotate your beds.

If you can’t grow your own strawberries, I highly recommend buying organic. They cost more but you will immediately notice that they have more taste than the sprayed strawberries. I read recently that people who think they are allergic to strawberries are often actually allergic to chemicals used specifically on strawberries.

In our area there are a number of U-Pick strawberry growers. Picking berries is a fun family activity but I suggest you inquire about spraying before you expose your kids to the fields.

Remember that strawberries don’t ripen after they’re picked so choose bold red berries. They should be washed just before eating to prevent mold. They keep just a few days in the fridge. It’s rarely a problem for me as I will eat them for breakfast, lunch, dinner and everything in between!

Strawberries are delicious eaten plain. You can add some cream or coconut milk with a bit of honey, maple syrup or coconut sugar.

Strawberries freeze well. Soft berries can be pureed into sauces for desserts, added to smoothies or even added to sparkling water for a refreshing summer beverage.

My grandtoys and I invented “Fruities”, fruit “puddings”, which are really delicious when made with strawberries. It’s a great way to use less than perfect berries. See recipe.

Summer starts with strawberries. Savour some soon!

Beware of artificial strawberry flavoured products. Personally, I’ve never cared for artificial strawberry flavour. Now that I know that it comes from the anal glands of beavers, I am even less inclined to eat fake strawberry products.

*Recommended Daily Allowance: the amount of a nutrient you need to stay alive; you need more for optimum health!

 

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberries

2. www.EWG.org Environmental Working Group

3. http://www.wholerealfood.com/dirty-dozen-2013-edition/

See Recipe

Seasonal Eating

summereating
Photo owned by www.shelleygoldbeck.com

A healthy way to live is to eat “in season”.

That means eating foods that are at their peak of flavour and nutrients. This often happens only once per year, for a very short time, especially if eating locally is the goal.

Eating in season is also economical. Whatever is in season is usually cheaper than it will be any other time of the year.

In my opinion, food eaten in season tastes better. It’s usually fresher and more nutritious.

The best season of our food year is imminent. It starts with spring baby lettuce, baby spinach leaves, green onions and crisp, tangy radishes. All these are easy to grow at home. They like cool weather and can be seeded in Calgary anytime after mid-April.

If you’re really lucky, you have an asparagus patch. Their tender shoots magically appear overnight. Raw, they remind me of fresh raw peas. Lightly steamed until al dente and brushed with a teaspoon of butter or olive oil, they have their own unique flavour. Very yummy!

I get really excited about spring fruits. Early rhubarb always reminds me of my grandma, who made rhubarb “pudding”, a yellow cake batter poured over a pan of chopped rhubarb, baked and served warm with ice-cream.

Strawberries in June embody the spirit of summer! A touch of honey. A bit of cream. Fit for a queen!

The first cherries arrive in June. When their skins are crunchy and their flesh, sweet and juicy, I can eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and I often do!

Picking berries was an integral part of my childhood summers. My siblings and I would mount our bikes or horses with our ice-cream pails and larger buckets. We headed home when the buckets were full. It could take all day: we spent more than half our time cramming berries into our mouths!

When the first peas are ready, I am at peace in the garden, splitting the warm pods to discover the sweet treasures inside. The best carrots are the true babies, (not the peeled to shape varieties) pulled, wiped on my pants, and crunched, soil granules and all, right there in the garden.

And potatoes! New potatoes stolen from the periphery of the plant are creamy and sweet. If I never ate another mature potato I wouldn’t care but new potatoes are a completely different animal!

In the old neighbourhood where I live many yards have raspberry patches. Kids love to stick a berry on each of their ten little fingers, wiggle them around, and then devour them one by one.

As summer wanes plums and peaches come into season. More feasting on fruit. And what to do with all that zucchini? (I like them baby so I don’t have that problem).

Alas! Our season is short! By fall, some vegetables are just coming into their prime. The brassicas like cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, all like cool weather. Turnips and parsnips are sweeter if they’ve experienced frost.

Eating in season will bolster the total nutrients you take in, reduce your carbon footprint since it’s easier to eat locally, and likely give your pocketbook a break. I highly recommend it.

The Real Estate of Your Plate

realestateoriginally posted October 27, 2011, Revised Oct 2013

Think about your usual dinner. Look closely at the food on your plate.

How would you describe the real estate of your plate?

Is your plate one big ghetto of factory food?

Or is it an estate of whole real food?

Food is a huge issue in our society. Billions of dollars are made manufacturing food.

Basic commodities are heavily subsidized. We all would like to think those subsidies are going towards ensuring small family farms avoid what seems inevitable: extinction.

The truth is huge corporations receive most subsidies because they run most of the farming operations in Canada and the USA. The small independent farmer is an anomaly and the few left aren’t making a living on the farm nor can they compete with the large companies.

Heavily subsidized commodities like sugar, wheat, corn, and vegetable oils cost very little so they are ideal ingredients in factory food. What little nutrition these foods have is stripped in the manufacturing process. Synthetic vitamins are added but they’re usually not as effective as vitamins from natural sources.

Machines spit out food products en masse. In the end the packaging is often the most expensive part of factory food, and truth be told, often as tasty and nutritious as what’s inside.

Then there’s the marketing. Words like “light” and “natural” and even, alarmingly, “organic”, have been rendered impotent by food companies using every trick in the book to fool their customers into believing their food is good for them and that it is good value. Sadly most people believe their hollow claims.

If people only thought about what goes into that box of cereal and what they’re getting out of it for $6 or $7 a box, they would be outraged! So many products are nothing more than a handful of different sugars with chemical flavourings and colours.  So-called “kids” cereal is almost pure garbage; you might as well feed them candy for breakfast.

Then we have the diet industry, also worth billions, that strives to convince us their products will help us not be fat. Their food makes us sick and sick leads to fat. The body, in its desperation to partition itself from all the toxins, stores those toxins in fat cells. I also think that’s why we feel so terrible when we’re losing weight. It’s part of the reason diets don’t work; it’s hard to stay on them when you feel so toxic.

Back to the plate. For me learning how to eat healthy food has been a lifelong process, requiring basic knowledge of food, what’s in it and where it comes from, how food affects the body, and how the body feels.

When I was young I was ignorant of the impact food has on the body. I scoffed when people said eating candy could make me sick. I had a stomach of steel and thankfully, a young healthy body that could recover from the abuse of a candy binge.

I remember confiding to the older ladies at my first job that I routinely had Rice Krispie squares and root beer for breakfast. I argued I was getting cereal into my body and I wondered why they were horrified. (I haven’t had root beer or Rice Krispies in my house in decades.)

As I grew older, I figured out that certain foods caused certain outcomes. My first daughter was borderline ADHD so I educated myself and found the most probable contributors were reactions to sugar and chemicals, including colours, flavours, and preservatives.

Without being too much of a food nazi I limited my children’s intake of those substances and therefore I was more conscious of my own consumption. My children grew up to shun fake food.

The real estate of my plate has evolved to a minimum footprint of three-quarters plant- derived foods including at least one raw vegetable.

I’ve found I feel better when I don’t have many grains. The grains I do eat are always whole, never white or processed. I’ve eaten brown rice for over three decades. To me, white rice is tasteless, like eating the box and about as nutritious.

The older I get the more important it is for me to ensure that my portions are smaller than they were when I was 20. The fact is if you don’t change your portions, you’ll gain a pound a year after age 30.

Paying attention to how I feel is also an important part of assessing the real estate of my plate.  I like peppers but they don’t like me. When I eat wheat I bloat like a balloon. A quarter glass of wine puts me into a coma-like state. So I avoid these foods, rather than taking drugs to handle my indigestion, as we are so often encouraged to do by drug-pushing television commercials.

I often consume meat-free meals. My plate used to always include a huge portion of meat; growing up in a meat-and-potatoes family will do that. We only need 30 to 70 grams of protein each day but most people in the western world eat far more. A hamburger patty is 115 grams; many people consume two or three in one sitting.

While there’s no question that having adequate amounts of protein is beneficial, for some reason we think more is better. It’s not. Too much protein triggers minerals to leach from bones and stresses kidneys and adrenal glands.

Animal protein is a good source of concentrated protein but it is hard for our bodies to digest, with many unfavourable “side effects” including making our body’s natural pH more acidic.  Some theorize that an acidic environment in our bodies contributes to many of our modern chronic diseases, like cancer, diabetes and heart disease. High protein diets may even increase the risk of osteoporosis and kidney disease.

Contrary to popular belief, there is protein in grain and vegetables. (All living cells are constructed of protein). They also contain fibre, vitamins and minerals, essential components of a healthy diet. Table of Protein Content in Vegan Foods

I urge you to pay close attention to the real estate of your plate. Hopefully it is dominated by a meadow of fresh raw plant food with no more than tiny enclaves of simple carbs (sugars and starches), meats and processed foods.

My observation is that unhealthy food or “Unfood” catches up with the human body eventually and that many aches, pains, diseases and conditions are preventable, treatable or manageable with improved lifestyle, including revolutionizing the real estate of your plate.

Believe me; living on an estate beats living in the slums!

 

Recommended Reading:  These are just some of the books about food I recommend.

Body for Life                              Harvey and Marilyn Diamond
Living Foods for Optimum Health            Brian R. Clement
Food Inc.                                  Karl Weber
Fast Food Nation                           Eric Schlosser
The Thrive Diet                            Brendan Brazier
The End of Overeating                     David A. Kessler MD
The Botany of Desire                       Michael Pollan
In Defense of Food                         Michael Pollan

 

Other sources:

 

http://exercise.about.com/cs/nutrition/a/protein.htm

http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/protein.htm

http://www.cornucopia.org

www.NaturalNews.com