Sugar: Prisoner of War

If you want to wage war against food, there are plenty of ways to do it. We have vegans, who writhe in disgust at the thought of eating animal foods. And we have meatatarians, who eat animal foods almost exclusively (and writhe in disgust at the thought of being vegan).

There's low-carb and low-fat, high-protein and low-glycemic. Raw or cooked. Good fats and bad fats, good carbs and bad carbs, soaked grains and grain-free...

And, of course, there are limitless combinations. "Hi, I'm a low-fat, grain-free raw vegan." Or, "Hey, I'm a low-carb, high-fat meatatarian." There are low-fat meatarians and high-fat vegans. The list goes on and on.

Even with all of these different ways to wage war on food, there is really only one mission: to eat healthfully. Everyone's just trying to get there in competing ways. Vegans spread smear campaigns against meat and dairy. Low-carb gurus preach on the perils of the bread basket. Raw foodies condemn frying pans (even the safe kinds).

With so much hate flying around, something was bound to get caught in the crossfire. And it was something considered so evil, so sinister, so addictive, it's been likened to cocaine and heroin because of the destruction it leaves in its wake (or so we've been told).

You may have heard of it. It's called sugar.

Almost every single one of these food camps can agree on at least one thing: sugar is the bane of modern society. It's a poison. It's a drug. Some folks want to tax it. Some even want to outlaw it.

The problem? It's your body's favorite fuel.


Sugar: We Love to Hate It... and Hate to Love It

A few years ago, I knew sugar was bad. And I knew I was bad for craving it. Wanting something sweet was a weakness, a flaw in my very nature, an addictive behavior that needed to be swiftly eradicated. I could never be healed, I could never really be whole, as long as I gave in to this monster we call sugar.

But slowly--very slowly--a different explanation began to dawn on me: maybe my body was craving sugar because it needed it.

Blasphemy! I couldn't speak of this idea to anyone. It was nutritional heresy.

I did more research, I experimented with purposefully adding sugar to my diet. I educated myself on some basic biological functions. At first it was difficult to acknowledge, much less actually believe. But all the while I was coming to the realization that my ideas about sugar were--if I dare admit it--wrong.

Sugar Myths: "Sugar Makes You Fat!"

Whole Health Source blogger Stephan Guyenet put together a fascinating post about whether or not science really points to sugar inherently being fattening. It turns out, sugar itself isn't a determining factor in weight gain and obesity. Obesity is a multi-faceted issue, to say the least, and blaming it all on sugar is not looking at the bigger picture.


Sugar Myths: "Sugar Causes Diabetes!"

The connection between sugar and diabetes seems obvious on the surface level: type II diabetes is characterized by high blood sugar, and sugar can raise blood sugar levels. But high blood sugar issues are more likely to be a result of high stress hormones, which impair the body's natural ability to regulate insulin and blood sugar. High blood sugar is more of a symptom than a cause.


Sugar Myths: "Sugar Causes Adrenal Stress!"

In fact, just the opposite happens. Chronic low blood sugar promotes high stress hormones (like adrenaline and cortisol). What combats this effect? That's right. Sugar! Pair it with a little protein and you've got yourself an anti-stress snack. That's why some fruit and cheese or hot cocoa may be the perfect antidote to your insomnia at bedtime.

Stress hormones are also required when you force your body to burn fat or protein as fuel. Giving your body a more efficient fuel source (like sugar), keeps those hormones in check.

Sugar in Context

Obviously, this post barely even scratches the surface when it comes to sugar. Each of the issues I've touched on could easily be expanded into multiple posts. Plus there are other issues to consider, like:

• What types of sugar are best (fruit vs. juice vs. honey vs. table sugar)? 
• Does diet and lifestyle affect how we handle sugar? 
• Are other ingredients in sweets (like sodas, cakes, candies, etc) to blame rather than just the sugar? 

These questions are definitely worth asking.

I know by now I've inspired oodles of hate mail just from daring to question sugar's bad reputation. Believe me, the last thing I want to do is stir up more controversy--I've been on the fence about posting this for a couple years now.

In the end, I hope to inspire curiosity and a healthy level of questioning rather than hate and confusion. I want to break down the walls of dogmatic thinking, not build another layer of them.


Want to Learn More About Sugar?

I don't pretend to be an expert in nutritional biology. If you want to learn more, I highly recommend checking out some of these blog posts by those far more versed in this field than myself:

Sugar: Pure, White and Awesome by Danny Roddy

Fructose to the Rescue and The Benefits of Fructose by Cliff McCrary

Blood Sugar by Rob Turner

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Day 21 on RRARF: Deprivation is Dieting

-photo credit-

In my last post about RRARF, I talked about giving up sweets. I could tell this topic was met with some resistance and I wanted to elaborate on it a little. As someone with a lifelong sweet tooth, going sweets-free for 30 days is quite an endeavor for me to take on. I may have given the impression that I was going to be exerting some intense willpower and woefully depriving myself of what I craved. But this would definitely be in opposition to my crusade against dieting. Why? Because...

DEPRIVATION IS DIETING!

That's exactly what dieting is: depriving yourself of one thing or another. Whether it's calories, fat, carbs, sweets or whatever. And this extends beyond what we eat. We can also deprive ourselves of fresh air, sleep, pure water, sunshine, downtime, self-esteem, healthy relationships, living with purpose, or any number of things. It doesn't matter. In the end, deprivation in any form activates the starvation response in the body. Why? Because deprivation is stressful! Deprivation triggers a mental and emotional cascade that ultimately leads to a strong physiological response.

RRARF by definition is the opposite of deprivation. Instead of depriving yourself, you aim give your body all the support it needs through Rehabilitative Rest and Aggressive Re-Feeding. Deprivation is not on the menu.

So then how is cutting out all sweets for 30 days not deprivation? Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn't. Everyone is different. And everyone's metabolic state is different. For some people, giving up sugar is like giving up a limb. There's no doubt in my mind that two years ago, going without sweets would have been extreme deprivation for me. I would have given in to cookies-and-cream ice cream within 36 hours and probably would have felt like a complete failure. But today, I'm finding (with some degree of surprise) that it's no big deal.

These 30 days of RRARF are an experiment for me, not a testament of my personal virtue. I am no model of willpower and nor do I want to be. My intentions on RRARF are to test my own body's cues and whether or not they change under certain conditions. I want to know how sugar makes me feel and see if it interferes with following my internal cues. For instance, is it easier for me to turn down Halloween candy when my stomach is full of hamburgers and potatoes? My answer: absolutely!

But guess what? I still wanted some Halloween candy this year. In fact, I had to stop and consider whether or not I really wanted to turn it down at the risk of feeling deprived. After a little pondering I figured that I was more interested in going through with this experiment than munching on some chocolate. Once I made that decision, I didn't feel like this was an act of willpower any more. It wasn't about being "good" on a program or avoiding "bad" foods. It was something I wanted to do for my own personal reasons. Willpower and deprivation are very subjective, as I have come to personally understand.

So yes, I was able to turn down Halloween candy this year without feeling deprived. That's new to me. But I want to be honest: I don't think I can live without anything sweet in the long-term without feeling some serious deprivation. Milk and fruit certainly have their place in a healthy diet. And so do things like cheesecake and coconut oil fudge.

The take-home message today is this: don't deprive yourself. Instead, consider your personal wants and needs, as well as your current state of health. Then you can make decisions about what's practical and beneficial for you at this time. What may feel like deprivation to you right now may not feel the same way in a few weeks or a few months. So take the time to re-evaluate your needs now and then as well. That way you get the best results for your health.

If you want to know more about RRARF, you can  download Matt Stone's RRARF e-book for free and get all the nitty gritty details. And you can also see what Matt has to say concerning the truth about dieting and deprivation in this video presentation.

Other RRARF Posts:

Day 1 on RRARF: What is RRARF?
Day 2 on RRARF: Why I'm Doing It
Day 3 on RRARF: Rest and Relaxation  
Day 7 on RRARF: Benefits Already!
Day 8 on RRARF: Eat the Food!
Day 9 on RRARF: Adieu, Le Sucre!  
Day 21 on RRARF: Deprivation is Dieting
Day 23 on RRARF: Life Without the Scale
RRARF vs. The Milk Diet


This post is part of Real Food Wednesday hosted by Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

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Day 9 on RRARF: Adieu, Le Sucre!

I've always had a sweet tooth. And although my days of regular sugar binges are behind me (thanks mostly to real food and good rest), up until now I still liked to have something sweet with my meals. A little dark chocolate, a small fruit smoothie, a spoonful of raw honey, or a beverage sweetened with stevia would complete my eating experience. Without something sweet, my meals felt rather... unfinished. Since it never added up to much (and stevia is a free food, right?), I told myself this wasn't a big deal. After all, I wasn't gobbling up a quart of ice cream several times a week like I'd been doing before (you know, back when I thought low-fat dieting and cardio was the path to health heaven). So no harm done, right?

Wrong. The simple flavor of sweetness is enough to alter the body's chemical response to what you're eating, which can raise the weight set point, increase appetite and fuel cravings. Why? Because it activates the pleasure centers in the brain. That's why Matt Stone calls this phenomena PCAT (Pleasure Center Activation Theory). The idea is that the flavor of our food affects how the body responds to it by triggering surges of brain chemicals like dopamine. That's why fast food--with its abundance of chemical additives like MSG and sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup--is so addictive, and also why it appears to so strongly fuel obesity even beyond the individual metabolic effects these refined ingredients have on the body.

Matt wrote a post about PCAT here, where he says:

"In terms of promoting a rise in weight set point, which increases the appetite to metabolism ratio (AM Ratio – kinda like AM Radio), the most powerful promoters seem to be substances that are the most sweet. Saccharine, Aspartame, and Sucralose (Splenda) cause much greater increase in the AM Ratio than plain ol’ sugar. Of course, throwing caffeine into the mix activates those pleasure centers even more. Diet drinks are the perfect obesigenic substances when paired with a calorie-dense meal. Say what you want about Stevia, but that is another dime-a-dozen sweetener for raising your weight set point – it just comes without so much of the neurotoxicity of aspartame, or the bowel destruction of sucralose."

Sweetness appears to illicit a particularly strong response from our brain chemicals. This is indepenent of blood sugar and insulin, which is why non-caloric sweeteners can still activate the pleasure centers of the brain and thus cause problems with metabolism, moods, weight, appetite, etc. Listening to Matt's audio seminar on addictive eating really cemented the idea in my head. After all, if stevia can satisfy a sugar craving, then it is obviously capable of performing some function in the body similar to sugar. That function is presumably the release of brain chemicals like dopamine.

Adieu, Le Sucre!

My top goal while on RRARF is to allow my body to completely self-regulate. If sweetness interferes with the body's natural biochemical response, then it has to go. So, for the duration of RRARF (and hopefully beyond), I'm eliminating sweetness from the menu. No honey, no maple syrup, no fermented ketchup, no dark chocolate, and no stevia. I'm also not having any fruit for the time being, though I'm not bothering to eliminate some of the sweeter vegetables like yams, carrots and onions.

I've even gone so far as to eliminating milk during RRARF, because it is both liquid and sugar, and therefore may have some metabolic side effects when you drink it with every meal (which is basically what I've been doing). And though I don't believe that milk is inherently bad for metabolic health, with my individual pursuits being what they are, giving it the boot for a few weeks seems reasonable. (Okay, I'll be honest, this was Matt's suggestion when I asked him about milk... I'm very slow to voluntarily give up my milk!) In any case, I haven't had milk since last Thursday morning. Congratulate me. That takes willpower, at least for me. Take the cake, but for Pete's sake, give me my milk!

But in all seriousness, I have felt a slight longing for something sweet on a daily basis since starting RRARF, but no outright cravings. I honestly seem to be doing pretty well considering the sweets habit I was getting into. Nine days without anything sweet is officially the longest I have ever gone.

After RRARF? I can't imagine giving up sweets forever (though I may consider it after 30 days of this). But I'm considering eliminating daily sweets, and certainly not having them with every single meal. A weekly splurge might be forgivable (that is, if it doesn't lead to cravings). It's the daily stuff that has the most influence on our metabolic health, after all, rather than what we do every once in a while.

Matt Stone has done some truly remarkable research on the subject of metabolic health. If you have not yet had the chance, I highly recommend you download the complete RRARF e-book for free and find out a little more about the science behind these recommendations. And you can also see what Matt has to say concerning the truth about dieting in this video presentation.

Other RRARF Posts:

Day 1 on RRARF: What is RRARF?
Day 2 on RRARF: Why I'm Doing It
Day 3 on RRARF: Rest and Relaxation  
Day 7 on RRARF: Benefits Already!
Day 8 on RRARF: Eat the Food!
Day 9 on RRARF: Adieu, Le Sucre!  
Day 21 on RRARF: Deprivation is Dieting 
Day 23 on RRARF: Life Without the Scale
RRARF vs. The Milk Diet

This post is part of Fight Back Friday hosted by Food Renegade.

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Fructose Dangers (and Is Fruit Bad, too?)

We've all heard about the dangers of eating too much sugar. Recently further evidence has come to light that demonstrates there is a specific component of sugar responsible for its harmful side effects: fructose.

Fructose Dangers: What is Fructose?

Fructose is a monosaccharide, a simple sugar. It is sweeter than other forms of sugar. Refined cane sugar is essentially half fructose and half glucose. Honey is typically higher in fructose (which is why it's so sweet). And high fructose corn syrup is about 55 percent fructose.

What Makes Fructose So Dangerous?

Fructose and glucose are metabolized in two very different ways. Glucose is absorbed directly and mostly used for energy by cells throughout the body. Fructose, however, is processed in the liver and is generally converted into VLDL (Very Low Density Lipoprotein) cholesterol and triglycerides.

There are genuine concerns that fructose contributes to health problems like increased inflammation, high blood pressure, excess uric acid, high triglycerides and high VLDL cholesterol. Fructose also contributes to fatty liver deposits much in the same way alcohol does.

Another problem with fructose is that it doesn't signal the body's satiety mechanisms. In particular, fructose does not stimulate the release of leptin, an important hormone in appetite control as well as other important metabolic processes. Over time this can also lead to insulin resistance and eventually diabetes.

On the same note, more fructose dangers stem from its particularly strong level of sweetness. A beverage high in fructose (think soda or fruit juice), for instance, stimulates the pleasure centers of the brain so powerfully that it may lead to increased hunger, cravings, and eventually to an increased body weight set point. In this way, fructose in a concentrated, easily absorbed form (like high-fructose beverages) can impact the body's weight beyond what calories alone can explain. (The connection between flavor, calorie-density and the body weight set point is something I am currently researching and will be talking about more in the future.)

Because fructose does not directly stimulate the release of insulin, many people assume it is a safe sweetener. However, since it affects biochemical systems in a way that can eventually induce insulin resistance, it can actually be quite harmful.

Fructose Dangers: Is Fruit Bad?

It's true that fructose gets its name from fruit sugar, but consuming refined sugar products is not the same as consuming whole fruits. Fruits have protective factors that may counter the risks of consuming fructose, such as fiber and antioxidants. Fruits also contain nourishing vitamins and minerals that many of us are lacking. I personally believe fruit is not inherently unhealthy and should never be regarded in the same light as refined sugar.

Fruit juices, however, contain massive amounts of fructose in a form that can be ingested very quickly. Commercial fruit juices should generally be avoided, as they are refined and generally contain nasty stuff like molds and pesticides. Some experts even say any fruit juice is as damaging as commercial soda beverages because of the way it affects the body.

Keep in mind that fructose consumption does not have to be kept at zero. Before the last century, it's thought that fructose consumption was somewhere around 15 grams per day. Some experts like Robert Lustig suggest an intake below 25 grams per day is relatively safe and will not cause the metabolic problems listed above. Today the average fructose consumption is more than 70 grams per day. So in reality it's not the fructose that's harming our health, but the chronic over consumption of it in highly refined forms. Moderation, as always, is key.

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Naturally Sweet: Learn Why You Should Be Eating Raw Honey

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Long before what we refer to as civilization was born, honey was a food prized throughout many traditional cultures. Ancient peoples in Spain, India, Egypt and all over the world knew that honey supplied a unique richness of nutrients. But far from squeezing honey out of cute little plastic containers shaped like bears, these people were eating their honey freshly harvested from local bee hives--untouched and untainted by civilized man.

In times before commercial processing overtook our food supply, the remarkable medical benefits of raw honey were understood by primitive man. Today, when we pause to take a closer look at the composition of raw honey, we can clearly see why it is so invaluable.

VS. 

Healing Factors in Raw Honey

• Raw honey contains bee pollen, which many leading nutritional experts refer to as a potent superfood. Among bee pollen’s many benefits are allergy relief, detoxification, anti-cancer properties, increased energy, amino acids, vitamins and thousands of beneficial enzymes.

• Raw honey is one of the richest natural sources of amylase, an enzyme which facilitates the proper digestion of carbohydrates. This makes raw honey an excellent companion for toast or oatmeal. This essential enzyme is lost the moment honey is heated, since amylase converts to starch when exposed to heat.

• Propolis, a material bees use for constructing their hives, is another beneficial part of raw honey. Propolis is believed to have antioxidant, antimicrobial and even anti-cancer properties. It is said to boost the immune system and improve the health of the liver as well.

• Raw honey is an excellent source of flavonoids (particularly flavanones, flavones and flavonols). These have powerful antioxidant properties that protect us from illness and disease.

Tips for Enjoying Raw Honey

• Remember, processed honey has been extensively heated and filtered to make sure it’s the same clear, golden liquid we’ve all come to expect. This is essentially honey stripped of all its goodness, and contains none of the beneficial nutrients listed above. Raw honey will be opaque and creamy with a slightly crystallized texture. It’s ideal for spreading bread with peanut butter or scooping up with a spoon. I don't personally trust any honey labeled "raw" if it's in a clear and liquid form at room temperature. At best it's still been filtered of many of the beneficial ingredients.

• Pay close attention to labeling to make sure you are getting a quality raw honey. It should be completely unprocessed and unheated. The valuable enzymes in honey are preserved only if the honey is never heated above 105 degrees, although purists claim that for honey to be truly raw, it should never be heated at all.

• On the same note, raw honey should only be added to foods after they have been cooked and never before, since any exposure to heat risks destroying the beneficial nutrients in the honey. Remember, if the food is too hot to touch, it's most likely too hot for enzymes.

• Raw honey stored in sealed, airtight jars will not spoil. It is a very stable food that becomes finer with age, just like a quality wine. Open jars will stay fresh for at least several months. Even then, raw honey will simply ferment, not spoil. Fermentation enhances the benefits of raw honey, although some do not prefer the taste.

• While all sugar is not created equal--and in fact many would say raw honey is superior to all other forms of sugar--in the end, raw honey is still, well, sugar. Eaten in excess, it can still have a negative impact on blood sugar levels and can cause related health problems (though personally I've noticed that raw honey appears to disrupt my blood sugar stability far less than other kinds of sugar). In moderation raw honey is a wonderful health food that is as nutritious as it is utterly intoxicating.

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6 Ways to Stop Sugar Cravings From Ruling Your Life

Let's face it: most of us have a sweet tooth. For some it's an occasional desire for an ice cream cone. Then for others it's more like an uncontrollable urge to totally immerse ourselves in a bag of candy and never look back.

Overcoming sugar cravings is not an easy task. I know this, not because I've never had a problem with sugar, but because sugar and I have had a love-hate relationship in the past. I hated to love it, but still I indulged in it every chance I could get. Then I'd feel terrible and wish I could swear off sugar forever. And you can probably guess that never happened.

But today sugar and I have a healthier relationship. Not perfect - I still eat too much at times - but something more within the realm of a healthy normal. How did I do this? Here's some tips that worked for me:

Eat plenty of fat and protein. There’s no use in trying to quit sugar before you’re eating enough real food, you’ll just get more cravings. Real proteins like meat, eggs and dairy combined with healthy fats like butter and coconut oil make for a healthy body that won't crave sugar to compensate for missing nutrients.

Eat enough food. Not taking in enough calories can make your body crave sugar when all you need is real food. In today’s world of dieting this one is all too common. The only time my sugar cravings go away is when I’m allowing myself to eat what my body needs.

Eat carbs. This goes against some popular advice, but it works for me. I lowered carbs for two months and after 4-6 weeks I started experiencing massive cravings for sugar (and caffeine, too). I started eating a moderate amount of carbs again (about 150 g/day) and my sugar cravings disappeared within a couple days. Weird, but true.

Stop doing so much cardio. I know too many people - myself included - who got nothing from 90 minutes on the elliptical except the desire to devour a whole carton of ice cream in one sitting. So, lay off the excessive cardio and do some more efficient exercise instead.

Try some stevia. I don’t use stevia exclusively, but I use it so I can reduce the amount of sweetener I would typically use. A small amount of raw honey and mostly stevia makes a great smoothie. And in beverages like coffee, I can replace sugar completely with stevia and it still tastes great.

Give yourself time. A lot of it. I knew my body was craving sugar because it needed to heal, and healing takes time. I started eating real food and stopped doing so much cardio, but it still took a few months before I felt more in control of my sugar cravings.

Are you and sugar friends? Or enemies? What has been your experience with sugar cravings?

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Replace Sugar With Healthier Alternatives

What’s wrong with sugar? With the average American consuming close to 200 pounds of sugar per year (up from just a few pounds per year in the 19th century), it’s not hard to connect the dots and see how sugar plays a role in modern diseases like type 2 diabetes and obesity. Accusations against sugar are far-reaching, with sugar being linked to a growing number of health conditions like:

- Heart disease
- Insulin Resistance and diabetes
- ADHD and other hyperactivity disorders
- Violent tendencies
- Depression and other mood disorders
- Tumor and cancer growth
- Tooth decay and poor dental health
- Bone loss
- Anorexia and other eating disorders
- Premature aging

The evidence against refined sugar is so plentiful, numerous books have been written on the subject. If you’d like to learn more, you might want to check out books like Sugar Blues by William Dufty or Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price.

What’s wrong with aspartame, sucralose and other artificial sweeteners?

There are very few diets that don’t suggest using artificial sweeteners like NutraSweet (aspartame) or Splenda (sucralose) in order to reduce your intake of real sugar. Even the Atkins diet - which tends to focus on real food more than most mainstream diets - promotes a limited use of sweeteners like sucralose and sugar alcohols.

While some of these sweeteners may not contain actual sugar or calories, the way they affect your body is very real. Here’s just a few basic reasons to avoid artificial sweeteners:

Aspartame breaks down into toxic substances in the body (such as methanol). To quote Nourishing Traditions:

"Aspartame... is a neurotoxic substance that has been associated with numerous health problems including dizziness, visual impairment, severe muscle aches, numbing of extremities, pancreatitis, high blood pressure, retinal hemorrhaging, seizures and depression. It is suspected of causing birth defects and chemical disruptions in the brain."

Sucralose is a relatively new product in the food industry, but preliminary evidence does not look especially positive. Sucralose has been involved in very few independent scientific tests - most tests on this sweetener were funded by the companies that distribute it (now that doesn’t sound right, does it?). Here’s information about sucralose taken from the WAPF site:

"Research conducted with rats, mice and rabbits has shown that sucralose consumption can cause shrinking of the thymus gland (up to 40 percent shrinkage), enlargement of the liver and kidneys, atrophy of lymph follicles in the spleen and thymus, increased cecal weight, reduced bodily growth rate, decreased red blood cell count, hyperplasia of the pelvis, extension of gestational periods in pregnancy, decreased fetal body weights and placental weights, and diarrhea."

Are sugar alcohols good or bad?

The world of sugar alcohols (like sorbitol, maltitol, and xylitol to name a few common ones) is murky and definitely uncertain. Sugar alcohols can cause digestive upsets like diarrhea, as well as contribute to the overgrowth of gut flora like candida and yeast. Sugar alcohols may also increase seizures in epileptic individuals, and have been linked to childhood obesity. Very small amounts may be relatively harmless, but I would not count these as a real food. In my opinion, sugar alcohols are best avoided.

What about agave nectar?

Agave is a "real" sweetener (as opposed to artificial), but it’s not as healthy as we are led to believe. Basically, agave nectar is concentrated processed fructose and should be regarded in the same light as high fructose corn syrup. Kristen at Food Renegade did an excellent post on this. Frankly, I couldn’t put it better myself, so if you want to know the whole agave story, read this post.
 

Healthy Alternatives to Sugar

Our bodies are made to enjoy things that taste sweet. A "sweet tooth" is really one of the most natural instincts in the world. That said, throughout history sugar was a rare and expensive treat, and mostly came in the form of fruit. Our bodies were never made to cope with the ridiculous onslaught of sugar-laden foods we are faced with today.

I know from personal experience that winning the battle with sugar is not always easy. I consider myself light-years ahead of where I was two years ago, but I still succumb to the wiles of sugar often enough to bug me. So if you want to eat something sweet, it’s important to have some healthy options in mind:

Stevia

This is one of my favorites. I keep a bottle of liquid stevia around at all times - I hate to run out! Stevia is a naturally sweet herb native to South America. You can find it in liquid and powder form. I prefer liquid because it’s easiest to use for the tasks stevia is best at. I find stevia to be a great sugar replacement in coffee, tea, lemonade, yogurt, kefir and whipped cream. A few drops is equal to at least one teaspoon of sugar.

Before I cut back on grains I would use stevia to replace some of the sweetener in pancakes, oatmeal and biscuits as well. It seems like you can’t tell much difference if you use a little real sugar with some stevia.

My favorite brand is Sweetleaf liquid stevia, because it's at least twice as strong as the other brands I was using. That means a 4-ounce bottle of this stuff lasts about 3-4 months for me - and we use a lot of it around here!

Unrefined Sugar Options

Sometimes you just need to use a genuine sweetener, and it's good to know there are some healthier options out there. Unrefined sweeteners are far more natural than their refined counterparts, and will generally wreak less havoc on your blood sugar. Unrefined sweeteners also contain natural trace minerals and vitamins that make them more nutritious than refined sugar. Here are some choices for unrefined natural sweeteners:

Raw Honey. In traditional cultures, honey was always revered, and of course honey was always raw. Raw honey contains enzymes and nutrients that can be highly beneficial. You can read more about the benefits of raw honey here. We always keep a jar of raw honey around. It tastes really delicious with peanut butter or in porridge.

Real Maple Syrup. Genuine maple syrup is rich in trace minerals and in flavor. It’s great in baked desserts and puddings. Be sure to choose organic to avoid formaldehyde from processing, and opt for Grade B to get more nutrients.

Rapadura (or Sucanat). These are made from dehydrated cane sugar juice and will contain a rich mineral content just like other natural sugars. Rapadura is most like commercial sugar in texture and will make a great cookie. Beware of refined sugar masquerading as unrefined, however (like Turbinado sugar). Read labels carefully to make sure you are getting a genuinely unrefined cane sugar product. If it doesn’t clearly state it’s unrefined, it probably isn’t.

Sugar is Still Sugar

Even natural sweeteners will negatively affect blood sugar levels and cause health problems if over consumed. So you don’t want to down a jar of raw honey every day, of course. But natural sweeteners are a much better alternative to commercial sugar and especially chemical sweeteners. Moderation is the key here (of course, sometimes that’s easier said than done!).

P.S. If you’re going to eat sugar, don’t forget the fat! Full-fat desserts are more satisfying and often require less sweetener to taste decadent and delicious. Plenty of fat will also slow down digestion and lower the overall glycemic load of your dessert.

This post is part of Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade.

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