Wednesday, June 1, 2011

sugar fast

Today is day one of our 60-day sugar challenge: avoid refined and added sugars entirely (with a few predefined exceptions).

Though the health benefits of naturally occurring sugars vs. commercially processed sugars are somewhat debatable, avoiding them as much as possible is going to reduce our sugar intake overall drastically, which seems like a good thing. And while sugar itself isn't all bad, it is responsible for lots of empty and unnecessary calories. We did inventory of our current holdings and were a little shocked at how many items that we didn't expect to contained added sugars. (Canned beans?) Also, sugar is often concentrated alongside fatty-fatty foods. (That's double fatty foods, if you didn't know, and I just now made it up.)

In our marriage, I've learned that Tim has little restraint when it comes to sweets. I'm just chuckling to myself as I recall how quickly he recently ate almost an entire carton of ice cream single-handedly. (That sentence seems overly burdened by adverbs.) So when it comes to these little "diets" (remember when we went vegan in March?), Tim is glad to have a reason to just say no.

Anyway, here's to a summer of not eating ice cream (normally a daily occurrence in summertime for me)! I'm kind of excited. And Meredith is benevolently joining us again. She went vegan with us in March as well, which probably wasn't her favorite thing ever. But she's trying to get on the healthier eating habits train, so she's being a sport.

If you're interested in our delineation between acceptable and unacceptable sugars, please see below.

not okay sugars
white sugar
brown sugar
(high fructose) corn syrup
(commercially refined) sucrose, fructose, glucose, maltose, lactose, galactose, cane syrup, corn syrup, corn sugar, invert sugar, dextrose


okay sugars
maple syrup
honey
brown rice syrup
barley malt syrup
fruit juice (no added sugar)
molasses
cane juice/sucanat
agave nectar

5 comments:

  1. NEVER EVER EVER. I am glad I have friends like you that I can live through and not have to experience it myself. Good for you and good luck!!

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  2. Now I will understand when you and Meredith get grumpy on me in the afternoons at work.

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  3. Way to go!!!!! This is soooo awesome!

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  4. This sounds fun and challenging (mostly the figuring out which sugars are ok part). Are there days when you can break the sugar embargo? Good luck!

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  5. I got yo' back. This month will mark the time where I eat four portions' worth of sugar, just so the corn syrup and sugar peeps don't miss ya too much. This is what friends are for, right? :)

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