Cut back on sugar

For me sugar is the hardest thing to cut back on. I LOVE LOVE LOVE sugar! I used to joke I don't have a sweet tooth. I have a mouth full of sweet teeth. However, with all I've read, refined sugar especially is VERY VERY bad for you. When you eat sugar, it creates inflammation. The body’s response is to make cholesterol to protect itself and reduce the inflammation. Refined sugar not only contributes to the inflammation, but adds no nutritional value. I've tried substituting maple syrup and honey for refined sugar. These are both natural products that provide some nutritional value. Working with them proved easy enough, and they provided a sweet product that took care of my craving. However, the more I learned about cholesterol the more I learned about nutrition and the body as a whole. As I did, I found honey and maple syrup are better options, but they still spike your insulin levels. Increased insulin levels cause a spike in LDL or bad cholesterol. I was disappointed by this, but unwilling to give up sweets. Then, I found dates. Interestingly, I have no desire to eat a date by itself, but they add the perfect sweetness in baked goods. They also add lots of vitamins, minerals, and fiber. And most importantly, they took care of my sugar craving. The end result is not the equivalent to eating refined sugar so don't expect your cookies to taste exactly the same, BUT they give a wonderful sweet taste to baked goods. As a self-described sugar addict, it satisfies me.

Even though dates are a better choice, your body still responds to sugar the same way so it needs to be used in moderation. The next step for our family is to reduce the number of dates I use in cooking. If I slowly reduce the number of dates used in a recipe, the taste buds should start to adjust. Before I was lactose intolerant, I changed myself over form 2% milk to skim using this method. I knew skim milk was better for me, but I did not like the taste. So, I came up with the method to adjust to drinking it. I would fill most of my glass with 2% and just a little skim milk. Then in a couple of days or a week, I filled it with less 2% and more skim. I continued with this process until I was drinking all skim milk. My taste adjusted with this process, and skim milk tasted "normal" by the time I was finished. I never went back to 2%. So, my hope is the same with dates. I will try to reduce them in my desserts and hopefully my tate buds will adjust. At this point, I am not ready to give up my daily sugar treat.

One other note - when we started eating healthy, I found increasing the fiber in my diet reduced my sugar craving. As you can tell, it did not elimiate it, but it drastically reduced it. If you are trying to cut back on sugar, maybe you will find increasing the fiber in your diet will help too.