Making recipes with no sugar.

What's for dinner, they fretted.
Mary Poppins did say that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, but maybe the updated version is a spoonful of applesauce made-with-dates makes the medicine go down. I remember sending my husband to the store for Vitamin C and I checked the label and the second ingredient was sugar. It was not even the chewable kind!
Excess sugar is added to bread, lunchmeat, yogurt, tea, juice, cereal, fruit juice, salad dressing, etc. because it tastes good. It produces a craving and keeps you coming back to the brand - like a mouse to cheese. Low fat offerings add excess sugar to make it taste better. Heart disease, cholesterol, high blood pressure (sugar more than salt)1 have been linked to excess sugar. Excess sugar in the body turns into triglycerides and they are stored in fat cells; next comes heart disease. Cancer may be linked to excessive sugar intake.2Neuropathy pain can base lessened by a no sugar diet.5
The World Health Organization recommends that no more than 6 teaspoons of an adult's diet should come from added sugar, yet the average American ingests 17 teasposons every day, 57 pounds of added sugar per year.3

Shouldn't I then just limit the added sugars? I couldn't do it. Sugar produced a craving and my body demanded more. Research indicates that sugar has the same effect on the brain as people addicted to drugs such as cocaine and alcohol.4

The answer for me was to quit all refined sugar 4 years ago and I've lived to tell the tale. Sugar created mood swings, so I am much nicer and less jittery. I have more energy. I used to have a Caramel Macchiato coffee with lunch and want naptime at 3pm - unless I got another one. Sugar causes inflammation. The arthritis in my hands is much better and I can no longer tell when it will rain, and I live in Seattle. I lost 100 pounds and the middle aged gut is gone. In shallower news, sugar causes wrinkles as it robs the body of collagen - too bad quitting is not retroactive.

Where to Start

Sugar Substitutes

I use Apple sauce, bananas or dates.

My goal was to change my palate or 'sweet tooth' so I did not create any desserts or use sugar substitutes when I first started. I still don't make many desserts, other than apple harvest, but if I do need sweetening applesauce, bananas or dates work for me.

Monkfruit, Erythritol and Xylitol called Natural Sugar Substitutes

Top Vote from people who bake is a mixture of Monkfruit and Erythritol. It is a one to one ratio of Sugar to Substitute. Monkfruit, Erythritol and Xylitol on their own produce a cooling effect, like inhaling dry ice as an aftertaste. But combining a 50/50 combination eliminates that aftertaste according to Molly.
  • Monk fruit is a fruit from China which grows on a vine.
  • Xylitol is extracted from birch bark.
  • Erythritol is fermented yeast glucose from corn or wheat starch.
    • The 'ol' on the end indicates it's a sugar alcohol - and is nowhere near regular alcohol- it's just in same chemical family. The 'ol's could cause bloating and gas, Rach uses erythritol, and has not experienced cravings, nor gastric problems. Caroline said that xylitol bubbled over when she baked, and she had to clean the bottom of the oven afterwards.

    Listen to your body.

    I used Stevia

    for my cocoa avocado mousse, but now I just use date paste. First I couldn't even think of chocolate, but Cacao does not have any sugar in it. Stevia is made from plants from South America, similar to rhodies in the North. It has no effect on blood sugar. Very sweet - the powder is not a 1 to 1 ratio with sugar. Sugar is a bulk, so the chemistry of the recipe will change. Some say it has an aftertaste, but I taste no aftertaste with the tabs (which equal one teaspoon of sugar). I use Sweet Leaf Stevia tabs and I've had it for two years.

    Not all Stevia Brands are equal. Some of them have dextrose (sugar) and Trader Joe's has lactose (milk sugar.) The liquid drops are supposed purer, but they contain glycerine & regular alcohol, like vanilla. Stevia does not spike blood sugar according to the Mayo Clinic.

    I don't use honey

    - You have to ingest 3 - 5 teaspoons of honey to experience health benefits. FiberYum is a liquid that can replace honey, but I haven't tried it. You must get the more expensive custom-made honey, not the little bear at the grocery store. Honey is much sweeter than sugar - so it is not a one to one swap out. If baking with honey, you have to reduce liquids and reduce oven heat.

    I don't use protein powder.

    What is 'natural flavor' anyway? Spotted on a Vegan Protein Powder in a healthy grocery store. This is the 4th most popular ingredient listed on all food labels, yet only the manufacturer knows what it is. Toxins in Health Food Powder

    I don't use Agave

    - the cactus juice. It consists of 85% fructose, which is much higher than regular sugar. Someone called it "a marketing executive's biggest coup."

    I don't use Maple Syrup

    Maple syrup is about 2/3 sucrose, or table sugar — 1/3 cup (80 ml) supplies around 60 grams of sugar.

    I don't use Molasses

    Molasses is a waste product from making sugar cane into white sugar. All the nutrients are boiled out of sugar and molasses has the nutrients. It's still sugar and will spike your blood sugar, guaranteed to make you hungrier later. Brown sugar is just sugar with a drop of molasses included.

    Random

    Once on vacation, we were in a fancy store where they made blackberry jam sweetened with white pear juice. I hadn't had jam for so long... So I went up to the counter and it was $12 for 3 oz. I was so surprised that I bought it anyway. Just wanted to tell someone.

    I am not a diabetic nor a doctor, so please consult your physician on what is good for you.

    Bebe says that The process to refine monkfruit sugar is no longer under patent, which it was for 20 years. Please spread the word about this great sweetener to drive up demand. Hopefully, that will encourage our capitalist society to bring more competitors in and bring down prices.

    If a dog consumes Xylitol they may experience seizures or death, so keep it on a high shelf and no nibbling.

    According to M. Regina Castro, M.D., Mayo Clinic (2019)... You can use most sugar substitutes if you have diabetes, including: Saccharin (Sweet'N Low); Aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal); Acesulfame potassium (Sunett); Sucralose (Splenda); Stevia (Pure Via, Truvia). Artificial sweeteners, also called sugar substitutes, low-calorie sweeteners or nonnutritive sweeteners, offer the sweetness of sugar without the calories. Artificial sweeteners are many times sweeter than sugar, so it takes a smaller amount to sweeten foods. This is why foods made with artificial sweeteners may have fewer calories than those made with sugar. Sugar substitutes don't affect your blood sugar level. In fact, most artificial sweeteners are considered "free foods" — foods containing less than 20 calories and 5 grams or less of carbohydrates — because they don't count as calories or carbohydrates on a diabetes exchange. Remember, however, that other ingredients in foods containing artificial sweeteners can still affect your blood sugar level. More research is needed, but some studies have found that the benefits of substituting sugar-sweetened food and beverages with those that have been sweetened artificially may not be as clear as once thought. This may be especially true when artificial sweeteners are consumed in large amounts. One reason may be a "rebound" effect, in which some people end up consuming more of an unhealthy type of food because of the misperception that it's healthy because it's sugar-free. Also, be cautious with sugar alcohols — including mannitol, sorbitol and xylitol. Sugar alcohols can increase your blood sugar level. And for some people, sugar alcohols may cause diarrhea. With M. Regina Castro, M.D.

    Artificial Sweetners: Any effect on Blood Sugar?

    (2018), Kris Gunnars, BSc, Healthline Erythritol — Like Sugar Without the Calories?

    (2019), Robert H. Shmerling, MD, Harvard Medical School Sweeteners: Time to rethink your choices?

    5(2015), Nutritional Weight & Wellness Staff Neuropathy: The Sugar Connection

    Where to Start

Where to Start

whyquitsugar

I looked at recipes and I didn't want anything with honey or maple syrup, so I decided to do some research of my own. When shopping, I had to take the time to look at the ingredients in whatever I was buying. I also had to bring a magnifying glass with me! Substituting apple sauce, dates or pears into recipes has worked very well for me as I do eat fruit. I didn't make any desserts when I first started, because I wanted to change my palate. Look at a restaurant's menu on their website before dining - if the description says "sweet" - it probably has sugar in it. Carla found a restaurant where they put peaches in the chili instead of sugar. Leslie started by not putting the sugar in, tasting it and see how it fared without any sweetening. If I'm a guest at someone's home, I ask if a dish has sugar in it. At Potlucks, I stick to savory dishes. So the key is to start.... and soon it becomes natural.

Names for Sugar on the Label

First place to look is the ingredients list.
This one is easy - it says: "Sugar." However, sugar has other names.

Names of Sugar

Anhydrous dextrose, brown sugar, natural flavors, cane crystals, cane sugar, corn sweetener, corn syrup, corn syrup solids, crystal dextrose, evaporated cane juice, dried cane syrup, fructose sweetener, fruit juice concentrates, high-fructose corn syrup, honey, liquid fructose, malt syrup, maple syrup, molasses, pancake syrup, raw sugar, sugar, syrup and white sugar. Carbitol, concentrated fruit juice, corn sweetener, diglycerides, disaccharides, evaporated cane juice, Florida crystals, fructooligosaccharides, galactose, glucitol, glucoamine, hexitol, inversol, isomalt, malted barley, malts, mannitol, nectars, pentose, raisin syrup, ribose rice syrup, rice malt, rice syrup solids, sorghum, sucanat, sucanet, and zylose.

How much?

In this box of cereal label, there are 12 servings, each serving has 110 calories. Calories are units of energy, just like fuel for your car. Calories are not well thought of, but we all need them to "go." I just measured my bowls for the fun of it and the bowl is 2 cups. So 2 cups has 220 calories, but the only cereal I have found without sugar is Grape Nuts.

Daily Values(DV) are put together by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. They are in the far right column - these are for the entire day (Daily Value). The percentages for the cereal's content is hard to see: the example shows .05g of fat which is 3% of the daily value.

Fat would be good if you're on Survivor as it doesn't burn up very fast, so you'd probably be the last one standing. If you're not a desert island, Transfat and Saturated fat are bad per the FDA, sort of like cheap gas. Monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats are known as the “good fats” because they are good for your heart, your cholesterol, and your overall health. (Salmon, avocdoes, etc.)

All carbs break down in the body as sugar called glucose. Glucose is the fuel and the extra sugar is stored somewhere. Insulin's function is to find a place to store the sugar in the bloodstream. Insulin does this by turning the extra food into larger packages of glucose called glycogen. Glycogen is stored in the liver and muscles. The extra sugar can also be stored as cholesterol, making triglycerides, which are fat molecules that store energy and not the good kind. They can also be stored in the liver eventually causing Fatty Liver Disease. (This is extremely simplified.) Keeping blood sugar and insulin levels low, allows the body access to stored fat and can break it down for fat loss.

Sugars show natural sugars and added sugars

For our purposes, there are two types of sugars,

Added sugars

and

Natural Sugars.

Naturally occurring sugars are found in a variety of foods, like Dairy Products, Fruit (fresh, frozen, dried, and canned in 100% fruit juice), 100% fruit and vegetable juice, and Vegetables. Added sugars are what we are looking to eliminate and they are on the ingredients, not the "Sugar" line item.

Protein

Protein is necessary for building strong muscles. I looked into some protein powders when I began weight lifting but the ingredient names were longer than my arm. I used the tool below to discover that I am getting enough protein from food alone.

Protein Calculator from the US Department of Agriculture

References

1 WebMD, Arefa Cassoobhoy, MD, MPH Sugar vs. Salt: What’s Worse for Blood Pressure?

2World Health Organization WHO calls on countries to reduce sugars intake among adults and children

3US National Library of Medicine Evidence for sugar addiction: Behavioral and neurochemical effects of intermittent, excessive sugar intake

4Cancer MAY be linked to excess sugar. Excerpt from The Mayo Clinic Staff interview of Timothy Moynihan, M.D., Cancer Specialist:

Myth: People with cancer shouldn't eat sugar, since it can cause cancer to grow faster. Fact: Sugar doesn't make cancer grow faster. All cells, including cancer cells, depend on blood sugar (glucose) for energy. But giving more sugar to cancer cells doesn't speed their growth. Likewise, depriving cancer cells of sugar doesn't slow their growth. This misconception may be based in part on a misunderstanding of positron emission tomography (PET) scans, which use a small amount of radioactive tracer — typically a form of glucose. All tissues in your body absorb some of this tracer, but tissues that are using more energy — including cancer cells — absorb greater amounts. For this reason, some people have concluded that cancer cells grow faster on sugar. But this isn't true. However, there is some evidence that consuming large amounts of sugar is associated with an increased risk of certain cancers, including esophageal cancer. It can also lead to weight gain and increase the risk of obesity and diabetes, which may increase the risk of cancer.
Mayo Clinic, (2018) Cancer causes: Popular myths about the causes of cancer

Linda Rath of WebMD writes in this 2019 article:

Other cancer experts say sugar itself can drive cancer. One such expert is noted cancer researcher Lewis Cantley, PhD, director of the Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. Cantley thinks some cancers may start with high levels of insulin, the hormone that controls the amount of sugar in your blood. He says his research shows that “having high levels of insulin is likely to drive cancer. And what drives insulin levels is sugar.” He doesn’t eat any sugar himself because he believes the link between sugar and cancer is clear.

WebMD (2019) Cancer and Sugar: Is There a Link?

Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Volume 94, Issue 17, 4 September 2002 Dietary Sugar, Glycemic Load, and Pancreatic Cancer Risk in a Prospective Study

National Institute of Health, (2015) Diet soda intake is associated with long-term increases in waist circumference in a biethnic cohort of older adults: the San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging.

Agave is really bad

Food and Drug Administration Sugars

Harvard Medical School, (2015), Daniel Pendick. How much protein do you need?

Dr. Cass Ingram - what a hoot! I happened to hear him on the radio. Destructive Nature of Sugar

"But am I to be consigned to a life where I shall be stupid, boring and glum, like some righteous people I see? I know I must get along without sugar, but how can I? Have you a sufficient substitute?" p. 152