5 things I learned from giving up sugar

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I tortured... I mean... helped... our whole family by putting us on a 21-day sugar detox at the beginning of January.  We made it just shy of two weeks into the detox and then we all got sick and it was anything goes as far as food (I'm not going to deny my child some toast if that's all she feels like eating)-- but then we got mostly back on track for the last week.  Throughout the whole experience I learned a lot about being in tune with the digestive system and I'm excited to employ some new food strategies on a permanent basis.

{I guess my blog should temporarily be re-named "Sugar-Free and Spice"?}

Before I begin, however, I'd like to say that I never want to be too demanding of others about my childrens' dietary needs.  I hope that you won't think that when I bring my kids over to your place you have to make some kind of special food for us.  If there's anything I've learned through the detox experience, it's that a wide variety of foods is the most healthy thing, and being too extreme in any direction is probably a bad thing.  I don't think I'll be restricting my kids from eating any one food (even sugar) on a permanent basis.  So please don't think I've gone nuts.  I haven't.  :)

That being said, when you witness your own child in pain and suffering due to a digestive issue, it changes everything.  It makes you more willing to be a little "extreme" in certain situations.  That's really my whole goal here-- to encourage good digestion and overall health in my little family.  I want all of my girls' little systems to be functioning at optimum efficiency.  We don't have any allergies (that I know of), or even sensitivities really, but a few of my kids do have a tendency towards digestive trouble.  So that's what we're trying to fix.

So... on to the detox.  The basic premise of this detox was to re-set everyone's system in a gentle, whole-foods-based way.  We eliminated basically everything that is difficult for the digestive system to process, and then gradually added those foods back in.  The first few days were pretty strict-- no sugar, no wheat, no meat, and no dairy.  In the later part of the first week we added cultured dairy products like yogurt and kefir, and natural and goat cheeses which have less lactose than straight milk.  In the second week we added back all dairy products and meat, and then finally here in the third week all foods are okay in moderation.

So here are some things I learned throughout the whole process:

1) There is added sugar in just about everything.  I won't say that this surprised me, since we've all read lots about how the average American blindly consumes insane amounts of sugar, and it's all a result of how sugar has the same addictive qualities as heroin and cocaine.  But when I actually went through our pantry, checked ingredient labels, and realized how many of the things there we could *not* eat during the detox, I was taken aback just a bit.  Seemingly healthy items like yogurt, spaghetti sauce, dried pineapple, applesauce and peanut butter all had added sugar.  It was really brought home to me that day that our bodies were probably already overdosed on sugar just from the "non-sweet" foods we were eating... never mind the treats and desserts.

2) It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.  I did have to do some extra work in the kitchen to prepare foods that would fit the detox restrictions (although I gradually learned to seek out recipes that were more simple and not labor-intensive).  But as far as feeling deprivation... I really didn't.  There are so many delicious alternatives to foods like sugar, wheat, and dairy.  All you have to do these days is google a wheat-free cake, for example, and you're going to find millions of ideas and recipes that are totally awesome.  It just takes a little research.  So... as far as missing things like sugar... I really didn't miss it.  I know you all think I'm lying, but it's really true!  The excitement of trying all the new and delicious things far outweighed any feelings of deprivation.

Despite looking a bit grumpy in this shot, C has really loved a lot of the new foods we're trying.

3) My taste buds actually changed.  After two weeks of being completely sugar-free, my tongue began to be more sensitive to the slightest amount of sweetness.  An orange now tastes like manna from heaven.  A banana is like a dessert.  A glass of red wine (which before tasted very dry to me) seems like liquid corn syrup in my mouth.  I didn't expect my tastes to change SO much after only a two-week period, but they really did.  It feels nice that my body is more appreciative and I no longer have that intense need for syrupy sweetness to satisfy a sweet tooth.  Today I ate one of the complimentary Nutri-Grain bars available at the Honda dealership in the waiting area while I had a tail light fixed on our van, and the overwhelming sweetness of it almost made me sick to my stomach.  It's so crazy!  I'm hoping this is true for my girls, too... I do notice that they are inhaling fruit lately like it's going out of style.

4) I sleep better when my digestive system is working less hard.  You know that feeling where you're sleeping so deeply that when you wake up it takes you a few seconds to figure out where you are or what day it is?  Or you shut your eyes at night and you feel like five minutes have passed and suddenly it's morning?  I had those types of mornings several times while on the detox.  Normally my nights are much more restless.  I also noticed less surges and crashes in my energy levels during the day.  Usually after I put the girls down for naps in the afternoon, it takes all of my willpower to be productive rather than taking a nap myself, but while I was on the detox I could usually just keep going about my activities in the afternoon without feeling groggy.  On the days when I did feel a bit tired, I made myself a high-protien smoothie (rather than my usual afternoon coffee) and that did the trick.  (I discovered lots of new and great smoothie recipes while on the detox, too.  Perhaps a post on those soon if you're not bored yet. :)

5) I learned so much about wheat and gluten and its effect on our bodies!  Did you know that the wheat plants of today contain about 40 times as much gluten as they did half a century ago?  It makes a lot of sense that so many people have developed sensitivity to it... hence the "gluten-free" craze of late.  Just like sugar, wheat too is everywhere and in everything.  During our weeks without wheat I had a very difficult time finding any bread or crackers at the store that didn't contain wheat (part of the point of the detox was to avoid processed and packaged foods, too, but as a busy mom I can't make every single thing from scratch!)  Through this process, though, I had a lot of fun experimenting with alternative whole grains (we tried out millet flour, oat flour, almond flour, garbanzo bean flour, and used more cornmeal in our baking) with some reeeeeally delicious results!  This week as we've added wheat back in, I've been experimenting some with soaking our wheat and oat grains to make them easier to digest.  There is some controversy over this whole issue and I'm still learning, but the bottom line is that I've learned a lot about the wealth of other grains out there besides wheat, and my opinion is that adding more variety in our grain diet couldn't be a bad thing.  I'm excited to try using grains like amaranth, teff, buckwheat, and quinoa in my baking.  (Yes, I'm a weirdo.)

We also started some probiotic supplements, for ourselves and for the kids, during the detox.  I'm a bit on the fence about those, actually.  I think they'll be beneficial once in a while, but combined with the multitude of new forms of probiotics we started eating in our foods (yogurt and kefir) I think it was a little too much for our systems at once, and had some adverse effects.  I may be wrong about the cause of this-- I'm not a doctor, but as I said before, inundating the body with an extreme amount of any one thing seems like a bad idea to me.  So we took a break from them for a while, and now we're back to taking them, but only every few days.  I'm still deciding whether I want to take supplements or just try to increase our natural dietary probiotic consumption (with things like kombucha, sauerkraut, etc.)

There are other things I learned through this experience, too, but I think those are the most important ones I want to remember.  I have lots of recipes and photos of the foods we ate in these weeks.  I'd like to think that most of my meal and snack ideas worked great, but some were flops, so I'd like to record here what worked and what didn't, just for future reference.  We'll see if I get around to organizing those pics into a post.

Thanks for indulging me a rambling post about our New Year's re-set.  I'm excited to see what 2014 will bring in terms of food, health, and experimentation in the kitchen.

{Addendum post-posting:  Read about breakfasts on the detox here, snacks and smoothies here, and suppers here.}