Following a Sugar-Free Diet
The first step in reducing the amount of sugar you eat is to identify where it appears in your diet. From there, you can plot a new diet for yourself. Pinpoint the areas that need to change and decide on sugar-free alternatives.
Fresh Food
Always stock up on the freshest ingredients you can find. Most fresh foods have a natural sweetness, so you won't need to add extra sugar. Look for brightly colored fruits and vegetables. If you normally snack on sugar-loaded sweets during the day, make a conscious effort to munch on some fruits and vegetables instead. You can also use them to add some sweetness and color to your meals.
Fact
Many parts of the country have farms where you can pick your own berries, tomatoes, or peppers, as well as orchards where you can pick your own peaches, apples, pears, and plums. Nothing is quite as good as eating a piece of fruit right off the tree.
Shop the perimeter of the supermarket. That's where the fresh, raw food is displayed. Go to the market with a list that includes the ingredients for sugar-free menus. Buying what's in season makes sense both economically and nutritionally. Fresh fruits are seasonal, as are many vegetables, so look for organically grown food, free of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Frequent a farm stand or green market; many of these advertise organically grown food that are fresher than foods that have been shipped.
Read Labels
It's easy to avoid the obvious sugar-rich foods — candy, cakes, doughnuts, cookies, brownies, breads and muffins, snack foods, regular soda, and fruit juices. But refined sugar can be found in an enormous number of commercial products that don't strictly require sweetening. Get into the habit of reading labels when you go grocery shopping to select the products with the least sugar.
Excess sugar is added to items that you wouldn't expect to have added sugars. Cold cereals, brown-sugar flavored oatmeal, fruit-flavored yogurt, fat-free ice cream, whole-grain cereals and crackers, corn and bran muffins, and whole-grain breads are a few of the unlikely culprits. You may also find sugar in sauces such as salsa or added to fruit juice.
Many multi-grain breads have a touch of sugar in them to enhance the dry flavor and consistency of the complex carbs of grains. This bit of sugar may be mitigated by the immense amount of fiber and complex carbohydrates in the bread. In other words, the fiber greatly slows down the absorption of the sugar. However, if you are a diabetic, you must read every label.
Essential
Once a week, plan out all of your meals and snacks for the coming week. Write a list of the ingredients you need, and do not deviate from what you've written once you get to the grocery store. Planning will help you avoid overeating and stick to the correct amount of complex sugars for your body to burn as energy during normal activities and exercise.
Make Your Own
Your diet inventory may have turned up store-bought condiments, sauces, or dressings that contain sugar. Mayonnaise, mustard, barbecue sauce, and many dressings contain added sugar. Take a little time to follow the recipes in this book and make your own. This is the only sure way you have of knowing — and better yet, controlling — how much sugar is in your dressings and sauces.
