If you are thinking about doing a sugar fast, let me tell you a couple of things. Planning is absolutely important, I think to make this easier on myself, I should have taken a week to properly prepare. In that time I would have read the book I'm using, bought in some ingredients to use and put some food in the freezer for busy days. I feel like I am totally getting used to this now and I'm doing really well. I do have lots of energy, I feel more positive and I'm sleeping better. I'm really amazed at how good I feel after eating meals. Also, day 12 is the key, make yourself get to 12 days, and you will find that the rest go by in a breeze. It's been so easy this week and I've not missed sugar at all. I'm sure it's about changing habits.
The Sugar Swap campaign identified snacks as an area where people are likely to be consuming too much sugar. Chocolate, sweets, cereal bars, raisins (which are almost 70% sugar, compared to grapes which are 15%!) cookies, muffins, cakes - these are all the kinds of snacks that children and adults are likely to snack on.
Here are some ideas to cut back. I know some families choose not to give snacks. They believe that 3 hearty meals should be enough to make it through to the next meal. If this is what works for you, that's great, and you will end up not consuming these extra teaspoons of sugar! However, I know that for me, I get hungry in between my meals, and looking back at my eating habits, if I went without snacks, I ended up overeating at meal times because I was just too hungry, and then I would feel awful after my meals because I was too full. My kids also come home from school hungry, not because they haven't eaten enough, as far as I know they both eat really well, but they come home and really need something to eat. If I don't feed them they can be irritable, argumentative and sluggish. So, for my family, we need snacks! A side note - I find that they eat their tea so much better when they have had a snack after school.
Here are some snacks that we have regularly:
The thing is, if you prepare one, filling snack after school, it's easier than having kids coming back every 5 minutes until teatime because they are "still hungry." After this snack, the only thing my kids can then have until teatime is water. If I was a really good mum I would prepare this before the school run so it was ready for when they got home - but, seriously I can't do everything!!
The homemade granola recipe I use in another one of my sister-in-law's from CommunityEats - seriously, you guys have to check out her recipes, they are so good! It's so delicious and flexible. (In her recipe she calls for coconut sugar which I have never used and don't substitute anything and it tastes great.) You can find it here:
The Sugar Swap campaign identified snacks as an area where people are likely to be consuming too much sugar. Chocolate, sweets, cereal bars, raisins (which are almost 70% sugar, compared to grapes which are 15%!) cookies, muffins, cakes - these are all the kinds of snacks that children and adults are likely to snack on.
Here are some ideas to cut back. I know some families choose not to give snacks. They believe that 3 hearty meals should be enough to make it through to the next meal. If this is what works for you, that's great, and you will end up not consuming these extra teaspoons of sugar! However, I know that for me, I get hungry in between my meals, and looking back at my eating habits, if I went without snacks, I ended up overeating at meal times because I was just too hungry, and then I would feel awful after my meals because I was too full. My kids also come home from school hungry, not because they haven't eaten enough, as far as I know they both eat really well, but they come home and really need something to eat. If I don't feed them they can be irritable, argumentative and sluggish. So, for my family, we need snacks! A side note - I find that they eat their tea so much better when they have had a snack after school.
Here are some snacks that we have regularly:
- Slice up a green apple onto a plate with a dollop of a nut butter (This is my favourite sprinkled with cinnamon!)
- Put some hummus into a ramekin, serve with vegetable sticks.
- Homemade granola (recipe below) and plain yogurt in a bowl - this is Joshua's favourite!
- Homemade smoothies - my favourite is a big handful of spinach, 2 cups of frozen, chopped pineapple & mango (available at Tesco's) and a cup of apple juice. It's so tasty and sweet and bright green!
- Cheese and crackers with some grapes
- Popcorn (I buy popcorn kernels, put 1 tbsp of coconut oil on the bottom of a saucepan on a hot heat, cover the bottom with one layer of kernels, grind a little sea salt on top and put the lid on. Once the popping stops, take the pan off the heat, take off the lid and leave to let all of the steam escape.)
The thing is, if you prepare one, filling snack after school, it's easier than having kids coming back every 5 minutes until teatime because they are "still hungry." After this snack, the only thing my kids can then have until teatime is water. If I was a really good mum I would prepare this before the school run so it was ready for when they got home - but, seriously I can't do everything!!
The homemade granola recipe I use in another one of my sister-in-law's from CommunityEats - seriously, you guys have to check out her recipes, they are so good! It's so delicious and flexible. (In her recipe she calls for coconut sugar which I have never used and don't substitute anything and it tastes great.) You can find it here:
How about you, are you a snack family? What kinds of snacks do you rely on? Is this an area where you review the amount of sugar?