Living Without Sugar – The Healthiest Way To Live Without Sugar And Still Enjoy Sweetness Of Food

You want to cut down on sugar to lose weight, or maybe you need to control your blood sugar because you have been diagnosed with diabetes. But how to live without sugar without giving up the foods and sweetness you love? Artificial sweeteners are generally safe if used reasonably but most of them do have some disadvantages. Natural sweeteners, on the other hand, contain less calories than table sugar but they still do contain calories. So, what to do?

There are basically 2 ways you can go, and you can well combine them:

• Giving up sugar and getting used to less sweetness
• Using naturally sweet foods to add sweetness to your meals

Giving up sugar
Our taste buds simply love sweetness, and it’s somehow addictive. We get used to a certain amount of sugar, and then we want more. By adding more and more sugar to our food, we forget how sweet some foods actually taste on their own. We eventually get to a point where we put sugar in many things that don’t need sweetness added, simply out of habit.

If you now want to give up sugar, it’s like healing an addiction. It will take some time and self-discipline. As you got used to eat more and more sugar, you now need to get used to not having it. If you battle to stop using sugar from one moment to the next, wean yourself gradually. Instead of putting three teaspoons of sugar in your tea, use only two and a half. Once you have gotten used to that, cut down to two spoons until you are comfortable with that, and so on.

In most recipes, you can reduce the sugar amount without problems or even cut it out completely, unless the sugar is an essential part of the recipe.

Naturally sweet foods
There are many fruits and also a few vegetables that have a naturally sweet taste. If you add them to your meals, you can eliminate the need for sugar. And did you know that if you heat up vegetables, they taste sweeter, especially when you roast them?

1. Examples for naturally sweet foods

• rasp-, black-, cranberries
• blue- and strawberries
• peaches, nectarines and apricots
• apples
• papaya
• melons
• sweet potatoes
• butternut
• corn
• red and yellow pepper

Try this, for example: Add a small apple, half a banana and a few grapes to your breakfast oats instead of your two tablespoons of sugar. It will be just as sweet and much healthier as you also get lots of nutrients. Dried fruit and apples are great in muffins, and just a handful of berries can do wonders to sweeten your yoghurt.

2. What to consider when sweetening with fruits and vegetables
You should though be aware of the fact that even fruits and vegetables can contain calories. Prefer fresh fruit and vegetables, as processed foods are often high in carbohydrates, and canned fruit often contains added sugar. Dried fruit is a great source of energy and nutrients, but it contains more calories than the same amount of fresh fruit. Therefore, if you use dried fruit, use only small amounts.

If you really have to watch your sugar intake very carefully, you should also limit foods that are high in sugar or carbohydrates, like these:

• bananas
• mangos
• cherries
• grapes
• pears
• figs
• carrots

At the bottom line, one can certainly say that the healthiest (and cheapest) way of living without sugar is to simply not use it and to rely on naturally sweet but healthy foods to add sweetness to your meals, instead of taking your refuge to natural sweeteners which still contain calories, or artificial sweeteners that may lead to unpleasant side-effects. Take your time to get used to this new style of eating, and remember that your chances of success are usually higher if you make changes gradually.

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