Day 7 - No Refined Sugar, No Problem

About a month ago, I discovered the Whole Food Plant Based Cooking Show on YouTube, where a lady named Jill makes all sorts of tasty looking recipes. So far, from the videos I've seen, many of the vegan recipes are also gluten free and refined sugar free.

Although Colin and I don't eat vegan, we enjoy trying out different vegan recipes if they happen to also be gluten free. Also about a month ago, we decided we would try eliminating refined sugar from our diet for 30 days to see if it would clear up my eczema. We had a vacation to the coast planned in 3 weeks and we didn't want to forgo all the iced lattes and cocktails. So we decided to spend that next month preparing to eliminate sugar before actually coming to a full-stop on added sugar. 

It was great. I highly recommend taking time to learn what foods in your house actually contain sugar. It's scary. Then spend some time in a grocery store and read labels. Yikes! Also scary. I recently read an article where about two-thirds of the foods in a typical grocery store (in the USA) contain added sugar! 

Almost everything I would normally eat for breakfast contained sugar. I like eating peanut butter and jam on rice cakes or smoothies made with sweetened yogurt because ick, unsweetened yogurt is too sour. In the month of preparation, I finished the last of our jam, and added lots of ripe bananas to my plain yogurt smoothie to mask the sour taste. I also love chips. A lot. It turns out many chip brands contain sugar... even Lays Original Stacks. Ugh! Then the hardest part was not being able to drink KOI bubble tea for 30 days. In the month of preparation, I slowly decreased the sugar level to the point where I could taste the actual tea and not just the sweet peach syrup that I love. 

Okay, so back to Jill. I just made one of her recipes and it turned out amazing! I made the Vegan Caramel Apple Cake, sweetened with apple, banana, and dates!

My caramel sauce wasn't as thick as it could be but it tastes amazing. The roasted pecans on top and chunks of apple in the cake are very yum. 

I'm looking forward to trying out more of her recipes!

We're currently on day 7 of no refined sugar and so far... no cravings yet and I haven't totally become a hangry grump around Colin. Let's see how Week 2 goes!