I wrote a post about three weeks ago about
cutting out processed sugar from my diet. So far, it’s been going pretty well.
I am still eating fruit and dried fruit and drinking the odd glass of wine or
beer. I’ve just stopped eating cakes, biscuits, sweets, and I’m starting to
read labels and cut out some of the hidden added sugars in foods like ketchup
and mayonnaise. I deviated slightly one weekend – I had the opportunity to try
a pancake with salted caramel apple purée (like, who is going to miss something like that?), and I definitely was a little
bit jittery afterwards. I’m noticing too that savoury food is a lot sweeter.
I had my first sugar craving about two weeks
in and it lasted 24 hours. Like a lot of grown ups, we have a goodie cupboard
and nothing in it appealed to me. Instead, I satisfied my craving with
some things that did appeal to me: almond purée, dried dates (medjool dates are
like Scooby Snacks to me now) and a yummy mix of sunflower seeds, raisins and
pine nuts from Colruyt.
Side effects hit around that time. I’d had
an active weekend, and then spent six hours cleaning and ironing. I
was wiped for about a day. I was exhausted! Thankfully I’m over that
now.
As I said, I’m eating dried fruit, which
you’re not really meant to on a sugar-free diet. I’m going to cut this down
this week (down from four pieces every day to maybe one) and see how I get on. I’m
really surprised at how few cravings I’m having and my utter lack of enthusiasm
for biscuits, cake or sweets.
Saying this, I’ve been looking at baking.
Many of the sugar-free recipes I’ve found are paleo and/or gluten free. I was
very taken with these chocolate
truffles from Peachy Palate and these cinnamon
rolls. Both recipes use ingredients I knew I wouldn’t find in my local
Carrefour. So, list in hand, I went to my local bio-planet (which is owned by
Colruyt).
I found everything I was looking for. The
staff were very friendly and helpful when I couldn’t find a couple of the
ingredients. I added a jar of my beloved almond purée and a couple of other
things (honey and almond milk). When I’d got everything – almond flour, coconut
flour, coconut oil, coconut sugar and cacao powder - I did a quick mental tot-up.
And the lot came to nearly €60! Now, I don’t know about you, but this is a
significant chunk of my weekly food budget! And this is before I bought the
pecan nuts, raisins or the avocados. To be perfectly clear, I wasn’t going to
use the whole lot of what I was buying, so for example, the coconut flour was
one of the most expensive items at about €10 for 500g, and I’d only need about 30g
of it, so I’d have a lot left over to use in something in the future. But I was
still looking at very expensive pastries. So, I put all the baking ingredients
back on the shelves and stocked up on nuts and cheeses when I did the family
grocery shop an hour later. I haven’t had cravings for sweet stuff so far, and
cheese can satisfy any post-dinner stomach holes.
And that, my friends, is calorie-free
baking.
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