Bye Bye Sugar!

Is it possible to fight the sugar fight today? It seems sugar is everywhere and in everything! If you have young children this can be a frustrating battle.  Sugar haunts my family everyday....sugar at school, sugar in EVERY check out line, sugary sweets at Grandma's, sugar at church.  It does make me a little crazy!  Food that is processed and convenient is full of sugar.  I do not have the standard pantry full of sweet snacks and cookies.  If my kids eat cookies, muffins, or cake...we make them.  We use organic cane sugar as a sweetener along with a more natural whole organic sugar that is unrefined and unbleached.  It is called Rapunzel and you can buy it at your local health food store.  It is still sweet, but much less than regular sugar.  My goal is to decrease my family's sugar intake.  When you increase healthy saturated fats (like raw milk, raw cheese, raw butter, coconut oil, grass-fed meat, etc) the sugar cravings decrease.  I have noticed this with my kids.  After I fill them up with a homemade dinner full of healthy fats they can not finish the cookie they were begging for before dinner.  Their appetite it full thanks to the healthy fats and their sugar cravings lessen or disappear.  This is not easy work.  My four year old can eat A LOT of food some days.  The most important step in this whole process is to make sure you stay ahead of the hunger.  A child begging for a cookie is a child hungry and looking for a quick fix.  Fill their little bellies with healthy fats and they will not grow up to be the standard american sugar addict. 
Is sugar really that bad? Here are some sugar facts from the Weston A. Price Foundation:
~Sugar feeds cancer cells and has been connected with the development of cancer of the breast, ovaries, prostate, rectum, pancreas, lung, gallbladder and stomach.

~Sugar can increase fasting levels of glucose and can cause reactive hypoglycemia.

~Sugar can cause many problems with the gastrointestinal tract, including an acidic digestive tract, indigestion, malabsorption in patients with functional bowel disease, increased risk of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

~Sugar can interfere with your absorption of protein.

~Sugar can cause food allergies.

~Sugar contributes to obesity.

You can read the article on Zapping Sugar Cravings here.  It is a great article that can help you get started.

  If you want more information on healthy organic fats check out this link.