sugar-free me: how it's going

I've been feeling that I should give an update on my decision to stop eating refined sugar. It's been a bit more than a month since I made that choice, and it's been an interesting month. I said at the time that I didn't think it would be an easy change for me to make, sugar addict that I am. And parts of it have been hard, for certain.

But do you know what? Mostly I don't miss it. Honestly, I'm having so much fun experimenting that I've hardly missed refined sugar. We've had homemade coconut almond candy, brownies, chocolate chip cookies, shape ("Sugar") cookies, nut butter cookies, molasses cookies, two delicious kinds of fudge, and, possibly a family favorite, almond cookies. Our family is enjoying these sugar-free goodies so much that I'm making cookies at least twice a week. And Jeff and I just whipped up a batch of chocolate chocolate chip ice cream made with coconut milk.

Alternative sweeteners used include: raw honey, brown rice syrup, xylitol, date sugar, and Rapadura. I especially love honey & date sugar, since they are incredibly close to their natural state.

I suspect, though, that the trouble will come when I'm away from home. Certainly, I can maintain a climate in my house where foods are made without refined sugar, but that kind of thing is very hard to find in the World Out There. If I want sugar-free, and artificial sweetener-free (sucralose, aspertame) ice cream, for example, I can't just waltz into Baskin Robbins or Ben & Jerry's. I have to know where to seek out these products and prepare accordingly.

Another hard thing is social eating. Eating sweets is such a group thing. Even beyond a craving for a particular flavor, or taste sensation, I long to be part of the group that is doing the enjoying. This is something I'm still working on figuring out. Click here to read an honest and intelligent essay on the Psychology of sugar. It's very much what I'm wading through right now.

So on the whole: it's going well. There are definitely obstacles, though, and I'm working through them. I don't want to always be the odd man out, but neither do I want to compromise. Because when I do, I can tell that I'm putting something very, very bad into my body. And also? I find that I don't like myself very much when I do give in.