For this 50th day of blogging, I am most excited to tell you about the Sugar Challenge my family and I have taken on for the last three weeks. Here I posted about the first day of the challenge, but I have yet to tell you why and what we are doing.

This past year, I have had an internal debate about whether I am addicted to sugar or not. Stress, pregnancy, and some health frustrations all pointed in the direction of my needing to eliminate sugar, but deep inside my inner brat screamed “I wanna COOKIE!”

I noticed I wasn’t alone in demanding sugar treats. Most of us in the family, spent the evenings looking for a sweet way to end the day: a bit of chocolate, ice cream, the occasional cookie. At the start of the day, drizzling on honey or maple syrup, whipping up scones, buying pastries or pouring a bowl of sweet granola was common around here. Nut Butter & Jam sandwiches were also quite popular- anytime of day.

Starting with asking Lulu and Xerxes, we agreed we could do it! We would give up sugar. But, adding merely three years old Juliette to the mix was a bit more of a question. The more I considered the possibility the more I realized how much we relied on sugar to get all of us including her, through the day. “Get in the car and we can go get ice cream.” “Please be quiet and you can have this cookie”. UGH! What if we didn’t have sugar to even offer her? At the very least we would have to figure something else out. Right?!

So, I had a chit-chat with Juliette a few days before we started the challenge and we discussed what contained sugar, what did not and why we needed a break. I still wondered the best strategy for those times when she is offered candy. Man, people love giving kids candy! And I am totally not talking about strange creepy men pulling over in vans. Rather, I am talking about her dance teacher or the super cute nice guys at the liquor store who are so charmed by her patience as I search through Argentine wines. Considering the teeny-tiny lollipop they all love giving her, I was fine discussing with her that they do have sugar in them, but still letting her have them since it was a gift from a nice person. The last thing I need to do is give her some crazy disfunction where sugar becomes the forbidden fruit that she has to devour in hysteria. Growing up in a semi-hippie style, I have seen this happen and it ain’t pretty. A casual lollipop sends the message that this is a real rarity and not a daily treat. And most importantly, Mama doesn’t eat them or give them to her. Only nice random *trusted* people do. UGH. Oh- the challenges of raising children… in this sugar obsessed family society we live in.

Overall, we all seem to be doing well with the challenge. If anything, Juliette’s 1-2 times per week lollipop may put her in the category of cheating less than the adults who, I swear, are even more exposed to sugar outside the home. I just found out about how Lulu  (aka Sharon, my fabulous Mother-in-Law) cheated a bit with a bite of brownie as she wrote in her blog. Of course, she says nice things about me, so I forgive. And Xerxes also seems to bump into the challenge more frequently than Juliette and I do. Although, I did eat a few dried apricots recently at a friend’s house. They were damn good. I can’t wait to get back to eating those.

The other challenge of the challenge was finding a challenge that we could actually swallow. (Challenging sentence, eh? Oh, this is out of control. I’ll stop.)

There was one big and popular sugar challenge that has a slight Palio twist to it, but they appeared to allow a few non-sugar sweeteners such as Xylitol and Stevia. I don’t eat those really normally, we are more into honey & maple syrup as sweeteners, but my focus for this challenge was to really say good-bye to sweetness for awhile, including the arguably natural ones.

The popular challenge also said no fruit. I completely understand giving up juice and dried fruit as they have been processed and no longer contain the fiber or juice that aid in digesting them, but giving up fresh, nutrient packed whole fruit seemed silly to me. Especially for a toddler and nursing mother. Lulu and I found other challenges and decided to mix the best of all of them into our own challenge that we would do as a family for six weeks. We saw them ranging from 21 days to 8 weeks, which made 6 weeks seem rational.

Here are the basics:

No More: 
Sugar or processed syrups
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Honey
Agave Nectar
Natural or scary artificial sweeteners
Dried Fruit
Juice

Okay, in moderation:
Whole Fruit
Alcohol
Frozen Fruit & berries

Fresh fruit has been getting us through the tough days when our inner voice whines for sweetness. For the photo above, we simply whipped cream with a splash of almond extract and piled it high with sliced Colorado peaches. Delight.

After writing this post, Juliette, Xerxes, and I went to a birthday party. The Mom, a dear friend makes beautiful healthy cuisine and knows how to splurge to make a gorgeous dessert. We couldn’t resist and had to eat the Lemon Cake. It was heavenly, because let’s face it, when sugar is given a dose of time and love it can be out of this world. It did taste incredibly sweet, but if I had to cheat, it would only be with something so lovely and divine. Today is exactly half way through. I am looking forward to getting back on track with the challenge. Honestly, today’s experience made me aware that maybe as a family we could collectively give up sugar within these walls, but still make cookies for a friend who needs cheering up or enjoy a treat that is given to celebrate a year of living!

We shall see where this challenge takes us. So far so good!

Cheers,

Lilly