The Sugar Line

It's been two weeks since I began my Sugarless Summer and the hardest part is about to begin: week three. The 3rd week has always been the toughest for me because that's when the cravings really start (I love how much I sound like an addict - I'm really not totally insane, I swear).

For those of you who are trying to follow me this Summer in not consuming sugars or sodas (I'm starting part 2 in July: "no snacks or seconds") there are some issues we need to clear up. I've been asked a lot "what is considered a sugar?" Where is the Sugar Line?

Story-Time!

It is a long standing tradition in the my House to buy a boat load of candy from a Wal-Mart or Target, etc, before seeing a movie and then smuggling the candy into the Theater to save on the outrageous prices they charge for half a box of whoppers (are you sensing that I enjoy smuggling things?)

Having been invited to go see Prince of Persia with some friends, sister#2 and I set off to the Target near our House to buy some goodies. While making our way to the Candy Isle I suddenly remembered... I can't eat sugar. This lead us to spend the next half hour looking for snacks that didn't have "sugar." Unfortunately, most processed foods contain a certain amount of sugar so there wasn't anything technically "sugarfree."

Some of you may have come across this problem as well. Just about everything we eat has at least small amounts of sugar.

Sister#2: "Why don't you just decide an amount of grams per serving that is an acceptable sugar serving?"
Brilliant idea, sister#2!

But how do you figure out what is and is not an acceptable level of sugar? I'll tell you how: you document all the ingredient info on chocolate, candies, and sweet pastries in the store and then average. High sugar content is between 21 and 35 grams of sugar at a minimum. Normal is about 12. So that, we decided, is an "okay" amount of sugar grams per serving.

But as we left the Candy Isle, fruit-rollup snacks in hand, sister#2 saw a bag of sugarfree Chocolate Turtles.

(Chocolate Turtles are one of my bigger weak-spots.)

They contained absolutely no sugar (though there was a high amount of "alcohol-sugar" - a processed sweetener.) Technically speaking, these were more acceptable than the fruit snacks I was holding (and probably better tasting)!

But it was chocolate... Somehow I just couldn't bring myself to find chocolate acceptable. Legal it might be, but the Jiminy Cricket inside my head was saying "really now?"

I bought the fruit roll-ups (though I don't honestly think I'll do that again this Summer) and left the sugarfree chocolate on the shelf.

All this is to say: the Sugar Line is up to you. If you think something contains too much sugar on a technical scale, don't eat it. But if you just think you should stay away from it, or if you're not sure either way, take the safe route and say "no." It'll only be ten weeks till you can have it again anyway.

Just ten weeks, folks. =)