5 Steps for Cutting Refined Sugar from Your Diet

Cutting refined sugar sounds good in theory. It's not so easy to put the idea into practice, though. Refined sugar is everywhere. You would expect to find sugar in pastries and sodas. However, it has crept it's way into food products such as ketchup, bread, and even peanut butter!

The American public is consuming refined sugar in record breaking proportions.Sometimes we know it's there such as in candy. Other times, we don't even realize we are eating white sugar, like when we eat table salt. (Yes, I was surprised to see that on the label, too.)

How does one go about cutting refined sugar from the daily diet? The following are five steps that I have personally incorporated into my family's daily eating routine.

Step # 1: Read labels carefully. Very carefully. If an ingredient ends in -ose, it's probably a form of sugar. Sucrose, dextrose, and fructose are all forms of sugar.All though some are more refined than others. The exception to this is sucralose. This is the scientific name for Splenda. Keep in mind also that anything listed as syrup contains sugar in some form. Examples are barley syrup and high fructose corn syrup.

Step # 2: Cut back on sugar gradually. My favorite example to use for this is iced tea. I am a tea-aholic. While I can drink unsweetened tea, my family won't. At one time, we used two cups of sugar for one gallon of tea. I started making our tea using 1/3 cup less each time. When my family complained it wasn't sweet enough, I added 1/3 cup back in. We now use one and 1 1/3 cups sugar per gallon. That's a savings of 2/3 cup of sugar per gallon of tea! (We drink a gallon each day.)

Step # 3:Replace refined brown sugar with sucanat. Sucanat is short for SUgar CAne NATural. It's simply dehydrated sugar cane juice. Regular brown sugar is refined white sugar with a bit of molasses added back in. You can purchase sucanat on line or in larger supermarkets with bulk bins. Sucanat can replace brown sugar cup for cup in recipes. I even use it to replace white sugar in some cake and cookie recipes.

Step # 4: Substitute flavors. Adding new flavors often takes away the need for extra sugar. For example a teaspoon or two of almond extract is good in milk based smoothies. Powdered, dried apple, strawberry, and bananas also add extra flavor and sweetness to baked goods, smoothies, and dressings.

Step #5: Replace all or part of baked good's liquid with pureed friut. My current favorite is apple juice concentrate and raisin puree. I heat the juice and raisins together for three minutes and puree in a blender. I substitute this for all or part of the liquid in my cake and cookie recipes. Then I decrease or omit the sugar accordingly. Use golden raisins for light colored baked goods, and brown raisins for chocolate or other dark recipes.

These five tips have helped my family cut way back on refined sugar. For more tips, visit Simple Ways for Cutting Refined Sugar . For sugar free recipes visit TheHealthyHomemaker.com/