Sweet Sweet Sugar
Over the past seven years, our home has been transformed into a non-toxic environment. Our bodies have purged so many health problems simply by eating a healthier, less-processed diet. We eliminated perfumes, fragrances, harsh chemicals and even candles! We kicked monosodium glutamate, artificial dyes and preservatives out of our pantry also.
But one thing I didn’t think to get rid off was sugar! Hello!
By the time I became a mother however, I had experienced so much in my career. I had seen my pediatric patients start to become sicker, earlier in life. Their little baby teeth were rotting out at just two years old. Their attention span became almost non-existent and labels were seemingly placed like name tags on so many. I started making the connection and became excruciatingly aware of what refined sugar can do to our children. They are the next generation, and our legacy!
After avoiding sugar for the first two years of my son’s life, it became more and more challenging to continue. A year later and we found ourselves parents of three small children, with a busy schedule, full-time jobs and little time to prepare the organic, home-cooked food. Did we give up? Of course not. Because the outcome I’d seen in my past experiences told me not to.
Was it hard? Heck yes! Did we get pushback from just about everyone around us? For sure. Did we want to just buy pop-tarts and go-gurt and call it good? Absolutely. After all, thats how we were raised, and we turned out “just fine” right?
Wrong. So so wrong. I knew how important it was to raise the kids on as little refined sugar as possible, but what I didn’t ever grasp was that my husband and I were still eating it! Not only that but we were one thousand percent addicted. Certainly we didn’t sit down to a box of Red Vines, but we did indulge on “organic” ice cream, chocolate and dessert on every date night. We put it in our coffee, tea and oatmeal while giving the kids none.
Enter- the 21-day Sugar Detox. I had just seen “that Sugar film” on AmazonPrime and I really wanted to try it, to see just how addicted I really was.
Well, it was crazy! You can read more in another post!
What it did teach me is that sugar has a firm hold on our emotions, health, behavior, attention and overall well-being that I didn’t know was even possible. Our kids deserve the very best, and we do too. Think about it; maybe the mood swings, insomnia, obesity, dental issues, ear infections, etc can all be limited by simply making this change.
Check out my upcoming posts which describe the connection between sugar and the immune system, sugar and cancer, and sugar and obesity! Also check back in the Mom Hacks section for recipes designed with healthy kids in mind.
Make the change one ingredient at a time. You can do it.