Birthday Party

I haven't blogged since Easter, so probably time to do a bit of a catch up. Easter turned out okay, the boys had a medium sized egg and a bilby each. Next year they will just get a medium sized egg i think. The bilby was a bit of overkill for them and the youngest didn't come down off his sugar high until Monday night, then was tired for the remainder of the week. They got far more enjoyment from the toys they received for Easter anyway, which bodes well for the future!

Mr 3 recently turned 4, so we had the obligatory birthday party. Pics of some of the food is below, and as far as I could tell, all in attendance were pretty satisfied! I made a cake, which garnered a variety of comments from various family members about its appearance (many thought it looked less like a 4 than like other things... have to say I tend to agree). Nonetheless, it tasted sensational!

So, the party fare was this: homemade mini pizzas, made on a gluten free pizza base and cut out with a scone cutter. Toppings were passata (pureed and strained tomatoes), shredded salami and cheese. Also had some gluten free cheese rings and twists out (taste like cheesels and twisties did before they added MSG to them). On the sugar front, these chips are not bad (let's not get into the oils discussion yet....). Plain rice crackers and my own homemade capsicum, sundried tomato, cashew and olive oil dip (thank you thermomix).

BBQ dinner was gf sausages and BBQ steaks, served with salad, bread for those who wanted it and home made butter (courtesy of the thermomix). Dessert was the cake - flour free choc cake. This did have dark chocolate in it but I found the lowest sugar choc i could find (Lindt 70% cocoa cooking choc - 31% sugar). In total when I cut the cake into about 35 pieces it worked out to be around 1 g of fructose per piece. Icing was dextrose, butter, cocoa and a dash of vanilla. No complaints, and many came back for seconds. Cake was made in thermomix, by milling almonds to almond meal, milling chocolate, then mixing butter, dextrose, cocoa and eggs, adding in the almond meal and chocolate. Awesome!

 Have also been having a play with some other recipes. Made some rice bubble bars for the boys, but i think they found them too sweet - used dextrose and rice malt syrup, shredded coconut and rice bubbles. Scott was looking longingly at them so went out and bought some gluten free rice bubbles and made the recipe again just for him. They were good... and the fellas at his work thought so too. He has taken a few of the dips I have made to work and shared them around, receiving much approval from the boys in the workshop.

To finish the party story, party "bags" were not done, but the kids got a couple of fancy balloons each to take home which seemed to keep everyone happy. No one had lollies, no one asked for lollies and everyone was happy and had fun.

Easter is over... and i finally got the hot cross buns right!

So, here is the recipe. It took me 3 goes to find a good recipe and get it right. These are gluten free and fructose free (apart from the small amount of sultanas that have to be there, or it is just not quite right...).

I adapted the recipe from the everyday cookbook for the Thermomix, but i am pretty sure you would follow the same process in a mixer. The ones I made today don't have the cross on them because I couldn't be bothered, I just wanted to prove that I could get the mix right! So excuse the fact that they are missing the cross in the photo!

Ingredients:
250 mL warm milk
250 g rice flour (milled rice in the thermomix - if you are not using a TM then just substitute gluten free plain flour)
350 g SR gluten free flour (total of 600 g of flour)
2 tsp Xanthan Gum
2 tsp salt
70g butter
45g dextrose (recipe calls for sugar - I just substitute gram for gram)
1 egg
15 g dry yeast or 20g fresh yeast
spices - I used about a teaspoon of All Spice. Last time i used some cinnamon, nutmeg and clove, but found the combination a bit overpowering. The allspice worked much more subtly this time.
50 - 100 g sultanas or currants (I didn't use much)

Method:
Warm the milk. Add the flours, salt, butter, dextrose, egg, xanthan gum, yeast and spices (everything except the fruit). Mix. chuck in the fruit toward the end of mixing. Allow it to prove for an hour and a half somewhere warm. Cut and shape into dinner roll sized buns - my recipe makes 16. Place on tray close together and allow to prove for a further 10-15 min. Bake in 220 degrees Celcius for 15 min.

If you are putting the cross on them, make it up with 80 g plain flour, 100g water and 1 tsp olive oil. Mix and use to pipe onto buns just before they go in the oven.

Lots of people put a sugar syrup on top as they come out of the oven (why not have some more sugar?). If you insist on doing this, use 2 tbs boiling water and 2 tbs dextrose.  mix and brush on top.

For anyone who wants the Thermomix instructions:
milk 50 seconds 90 degrees speed 1.
add all other ingredients except fruit. Mix for 6 seconds on speed 7. Then closed lid, 3 minutes interval setting.
add fruit - 10 seconds speed 5.

All other instructions as above.

The end result is a yummy little bun that "doesn't crumble!" The Xanthan Gum is an important addition in gluten free baking because it helps stuff bind (which is the job of gluten in regular people's food!).

You can obviously vary the recipe by adding fruit rind (lemon is suggested, but i went for plain old normal for my kids).

I also spent the morning making pikelets with my five year old. He was very excited to have them for morning tea.

Really? You think my fructose free choices are an abuse of my rights as parent? Really?

Wow... so i have a bit to say. Firstly, on the baking trail I am still going  strong simply adapting most recipes with a straight swap of dextrose in place of sugar. No dramas to this point so will keep going until something doesn't work well. I made a really yummy batch of gluten free hot cross buns today, but forgot to put the Xanthan Gum in, so they crumbled as soon as we tried to butter them. Will try one more time, with the Xanthan Gum and then I will post the recipe and some pics here. I also have continued experimenting with some dextrose based chocolate. It is taking a while to get it right, and even longer to eat it because I am seriously not craving sweet food, so will be taking them to the in-laws on Sunday in the hope they don't find them too grainy (i think they are a bit grainy, but we will see...)

From the title you can see there is a story. I had someone say something that I find really ignorant. I was a bit stunned at first that they would even think it, let alone say it.... but that is the way life goes sometimes. I was talking with a group of people about what we were all doing for Easter in terms of egg hunts etc and someone commented that they supposed I wouldn't be doing anything with chocolate this year. I explained that "No, our decision was that the boys would get one or two eggs - enough to keep them happy but not so much that they are overindulging for the next six months to finish it all." I also explained that our plan is to get them some toys or something a little different so that the focus of Easter is not just about chocolate. Being a Catholic, I also have been talking to them about the true meaning around the weekend and they have a decent understanding (we go to mass most weekends). One of the group asked how I could justify this given that I was on a "No sugar diet". I explained that it is not a "no sugar diet" rather a lifestyle where I choose to limit the amount of fructose in the form of sucrose that I and my family eat. I see no reason why the kids can't have a lolly or two at a birthday party (party food is for parties) because they don't get them any other time (rarely ever anyway) and therefore they can have a couple of eggs at Easter. This satisfied that person. Didn't satisfy someone else. They decided to let me know that just because I choose to eat this way doesn't give me the right to impose my choice on other people. I asked this person to clarify - which people? - to the best of my knowledge I have not taken my opinions and shoved them down anyone's throat with a healthy dose of dextrose to wash it down! She (yes, a female.... AND a mother) said that it is not right (or fair to my kids) that I should choose to stop my children eating the "yummy good food that they love" just because I am going through "a phase".... If only she had eaten mum's carrot pie when my parents were following the Pritikin Diet in the 80s.....:

I asked her what rights I might have as a parent, if not to choose what food my 5 year old and 4 year old do or do not stick in their mouths? Seems to me that it is actually an abuse of my position as parent if I do not make this choice for them now. I also choose what religion they are, for the most part what clothes they wear, what tv shows they watch and how much, what time they go to bed. Why can't I choose what they eat? As a parent I was horrified that this person would say such a thing, given that I have a decent knowledge of some of the choices they as a parent make. I do not think anyone could honestly think I am abusing my children by limiting their sugar intake. Surely it is more abusive to feed them something you know is going to harm them?

So, that's my little story. Unfortunately, there are people out there who do not see the sense in what I am doing. That is ok. But don't tell me I am abusing my children when they are healthy, well-adjusted kids who know it is ok at a party to have a bit of party food, but also know that they won't be getting that food at home (even when we do have a party...).

Incidentally, we went to a birthday party on Thursday. There were a few bowls of lollies, a couple of bowls with strawberries, some little cakes and some packets of chips. Both boys went straight for the lollies, had about 3 or 4 and didn't want anymore. Mr 5 had 1 little cupcake and a couple of strawberries. Mr 4 had half a cupcake and a heap of strawberries and grapes. They both had a little packet of chips. They both drank water out of their water bottles. I don't think they even knew there was soft drink there. They played, and had fun and were on a slight sugar high last night, but it didn't last long. And they were back to normal today.

So, I will continue to make choices for my children, until they are old enough to cook for themselves and buy their own groceries.... or until they are rich enough to pay someone to cook for them and buy their groceries for them (and that won't be me!). And one of those choices will be that, wherever possible, there is a limited amount of fructose (in the form of sucrose and its variants) that will pass their lips.

More baking

Since the arrival of my Thermomix just over a week ago, I have been testing it out on a few recipes. I made a really yummy gluten free pizza base for Friday night's dinner. I was stoked with this one because I have spent countless hours in the past trying to make gluten free pizza bases - some from packet mixes, some from scratch, and never really had a great deal of success. I don't think I ever put enough effort into the kneading of the dough. Pleased to report that the Thermomix took most of that effort out for me, so in 2 minutes I had a well kneaded dough that made two large pizza bases - one we used on Friday and the other half of the dough is in the freezer for when we decide to next have pizza for dinner. On the back of the success with pizza dough, I thought I would try my hand at some gluten free, fructose free hot cross buns. I don't think I had the perfect recipe, because I was adapting someone else's recipe which was also dairy free. There was just not enough liquid in it to mix the dough properly and by the time i worked that out I was well into the kneading stage already. So there will be a re-run of that particular effort later this week. It all turned out quite well in the end - I simply added a bit of milk until it looked about right, and 16 lovely little soft hot cross buns were produced! The boys and Scott loved them (there are currently only 3 left and I made them yesterday). They were not 100% fructose free because I did put sultanas in them. I am going to try some fruitless ones, or at the very least, significantly less sultanas in the next batch. Being gluten free, they dry out pretty quickly, and my personal belief has always been that hot cross buns should be eaten fresh anyway! Wanting a hat-trick of successful dough making, I decided to give a go to a gluten free loaf of bread. We are on a winner here! It wasn't much to look at - have yet to work on my presentation skills, but that will come - but it was soft and moist and so very nice. Scott immediately got out his gf vege spread and had himself a lovely "vegemite" sandwich on warm bread.

I have not yet tried to make ANZAC bikkies in my thermomix but I have been promising for some time to put up my recipe as they are well and truly tried and tested and are a winner in our house. In fact, you cannot imagine the disappointment when the boys asked for an ANZAC bikkie this morning only to discover we have run out! Thank goodness for the hot cross bun which served as a perfectly good substitute (this time).

So, here goes:

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cup of plain flour (i use gf flour)
1 1/3 cup rolled oats (if making gf, i use rolled rice flakes instead - bikkies have crunchy texture)
3/4 cup of coconut
1 1/4 cups dextrose
150 g butter
3 tbs boiling water
3 or 4 tbs rice malt syrup (Pure Harvest - health food section of Coles - I have never seen it at Woolies)
1 tsp baking powder

Method:
Sift flour. Add all the dry ingredients to the flour (coconut, rolled oats, dextrose).
Melt butter in saucepan. Add rice malt syrup and water. Let it boil briefly then remove from heat. Add baking powder and let it foam. Pour immediately onto dry ingredients and mix well.
Form little balls on baking tray and press down slightly. Bake for 25-30 min. Allow to cool - will harden as they cool.

As with all ANZAC bikkies people have their personal preferences for crunchy vs chewy. Changing how much syrup you use will change the end result in this sense. The first time i used this recipe it actually said just 1 cup of flour and rolled oats. I found this mixture to be too wet for my liking so added 1/3 cup more of each of these. You won't get the really golden colour that you get from using golden syrup, but you also won't have any fructose in your food! I have tried this with glucose syrup too, definitely no golden colour there. I like the taste of rice malt syrup better and it gives more colour to the final product than glucose syrup does.

In general terms, I am finding that you can do pretty much straight replacements with dextrose instead of sugar (cup for cup or gram for gram). So far I have not had any dramas with changing it out in a recipe. I have made a couple of batches of custard this week and they are lovely - not too sweet as far as we are concerned.

One really exciting thing about the thermomix is that I was able to make my own rice flour! Just put in 250g of brown rice and milled it for about a minute and out comes 250g of rice flour! Sensational!

Well, I hope someone finds a use for the recipe posted here. I did have a friend mention they were looking for recipes that are not too fatty and not high in sugar to use as treats, so I hope she in particular has a go at these at some stage. I am positive they will be a hit in her house as they are in mine.

Til next time!

Time saving device.... (s)

I have gone a little retail crazy in the last couple of weeks and bought myself two appliances that are going to save my sanity a little. The first is a Roomba... I am not the most diligent of housewives... so anything that is going to vacuum for me whilst i am somewhere else (eg at work) is a friend of mine. The second is a Thermomix. For those who don't know what a thermomix is, go to www.thermomix.com.au and be prepared to be impressed! I wonder how it took so long for me to find out about this sensational appliance. Anyone who knows me also knows that I love a good party plan gathering... my massive tupperware cupboard, enjo gear (yes i do still have a clean bathroom) and room full of Le Reve perfumes, skincare and aromatherapy are testament to my faith in good quality products bought through party plan. So I got invited to a Thermomix demo. I had never heard of it before. I went, fully intending to not buy, just look. Yeah, right.... $2000 later I head home, wondering how I sell this idea to my husband and make it sound like a really good purchase. Turns out I really didn't need to work too hard to convince him - he knows that I don't actually spend money just for the sake of it, so if I had decided it was a good purchase, that was good enough for him. Trusting man... very trusting man...

Anyway, I also booked my own demo and we had that yesterday. I am sooooo excited to have my thermomix in the kitchen. Mushroom risotto for dinner last night, courtesy of the leftovers from the demo... The great thing about the Thermomix is that you know exactly what is going into your food. I can even make my own gluten free flour by milling rice (and tapioca and other gf grains if i really feel so inclined...)

So, how does this all tie in with Fructose Free living? Quite simply really. We tried the custard recipe and instead of pulverising raw sugar, then using the powdered form of that, i just put in the same weight of dextrose. OMG.... i am sooo never standing over a saucepan stirring and stirring and stirring and praying that the eggs don't curdle! That was seriously the best custard I have EVER made, and I have made quite a lot of custard in my life. Then, Scott said, do you think you could try some creamed rice? He was pleading just a little.... I have banned tinned creamed rice even though the boys LOVE it, because it is just too high in sugar. Well, we did it. And apparently it is just the way the little Greek shop in Casuarina Shopping Centre used to make it, so that is obviously a good thing! Again, no sugar - used dextrose instead and according to the official taster - perfect!

What is next? Well, gluten free hot cross buns are going to have to be attempted. I whipped up an ice cream batch (dextrose) last night to compare it to my tried and tested method. It is churning in Snowy at the moment, so we will see how that turns out. Again, the less standing over a stove stirring for me, the better.

Dips! Last weekend i tried a capsicum, cashew and sundried tomato dip, this weekend garlic, parsley and cream cheese. Can't wait to have another birthday party or something to try a few more of these recipes out!

So I have a couple of weeks holidays coming up - guess what Mr 5 and I will be doing? Cooking and playing! (and watching the floors get vacuumed) Can anyone tell I am a little bit excited? I firmly believe this whole fructose free lifestyle is going to get even easier when i make more of my own sauces - mayonnaise for example - so i have even fewer labels to read.

Of course it might make us incredibly boring people as we will be less likely to want to go out, but I live by the theory that if you are doing the right thing most of the time, then the occasional meal out is not going to do damage. Damage happens when the occasional turns into the regular. Kind of like drinking....

Sweet Poison on Sunday Night (Channel 7)

http://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/features/article/-/13058226/sweet-poison/3/

How good was that? I often worry when stuff like this is going to be shown on a current affairs program, because more than likely in a week or two Channel 7 will be airing a program on how wonderful the carrot stick diet or the banana diet is (fictional at this point in time as far as I know...) However, having Peter Fitzsimons reporting from the perspective of actually living a sugar-free lifestyle made it more real for me. And I have had numerous messages from friends asking how to get hold of the book now. I am so excited that the message is getting out there.

You just can't argue with the logic. Even "Dr" Alan Barclay said it - eat all foods in moderation, go back to whole foods, nutritional foods. (Sugar has zero nutritional value people). So glad they didn't show too much more of him talking as I may have punched my TV. As a diabetic's wife, I get so annoyed that he is still pushing the idea that sugar is ok, even though the response of so many diabetics (type 1 and type 2) is that their sugar levels are far easier to control when they cut out the processed sugar. I read through the comments on Sunday Night's website and there was one mother's comment saying "Well my son is a type 1 diabetic and if he doesn't eat sugar he will die" ummm... well hello, have a look at what is in his hypo kit - it is pure glucose, so don't you think if you replace his sugar with glucose he will still be ok. Speaking from experience, you will be doing your diabetic family member a massive favour by switching to glucose. The insulin will start to work better (in our case, long acting insulin has been reduced significantly) and their sugar levels will be far more steady from day to day.

Admittedly, not once during the program was the word fructose mentioned. I wonder if this was on purpose. I find that at first people find it very hard to comprehend what fructose is. Unfortunately, if you just say "cut out all sugar" people get very jumpy, because sugar includes all your ranges of carbohydrates. Be assured, nowhere in his book does David suggest we stop eating potatoes, pumpkin or peas (all the good veges begin with p - except parsnip, it is NOT a good vege according to my tastebuds!). David makes a very clear distinction on the difference between glucose (a good sugar) and sucrose (a half-bad sugar, the bad half being fructose).

Okay Nestle, this is a quote from your statement to Channel 7 regarding their program from tonight. "And finally, and probably most importantly, using the 100gms stat is completely misleading – it’s absurd to suggest that anyone would eat 15 heaped teaspoons of Milo in one sitting." I am guessing whoever wrote that never met me at various stages in my life - eg. pre-menstrual, stressed, tired, hungover, bored, happy, sad. I have memories of sitting with a can of milo and a dessertspoon (not a teaspoon). And in all honesty, who cannot admit to just putting enough milk into half a cup of milo to just make it wet enough to eat without choking on the dry product! Go on... you can admit it here, you are among friends!

Toady I ran a little experiment. I took my 5 year old son to his first big school birthday party today. Sugar sugar everywhere. The lolly bag was a "lolly shop" situation. I agreed with my husband that we would allow the boys a limited amount of sugar from the party, so my son and I went down the line and he pointed out all the lollies he would like - i got 4 of each - 2 for him and 2 for his brother. They shared when they got home. They threw out about half of the lollies because they just didn't like them. They only got about 10 little jelly type lollies and a few jaffas. They ate maybe half, threw out a few, and the rest are in a sealed container that will go in the bin tomorrow night. The experiment concludes then when I determine if they remember they are there and ask for them. It sounds a bit horrible running experiments on your kids, but I want to know what the effect of me choosing to cut sugar out of their diet has been. I am pretty positive so far. Today's attitude to the lollies is enough for me to know they don't really want it and are not missing out. They still get dessert most nights a week - usually it is the dextrose-based icecream that I make. Sometimes it is yoghurt (natural with Stevia as a sweetener). Sometimes it is a rice cake! The lolly situation is a far cry from 2 Christmases ago, when we went to the carols and Santa brought a massive bag of lollies for each kid. Santa dressed up was my boys' Great Grandfather, so he made sure those darling little boys of his got extra lollies. My little man was about 2 and a half at the time and sat and ate his entire bag of lollies (except those blocks someone put in his bag of lollies - licorice allsorts). Now he struggles to get through 10 little lollies.

And the best thing that I noticed was in my own response. I have ALWAYS loved lollies. I could eat a big bag in the space of time it would take you to read this blog. That would certainly go a long way to explaining why i wear clothes of the size I do.... but today, I was not interested. I ate two little party pies and a quarter of a ham sandwich that Mr 5 had taken a bite out of. I think I may still have been full from a yummy bacon and eggs breaky, but there was not a chance a lolly was going in my mouth. That was probably my first big temptation since focussing on this issue. One step at a time, but I avoided that one so I know I am getting stronger.

On my weight, I am not going to be reporting on a weekly basis. Given the natural fluctuations in our bodies, I think it is better that I look on a monthly basis. I also am trying to beat some mental demons, one of which is a fixation with the numbers. I need to remember that it is about feeling better, not just what number comes up on the scales.

So, ciao for now!

Baking day!

Did a bit more baking today. ANZAC bikkies - standard lunch box favourite and I tried a new recipe which is lovely - Coconut biscuits. These ones are gluten free and fructose free. Taken from Sweet Poison Quit Plan. Recipe:

Ingredients:
120 g butter
3/4 cup dextrose
2 eggs
vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups SR flour
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
pinch of salt

Method: Beat butter and dextrose to a cream. Add eggs and beat well. Add vanilla and mix. Mix flour, salt and coconut together then gradually add to mix until all combined. Roll into small balls and press flat with a fork. Cook at 180 degrees C for about 15-20 min or until colour starts to form.

The mix in the book says it makes 20. I got 39 of a decent size. They have passed the taste test. In fact I don't know how long they will last as Scott has just eaten his fifth one...

I will put up the anzac bikkies recipe another day.

I also made some homemade fructose free chocolate yesterday. The boys love it. It turned out very much like dark chocolate. It was pretty easy so when I play around with the recipe a bit more, I will do a blog about that too.

First Week down - impressive results!

Well... hello! I have to say that I was not expecting big things this week. I have not done any exercise for about two weeks due to various circumstances. However, after my first seven days fructose-free I got on the scales this morning to discover.... a loss of 1.1 kg!!! How awesome is that?!

After so many months of gain a little, lose a little.... it feels really good to know that I have managed to lose a bit of weight without even trying very hard. All I did was eat normal food. Breakfasts this week have been porridge (on the days where I was organised the night before) or two vita brits with milk. Lunches were steamed chicken and salad with a light smattering of mayo. Dinners have been fish, chicken, lamb chops or steak with salad. Last night we had yellow mash (sweet potato and potato) with veges and lamb chops. Snacks have been fruit (nectarine, banana, kiwifruit) and nuts (almonds).

I have been going for regular massages for the last 8 months or so with specialist in Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine and Massage. The last two times I have seen him, he told me that something was "not right" and he had a sense that he should be a bit worried about me. I had been feeling "off" for a while so went to my GP and had blood tests etc done. Nothing has shown in the results to be the cause of my feeling. After I made the decision last week to come off the shakes and follow the Quit Plan more thoroughly, I felt as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. For months I have been battling the decision in my head, knowing what fructose was doing to me scientifically, and trying to reconcile that with what I thought the shakes were doing to "help" me. Once I went off them and decided I would not be going back to them, it was like I had finally released that argument in my head and I felt at peace.

I went back for a massage this afternoon and Michael knew something had changed. He said that his sense of concern for me was far less than it had been 3 weeks ago and he could tell that I was feeling healthier. So I told him what I had done (quit the shakes and gone fructose-free) and how it was making me feel. I have far less tension in my neck and shoulders now than I have had for a very long time. That is not bad considering I am a teacher and we are finishing the sixth week of term 1. Normally, this is major stress time for me.

Now, of course, I don't have any scientific evidence that eating the way I am has removed the tension from my neck and shoulders. But I would say that being confident in the knowledge that I am doing the right thing for me, my husband and my kids has made me less stressed overall and that has helped to improve matters for me.

I plan to keep updating with my progress every few days so please keep checking back!

Research offers insight to how fructose causes obesity and other illness

Research offers insight to how fructose causes obesity and other illness

Well, now, isn't that interesting.... Can't wait to see what Dr Alan Barclay has to say about this.

For those of you that have seen any of Dr Barclay's interviews (in particular the ones where he disparages anything said by David Gillespie) you need to know that the Dr bit in his name is courtesy of a PhD and not of a medical degree. Unfortunately because of his position as head of research at Australian Diabetes Council, many people put more stock in what he says than in the common sense of eating well and not adding extra crap to our food.

A bit about the kids

One thing that I thought would be really hard was getting the kids to stop drinking juice. We were really good with our first son. He only ever drank water or milk as a little man. He is 15months older than his little brother, so it wasn't until number two was a toddler that we introduced them to juice. The older always preferred milk but the little one fell in love with apple juice and I thought I was doing the right thing (surely it is better than soft drink) by letting him have juice. Little did I realise at the time (or bother to check for that matter) that there is actually more sugar in a juice than in most standard soft drinks! My friend Kerrie reminded the other day of the fact that as kids we always had to squeeze an orange (ONE orange) to get some juice. None of this readily available squeezed into a carton or bottle stuff we have today. We forget how little juice is actually in one piece of fruit - so it would take the juice of 3 or 4 apples to fill a glass. As David Gillespie says, would you sit down to breakfast, eat your vitabrits and then follow it up with 4 large apples? I think not...

So one day I said to the boys, "Mummy is going to change some of the things we eat and drink, so we are not going to be buying juice anymore." Number 2 said "But i love it Mummy". I explained to them (at the time 3 and 4 yrs of age) that Mummy didn't want them having lots of sugar because it would end up making them very sick so I would like them to drink milk or water instead. The older child shrugged his shoulders and said OK... the little one was a little tougher. But after 2 days of asking for juice and getting milk or water, he just stopped asking for juice. And he rarely asks for it anymore. In fact, he now loves milk as much as his brother.

We have noticed some behavioural changes in our younger son too. He has always had a very active outlook on life, to put it politely. Since really cutting back on sugar and refined foods, his moods have become more stable. I can't say for certain that it is the change in food habits that has done it, as it may well be a maturity thing for him too (he is 4 in 3 months time). But there has been a massive change in his attitude since Christmas just past.

Now, when we are the shops doing our groceries, we tend to mostly avoid the biscuit aisle (although I do go there to pick up rice cakes for Scott and the boys, as well as BBQ or Pizza Shapes - at this stage still on our ok list as they are very low in sugar). When we do see things the boys used to have they usually say (quite loudly I might add) "We don't have that now Mum because that is full of sugar!"

So many people say you can't educate children so little about stuff like that, but I think if you don't try, then you are doing your children a disservice in the long run. I know of other kids who are able to identify foods they have allergies to from a very early age, so why not sugar too?

I am not so strict with the kids that they NEVER have sugar laden foods, but I try to make sure it is a long gap between exposures. Obviously, at parties and things they are going to still be exposed to it, but I can educate them to make better choices based on what is available.

My older son just started prep this year, and goes to before and after school care. They provide breakfast and afternoon tea for kids who need it. He has had breakfast a couple of times there, and the first time had toast with jam on it (a novelty for him these days). After that when he has breakfast, he prefers rice bubbles (one of the lower sugar cereals) over a vitabrit (about the lowest sugar other than porridge). He never eats afternoon tea, not for want of trying on the part of the staff. He is simply never hungry. He eats his lunch (salami and sauce - homemade sauce - sandwich) and morning and afternoon tea (yoghurt, ffAnzac bikkies, banana or other fruit). He drinks milk when we get home at about 4.45 and the boys still eat dinner around 5.30.

So, I actually think now that what I thought would be the biggest challenge turned out to be not so difficult after all.

Day 2

Day 1 done and dusted! I would love to be able to say how easily I made it through "day 1" (and I did) but in reality I guess it wasn't a "day 1" in the same sense that it would be for other people. I mentioned in an earlier post that I believe I overcame the sugar cravings some time back so for me the major adjustment is getting used to eating real food again after a year of  shakes for breakfast and lunch. I will probably post more later today, but for now I want to say good luck to those friends (new and old) who are taking up my suggestion of reading Sweet Poison. Even if you just make one or two small changes it will make a big difference in your life. How much you want to change is up to you and it should not matter what other people think about the choices you make, providing they are informed choices.

A few friends have asked about recipes and my intention is to post recipes and pictures so you can see what we cook and eat.

Thanks to those who have commented or sent me messages of support. It means a lot to know there are people interested in seeing how we go with this.

Chat later!

Day 1 (officially)

So today I start. I had a few friends send me a messages last night saying "so what do you eat? and what do you feed the boys if you can't give them bikkies?"

Well, the simple answer is we eat food, and they eat bikkies. I make their bikkies for them. Thank goodness I learnt how to cook as a kid! But seriously, it is not that hard. I am following a lot of recipes in David Gillespie's Sweet Poison Quit Plan (thanks to Lizzie who did all the trial and error so the rest of us could benefit). The boys absolutley love ANZAC bikkies. Instead of sugar I use dextrose (glucose) which i get for a few dollars in the Home Brew section of my local Woolworths. Instead of golden syrup I use rice malt syrup, which still has that lovely golden colour. Other people have tried them and they taste pretty good. Admittedly I also cook with gluten free flour (we don't have wheat flour in the house as my husband has Coeliac Disease) so they do taste slightly different but my kids don't know the difference.

So today, I am having a bowl of porridge for breakfast. If I really feel the need to sweeten it I could use Stevia, but I actually learnt a long time ago that porridge tastes better in its natural form with a bit of milk on it. Lunch is a nice big salad with a boiled egg chopped into it, a bit of avocado and some full fat mayo. Dinner would normally be steak, fish or chicken with salad or veges. Scott and the boys would add a potato or some rice depending on what we have. I am still trying to limit my  complex carb intake to early in the day.

Snacks during the day are a piece of fruit (eg banana, kiwifruit etc) and some nuts (almonds mostly, since they are a favourite).

The concept is quite simple in a scientific sense. Sucrose (the sugar we add to most of our food) is made up of one molecule of glucose and one molecule of fructose. [I could reference my year 11/12 students' biology textbook here for you, or you could take my word for it as a Biology teacher.] Our bodies have a need for glucose and recognise it when we eat it. We have various systems in place to either use it or store it appropriately. Our bodies don't know what to do with fructose. In its natural form in a piece of fruit is comes packed in fibre and there is some suggestion that the fibre helps the fructose move along (nothing to see here style of stuff....) and leave our body. In a concentrated form (ie anything other than packed in fibrous fruit) it runs around our blood stream being ignored by all our sugar recognition systems because it is not "visible" to them. So after a little while it has a little rest... wherever it wants... and turns into little fatty acids.... which do a little damage (actually a lot).

We had a fifth birthday party on the weekend. I made cupcakes using dextrose instead of sugar. I made icing from butter, dextrose and a little bit of gelatine. Every kid except one (and all the adults too) hoed into them. The one kid - he is not much of a cake eater. The people who were there are a rather honest lot and would have told me if they were no good. There were none leftover. Speaks for itself I say.

It is easy to make small changes. You just have to be prepared to change the way you do things. I bake more now than I have in a long time and I have to say, Sunday afternoon was, although busy, a very relaxing time for me making food for my family to eat this week at school and work.

Cya!

Now it starts...

Today I made a decision that is going to change my life. I have to confess that I actually made this decision about 3 months ago, and it has taken me that long to actually action it.

In January 2011, I joined a weightloss program at my local chemist. It was a meal replacement program. At the time I was about 35 kg overweight. By November 2011, I had lost about 14 kg, which I was really happy about. And it has stayed at that point since that time.

In about August 2011 a friend at work told me about a book called Sweet Poison. She hadn't read it, but her son had. I did a bit of internet research and liked the sound of the book. So I went to my local Big W, found it, took it home and read it. Wow... so then i started trolling around websites and had a good look through David Gillespie's blogs and the Sweet Poison and How Much Sugar sites. I wanted to know more, so I signed up to the forum and bought the Quit Plan.

It takes me a while sometimes to really commit to things, especially when it comes to changing my eating habits. So I thought I would just change things bit by bit. I was not quite ready to give up the shakes, even though I knew they were full of fructose and my weight was no longer moving. Just prior to Christmas, I started replacing all sugar in our cooking with either Stevia or with pure glucose.

My kids are nearly 4 and just turned 5, and they hardly noticed the difference. I had stopped giving them ice cream and sweetened yoghurt some weeks prior, so when I finally got around to making ice cream based on glucose powder they were stoked! Friends have tried it and say it is better than shop-bought ice cream. Can't argue with that! I have always made my own yoghurt, so switched to making the natural yoghurt and sweetening it with Stevia. If the boys want strawberry yoghurt, out comes the little bottle of Queen's Strawberry essence and voila! Strawberry yoghurt!

The best news so far is that of my darling husband. He was diagnosed with Insulin Dependent Diabetes when he was 10 years of age. For 30 years he has really battled with what we refer to as "the naughty child living inside him". He could eat the same thing each day, have the same amount of insulin at the same time, do the same amount of exercise and his sugar levels would jump all over the place for no apparent reason. Since really focussing on eliminating the fructose component of sugar from our diet in December/January this year, his sugar levels have been the most stable he can remember. There have still been the odd occasions where he has had lows or highs, but these are getting to be fewer and further between. He is now adjusting his insulin doses down as his control is getting better.

So, back to my decision. Today I spoke to my consultant at the chemist and told her that I was quitting the diet. All diets. From today, we are Fructose Free for Life. I am anticipating a smooth transition, as thankfully I feel that I have already dealt with the sugar withdrawal phase. I can sit in front of plates of sugar-laden "delicacies" and confidently say no. I have no desire to eat them. And anyone who knows me well, knows this is no mean feat!

So here goes... let's enjoy the ride.