How I Eat Sweets

Like everyone else born in the latter half of the twentieth century, I grew up eating a lot of sweets. Not just the hidden sugars we don't think about in cereal and salad dressing and the syrup we put on pancakes, but I ate a lot of desserts as well. But so did everyone in my family. No family outing was complete without a stop at an ice cream parlor for double-dipped cones, and of course the places with the largest scoops were our favorites. And though my mother was smart enough not to serve donuts for breakfast, our favorite bread was raisin bread with sugar icing on top.

Today I know only too well how refined white sugar can ravage health. After years of abusing sugar, it caught up with me and I became diabetic. My father was diabetic before me, and I watched as he lost his eyesight, had a leg amputated from gangrene after a wound wouldn't heal, and then died from a heart attack.

When my own blood sugar began to rise, I struggled with sugar, but it was hard to "kick the habit". Refined white sugar does act like a drug in your body, and can be addicting when eaten the way most of us eat it--in almost every food, all day long.

Over the past few years, I have completely changed the way I eat sweets. I believe if I had put these guidelines into practice earlier in my life, I wouldn't be diabetic now. I believe if you are not yet diabetic and eat sweets according to these guidelines, you won't become diabetic in the future.

There's no need to eliminate all sweets entirely to be healthy. But, like fire, eating sweets requires skill, knowledge, and respect. Handled in the proper way sweets can give great pleasure--but let your consumption get out of control and it's likely you'll get burned.

Parents, please teach your children how to enjoy sweets in a sensible way, to protect their health for their entire lives.

Here are the guidelines I've learned the hard way and now follow to restore my health...

Eat Sweets Intentionally

I only eat sweets when I want to eat them, and I know what I'm eating. When I am at home, I don't eat processed foods, so I know all the ingredients of everything I am eating. This puts me in control of how many sweet carbohydrates I consume. There are no "hidden sugars" in my diet.

Eat Naturally Sweet Foods

My grandmother, who came from a different generation, ate very few sweets. She also prepared most of the food for her family and didn't rely on processed foods. She usually had ice cream in the freezer and would make bake a cake and cookies when we came to visit, but they weren't part of her regular diet. There is one line I can still hear her saying in my mind. After dinner, she would always say "Have a piece of fruit, honey." She would never say "Have a piece of cake." In fact, the cake was always kept on top of the refrigerator where I couldn't reach it, and the fruit was kept on the table where I could have a piece any time I wanted.

Today, if I want something sweet, the first thing I reach for is fruit. The problem is that good fruit can be hard to find. Supermarkets rarely have good fruit. In California, I used to buy great fruit at the farmer's market. Here in Florida we don't have a farmer's market, but we do have produce stands that sell local produce. I also purchase frozen fruits, which are not as good as fresh, but are easier to keep on hand and don't have the added sugar and are not cooked like canned fruits.

Make Your Own Sweets at Home

One of the first steps I took when I decided to be in control of sugar (instead of letting sugar control me!) was to stop buying prepared desserts. If I wanted to eat cookies I couldn't just open a package, I had to bake them.

This was an excellent first step because it didn't eliminate desserts entirely, and by the time I actually baked the cookies, usually the desire to eat them had subsided a bit.

I still follow this guideline and prepare any sweets I want to eat at home in my own kitchen. They taste better than anything I can buy, are full of love, and are made with the best organic ingredients and natural sweeteners that I know are healthy for my body.

Use Natural, Healthy Sweeteners

My greatest and most surprising delight has been finding delicious natural sweeteners and learning how to use them. This has been not been quick or easy, but once I learn about a sweetener, I feel like I have a new friend.

Refined white sugar now seems dull and monotonous in comparison to the subtle flavors of natural sweeteners. It's fun to try different sweeteners and develop sweets I can eat without a worry.

Eat Sweets in Small Portions

I was never taught the secret of small portions, but I know now that my health would have turned out very differently when I had.

Throughout my life, I would just eat dessert until I had my fill or there was none left--even if that was three pieces of cake or a whole bag of cookies. My "portion" of ice cream was the whole pint.

Today, I gain just as much enjoyment from eating only a few bites, or one bite, or even just one chocolate chip that I let melt in my mouth. You see, taste buds only actually taste the first few bites. Try it and see. Be aware of how many bites you actually taste before you stop actually being aware of how something tastes and instead just keep putting the food in your mouth without enjoying it.

One Christmas I sent my literary agent a box of cookies I had baked. Being of an older generation, when she received them she emailed to me "Thanks for the cookies. I'm looking forward to having one after dinner." That idea of "having one after dinner" really stayed with me because it was so different. When I received a box of cookies or chocolates, I would dig right in and eat all I could right then and there. But now I do save cookies for later. I don't eat more than one at a time.

When I was in New York once, a friend took me to a very nice restaurant. In the French style, after dinner they brought out a small plate with one tiny cookie on it for each person at the table. It was very charming and concluded the meal with a little taste of sweet, without having a huge dessert.

Blood sugar rises in response to both what you eat and how much you eat. I recently learned that eating a lot of any food--even lettuce!--will make blood sugar rise. A bite or two of anything won't do much harm and can bring great enjoyment.

Eat Sweets With Other Foods

I've learned that my body can handle sweets much better if they are eaten with other foods--particularly protein or fat. To eat them with other carbohydrates simple adds more carbohydrates that will make blood sugar skyrocket.

Often we want sweets not because we want sweets, but because we are hungry. I've learned that if I eat some protein first, then I will be satisfied with a smaller amount of sweet, because I then eat the sweet for enjoyment rather than to satisfy hunger. It's best to eat a sweet after a meal, and not as a snack.

Exercise To "Burn it Off"

Sweets are carbohydrates. In your body all carbohydrates burn fast, like paper on a fire. But if they are not burned, they turn to fat and raise blood sugar.

Exercise burns carbohydrates. When I choose to eat sweets, I often take a little walk to burn it off.

The Sweets I Eat

Today I actually eat very little dessert. Because I am controlling my blood sugar, I tend to eat desserts like creme brulee, ice cream, and cheesecake that have more protein and fat and fewer carbs, rather than candy, cake, and cookies that have more carbs from sweetener and flour.

Though I have many sweeteners on my kitchen shelf and write about them all, personally I mostly use stevia and agave nectar. Stevia has no calories or carbs and I can have as much as I want. Agave nectar, though low on the glycermic index and slow to assimilate in the body, has as many carbs per teaspoon as sugar, so I use it sparingly.

Occasionally I will still eat white sugar if I think it's worth it for the pleasure. But I don't waste those carbs by eating packaged cookies. No. My sugar allotment is reserved for an irresistable dessert in a nice restaurant on my birthday, which I split with my husband.

I've worked out a number of different and delicious beverage concentrates made with stevia and I always keep two or three on hand in the refrigerator. Then I just mix the concentrate with still or sparkling water whenever I want something sweet. That usually satisfies my taste buds, and I don't even desire any other sweets.

From my own life experience as well as research, I consider refined white sugar and other refined sweeteners to be as toxic as any toxic chemical. Refined sweeteners are products of industrilaization that do not exist in nature. Our bodies can handle a small amount of them, but not the overload that is typical today.

I've learned that the more knowledge I have about something, the more power I have to take positive, life-enhancing action. So I've been learning all I can about how to enjoy a "sweet life" and have good health too. It really is a subject all it's own, so I'm putting everything I'm learning on it's own website: Sweet Savvy. Come take a look. The ravages of sugar consumption are easier to prevent than reverse.