When I'm not playing Candy Crush on my Kindle, I'm reading a very interesting book called A Year Without Sugar by Eve Schaub. As someone who struggles with a sweet tooth (especially after 7:00pm) and have only managed to go three days without some kind of dessert, I just had to read how the author lived without sugar for an entire year.
It turns out, she wasn't alone in this quest. She convinced her husband and TWO CHILDREN to go on this little journey with her. Although the kids weren't initially keen on the idea (they actually burst into tears at the mere thought of giving up sweets for 365 days), their parents built in a few compromises to keep everyone on track. The family would be allowed to have one dessert per month and birthday party behavior would be at the discretion of the invitee.
I haven't finished the book yet so I'm not sure what my final response will be to the very scary facts presented within. I will say that I'm reading labels much more carefully (do you know how much sugar is in ketchup?) and I'm rejecting a lot more purchases at the grocery store. (Goodbye, Frosted Mini-Wheats; Hello, Cheerios.)
The author talks about how it's nearly impossible to find a cereal without sugar (shredded wheat and/or oatmeal being the lone holdouts) and how much waitresses hate her. Her observations on the struggle to abstain from fructose are funny and enlightening and I'm learning a lot. I still haven't watched the YouTube video that started her experiment, "Sugar: The Bitter Truth" by Dr. Robert Lustig but it's on my list of required viewing. Maybe he'll be able to scare me off the sweet stuff for good, too. With statistics like "Our generation is on average twenty-five pounds heavier than our counterparts from twenty-five years ago" and "Americans are currently consuming sixty-three pounds per person of high-fructose corn syrup per year" he's made me sit up and take notice. Maybe I'll have to find a way to live without donuts. Maybe I'll have to find a substitute for double chocolate brownies. But, even if I do, there's always one sweet treat I can still indulge in.
Candy Crush might be another addiction but at least I can turn to that without gaining a pound.
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