I went off sugar entirely for a while. Here's what I learnt

Everyone claiming that it’s quite easy to stay off sugar is either ignorant or just lying. Or, they must be pairing their black coffee with cookies (any plain biscuit is no less an offender), or, are having ‘feeki chai’ throughout the day only to down a glass of wine after sunset.

Deleting sugar completely from life turned out to be more complex that I had thought, before I signed up for the challenge — just for fun. There were no medical reasons behind that, and likewise, there is no medical explanation of what I found out.

Here are my major takeaways:

1. Identifying the sources of sugar will take time

For a healthy start of your day, you might think of opting for cereal mix. Read the label. They are pretty high on sugar content. As you proceed, you will find that every packaged and apparently healthy food contains high amount of sugar.

It will almost take a day to identify the sources of sugar and then delete them one by one.

So, you can’t have cereal mix, salad spreads, jam, sauce, cookies (not even mentioning chocolates/desserts because well, we all know they are sugary), aerated beverage, alcohol — almost nothing.

Also, you can’t open an app on your mobile and order ‘healthy salads’ from anywhere because you don’t know the ingredients. And there’s no reason why they won’t add some sugary spreads to get you addicted to their foods.

2. No sugar? Or, no refined sugar?

After going through the list of foods you have to discard from your life, you might want to narrow down your pursuit.

So, here’s a crucial decision to make.

You want to eliminate even point one gram sugar from your body? Or, you will just try to cut down the amount, and stay away from refined sugar.

Now, refined sugar is what you see everywhere — in restaurants, coffee shops, in front of your office coffee machine.

They are cheap and just empty calories.

Opting to stay away from those little packets of guilty pleasure can be easier to start with.

3. Jaggery, honey, stevia, brown sugar or sugar-free?

Now if you choose to steer clear of refined sugar, you may need to look for some alternate sources of natural sugar (unless you are an entirely joyless creature). Choose jaggery and honey. They lend a taste of their own to tea, coffee, desserts. Also, I came to know that their calorie content is not very different from that of white sugar. But they come with other nutrients, while refined sugar scores zero in that department.

Brown sugar, or caramelised cane sugar, as the description read on the box of brown sugar I bought, is apparently better than refined sugar because they contain at least some amount of minerals and molasses.

But then it’s a never-ending debate like white rice versus brown rice!

I didn’t like stevia, as its aftertaste is more like a punishment. Neither did I like chemical sugar substitutes. 

4. Is baking possible without sugar?

As we enter a bakery, we instantly feel happy, even before we get to taste any of those.

So, as it turns out, sugar has a smell too, apart from its taste, to entice us.

It is not quite possible to avoid sugar while baking. Sugar, flour, Egg — these are the binding elements in a cake.

But yes, you can avoid refined sugar and instead use natural sweet sources. But it will taste different — it will look different. When you make a cake batter with refined sugar cubes, you will see tiny air bubbles forming, which rise during the process of baking and make the cake fluffy. Also, you have to sacrifice the caramelised texture derived from loads of sugar. 

So, what’s there in sugar-free cakes you have your eyes on? Chemical sweetener!

Most flour-less biscuits (atta cookies), made for the carb-conscious, are high on sugar.

 

5. Buttermilk and cinnamon to rescue

A lot is said about going cranky because of staying away from sugar. That may happen if you remove all sources of sweet in your diet drastically.

And chances are that you might just give up on this torturous pursuit one day and will happily go back to a huge cup of latte coffee. So, the solution might be not to take the extreme route and instead proceed slowly.

A cup of buttermilk after lunch may help to satiate the post-lunch sugar-craving. Using more cinnamon while baking cakes may help reducing the amount of sugar, without leading to a drastic change in taste and texture.

Also, do it happily and only as long as you can, without expecting any overnight result.

Also Read: Snacking is great, but here's how you can do it in a healthy way