I decided to make things interesting today and go on a 24-hour sugar detox. I’ve been reading a lot lately about sugar consumption (particularly over-consumption of sugar in the U.S.), and have since been trying to cut back on the amount of added sugar that I eat. This is pretty difficult since sugar, whether we realize it or not, is in almost everything- but not always under the name “sugar”.
I’ve read about people doing week long or even 30 day sugar detoxes. That seemed a little unattainable to me- so I decided to just try it out for day. No added sugar. This includes other varieties of sugar including honey, molasses, and corn syrup just to name a few. It also included artificial sweeteners and ingredients that are actually a form of sugar but called something we don’t typically recognize. http://skinnyms.com/50-names-for-sugar/
Most foods, including fruit, veggies, dairy and grains contain some amount of naturally occurring sugar. So these were allowed.
Overall, the day wasn’t too bad. The worst part was probably my coffee. I always add a little sugar and cream to my daily cup of java and have not yet mastered the fine art of drinking it black. But I managed to guzzle it down whilst making many unattractive faces.
Breakfast was a little tricky. Cereal was out, as was the vanilla yogurt, granola, and flavored oatmeal. Luckily, one of my favorite breakfast go-to’s contained no added sugar.
Lunch was pretty easy. Instead of my typical slice of toast (our bread had at least 3 types of sugar in it) with a couple of cooked eggs- I opted for a potato and onion hash. No ketchup though. Sad day.
Snacks were definitely a challenge. I didn’t want to go through another coffee ordeal. Yogurt and granola bars were out. I ended up eating some plain oatmeal- which was not great, but it did the trick.
I decided to do veggie and quinoa stir-fry for dinner. The challenge here was to come up with a “sauce” that didn’t have sugar in it, like the ones I usually use. I found that using a bunch of spices worked just as well. It even had enough kick that I didn’t have to use sriracha. Which is truly an accomplishment.
It was really interesting to see what foods had hidden sugars in them. And the amount of refined and added sugar in some foods is just astounding.
All in all, not too bad. I would definitely try this again- but maybe not too soon. I’m not in a hurry to drink my coffee black again 😉