[KarenBubMachine]

After reading a recent post about someone farewelling their Tim Tams, a poster mentioned she had quit sugar. A friend of mine also said that she was a week into quitting sugar and it was getting easier.

My question is - how do you quit sugar when its in everything? I understand, dont add sugar to your coffee, dont put sugar on your weetbix etc. But what about everyday cooking? I will often use bbq or tomato sauce to help flavour a dish (spag bog, casserole etc) but sauces are laden with sugar. I will use a jar of chicken tonite or similar - lots of sugar.

Do you have to cut out every little drop of sugar or just the main culprits like cake, cookies, choc, lollies etc.

What about white bread, white rice or white pasta? I prefer multigrain bread anyway but wholemeal pasta just tastes juck!

How do you go about it?

[archersmumma]

Great post, I often wonder the same thing! Sorry I have no answers but will be keen to see some responses

[chickendrumstick]

I'd start by reading the Sweet Poison Quit Plan as it gives great instructions but basically it's cold turkey - throw out the ice cream and tomato sauce, stock up on vegies and ride out the cravings. The first three days were the worst for me but it's all downhill from there.
I highly recommend it - my health, mood and weight are so much better without sugar and I have a lot more energy.

[RatbagBob]

Cutting down on processed food is the easiest. Use passata or tinned tomatoes for tomato based dishes and make a white sauce that you can add flavouring to instead of chicken tonight. You can find lots of recipes for white sauce, cheese sauce etc on Taste.com.au

[rileys-mum]

You have no processed foods. I am sugar free. Still cook for the kids and hubby, then i have either steak, chicken or fish with salad. Most marinades have sugar as do of the shelf salad dressings. The energy I have is amazing. Initially I did it to loose weight, which I did, but do it now for the energy.

[peckingbird]

The "Quit Sugar" approach as promoted by the likes of Sarah Wilson and David Gillespie does indeed mean avoiding all foods with moderate to high sugar content. Low sugar foods are those that have less than 3-6g sugar per 100g. There are many prepackaged foods, sauces etc that are well over this and therefore should be avoided.

Essentially, eating a cleaner diet with less processed food will eliminate most moderate/high sugar foods.

If you are interested in quitting sugar, then a cold turkey approach may work best.

Alternatively, if a cold turkey approach is too daunting at this stage, there is much to be gained by simply eliminating obvious sugar foods from your diet such as cakes, biscuits, desserts, chocolates etc.

Good luck.

[CallMeProtart]

I try to avoid foods with added sugar or more than about 4% sugar.
I don't tend to use premix sauces anyway, as I've never liked that sweet taste in my savouries, and tinned tomato suffices for any tomato based sauce.
I still have fruits and/or smoothies that include the whole fruit, as then the sugar is offset by fibre. I don't have juices.
I don't use much shelf premixed stuff anyway.

I didn't think white rice and pasta had sugar? Not saying they are healthy for you, but I don't think they have sugar...?

Check ingredients when you buy stuff - I bought mayo the other day and whole egg mayo was between 1-3% sugar, normal mayo was up to 5%.... and 'lite' and 'low fat' mayo was a massive 22%!!!
FTW??? I knew they add sugar to low fat stuff to cover up the taste... but to go from something that is one hundredth sugar to one fifth sugar - that's crazy!
Even stuff you think is savoury - you have to check. Light and tangy chips are often quite sugary. I found that the pringles sour cream and onion is 3% sugar - and the aldi version is 6%!

This post has been edited by CallMeProtart: 01/02/2013, 03:20 PM

[MarsBarSlice]

Great topic thank you. Will definately look into this. We don't eat a lot of processed sauces so we could maybe start there and build it up. Not sure how I would cut out chocolate though, any suggestions for a substitute?

[credence]

YEs you do actually quit sugar other than what is in a couple of pieces of fruit per day.

You basically don't put bbq or tomato sauce on anything because these are about 50% sugar, more than chocolate topping.

You can't use pre-made jarred marinades or sauces etc

You basically eat whole foods, home made and get really good at reading labels. It's doable.

[Bel Rowley]

I did a bit of a sugar detox recently, although I am back on the wagon I am trying to eat it in moderation instead of all the time. I set my own rules, still had fresh fruit, and didn't worry too much about eating most things as long as they were less than 10% sugar. I didn't eat any biscuits, cakes, chocolate, quit my usual breakfast cereals that were full of sugar and replaced them with cornflakes or weetbix with fresh berries. I never use jarred stirfry sauces or pasta sauces so that was easy enough, I always make from scratch (passata for pasta sauce). It was actually easier than I expected to make the changes and I started feeling a lot better, less tired and run down.