My last day without sugar

I never thought in a million years that the last day without sugar would be the absolute hardest of the entire month. I’m just so close, and scared to ruin everything. The past week I have been having dreams (or perhaps they even qualify as nightmares) about eating sugar a day too soon. In my dream we are stuffing our faces with everything that is sweet and bad knowing full well that we were supposed to wait another day. And in my dream, I feel like a total failure. I don’t want to give in. When I wake up, it’s hard to shake the feeling, and so, the last day seems like the ultimate test. Part of my brain is telling me “you’ve made it this far, if you want to eat that donut that bad, what’s a day in this entire month. You did it, you went a month without sugar, now eat that donut.” But the other part of my brain knows that if I give in to the temptation, I will feel like the entire month has been a waste, like that one day, made everything a failure. And so, I have been dreading the last day of my challenge for the entire week. Please, be over. This is torture. 

The sound of my neighbours wakes me up at about 9am. I decided it’s too soon to get up, the shorter the day, the less temptation. My phone keeps vibrating, a group conversation. Fuck. Let me sleep. I turn my phone to silent mode and try to ignore my neighbours. Are they dancing Irish jigs up there? I fall back asleep. It is almost noon when I wake up and I check my phone for messages. Whatsapp. Not many people contact me through Whatsapp, curiosity strikes me. A friend from university wants to have some coffee this afternoon. YES. I jump out of bed, suddenly I feel energetic. Surely a walk downtown will make time pass. We decide to meet up around 5pm. In the meantime, my flatmate wakes up and we have breakfast. This is getting dull, bananas and yoghurt for an entire month is what I have been having and I just can’t tolerate any more of it. I decide to have a slice of sugar-free bread instead, with some cheese. I’m not satisfied, so I eat the banana anyway, continuously thinking about what I would rather be eating. Three days ago, I went shopping, and knowing that the challenge was almost over, I bought a whole bunch of stuff that in a couple of days, I could eat it again. I wanted to buy the entire store, the entire universe of everything that contains a shitton of sugar. I bought that day: sweet popcorn, chocolate chip cookies, Nesquik bars and Cheetos. These were just a few of the things that I had craved in this last week of the challenge. I regretted not having bought donuts. Yesterday, a friend suggested I drink soda and eat chocolate at the end of the challenge. I don’t crave chocolate, but it sure would be good to drink something else. So this morning I decide to run downstairs and buy donuts and cola (diet, because I never liked regular coke to begin with). My kitchen is packed with stuff that is torturing the living … out of me. Over breakfast, me and my flatmate (although, admittedly, mostly me) talk about everything we want to eat at midnight when our challenge is over. It’s bothering me beyond imagination, I never thought I could want to eat sugar this much.  I hold my head in my hands, and slowly rock the craving out of me. The afternoon progresses slowly, and I count down the hours. By lunchtime, I make fresh Bolognese sauce and cook some pasta. Cheese on top and it’s actually pretty satisfying. A couple of hours later, it’s time to head downtown and meet up with my friend. I feel satisfied, my cravings are gone. The million cake shops I pass can’t bother me. I can honestly say, I don’t want cake right now. My friend is late, so I wait, sitting in front of McDonald’s, watching people stuff their faces with burgers and I don’t want one. Someone passes with ice cream, and I don’t care. My friend arrives and I tell her about all the good restaurants I know in the area, and I don’t crave any of the delicious foods I am describing to her. Something has clicked, I flipped the switch, I’m no longer scared I won’t make it to midnight. We take a tram and go the most famous coffee house in Lisbon. I order a latte without sugar, she orders a coffee… and a cake. I tell her it’s my last day of the challenge and she apologises for ordering the cake. I say it’s ok, that I am not bothered by it. And I’m not. A couple of hours later it’s getting cold, and we return home. I leave her at her tram stop and walk to the metro station. I realize that although it is dinner time, I am not hungry. Ever since I have stopped eating added sugars, my food satisfies me for a lot longer, and I don’t start stuffing my face in the middle of the afternoon. I can simply drink a cup of coffee and make it all the way to dinner. When I get home I see the donuts, and the craving returns a little. But not as much as this morning. I have pasta again, because I am too lazy to make something else at this point. After dinner I have an orange for dessert. We talk about how many hours it is until midnight, and by this point, I’m not even sure I want to eat the donut anymore tonight. We agreed to watch a movie and I will eat some popcorn, but I will probably leave the donut. Tomorrow we will have breakfast in one of Lisbon’s many cake shops before going out to visit some museums and a botanic garden, a little treat to start the new month. At midnight we will do a taste test. Bread with added sugar, and without. I wonder which one we will prefer after a month…

It’s now about an hour and a half until midnight. And for the first time today, I had to check the clock to find out.

How do I know if my food contains sugar?

Upon request I am making a quick, short post about reading food labels and how to check for added sugars.

Reading food labels can be confusing sometimes, and when looking for sugar, admittedly, at first I had no idea what I was looking for specifically.

When looking for added sugars it’s important not to look at the nutritional value of food, as most foods will contain natural sugars of some sort. Instead, look at the ingredients list. If the ingredients list does not contain sugar of any kind you are basically good to go.

The hardest part is actually identifying the sugar. Sugar goes by many many names (at least fifty). You should look out for:

·        Agave Nectar

·        Barley Malt Syrup

·        Beet Sugar

·        Brown Rice Syrup

·        Brown Sugar

·        Cane Crystals (or, even better, "cane juice crystals")

·        Cane Sugar

·        Coconut Sugar, or Coconut Palm Sugar

·        Corn sweetener

·        Corn syrup, or corn syrup solids

·        Dehydrated Cane Juice

·        Dextrin

·        Dextrose

·        Evaporated Cane Juice

·        Fructose

·        Fruit juice concentrate

·        Glucose

·        High-fructose corn syrup

·        Honey

·        Invert sugar

·        Lactose

·        Maltodextrin

·        Malt syrup

·        Maltose

·        Maple syrup

·        Molasses

·        Palm Sugar

·        Raw sugar

·        Rice Syrup

·        Saccharose

·        Sorghum or sorghum syrup

·        Sucrose

·        Syrup

·        Treacle

·        Turbinado Sugar

·        Xylose

Additionally, check for E-numbers, as some E-numbers are simply sugar in disguise. Mainly E400 and E900 are likely to contain sugar of some kind.

In our challenge we are also not eating any sugar replacements for a month, like aspartame (E900-something, I believe) or stevia. So we are obviously checking for this on labels as well.

Week 1: Recipes worth repeating

Four entirely sugar free recipes we have been making this week for you to try!

After the first week, I have gotten a few request for the recipes of the foods that we have been cooking. So I have decided to collect a few recipes that I think might be nice for others to try. I hope you do, and I hope you like them as much as we did!

1.  Paella 

Ingredients (4 servings):

-        1 or 2 chicken breasts

-        Vegetables of your choice (in our case bell peppers and green peas)

-        1 cup of round grain rice

-        2 cups of chicken broth

-        Yellow food colouring

-        A couple of Bay leaves

-        Mussels (as many as you like)

-        Prawns  (as many as you like)

-        Olive oil

Step 1: Chop up the chicken breasts in medium pieces and stir-fry them in a frying pan with a thin layer of olive oil. Leave the inner part raw, since it’s eventually going to be cooked with the rice.

Step 2: Remove everything from the frying-pan but the oil. Add your fresh vegetables (frozen vegetables will be added later) and stir-fry them the same way you did the chicken.

Step 3: When the vegetables are done, lower the heat and put the chopped-up chicken in the frying-pan while stirring. Then, pour round grain rice in the shape of a cross and pour, on each quarter of it, chicken broth.

Step 4: If you have frozen vegetables like peas or beans, this would be the moment to add them.

Step 5: Pour the food colouring on each quarter of the cross-shaped mixture and stir the rice from the centre to the edge of the frying-pan. Add bay leaves to the water and let it cook over a low heat for five minutes, covering the pan with tin foil if possible.

Step 6: After five minutes, add the seafood (mussels and prawns) and sink it in the mixture with a spoon. Cover the frying-pan again and let it cook until the rice is ready.

Step 7: Turn off the fire and, without removing the cover, wait 5-10 minutes until it’s completely done.

2. Ratatouille 

Ingredients (4 to 6 servings):

-        1 kg tomatoes

-        1 eggplant

-        2 courgettes

-        1 onions

-        2 bell peppers

-        3 cloves of garlic

-        Olive oil

Step 1: Chop the courgettes and the eggplant into cubes or slices, as you please. Use a big pan and with some oil on the bottom slightly fry the eggplant and courgettes until golden brown.

Step 2: Chop and add the bell peppers

Step 3: Peel tomatoes if you want to. In our case, I did not. I simply chopped them into quarters and added them to the mixture.

Step 4: Chop and add the onion and the garlic

Step 5: Leave to boil for about 30 min, season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with pasta or rice.

3

3.  Entirely homemade pizza

Sure, we’ve all made homemade pizza, but in our recipe, even the tomato sauce is homemade

Ingredients (2 pizzas):

For the dough:

-        2 cups flour

-        1 cup water

-        15 grams yeast

-        Half a teaspoon salt

-        2 to 3 spoons olive oil 

Step 1: the water should be slightly warmer than your hand. Mix the yeast with the water.

Step 2: on a flat surface with plenty of space to knead your dough, put the flour and add the salt around the edges (salt and yeast are enemies). In the middle, make a small hole and slowly poor in water. Don’t necessarily pour in all the water at once, as it might run off the edges. Instead add a little, knead, and then add more. While kneading, add some olive oil.

Step 3: Knead the dough for about 10 min. The dough should be slightly sticky but not leave any marks. If it is too dry add flour, if it is too dry add some water.

Step 4: Leave the dough to rest and rise

Step 5: Split the dough and roll out for the pizzas.

For the tomato sauce:

-        7 tomatoes

-        Some corn starch or flour (a couple of teaspoons)

-        Some fresh basil

Step 1: Simply chop and boil some tomatoes (we used 6 or 7 for 2 pizzas, but had leftover sauce)

Step 2: for a smooth tomato sauce sieve the tomato sauce

Step 3: add some flour or corn starch and let boil to make the sauce thicker

Step 4: chop and add some fresh basil leaves if you want

This sauce is also wonderful as a base tomato sauce for spaghetti!

Then, just put whatever you would like to have on your pizza! 

4.     Homemade bread buns 

Ingredients (about 8 buns):

-        500 grams of flour

-        250ml water

-        10gr yeast

-        A teaspoon of salt

-        A teaspoon of olive oil

Step 1: mix the yeast with the water, which should be slightly warmer than your hand

Step 2: lay out the flour on a large flat surface or in a bowl. Put the salt on the edges and make a hole in the middle to pour the water and yeast mixture into. Mix and knead the dough for about 10 min. While kneading add some olive oil.

Step 3: divide the dough into equal parts for buns. This recipe will make about 8 small buns. Leave them on a tray to rest covered with a towel for about 35mins so they can rise.

Step 4: bake in the oven on 250 Celsius for about 15min.