The Perfect Smoothie

The title of this post is a bit misleading, because I don't actually believe I've found the recipe for the perfect smoothie.  I believe that the perfect smoothie is whatever your family loves, while still containing lots of fruit and veggies for optimal nutrition.

My kids love smoothies.  We have them most summer mornings for breakfast. The kids devour them, and I find they keep us going for hours, opposed to when we used to eat toast for breakfast.

The benefit of smoothies over fruit juices is that smoothies are the whole fruit blended into a drink, verses fruit juice where the fibre is removed from the drink.  They are filling, packed full of vitamins and minerals, and really yummy!

To make the perfect smoothie for your family, pick ingredients that fit your taste and dietary requirements.  If your kids hate raspberries, that's probably not the best choice.  However, things like spinach and kale are hidden by the other flavours, so give them a go (hiding it from the kids if you need to!).

How to Make the Perfect Smoothie

Eight Tips for Cutting Down on Your Sugar Intake

The series How Our Family Went Refined Sugar Free, detailing how my family quit eating refined sugar, has officially finished. Have you read the series? What do you think? Does the idea of cutting out refined sugar feel overwhelming? But you agree you consume too much and need to make some changes? 

For some people, the idea of never eating refined sugar again is unimaginable. It feels like too much effort. Two years ago, I would never have dreamed I would reach a point where I'd no longer eat any refined sugar. Removing refined sugar from my diet didn't happen overnight. It took over a year of small changes, baby steps and lots of failures.

Like me, some people find taking small steps more manageable.  Making little changes feels a lot less overwhelming and more doable on a day to day basis. 

Here are some tips for helping you cut your sugar intake:

How Our Family Went Refined Sugar Free - Part 4: Eleven Tips for Taking the Plunge

Are you convinced yet?  Have you done the research?  Can you see how refined sugar is effecting your body?

If you're ready to take the plunge, I would recommend committing to a minimum of two weeks of refined sugar free living, but two months is ideal.  You will most likely have withdrawal symptoms for the first 10 days.  You may have headaches, mood swings, rage, stomach upset.  The list goes on and on.  Be prepared for it to be hard work.  But the rewards are well worth it.

Here are 11 tips for you helping you on your way:

Make a commitment
Decide that you're going to be refined sugar free.  Make a commitment to remove all refined sugar from your diet for a minimum of two weeks. Choose an upcoming day in the next week or two to start (take into consideration when you grocery shop) and commit to start that day, making preparations beforehand. You may even want to treat yourself before you start. Indulge in that piece of cheesecake one last time.  At least you won't look back and wish you had.

Caramel Slice by Nadia at "the Good Food Cook"

Because I've been doing mainly writing posts as I work through the series How Our Family Went Refined Sugar Free, I thought I would share a review on a great recipe that a family member came across and asked me to try.

Since going refined sugar free one of my biggest challenges is finding recipes that actually taste good.  Let's be honest: sometimes I think people who no longer eat sugar have lost their taste buds.  I know I'm one of those non-sugar eating people, but so often I try a recipe that has been labelled "tastes exactly like the real thing" and find that it tastes nothing like the real American brownies I was attempting to make.  I've had more fails than I can count attempting new recipes and I've thrown a lot of food in the bin because it was inedible.

One of my markers of success is when I can feed a naturally sweetened, refined sugar free recipe to a white sugar eating friend or family member and they tell me how incredible it was.  That was the response I got with this one. 

Healthy Date and Cashew Caramel Slice 
from Nadia Lim 
at The Good Food Cook

How Our Family Went Refined Sugar Free - Part 3: What We Eat

Refined sugar is in everything.  I'm going to be honest: it's hard work removing all refined sugars from your diet.  Almost everything we eat in our house on a everyday basis is cooked and prepared from scratch.  There aren't a lot of items on the supermarket shelves that don't have some form of refined sugar in them, and it isn't just sweet things.  Sauces, marinated meat, stir fry mixes, and dips (to name a few) all contain some form of refined sugar.

Our family doesn't eat added sugar, but we still consume sugar that is found naturally in foods, such as fructose (from fruit) and lactose (from milk).  And, we use sweeteners that are closely related to how they occur in nature, such as honey, dates and maple syrup.  We also enjoy, in moderation, things sweetened with fruit juice or fruit juice concentrate, such as jams or fruit snacks.

Because refined sugar is in everything, including non sweet foods, we have a basic rule.  We don't eat a supermarket item if sugar (for the names of sugar, read this) is listed in the first three ingredients or the item contains more than 6 grams of sugar per 100 grams.

How Our Family Went Refined Sugar Free - Part 2: The Evidence

Everyday a new headline appears:

"Is Sugar Toxic?"

"The Bitter Truth about Sugar"

"Sugar is Now Number One Enemy in Western Diet"

What is the problem with sugar and why such a fuss? What sugars are actually bad for you and why?

What is refined sugar?

There are many different forms of refined sugar, with two we hear of the most.  The first type is table sugar.  Table sugar is either sugarcane or beet sugar that has undergone the refining process to have all the molasses (and all the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients) removed, leaving only the crystals.  It's what you put in coffee or use to bake.

How Our Family Went Refined Sugar Free - Part 1: The Beginning

Last week I shared an article from "The Guardian" on my private Facebook page which sums up really well why my family is refined sugar free.  You can read it here.

After sharing the article, I got bombarded with questions from family and friends asking how and why we went refined sugar free.  I also got lots of comments like "I thought fructose was the problem" and "what about bread?"

To help answer the questions I've received, I'm sharing a series of blog posts on our journey to refined sugar free living.

Here's our story:



In January of 2013, I was challenged to seriously consider my eating habits.  My youngest child was already one, and I wasn't shifting any of the extra baby weight.  I knew I had to do something drastic, so for 3 weeks I only ate real food, nothing processed, nothing containing sugar.  This was a huge challenge to me, and at the end of those 3 weeks, I went on a refined sugar binge.  I ate so much sugar I felt sick, but after that, I couldn't seem to return to being refined sugar free.

I thought about sugar.  I dreamed about sugar.  I craved sugar.

7 Tried and True Refined Sugar Free Recipes

I've tried a lot of refined sugar free recipes and failed.  A LOT.  It always the same thing. The taste isn't right.  The sugar substitute used doesn't create the right flavour combination. It's bland or difficult to eat.

Just because I don't eat refined sugar doesn't mean I don't want to enjoy sweet foods.  It means I want to eat healthier without the nasty side effects of sugar addiction and teach my kids to eat foods that aren't highly processed with chemicals and additives.  I want real food recipes that we can enjoy and savour that I'm not ashamed to feed to my sugar eating family and friends.

I've dug through piles of blogs and tried hundreds of recipes to compose this list of  my tried and true refined sugar free recipes from other bloggers for you to enjoy as well.  These recipes please the hardest of critics (including my kids), and are made over and over in my kitchen.  I hope you love them as much as we do!