Sugar is the jack hammer of cuisine. It is like a freight train to the taste buds. It is addictive and overpowering and our culture loves it. I know this because I had (still have) a crazy sweet tooth. I could eat ten cookies and then want more. I could eat a whole bag of candy and many times. I might have been killing my system, but usually didn’t suffer right away and my metabolism and exercise regime would keep me slim even if I ate tons of sweets. If sugar was a food, it may have been one of my favorites, and I would often pass on other wholesome foods because I didn’t find them sweet enough.

Then last year, for the sake of my teeth, my pancreas, and the rest of my body and to avoid sugar spikes and crashes I virtually eliminated sugar and other processed sweeteners from my diet. My main rationale for making the change as to improve health, but there were a couple of awesome side effect that I hadn’t expected. To continue reading this post, click here >>

After cutting sugar and all other processed sweeteners such as fructose, sucralose, out of my diet (I would say I eliminated it 100%, but I am sure I am still getting sugar sometimes when I go to a restaurant since it is such a popular ingredient), I noticed that I stop craving sugar so much. It took longer to break the habit than coffee, which is scary, but eventually I stopped becoming Pavlov’s dog around sweets and cookies. That was a surprise to me.

The second big surprise was that my palate developed a whole new appreciation for other foods. Without sugar to distract my taste buds or overpower them, I now find that foods that I used to think were un-sweet, are now sweet. Things like muesli with just raisins, or balsamic vinegar taste really sweet and apples are almost never tart. Carrots are now really sweet to me and I have found that spinach and even romaine lettuce are actually sweet as well. I would have never said this before. In fact, I often now find if food too sweet if it has added sweetener like stevia, honey, or molasses (although I could probably still throw back 10 cookies if I didn’t watch myself).

So glad to have unlocked the door to all these great foods.