The trick to reducing sugar intake is to first start by only
using whole food sweeteners, so unprocessed sugars like honey, maple syrup, etc..
The Vitamix Cook Book has a recipe for fresh tomato sauce that calls for tomato paste and sugar, which I don't like to cook with, especially not when I have amazing fresh tomatoes that were grown right in front of my house, and
wonderful whole food sweeteners like dates and raisins.
Dates are a
fantastic whole food sweetener full of vitamins, minerals and fibre while blackstrap molasses is the natural bi-product leftover from sugar cane crushing and also contains a number of minerals such as calcium, magnesium and iron.
A homemade lacto - fermented beverage with a
little whole food sweetener is far better than anything that can be found outside the home.
How about sweetening your tea with coconut sugar or a fresh fruit juice, date puree; make your
own whole food sweetener?
As my husband and I make the change to only
using whole food sweeteners, the challenge then becomes how to change our baking recipes to not include brown sugar or white sugar and in this case, finding an icing that didn't use icing sugar.
An even better choice of sweetener, if you're able to incorporate it into what you're making, is
a whole food sweetener such as dates or fruit.
Both unrefined sugars and
whole food sweeteners are still forms of sugar however, and as such should still be used in moderation.
Dates are
a whole food sweetener that contain beneficial amounts of the minerals zinc, iron, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus and calcium, they also contain vitamins B6 and A and soluble dietary fibre.
Whole food sweeteners are literally in their original «whole» form and therefore contain many more nutrients as well as dietary fibre, which is fantastic for slowing down the absorption of sugars into the bloodstream.
I used my Crunchy Maple Banana Granola as a topping for a chia pudding recipe I demonstrated, and everyone commented on what a great idea it was to use banana as
the whole food sweetener for the granola.
They have fiber, carbs, protein and fat, they are sweet as can be, and
a whole food sweetener that is actually nutrient - dense.
On this site, «Natural Sweet» and «sugar - free» refers to
whole food sweeteners.
The definition of
a whole food sweetener is a food that is sweet (obviously), still in it's original (whole) form, and as a result still contains it's inherent vitamins and minerals as well as many other nutritional properties such as antioxidants and fibre.
Medjool dates act as a binding agent and are
a whole food sweetener that contain beneficial amounts of the minerals zinc, iron, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus and calcium, they also contain vitamins B6 and A and soluble dietary fibre.
The trick to reducing sugar intake is to first start by only using
whole food sweeteners, so unprocessed sugars like honey, maple syrup, etc..