How to overcome sugar addiction without eliminating it completely

Desserts can be more than just some unnecessary calories. To exemplify this, I have chosen flan to illustrate this article. Just by consciously reducing the amounts of sugar, even a sweet can be a good source of protein and other valuable macro-nutrients. But how to achieve something that seems so complicated? Here are some suggestions:

Why is it important to reduce the consumption of free sugars?

In addition to low-quality oils, “bad” carbohydrates and free sugars in particular are singled out as enemy no. 1 to fight, in order to achieve healthy nutrition. And its excessive consumption is directly associated with overweight, which in some cases can eventually lead to heart disease, diabetes, etc. Of course you’re not necessarily going to get serious illnesses, but in any case, you’ll be consuming foods with large amounts of calories with little nutritional value.

Another negative quality of these foods is that they generate a sudden high blood glucose peak, which leads us to continue eating (ergo, to consume more calories) as soon as our body manages to lower that peak.

What makes this fight even more difficult is that sugars are highly addictive and therefore, trying to reduce them sometimes seems like a simply impossible task. However, it’s possible to adopt certain strategies to reduce its consumption, which can even drastically go down to almost zero in the long term.

The first steps will not be easy, since it’s almost impossible to cut something so addictive. But according to my personal experience, precisely this characteristic will benefit us in the long term. The golden rule is that the less sugar we consume, the less we will need it. As a second important fact, I was able to verify that the less sugar we eat, the more sensitive our palate will become. As an example, I used to eat flavored yogurts, until I managed to change them for natural yogurt with fruit. And when, after some time, I tried one of those commercial yogurts again, they turned out to be too cloying, artificial and impossible to eat! My taste was indeed developed after that change.

Once we can reduce our sugar intake by following these tips, we will be able to break that negative spiral and begin a positive stage in which we will be in control of our intake of sweets.

So here are some tips to get started today:

1. Start consuming more fruit: the natural sugars present in fruit are not considered “free”, as they do not produce abrupt glycemic peaks in our body, and for this reason they are a more advisable alternative. One of my favorite snacks is to prepare a milk and fruit smoothie. In general, I use banana. This fruit is sweet enough, and it’s incredible that some people need to add extra sugar to such smoothie. I also learned in Greece to eat yogurt with fruit and nuts, sometimes with cinnamon, as one of my favorite snacks. But there are also many recipes for healthy desserts with fruit, such as this sugar-free banana bread.

2. A moderate amount of dehydrated fruit is also an advisable snack, even when its sugar content is higher (since it’s concentrated after the dehydration process). We can use, for example, a small amount to prepare this Turkish fig and milk dessert.

3. Fruit, even if frozen, should also replace jams. In other times, preparing jam was the method of preserving fruit, but since nowadays we can freeze it, there is no reason to keep buying a product that contains 50% sugar. The reason for such quantity of sugars is that this allows a very long conservation, even for years. But if you want to treat yourself, you can even make your own healthy jam, simply by cooking your favorite fruit over low heat with some xylitol (or honey) and a few drops of lemon.

4. Fruit juices are not equivalent to eating fruit. This is probably better than drinking a cola. But take for example an orange. Although it is sweet, its fiber content makes it difficult for us to eat several. However, we can easily drink half a liter of juice without blinking an eye, when it takes perhaps a kilo of fruit to prepare it. This happens because we discard the fiber to drink only sugars, and therefore, moderation is also required here.

5. Consider natural alternatives like stevia or xylitol: a moderate amount of these natural sweeteners can help us reduce sugar. In the keto recipes on this page, xylitol is suggested even for those that require cooking, like this quick chocolate milk dessert.

6. The artificial sweetener trap: Some saccharins or other artificial sweeteners may not have many calories. The problem is that even so, its taste is too sweet and affects our perception of taste. In this way we won’t be able to develop our sense of taste. Those who consume these sweeteners in excess, will later complain that “apples today are not like they used to be”. Well no. Fructose is always the same, what has changed is the sensitivity of your palate.

7. Make your own date-based sweets: The truth is that many nutritionists believe that by processing dates, their sugars become “free”. But with this alternative, in addition to using a food of better nutritional quality, we can better control the amount of added sugars. We can use date paste or processed medjool dates for some great recipes like healthy carrot muffins or also this amazing version of home-made Nutella.

8. Identify pseudo-healthy foods that have a lot of unnecessary sugars: some examples of this category are flavored yoghurts, processed breakfast cereals, fruit bars, fruit juices not made from 100% fruit (sometimes camouflaged under the name “nectar”), 0% fat foods with added sugar, etc. On the other hand, as I said at the beginning, my main “allowed” dessert is flan, since its ingredients are all natural and healthy.

9. Get rid of the ultra-processed for good: talking about sugars exceeds actually desserts and snacks. If you start reading the labels carefully, you will see how much sugar is added to many of the convenience foods you buy in cans, cartons, etc. Sometimes the word sugar does not appear in its composition, but you will find ingredients such as glucose, dextrose, syrup, etc.

10. Make an effort to drink more water: when we are dominated by sugar, we only want to satisfy our thirst with sweet commercial drinks and we simply do not feel like drinking water. If we were to keep track of how many soft drinks we drink per day, we would be surprised at the amount of extra sugars we consume in this way. If you find it difficult to switch to water right away, I suggest trying sparkling water, plain water with some lemon, cold herbal tea, or making refreshing infusions like water with cucumber slices, lemon, mint leaves, and ice.

11. Give dark chocolate a try: in the world of sweets, chocolate is indeed a very special category. And besides being very tasty, cocoa also is a very healthy product that contains vitamins, fiber, good fats and protein. It’s true that its flavor is enhanced when mixed with sugar, and you can find commercial variants of dark chocolate that contain from 50 to 95% cocoa. The problem is that we usually prefer milk chocolate, which has a very poor cocoa content and a very high amount of sugar. But in any of its variants, the true chocolate is the bitter one. Personally, I think we could aim to eat at least 90% cocoa chocolate. A 10% sugar content is actually high in proportion, but no one would normally eat a whole bar of this chocolate in one sitting.

12. Reduce or completely eliminate the small amounts of extra sugar you use every day to “neutralize” flavors: have you ever allowed yourself to enjoy the roasted flavor of a good coffee, or the aroma of herbal tea? Adding a couple of „harmless“ teaspoons of sugar sometimes leads to simply nullifying flavors and aromas. I propose you to experiment and skip that sugar, reeducate your senses and open them to a new world of possibilities.

13. If it’s not healthy, don’t buy it: it seems like an obvious slogan, but it isn’t. How many times do we buy sweets because eventually we will give them away, because they are on sale, etc? But this means letting the devil into the house. They will always be available and force us to fight temptation.

14. Cut back on portions and try to space out the “allow” days: another easy sentence, but while it’s impossible for you to ditch sweets entirely, it’s at least helpful to make this effort consciously, either by eating smaller portions or not having too many “allowed days” in the month.

15. Consistency is always the key to success: this last point is probably the least nice but you have to remember this if you want to succeed. There are no magic formulas on this path and it’s necessary to remember the active and conscious actions needed from our side. But I can assure you that if you do your part, you will undoubtedly see results!

So what now?

If you were able to read until here, it means that this is very important for you. And if I managed to convince you, I’m sure that you will reach all your goals. Just begin today, don’t wait until next Monday. Put every day some effort, and remember that Rome was not built in a day!