I Quit Sugar for Life (9 page)
Read I Quit Sugar for Life Online
Authors: Sarah Wilson
OK. IF YOU’VE JUST DIGESTED CODE #3, YOUR HEAD MIGHT BE SPINNING FROM ALL THE COMPETING MESSAGES.
I get it. If this is you,
feel free to shelve the whole lot and cut to the culinary chase with a far more elegant edict, which I use to guide myself in my sugar-free life ...
This is the guiding philosophy to my eating.
EAT DENSE
At every opportunity eat foods with the densest nutrition.
Eating dense is not difficult. It’s mostly about adding to what you do, thus:
▶
prioritising (and adding extra) leafy greens and high-quality fat and protein at every meal.
▶
preparing food to preserve (and maximise) enzymes and bacteria for digestion.
▶
eliminating toxins and empty calories (um, sugar).
Get dense and everything else – detoxing, fuelling, dealing with sugar swings and staying slim – is taken care of.
So how do I do this? I employ some dense eating tricks.
These ideas also happen to be economical, efficient and environmental-friendly, too:
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Always add fat to your vegetables
so that you can properly absorb the essential vitamins A, E, D and K. I know I’m
repeating myself, but it’s an important shift to be made.
▶
Ditto, always eat fat with protein.
Fat is needed for proper protein assimilation. Never eat an egg white omelette and
don’t pick the skin off your chook or roast pork!
▶
Prioritise your veg.
All vegetables are your friends, but if you want to up the ante, eat leafy greens (the most nutritious
option) over other greens over starchy vegetables.
▶
Eat more protein.
Our skin, bones, hair and nails are mostly made up of protein. The best sources of proteins are dairy,
eggs, meat and fish – because animal protein is complete, it contains the right proportions of all the essential amino acids our bodies can’t synthesise on their own. Proteins offer the
most energy per caloric intake of all foods.
▶
Eat ‘tough’ meat cuts, such as beef chuck, osso bucco, pork neck and lamb shanks.
They come from muscles on the
animal that contain the greatest amount of connective tissue, which – when slow-cooked – dissolves into gelatine. Gelatine not only aids digestion, it repairs the integrity of a damaged
gut.
▶
Eat chicken drumsticks.
The dark meat of chicken contains more minerals than the white. And – boon! – it’s
cheaper.
▶
Actually, eat the whole chook.
The greatest bang comes from eating the meat as well as the carcass, boiled up as a stock.
The bones, skin and giblets contain the life-giving minerals and electrolytes that make chicken broth so good for the soul. See
here
for my Leftovers Chicken Stock
recipe.
▶
Up your enzymes.
Eat a spoonful of Homemade Sauerkraut (see
here
) or other fermented products with
every meal. They produce a stack of helpful enzymes – which will assist the assimilation of the nutrition in the rest of your meal.
Not all greens are equal
:
Courgettes versus cucumber?
Courgettes contain more protein, fibre, vitamin C and B6 (about six times as much), and double the potassium.
Broccoli versus cauliflower?
Both are super high in brimful of essential vitamin A, while cauliflower has none.
Spinach versus lettuce?
Spinach has more than twice the protein and fibre, five times more iron, eight times more magnesium, seven times more vitamins.
LET’S TRY THIS
ADD MORE VEGETABLES TO YOUR LIFE
There are simple ways to do this, some of which are about ‘disguising’ (for kids and fussy eaters) their presence or replacing other less nutritious elements:
▶
Add extra sides of greens. At every main meal
(see
here
for ideas).
▶
Embed leafy greens.
Finely cut kale, spinach and Swiss chard, and add to soups, casseroles and pastas. They wilt down
quickly and are easily disguised.
▶
Smoothie green ice cubes.
Par-cook and purée (or leave whole) your greens (kale, broccoli, Swiss chard, pak choi,
parsley), freeze in ice-cube trays and pop a few in your smoothie. Do up a bag of green ice cubes in bulk. (Note: par-cooking will reduce the goitrogenic effect of cruciferous vegetables like kale
and broccoli.)
▶
Sweeten sauces, soups and casseroles.
Add puréed pumpkin or sweet potato to red sauces (e.g. chilli dishes and
curries) and ‘yellow’ cheesy dishes like mac ’n’ cheese (see
here
).
▶
Pack out your mashed potatoes and white sauces.
Add puréed cauliflower, turnip, swede or celeriac.
▶
Replace some minced meat
with grated courgettes and carrot or finely cut mushrooms – easily disguised in tacos,
bolognaise and meat loaf.
▶
Flesh out just about anything.
Add broccoli, Swiss chard and cauliflower stalks – totally disguisable and a great
way to use up these nutritious (and surprisingly sweet) bits.
▶
Toss in some chia seeds.
Adding vegetables can up the liquid balance. Counter this with a teaspoon or two of chia seeds or
chia bran.
| WHAT BOOZE SHOULD I CHOOSE? |
When you quit sugar, it doesn’t mean you have to deny yourself. Responsible drinking is all good with caveats . . .
✔
Red wine: Contains minimal fructose. How so? It’s the fructose in the grapes that ferments to become alcohol, leaving red wine low in
sugar.
♦
White wine: Retains a little more of the fructose. Red is a better option.
♦
Champagne or ‘sparkling’: Tends to retain quite a lot of the sugar (fructose). Not a
great
option.
✔
Spirits: Dry spirits like gin, vodka and whisky are very low in fructose. But see the caveat on mixers below.
✔
Beer: Doesn’t contain fructose. The sugar in beer and stout is maltose, which we can metabolise fine.
✖
Dessert wine: A stack of sugar remains unfermented. Don’t touch the stuff.
♦
Apple cider: Retains quite a bit of fructose. Cloudy versions are the better option.
And a few words of advice . . .
Alcohol still has a multitude of metabolism and health issues that come with excessive consumption, not to
mention it’s addictive.
Only ever drink spirits with soda water or neat. Mixers, including tonic water, are full of sugar – about
8–10 teaspoons in one tall glass. Ditto fruit juices.
Me, I drink a glass of red wine with dinner 5–6 nights a week. I love an occasional dry gin martini, too.
This works for me. I recommend no more than two drinks in any one sitting.
Always eat when you drink, to slow the rush of any sugar to the liver.
You may also find, once you cut out sugar, that your tolerance for alcohol is much lower.
Although alcohol is low in fructose it is still very high in empty calories. A beer is equivalent to a sausage
roll. Two glasses of champagne is the equivalent of about one-fifth of your daily energy intake. Just sayin’!