Quite a bold statement and perhaps a little over the top but it has really got me thinking recently – just how bad is sugar in our kids diets??
Sugar seems to be a real buzz word at the moment and in particular sugar-free, with sugar-free diets and recipes popping up all over the place. I actually followed the ‘Sugar Free September’ diet recently just to see what it was all about. I have to admit it didn’t start off too well, and just as I had been warned, my craving turned me into a bear with a sore head!! I was so cranky and everything I looked at turned into a chocolate sculpture…seriously it was calling me in my sleep!! I almost ate a kid it got that bad.
The good news is that I only morphed into a desperate, chocolate deprived madwoman for a few days to maybe a week, and after that things did get a lot easier and the craving did ease off. I will also admit (if a little reluctantly) that by the end of the month I did feel fantastic.
I totally get (without going into the science bit) that sugar is an empty calorie that pretty much has no nutritional values in it what so ever! It also goes hand in hand with a whole heap of unwanted symptoms like headaches, weight gain, candida, cranky pants highs and lows etc. But what I want to know is “Is it really that bad in moderation????”
I hope this doesn’t make me sound like a terrible mother but I’m just not sure I could put my kids through a TOTAL sugar ban like the one I went through. It just seems plain mean to watch them suffer the craving that I know full well will hit them like an undetected left hook to the jaw. Yes, it will be better for their little bodies in the long term I know, but what about if they just ‘like’ to have a bit of a treat now and again. I mean I could have continued with the sugar free diet I started in September but to be honest I just didn’t want to part with chocolate!!
I like chocolate! And my kids like lollies!
So my conclusion, I think, is ‘everything’ in moderation. If I learnt anything from my Sugar-Free September experiment it was that I could cut out a lot of the unnecessary bad or refined sugars from my family’s diet. There are plenty of healthy and natural sugar alternatives out there, which I am now using in my cooking and baking as much as possible. BUT we still do have the occasional chocolate or lolly! It makes them happy and that makes me happy. I’m pretty confident that the occasional Freddo Frog is not going to kill them.
How does sugar fit in your family?? Do you cut it out altogether or welcome it in with open arms??
Linking up with Essentially Jess
{photo credit: Paradoxiko*Beck* via photopin cc}
Robyn is a thirty-something mum of three living in Sydney. She is a full time mum, loves her thermomix and is forever trying to replace coffee with green smoothies. She can’t go a day without seeing the ocean. She blogs atMrs D Plus3