Refined Sugar and Me week 24 -- Pizza Peril, Nutrition Labels, and Real Food Snacks

Byrachel
5 Comments

Welcome to week 24 of our ongoing series about refined sugar & me in 2017. This week I am still holding steady at a total of 16 pounds down from when I first started avoiding most added sugars and processed foods at the end of December 2016.

Yesterday I was actually 17 pounds down and feeling pretty fine about that, but then Mr. 10 had a friend spend the night and MashupDad ordered pizza and garlic bread for dinner! There's an alternative interpretation of "real food meets real life" for you -- I can resist dessert pretty easily now, but pizza is another story. Too much salty cheese and empty carbs = Bet you tomorrow it'll be back down to 17.

But beyond the numbers on the scale, let's focus on the positives this week: Before the great Pizza Incident of 2017, I was doing quite well this past week. My pants are all loose (and a couple pairs of capris that fit great last summer are kind of embarrassingly falling down in the back), my digestion is better, and my skin is clearer than it has been in a long time. Oh, and I also ate salad (OK, salty feta-filled salad, but...) and grapes with my pizza, so there's that. 😉

Again, all worth keeping on keeping on, even if I never lose another pound. What surprising pluses have you guys found from cutting back on processed foods and refined sugar?

This week's reading material

*** UPDATE -- The day after I wrote this, the new food labeling requirements have been postponed indefinitely. Thanks for the heads up, ellen.

Read more at The Washington Post and at CNBC.

Until this week, companies had a July 2018 deadline to start using the new Nutrition Facts panel, which makes it easier to see how many calories and how much added sugar are in products. The Food and Drug Administration said it was pushing back that date this week, though it has not yet announced a new deadline. Industry groups have asked to postpone implementation until 2021.

They're also apparently arguing about what has to be listed as "added fiber."

This week's light reading suggestion is "You Won't Believe How Much Processed Food Americans Eat" from Time magazine. Among other gems:

Nearly 90% of the average source of added sugars, in fact, came from processed foods. Overall, processed foods contained eight times more sugar than less processed foods such as breads, cheese and canned foods, and five times more sugar than unprocessed or minimally processed choices such as meats, fresh fruits or vegetables, grains and milk.

Monteiro's study may also explain why attempts to reduce the amount of calories people eat by offering diet or low calorie options of the same processed foods doesn’t work. “They are still unhealthy because they don’t provide the nutrients of real foods,” he says.

I'm really interested to see what will happen when they start including "added sugar" on nutrition labels next summer, and you can see more information and explanation of what will be different on the new labels on the FDA site.

Before the whole pizza thing...

What I'm snacking on this week: Baby carrots & hummus, lettuce leaves right off of my perpetual salad colander when I'm out in the back yard, strawberries (Driscoll's were $1.99 at Target last week, + survey coupons!), grapes (super cheap at ALDI), homemade sunflower seed butter...

And this gets me thinking that maybe next week we'll talk about how to afford real food snacks; what do you think?

So, that’s me this week…

This year is all about slowly figuring out my own pitfalls, it seems like, and mine may or may not be the same as yours. How are you doing on your own healthier eating plan so far — and what have you found that helps you stay on track?

Earlier installments in this series

Dip your toe in with a few highlights:

And you can catch up on the whole Refined Sugar and Me series here.

More real food

5 Comments

  1. the blackberries on sale at jewel this weekend were driscoll's Some were almost free and some were money makers! mini pineapples were good too! fruit is the new candy!

    Reply

      1. I rarely see Driscoll at my Jewel either. I did buy a two pound box of kiwis at Aldi's Saturday, but only two of them have ripened up so far. I did see the grapes at Aldi's, but I passed on them because I try to avoid produce from Mexico. The strawberries I got at the farmer's market were wonderful, but they were not cheap. I still have a quart of them to eat. This Saturday, they should have the first of the sweet cherries, and the following week the first of the Michigan apricots. There is a grower from Michigan that comes to the Evanston market who sorts through her produce, and sells the #2's for way less. I can get a quarter peck of ripe apricots from her for $2, and they are way better than anything you can get in the store. BTW- There is only 25% of a peach crop in the South this year, and so there are going to be no cheap Georgia peaches at Petes and Caputos this summer. Michigan has 100% of a crop this summer though, and so there will be lots for sale starting in July at the farmer's market.

        The organic person I bought all of the organic veggie plants from at Evanston, just sent everybody an email last week, saying that she will only be at the Evanston market a few times the rest of the summer. She has been selling there for 16 years, but she mostly sells organic fruit and fresh herbs, and she said that her sales have gone down in the last few years. Not as many people are buying her fruit, and they aren't buying as much, and it takes her 3 hours to drive there. People are not cooking from scratch as much, and a lot of people that come to the farmer's market are just buying already prepared food. She is going to expand her CSA this summer instead so she does not have to make the trip every week.

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