Sugar is Sugar, Really? I Beg to Differ

In our family we have learned though some very valuable lessons that we have to stick to Real Sugar. There are no "sweeteners" here. 

Our ds7 has severe reactions to any artificial sweetener. We do see an energy spike when he has regular sugar too, but not even enough to speak of compared to how he gets when he eats something with artificial sweeteners. Here is an example of a more recent episode, which up to 3 weeks ago, no one but my very close friends had ever witnessed.

Friends at church got to see first hand what happens when my ds7 had Vanilla Wafers in Sunday School. He spiked into uncontrollable levels of energy within 30 minutes (we've timed it) and would not listen to ANYONE! Making & flying paper airplanes during the entire class. Also, making them for others to fly. (How embarrassing!) The parents that had him in Children's church about 30 minutes after he ate the cookies saw how defiant he can get when he spikes from something he ate. I usually didn't have problems at church because we sent raisins for my kids to eat as a substitute, but that day he got the cookies. These parents were very structured in the way they taught and I never dreamed that they would not be able to get him to listen. You know the parents who come in and give them the rules right away with consequences. All the kids are sure that hey won't get away with anything!

Yep. They saw my son spike and crash. I made him apologize for his 'spiking' behavior right after church and he literally crashed to the floor. He said sorry and all but I told him that to restore his relationship with these wonderful parents who he disobeyed, he was to clear the tables and help put the crayons and papers away. He refused and dropped to the floor. "I have to fix my shoes first". "Ah, no you can fix them after," I said. "Let's go, we need to get done before the youth meeting." Let's just say he had a complete crying, yelling meltdown in front of everyone. I was mortified by this time and picked him up and carried him out. As I tried to talk to him and find another way for him to find restitution, it got to the point that he actually swung at me. He was over the top. So I let the restitution part go & focused on him for a moment.

We calmed him down and he went to lunch with the very same parents he offended in church. They brought him back after lunch and said he was very well behaved. Ds7 let them know exactly what he could not eat. Then I mentioned how sorry I was for his behavior earlier, and they looked at him and then at me and said. "This isn't the same boy that fell out on the floor, I thought that was his brother (ds5)." I said, "No, it was him." They were shocked! They said that they can't believe that this boy is the same boy that spiked & then threw himself into a fit. Then my ds7 says, "Yes, that was me, and I'm sorry, I should not have eaten those cookies." They accepted his apology and shook their heads in total amazement.

This was not the last time he has had a meltdown and we can trace back each time to something he had eaten with artificial sugars, food coloring, or artificial flavoring. All 3 of these things send him flying and crashing. Do you have a child like this?

Excerpt quoted from MayoClinic:
Artificial sweeteners currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are:

• Acesulfame potassium (Sunett, Sweet One)
• Aspartame (Equal, NutraSweet)
• Neotame
• Saccharin (SugarTwin, Sweet'N Low)
• Sucralose (Splenda)

FDA approval is being sought for other artificial sweeteners. And some sweeteners, such as cyclamate, are not approved in the United States but are approved for use in other countries.
 Newer sugar substitutes, including stevia and agave nectar, claim to be lower calorie, tastier and healthier options.
The topic of sugar substitutes can be complex and confusing. One problem is that the terminology regarding sugar substitutes is often open to interpretation. For instance, some manufacturers call their sweeteners "natural" even though they're processed or refined, as is the case with stevia preparations. And some artificial sweeteners are derived from naturally occurring substances — sucralose comes from sugar, for example.
In our dictionary Natural is present in or produced by nature; not artificial. The second definition is Produces solely by nature. It doesn't seem that sweeteners are "natural". As you can see above, Stevia are natural to start but then processed or refined. That is not a good thing. Why? You ask. Read on....

Excerpt quoted from Natural Sweeteners
 
They don't go through the similar processing and refining as ordinary sugar, they keep much of their natural properties and nutrients. Regular white sugar and brown sugar are empty of their enzymes, micro nutrients and vitamins that occur naturally in the sugar cane juice.
To sweeten foods, use a flavoring that is plant-based sweetener such as Stevia or raw honey. Since they type of flavorings are not cured or filtered, they are considered as natural sweeteners. Unfiltered honey is obviously not processed so it keeps its raw beneficial therapeutic properties such as vitamins and other elements that originate directly from nature.
We use raw honey in most of our cooking, baking, tea etc. We are still trying to find ways to eliminate refined sugar like we have with sweeteners. I have not had enough experience with Stevia to make a call of whether we will or will not use it. I really need to look more into that one. We use Organic Cane Juice or Sugar in the Raw (when I can't get that). We did grow Stevia a couple of years ago and we plan on continuing to do that when I find out how to use it from that form in baking and such. Also, after we research more about it.
The one "sugar" we stay Far Far away from is Corn Syrup in any form. Why? Read on...
There is an awesome site on High Fructose Corn Syrup. She has got some good information matching a lot of the reasons we don't eat food with HFCS in them.
Excerpt from Sugar Shock Blog
Have you heard? A recent study, which reveals that a diet high in high fructose corn syrup may be partly to blame for insulin resistance?
Check out the article on Sugar Shock Blog about the health-harming mercury that's been found recently in foods containing high fructose corn syrup?
Also make sure to watch the 3 min interview on the first page. HFCS is in about 2/3 of what we use for ingredients in our Homemade cooking. Did you read that, our Homemade recipes contain HFCS because our ingredients contain it. Shop wisely. HFCS is one reason we make our own sauces. We don't want that and other additives in our food.
How do we change this problem? Well there are 2 things that we are actively doing that are changing these big companies.

1. Stop buying fast food! They are just as bad, if not worse about putting all those artificial sugars in their foods! Start planning your day to incorporate what is the most important thing for your family. Hopefully one of those things is what you will eat and feed to your family. We all need a priority check once in a while, me more than others most of the time. If you don't have the time to make a full cooked meal each night, check out Wild Tree. I have checked out their products and this would be a great alternative for us, if we didn't make a lot of what they already offer, at home. (future post) I think this is a great step in the right directions for families that can't make everything from scratch every day. I still reiterate that this is a stepping stone, not a final step.
2. We can persuade them to change what they are putting in our foods, by not giving them our money for those items. If it does not sell, the stores pull it! We have the control because we are the ones with the money we spend on food! 1/3 of our paychecks go to food. So choose wisely where you want your money to go.
We are buying only the foods we are willing to give to our family to eat. If a store doesn't carry items we want to buy I go somewhere else. We are moving away from Supermarkets all together because of the shear fact that I have no idea how that food got there. We have no idea what's in it, since half the ingredients are not "required" to be on the label. So, since they don't want to change the way they do business, I changed the way I do mine.
We are transitioning to ordering fresh produce & meat from local farmers. We are looking into a share in a cow, for raw milk and we bake our own snacks. There are still a lot of things we get from the store like:

• dairy based stuff: which will change with the cow share
• some meat and veggies: until we make a better meal plan ahead of time
• lunch meat: which will change with the new meat slicer on my wish list
• bread: which has gone on and off since we can make our own, my kids are not thrilled with our homemade bread, I haven't solved that issue yet.
• Pasta: need the pasta attachment for my mixer
• Ranch Dressing: need to find a recipe for that one.

We are getting there. As we move forward with our plans I will post about the details. Nice to see it in print and not in my head...lol.

Note: The excerpts above are just some of the things we've read up on the subject I am posting on. As I run into the others I've read I will add links to them as well. We read a lot about these subjects and since we really didn't need to document why we do what we do, we haven't. We only needed to share with each other to make changes in our family. But since we are sharing with you, we will make it a point to keep a bibliography type list for subjects we post about.

All sugar is not created equally, and Equal is not sugar! Hope all the info here gives you a taste of what sweetener is and isn't. There is a second post continuing this reasoning behind us changing our sweetener. Please Follow us. Please feel free to share my blog on Facebook, or whatever avenue you chat online, with all of your friends that you think would enjoy or benefit from my blog.