Sugar has been a hot hot topic in the news for some time. With thanks to people like David Gillespie (Sweet Poison) and Sarah Wilson (I Quit Sugar program) spreading the word in an easy to understand way. This is where we introduce Low Fructose Paleo Sweet Treats!
Since living paleo we have cut all refined sugars so we don’t cook with any table sugar (including organic, brown, raw…) and don’t eat any of the processed/packaged ‘foods’ which are chock full of sugar. Think biscuits, yoghurt, fruit bars, cereals, juice, soft drinks, canned beetroot (we could be here all day!).
We don’t think that simply cutting out sugar is the solution to the obesity epidemic and every chronic disease out there BUT it sure does help! And this sweet and addictive ingredient (aka poison) has a lot to answer for. The stuff makes us fat, age quicker, plays games with our hormones, moods and increases risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Quite a few reasons to stop eating sugar yahhh!
“Sugar makes you fat and, if you consume it for long enough, it will kill you. It is converted directly to fat by your liver and it destroys your body’s ability to control your appetite. Without a functioning appetite control you will want to eat more of everything and no amount of dieting or willpower will change that. The more sugar you eat, the fatter you will probably be. But that will be the least of your worries.” Read more in Sweet Poison.
Now this is the bit we struggled to wrap our brains around. Sugar can be broken down into fructose and glucose.
Paleo = no refined sugars (otherwise known as sucrose which is half glucose and half fructose) BUT it’s the fructose in sugar that is the super bad stuff and some paleo food has lots and lots of fructose! Say what!?
Fructose is the stuff our bodies can’t process and so it gets turned into fat and we get a whole bunch of other health implications. Glucose is the stuff that we use for energy, it gets burned up!
So we vote lets slow the flow of fructose!
So now we’ve made a few more changes to our paleo lifestyle to decrease our fructose consumption.
These are the changes we’ve made to create a low fructose paleo diet:
- We no longer cook with and eat stuff like raw honey, medjool dates and bananas every day. These things were once staples in our diets but they are packed with fructose, so now they are on the ‘every now and again list’.
- We tried rice malt syrup! You may be thinking… huh rice? That’s not paleo! We were a little worried about rice malt syrup and it’s definitely sitting on the paleo fence BUT we feel great after eating it so we think it’s ok.
Now we’ve cut down on these high fructose foods we feel better connected to our bodies and really really good!! YAY! YAY! YAY! No more racey feelings or sugar highs and lows. We really recommend giving it a try!
Our free eBook has a HEAP of our sweetener free recipes!
This is a super quick, merrymaker run down of sugar and what we have done to lower the amount of fructose we eat. We highly recommend reading Sweet Poison. David mixes scientific stuff with simple stuff and you will understand it 100%. The I Quit Sugar website also has a heap of up to date information.
All this talk of sugar making your sweet tooth hungry? Try out these low fructose sweet treats!
2. paleo chocolate (use rice malt syrup to sweeten)
Do you eat low fructose? We’d love to hear from you, give us your tips and experiences!
Always merrymaking
Emma + Carla
