When Sprinkling Sugar on Cereal Was Normal

My friend Mike and I are the same age. We were talking on the telephone last night when the subject came around to sugar.

As children of the 70’s we both had vivid memories of eating cereal for breakfast every morning. We both sprinkled table sugar on our Rice Krispies, Corn Flakes, Life, and Cheerios. That was before Cheerios had several flavors in their brand stable. Honey Nut Cheerios (1979) didn’t exist yet and Cinnamon Life (1978) had yet to be introduced. Once they were we switched to those sweeter versions.

My family had a bowl of sugar on the table next to the salt and pepper. It was normal, lots of families had a sugar bowl. Before school my brother and I would fill a cereal bowl with cereal, pour in the milk, and sprinkle sugar on top. Then we’d sit and read the fun cartoons that were on the cereal box. Maybe we’d even get a reward (prize) as a result of eating a particular brand. All of this was a positive reinforcement for consuming massive quantities of refined sugar. 

Mike and I both vividly remembered getting to the bottom of the bowl. After all of the cereal was gone there was the super sweet milk. We’d hold the bowl up to our mouths and drink the mixture. I can see in my memory the layer of wet, white granules. And we’d eat that daily.

Sometimes the milk would be slightly tinted (depending on the cereal) due to artificial food coloring. However, my family tended to buy what was perceived to be more healthy cereals and so we stuck with Rice Crispies, Life, and Cheerios. We could and would eat cereal at any time of the day. I don’t recall adding sugar to Fruit Loops or Frosted Flakes but it’s entirely possible that we did.

No wonder I couldn’t make it through a school day without drifting off and getting bored. No wonder I was eating at least one fresh baked .60 cent giant chocolate chip cookie a day from the cafeteria in high school. No wonder I am a sugar addict.

I don’t blame my parents, the teachers or the school board. Their generation was subject to advertising that promised sugar was a good-for-us miracle food. Today we know better. Don’t we?

People Can Be Sweet

The craving doesn’t go away. After a lifetime of sweet-eating and reward-based positive reinforcement, sweets are wired into our psyche.

Last week I attended a birthday dinner. It was delicious. Then dessert came out. It looked delicious as well and I wanted some.

The thing that triggered my desire to binge was the Moosetracks ice cream. I’m not sure why, but I really wanted to eat it. I CRAVED IT. But I know better.

After being off sweets for a long time it’s just a matter of avoiding the “moment of desire” that will and does pass. And I had help.

Gwenn’s mother made sugar-free cookies (sweetened with bananas). She’s awesome like that. I can eat these cookies all day. Do they contain sugar? Yes. There are natural sugars from the bananas in there as well as unsweetend carob chips and walnuts. But there’s no added or refined sugar.

The average person would not like these cookies. They’d say there is no taste or that they’re not sweet enough. Gwenn’s mother doesn’t even like them and she made them.

Who needs sweets when you have sweet people?

Why Binge on Sugar

Something happened recently. I didn’t think it would happen. It wasn’t anything bad. It was just something someone did that I didn’t think they would do. In fact, I was so sure they wouldn’t do it that I told Gwenn, “If they do that I’ll eat dessert.” I can’t say who or what it was, that would be incriminating. The person did it and I was surprised. Now I’m supposed to have dessert.

My “bet” wasn’t really a bet. I had nothing to lose. Or so I thought. If the person didn’t do the thing then I wouldn’t eat sugar. That’s no big deal, I’m already not eating sugar. If they did do it then I had an excuse to eat sugar.

My idea of dessert quickly became a full day of eating whatever I want. Just one day. So I purchased a package of Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs, which I LOVE. My plan was to eat all of them. 

This past Tuesday was free cone day at Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream store. See the picture below. Notice how the line is starting to wrap around the building. Notice how many people love an ice cream cone. Notice how I’m not in the line!

I Couldn’t Do It.

There are a few reasons why I haven’t eaten sugar. First, I had dental work done this week. Dental work is one of those things that makes a person feel their mortality. I certainly felt mine. Having my teeth poked at made me feel as healthy as a chocolate bunny in the sun.

Second, I have come to associate eating sweets with feeling bad. Believe me, I want the Reeses. They’re in the house somewhere (Gwenn put them away). I’ve know it for weeks now but the temptation is almost completely gone. Almost.

Lastly, there was this week’s sugar challenge which asked us to figure out why we binge on junk food.

So this post is my long winded statement saying that I think I figured out why we like to binge on junk food. The answer is simple.

Eating Junk Food is Fun.

Junk food comes in fun packages and crazy colors. It tastes good. Whenever we got it as a kid we knew it was a treat—that thing we were not supposed to have. We’ve been conditioned over a lifetime of advertising exposure to think that we deserve junk food as a result of our hard work. When we eat junk food we’re letting go of the reins of life. We’re just living freely. We throw care to the wind. We’re letting our hair down! It’s fun! Like getting drunk, driving fast, or smoking something. Come on, live a little…

Maybe I’m just getting older. (Doesn’t every middle-aged person improve their diet in hopes of lasting longer on this planet?) I’ve been avoiding television advertising as long as I’ve avoided sugar. My association with sweets is now a negative one. I know that if I eat dessert (the Reeces and the ice cream) I will feel bad about myself. My body will feel bad. My teeth will feel coated with sugar. I will feel like I’m doing a disservice to my health. What fun is all that? Not much. 

I Crave Sugar!

I have a few deadlines approaching. Stuff needs to get done. The pressure is on. As a result, I want to hide away and eat chocolate while doing my work.

When things get really bad I sometimes eat unsweetened carob covered almonds. However, my local Whole Foods has stopped carrying them and so now I have nowhere to turn. Earlier I had the craving for something sweet and ate an apple with peanut butter. That usually does the trick but today is different. I’ve got lots to do and I really just want chocolate!

If I didn’t have this blog and I hadn’t gone for several years without sugar, I’d surely go and purchase some chocolate covered pretzels or some kind of cookies. Just thinking about it makes me want to go and do it. However, experience says that will lead to more chocolate. All I can do is stick it out, the feeling will eventually pass.

No matter what anyone says, willpower is a key player in all of this. Anyone who wants to get off sweets will need to build up their willpower just as a weight lifter builds muscle. Avoiding sugar takes time and repetition. It’s not particularly fun work but, in the end, it’s worth it.

Annual Sugar Binge: 2010

For four days annually, from Halloween until November 3rd, I eat whatever I want. That’s how I stay off sugar the rest of the year. 2010 was no different. I headed out to the supermarket at midnight on October 31st to buy some junk.

I was like a kid in a candy store at the supermarket. I went for the bulk food aisle this year.

I got peanut M&Ms, chocolate covered pretzels, peanut clusters, Reeses, Snickers and Kit-Kat in bulk.

However, I avoided getting certain junk foods because they made me feel lousy last year. For instance, I didn’t get any pop-tarts. Just thinking about them evokes that artificial smell and taste. It’s almost as if I’ve eaten one without having to feel gross afterwards.

I used to eat Honey Nut Cheerios, but not anymore. I didn’t get them. Captain Crunch was something I usually buy each year, but not in 2010. I’ve had enough. I got Kashi 7 grain puffs instead.

I didn’t buy ice cream at the store and didn’t have any until the third day when I got two scoops at Ben & Jerry’s. Why do they wrap their cones with paper that sticks to your food? It’s so annoying!

Over the course of four days I ate Reeses, Snickers, Milky Way, Kit Kat, chocolate mousse, chocolate covered pretzels, mudslide ice cream, home-made chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cookies, chocolate cake, peanut M&Ms, and chocolate peanut clusters!

The first thing I ate on the way home from the supermarket was chocolate wafer cookies. They tasted like chemicals! They also made me feel sick so I switched to candy.

The candy was not as I remember it. The Reeses were okay, but after two of them the thrill was gone. Still, I still ate all of the ones I got. That’s the weird thing about sweets. I felt like crap after eating just a few pieces of candy and yet I felt the need to eat everything I purchased—don’t want to waste it you know. It was fun for the first day. But by day three I can’t wait for it to be over. I long to be off sweets!

During my 4 days of eating anything, I noticed all kinds of things I don’t usually notice. For instance, most all of the food for sale along side of the road is fast junk food laden with sugar. I noticed that Arby’s was having a sale on chocolate shakes (I didn’t get one). That kind of stuff isn’t even on my radar when I’m off sugar.

Being on sugar meant that I saw all of the fake food ads. It’s amazing how many companies give us junk food as a reward for handing over our money. Getting back off sweets meant that I was once again immune to the lure of fast food, candy at convenience stores, and junk food in general.

It’s almost as if I’ve entered into a year-long trance that keeps me from noticing sugar. I tell you, my sugar-free trance is way better than the mesmerizing feeling I had when I was replacing my blood with sugar. All of those foods added up to give me one heck of a sugar crash. Then I was depressed for five days after. I’m only getting out of it now.

Oh, and my bodily functions completely changed while I was eating sugar. Everything was labored. It was like my body was malfunctioning. Dramatic? Totally dramatic. All I can say is I’m glad to be off sugar again and it’s getting easier with each passing year. Next year I’ll purchase one of each sweet thing. Except for the home baked chocolate chip cookies. I could’ve eaten them for 4 days and nothing else. We’ll see what happens next year…

I Want Sweets!

I lied in the title of this post. No I didn’t. I want to eat junk food.

I’m stressed from working on my final semester at graduate school. I want to be through with it! A lot of writing has to be done and so I’m tied to my desk. What I want more than anything is junk food. I keep eating as if I’m hungry, even when I’m not.

I’ve got sugar-free cough drops and they help a lot. I’ve eaten grapes and nuts. What I really want is a huge bowl of chocolate covered pretzels! All in due time. My annual sugar binge (which needs a name change) is coming up (5 years off sugar!) on October 31st. Then I’ll have four days of eating whatever I want.

- choclate covered pretzels
- choclate ice cream
- chocolate mousse
- chocolate chip cookies
- chocolate covered grahm crackers
- chocolate candy
- chocolate brownies
- choclate milk shake

That’s all I can think of right now. There’s a lot of chocolate on that list…

Not Eating Sugar on the Road

I’m writing this post from Longview, Washington after having bicycled 75 miles on the BP protest ride. Tonight I stopped at a local restaurant and it wasn’t much better than the last place.

The salad was better but only by a bit. The veggie burger was nicer (everything else on the menu was meat). However, I don’t think I’ll ever choose to replace french fries with potato salad again.

The small health food cafe was closed but it will be the place to eat at in the morning.

Only one more day and then it’s back to my own food in my own home!

Eating Sugar on the Road

It’s hard to stay on the wagon when you’re wagon goes off your usual trail.

I’m on my way home after a week-long college residency. While away, students eat in the cafeteria located on campus. The food isn’t terrible, but eating three square meals a day in that place gets difficult, especially for someone who’s off sugar.

The dessert table is located right by the doorway of the serving area so everyone has to pass it on the way to the dining hall. I always noticed when they had chocolate snacks such as ice cream or brownies.

While it’s easy for me to avoid dessert, and thus the sugars in the desserts, what’s not easy is avoiding added sweeteners in the actual meal. Based on how I felt, and judging from the labels on the foods for sale in the restaurant supply store near my home, there’s most likely added sugar in everything the cafeteria served.

Bread of course has sugar (I still eat dinner rolls). Soups often have added sugars as lots of restaurant soups are purchased pre-made. Salad dressing (I opt for oil and vinegar if there’s any question), yogurt, granola, cereal, waffles, pancakes, soy milk and any number of flavored cooking sauces contain corn syrup and/or added sugars of various kinds. 

But that’s all behind me now. This past week was my last full residency and so I’ll never have to spend a week eating that food again. Yeah!

Now I’m on my ride home. If you don’t know, I’m bicycling from Port Townsend, Washington to Portland, Oregon. This means I’m still at the mercy of restaurant food for two more days.

Last night I stopped in a local restaurant and got a Garden Burger with a side salad. The salad was weak. The waitress handed me a tray of salad dressings all of which contained sugar.

The Garden Burger was terrible! The french fries were so salty I used Ketchup on them. That’s sugar or corn syrup in my system. The fries are basically poison. I was hungry though and so I ate everything. The meal was so salty it made me thirsty for the rest of the night.

No more!

Today I ate fruit and vegetables. I also eat Subway because they sell the Veggie Delight sandwich, which is just assorted vegetables. The ingredients are always pretty fresh, the bread does not cause me any trouble and I never feel bad after eating one of those sandwiches.

At this point I can’t wait to get home and eat the foods that I know and love. It’s just a matter of days now. 

Website Facts Website Size (513)
Comments Per Site (1332)
Current Visitors (24)
Largest Serving 111*
Vitamin D 88%
Sugars 0g
*Based on 51572 servings.

Total Categories (6)

• Tips, Tricks, Info & News
• My Personal Journal
• Product Reviews
• Sugar Challenge
• Sweet Stories
• Frequently Asked Questions

Subscribe to RSS

Search this Site

View the Archive

Favorites

• What It Means to SBS
• 20 Ways to Stop...
• 10 Sugar-free Snack Ideas
• Common Trigger Foods
• Get Off Sugar Now
• Keeping Sweets at Home
• Why Avoid Sugar?
• Top 10 Excuses
• Audio Presentation
• Avoid Sugar at Work
• 10 Reasons to Stop
• Saying No to Friends

Join the eMail List

SBS info only, opt out anytime.

INGREDIENTS: DETERMINATION, DESIRE (YOU HAVE TO WANT IT), FUN, WILLPOWER, SELF-WORTH, SUPPORT, CONFIDENCE, EXERCISE.

Sugar Addiction Quiz

Sugarless Links

Twitter Updates

Take the
Sugar
Challenge!