Outside the Box Challenge

This challenge was both simpler and more difficult than I thought it would be.  One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to cut out direct sugar in my diet, and I’ve stuck to it pretty well, but this challenge made me, like I’ve noticed other people saying, realize how many of the things I eat have sugar in them, even if they’re not ‘junk food’.  I didn’t really crave sugar, but I did have to change some of my routine, and most of it was a challenge of not being forward-thinking and having to scrounge up things that don’t have sugar. 

For breakfast, I normally have tea or coffee with milk and honey, so that was just a matter of cutting out the honey.  I’m also completely addicted to Chobani’s pomegranate Greek yoghurt, and while they don’t add refined sugar, the do sweeten the fruit with evaporated cane juice.  So I substituted that with plain yoghurt with apple and cinnamon.

For lunch I had homemade ramen with an egg, which I would normally season with chicken bouillon… which also has sugar.  Luckily I had some vegan bouillon that I’d forgotten about, which did not have sugar.

In the afternoon, I had an orange, which is pretty normal (some type of fruit), and more tea, still with just milk.

Dinner was rice and vegetables, and I would normally season these with either teriyaki sauce or soy sauce (or both), and of course those also have sugar, so it was back to the bouillon. 

All in all, nothing was really horrible to rid my cooking/meals of, and I’d have no problem switching (though it was hard to resist the chocolate I also have in the cupboard, which I’ve been hoarding and having a bit after dinner every day).  I just never realized how many various condiments and such that I use on a daily basis have sugar in them.  Plus there’s the honey in my coffee, which isn’t strictly necessary and something I’ve actually been meaning to wean myself off of, and just haven’t gotten around to it.  It’s good to be aware, though, of how much sugar I’m consuming even when I’m not really doing it on purpose.

-Nelle