Tuesday, May 1, 2007

A sugar rush

I'm trying my best to eat more healthily. We don't use refined grains when we cook. We gave up alcohol except for birthdays or anniversaries. We subscribe to a CSA and eat all the wonderful organic produce they grow. When cooking, we add less oil or sugar than recipes call for. We don't use white sugar, preferring sucanat, an unrefined form of sugarcane. Despite all of these healthy habits, I still find myself poking my head in cabinets, looking for sweets. It's not that I don't enjoy what I eat. I think my wife and I make some fantastic meals. I just think somehow I haven't dropped that lifelong addiction to sweets. True, sweets in moderation are not a bad thing. It's just that I've never figured out this moderation thing. When I drank alcohol regularly, I didn't think anything about downing three beers a night. Of course, I realized it was a bad thing, that it was pickling my liver and adding countless calories to my diet. I just didn't know how to break myself of the cycle. It wasn't until I came up with the no alcohol unless it was a birthday or anniversary rule that the cycle was broken. Even on one of those days, my wife and I only share one bottle of wine and no more. It has been working really well, and I certainly don't miss the regular beers. Ah, but sweets. What may have been to the advantage of humans of yesteryear to figure out what's edible and what's poisonous, the sweet tooth has been the bane of modern humankind, especially this human. It's about time I stop throwing prepackaged sweets into my shopping cart and give a fond farewell to the beloved stoopwafle. Perhaps if I gave up the convenience sweets, it would go a long way to curing me of the 500-plus calorie "snacks." I hope so.

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