As everyone embarks on their “get fit and eat healthy” New Years Resolutions, I’m reminded of my favorite quote about the worst non-food that people eat everyday: sugar.

William Dufty in his book Sugar Blues writes:

“After all, heroin is nothing but a chemical. They take the juice of the poppy and they refine it into opium and then they refine it to morphine and finally to heroin. Sugar is nothing but a chemical. They take the juice of the cane or the beet and they refine it to molasses and then they refine it to brown sugar and finally to strange white crystals.”

He also states:

“the difference between sugar addiction and narcotic addiction is largely one of degree.”

Giving up sugar should not be a New Years Resolution. You shouldn’t be eating it at all!

Once you get over the addiction of sugar, honey and fruit are plenty sweet and satisfying.

My last week in China I was following pretty close to the intro diet. Lots of soup with well cooked vegetables, eggs, banana, yogurt, honey, butter and boiled meats. Needless to say it worked pretty well at settling my stomach and I haven’t had any digestive issues since. My first week back I was sticking pretty close to the intro but with stews, meatballs, zucchini, mushrooms, and some berries. Even though my digestion was all better, I felt the need to stick to the basics for a little while to ensure my body could recover fully from the traveling, different food and gluten exposure. I grated lots of ginger into soups and stews for some anti-inflammatory effects. Then I started eating a ton of cherries once my cherry tree in the backyard got fruit. I didn’t limit myself on carbs because I didn’t seem to be having any bad effects from them.

I had done low-carb SCD off and on the first 2 years. It certainly helped with digestive symptoms and what are often described as Candida symptoms. I would go back to eating more carbs but always kept it pretty low-moderate never binging on sweets or fruits. I was addicted to carbs before this diet and knew I had to be careful. But for the most part I wasn’t having that much trouble. Every now and then I’d notice I was eating too much honey and I would cut down pretty easily. Since coming back from my trip it has been a whole different story. I’m fully addicted to sugar again.

So initially I thought I would just ride it out and enjoy it, eat lots of berries and random treats made with berries until the season was over. I wasn’t having any digestive problems so maybe it didn’t matter that I was eating lots of fruit. Then I sorta noticed how I was having some discomfort and burping after dinner. I had this feeling before which would go away with taking some Betaine HCL (stomach acid supplement) so I did and it worked. I used to take these stomach acid supplements with every meal but haven’t had to take any in over 6 months. I’m pretty sure this is from all the sweets lately and it probably didn’t help that I had gluten in China. In any case, these symptoms are similar to GERD and I don’t want to let things get to the point where I’m actually in pain.

Now, I’m not necessarily against all carbs. I don’t think I’ll ever follow a very low carb diet for long periods of time. I find in my experience it was not necessary to restrict them once symptoms went away. But, I don’t like how I have been feeling addicted lately. I don’t like the fact that I come home from work and all I want to eat is a bunch of raisins and dates when I have a delicious meal of BBQ pork chops simmering away in the slow-cooker. I want to enjoy and crave good foods, not just sugary sweets.

Lately a lot of people whose blogs I follow have been giving up coffee (Cheeseslave, Health Home Happy, Modern Paleo). Everyone who’s been a coffee drinker knows that’s a tough one. These people have figured out some really good ways of getting over the coffee addiction. I admired all of them for sticking with it and supporting each other. I have never liked coffee and so I just sat back, sent a few words of encouragement and shared articles, and wished everyone the best. But then I kinda realized, I felt about sugar the same they felt about coffee. And yes I was addicted once again to it.

So now I’m convinced I have to break this over indulgence in fruit and honey. Kinda sucks that it’s right during berry season, but I’m going to start by allowing myself a handful of berries in my yogurt and cutting down the honey, baked sweets, and other fruit. I don’t really see the point in eating apples, raisins, dates, and oranges right now when they aren’t in season anyway. I’m planning to freeze a lot of the berries, some jam and maybe some pie-like desserts, so that I’ll have some fun desserts on hand to bring out to BBQs and social gatherings this summer. I’ll definitely be storing as many strawberries as I can this year. Last year’s bundle (pictured here) didn’t even make it to fall.

So I had said I would do a no-honey challenge for the month of April. That meant no honey in my yogurt, no honey for sweets etc. I started off great, eating yogurt with fruit and making my SCD Truffles with dates (I think I prefer them this way now!). Then one day I just forgot and put some honey in my yogurt. I swear I didn’t mean to, it was just such an automatic step for me to grab the honey and add some. I decided to see if I can just limit myself to a small spoonful of honey (about 2 tsp) in my yogurt once a day. It seems I can somewhat control how much honey I eat and have been quite satisfied with that amount each day. So, the jar of yogurt that was about 2/3 full was almost empty 2 weeks later. That was also shared with my boyfriend who uses it in oatmeal and sometimes yogurt as well. While this wasn’t a total success in trying to go without sweeteners, I think it’s still a pretty good change. Maybe I have kicked the sweet-tooth a little bit? The rest of the month I pretty much had the same amount, just a bit of honey in my yogurt. I did make chocolate fudge for one night, but that was a special treat, not something I’m eating every day. I think I’ve bought honey once this month, about 500g worth, so that is a big improvement.

Now unfortunately the no-honey thing did nothing for my skin. My face was still breaking out like crazy. I turned to the BTVC-SCD Yahoo group and everyone who answered there kept saying they used oils on their face for acne. People had commented on my blog as well saying that. Some people were saying they rubbed the oil into their skin. That had me thinking, I’ve been putting oil on my skin very lightly. I never actually tried rubbing it in and then wiping the excess off.

I tried with coconut oil to start with. I rubbed a good chunk of it into my skin. I then showered and let the steam loosen up the oil a bit, wiped off the excess with a facecloth and then patted it dry with a towel. I’ve been doing this for a couple of weeks and it’s somewhat working. I think putting a thin coating of coconut oil was doing more harm than good, trapping dirt and bacteria in the pores. Rubbing the coconut oil in seems to moisturize it better and cleans a bit deeper. To help even more, I bought some tea tree oil and dab that on top of the coconut oil, let is sit for a while and then wipe off.  It’s not perfect yet but I’m having a lot less breakouts daily. I have also been taking cod liver oil a bit more regularly and some extra vitamin D, which others have said helped their acne. I have some red spots still that have to fade from having acne there and I think once that clears up my skin will look much better.

I know I mentioned going to China a while ago. I am still going, leaving in about 1 week! Very excited and not so nervous any more. I did fine eating rice for a short period and even had some soy sauce without problems. I did cut down on the rice because I was having joint problems that really seemed to get worse around the same time as the increase in rice/carbs consumption. I have heard from many other people that low carb helps with arthritis so it kinda makes sense. I had thought I might do ok with higher carb because I have a better balance of Omega6/3 fats and lots of anti-inflammatory foods in my diet. When I get back from China I’m going to look more into joint problems and how to deal them. Don’t think I have blogged about it before, but I have had joint problems off and on (knees, wrists, now hands) so I think it’s worth looking into. I’m also working on some info pages about good fats, Omega 6 and 3′s, nuts and how it all affects us on the SCDiet. (Hint – we eat way too many nuts on this diet)

So thankful to everyone for sharing their experiences with acne, hope I can get rid of this for good soon!

I’m joining in a Refined-Sweetener-Free Challenge for the month of April. Cara over at Health, Home, & Happiness has done GAPS before and since going off it has been noticing she’s eating too much sugar. I haven’t gone off SCD, but find I’m doing the same thing with honey. I have done low-carb SCD before for short periods of time if symptoms have flared up. Now that I’m feeling much better, I seem to handle dried fruits and honey quite well. I have even added in cocoa to my diet. Why would I give them up if I feel good? Well, I know that I don’t do well with sugar. I know that it makes me not sleep as well, makes my face break out, makes me anxious, etc. All of these things have been problems lately, so even though digestion is good, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I should be eating sugar. So, I will be doing without ANY honey for 1 month. That is the only sweetener I use, so I will be sweetener-free. I will not be going low carb as I don’t think it’s necessary at this point in my healing. I will be getting plenty of good carbs from squashes, carrots, fruits, dried fruits and sweet potato (not SCD legal). Yes I’m keeping in some dried fruit, mainly because I use dried cranberries in my liver recipe, and eating liver is important!

I’m really hoping this helps clear up my skin. For most of being on SCD my skin was doing fairly well (ok, besides all the rash episodes) but since going off the pill it has been constant outbreak. Every morning I wake up with 5 or 6 new spots and they seem to be taking forever to go away. It’s not so much how it looks that is bothering me, but the uncomfortable itchiness that comes along with it. I realize sugar may not be the only culprit, but maybe if I have less sugar I’ll be replacing those calories with something more nutritious. I plan to try and get more minerals in my diet, especially zinc which is known to be helpful for acne. I recently had cooked oysters and really liked them. Oysters are a great source of iron, zinc and selenium so these will definitely be making a regular appearance in my dinners!

I know I’m doing this right after starting cocoa and that might seem a little odd. I can finally have chocolate but oh wait, nope I’ll stop having it because of sugar! Honestly I think I can go without too much cocoa for 1 month. I am not eating it every day anyways. I plan to make my SCD Truffles as a nice dessert, ‘sweetened’ with dates and coated with cocoa. So I’ll have a hint of cocoa in my life still. I will have honey again after this month is over. Hopefully I won’t overindulge in it. I plan to start eating honey again when the local farmer’s markets are open and I can get some really good quality stuff. That will be motivation enough to hold off until then!

I’m also motivated to figure out different snack ideas. Gotta think outside the box on this one…

PS – I just Googled oysters and zinc. It seems *raw* oysters are the best source of zinc. Might have to work on that one…

PPS – That photo up top? I’ve been going through almost a 1kg jar of honey per week. Yeah, that’s a bit much!

**This post is part of a Kitchen Stewardship’s Spring Cleaning Carnival: Get the Refined Sugar Out, this week hosted by Donielle at Naturally Knocked Up