Cutting Back On Sugar

We all know too much sugar isn’t good for us.  So when looking back at last year's grocery purchases I have to tell you I was horrified at how much sugar I bought in 2015.  That didn't include the sugar that was already in the foods we eat.  One of the things we decided as a family was to dramatically lower the amount of sugar we consume in 2016.

The first thing we did was stop buying cereal.  Yes, it was cheap when I found it on sale and even cheaper when I used coupons with those sales, but holy guacamole there is a lot of sugar in that stuff.  So we decided to let it go.

Instead we replaced it with hot cereal, homemade granola, homemade yogurt, eggs, homemade waffles and pancakes.  Making everything from scratch meant we controlled the sugar.  I started making our granola recipe with twice the oats it called for and the same amount of everything else and we discovered it was actually tastier and certainly better for us.  Plus it lasted longer that way.

We are serious label readers.  Recently I bought cereal at the store but it seemed to take us forever to find ones with the least amount of sugar and no or limited preservatives.  We settled on shredded wheat, rice krispies, corn flakes and All-Bran.

I've even cut back the amount of sugar I put in my homemade yogurt

I really pay attention to how many grams of sugars are on the labels.  While I tend to steer clear of sugar substitutes and rarely eat diet anything I do occasionally use products like gelatin that contain it.

We seldom drink soda and if we do it is usually diet, however I personally don't think diet soda is any better for us than regular.  We are big time water drinkers and my oldest and I like to dabble with flavoring our water.  I like lemon or berries and she likes that too along with mint she grows herself.  Sliced cucumber in your water is nice too.

I have taken quite a few of our favorite cookie recipes and tweaked them to cut the amount of sugar, salt and fats as well as to add fiber.  So far we are enjoying the results.  I've posted a couple of those recipes on the blog and you can find one here, one here and one here.

Using less sugar saves us money, obviously, but consuming less is better for our bodies and our health.  Are you trying to cut back on your sugar consumption?  How are some of the ways you cut back?