Sugar Smart Shopping Tips

I hope you are all hanging in there, and leaving the extraneous sugar out of your diet. I was thinking about the grocery list, and because we are all so far apart and I have no idea what brands are available where you live, that makes me rather uncomfortable, I will however, give you some hints and tell you what I buy.

Lender’s has a new bagel line called Healthy Grains, they have no high fructose corn syrup and minimal sugar, they also have a good amount of fiber. Fiber One and Dakota Hearth make breads with no corn syrup and no sugar, they are sweetened with honey, I am sure there are others, these are my go-tos as I really like them. Skippy Naturals is really good peanut butter but it does have sugar, no hydrogenated fat though, I believe the Smuckers natural has no added sugar and is just peanuts and oil. Pollaner All Fruit with Fiber is my personal favorite, Smuckers Simply Fruit is also really good. Your best bets are foods that are as close to how they grow as possible, fruits and vegetables, steel cut oatmeal, quinoa, etc. The nice thing about quinoa is that it is high in protein, a great choice for meatless days. If you get munchies and crave something to chew on, air popped popcorn and kale parmesan chips are great choices.

In my coffee I use a cinnamon grinder and add it right to the coffee grounds before I make it, ground cinnamon causes a big mess, the cinnamon cuts down greatly on the bitterness. If you must have a sweetener try honey or agave nectar, with agave, a little goes a long way, start small and work your way up. Most brown sugar is white sugar with molasses added to it, it has the same nutritional value as white processed sugar because it is white processed sugar. There is a brown product called Sugar in the Raw, which is minimally processed sugar crystals, these are also very sweet, I have been known to use them in tea and in oatmeal, I am planning to avoid them this week, it’s all I can do to give up my peanut butter! Good luck!!