This 2-Ingredient Halva only needs tahini and maple syrup (Full of Plants)
Choose alternatives to refined white sugar, as it is just sugar, with all the goodness taken out. There’s nothing wrong with a little natural sugar (unless you’re diabetic) but take a tip from wildlife that eat it straight off the beet. It’s good to gradually reduce sugar in tea and coffee, to slowly readjust your taste buds. This may take a while, if you’re a builder who likes 4 sugars in his cuppa! Some alternatives are:
- Purists may wish to stick to normal sugar. Billington’s (in shops) is a more natural brand. SucaNat is the healthiest sugar, but not sold here much (more popular in the US).
- Never use xylitol if you have pets, just a few dropped crumbs in a muffin could kill them. It’s from birch sugar but not ‘natural’ (it’s highly manufactured and bad for many people’s digestion). It’s also found in ‘natural’ toothpastes.
- Maple syrup is nice, but not local and very expensive
- Health stores sell barley malt & rice malt syrup.
- Stevia is a more natural form of ‘sweetener’, and better than artificial sweeteners, which you should avoid like the plague (they also leave a funny aftertaste, and some are tested on animals).
- Choose organic icing sugar (most other versions contain battery eggs).
- Also see plant-based alternatives to honey
- Molasses is the good stuff taken out to make white sugar. You can use it in parkin or gingerbread, and some people lick it off the spoon (it’s packed with minerals). Keep it well covered however, as it could attract ants and wasps).
Read That Sugar Book. This is the book of a popular documentary, when Aussie actor Damon kind of did what Morgan Spurlock did in Supersize Me! (when he lived on McDonald’s for a month to see what would happen). For this book, Damon (who eats pretty healthy) ate the standard amount of sugar that people eat in the west – and sent himself pre-diabetic in the process. An enlightening book on the hidden sugar in ‘healthy foods’ like yoghurt, smoothies etc.
Today me will live in the moment. Unless it’s unpleasant. In which case me will eat a cookie. Cookie Monster