My Sweet Story

For most of my life, I ate a lot of refined white sugar. Really. A lot of sugar. As a teenager I would eat a half-gallon of ice cream at one sitting. I once ate a whole coconut cream pie. My best friend Sara and I would go out to dinner and order five desserts and eat them all between us. Sometimes our entire dinner would consist of the five (or more!) desserts.

Once I left home and was on my own, it wasn't unusual for me to eat a bag of cookies for dinner, or a big slice of chocolate cake that I would pick up from the bakery down the street. I ate sugar all day long. If I went out to run errands I would stop for ice cream or at a bakery for cookies or cupcakes. Even after I "reduced" my sugar intake, I still ate a pint of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream every night. After all, a pint of ice cream is a lot less than a half gallon...

I first became aware of the dangers of refined sugars while researching my first book, Nontoxic & Natural, in 1984. As a consumer advocate, I included refined sugars in my book of household toxics and wrote that there were other, more healthful, sweeteners on the shelves of natural food stores. I bought them all and started experimenting, but at that time there was little information on how to use these other sweeteners. Frustrated, I went back to eating refined sugar. Eventaully, when it became available, I switched to unbleached, organically-grown sugar, but it was refined cane sugar nonetheless.

After 45 years of eating refined sugars, like over 17 million other Americans, I developed Type 2 adult-onset diabetes. I was also over 100 pounds overweight. My blood sugar was so high, it could not be measured on my home-test blood sugar monitor, which topped out at 400 (80-100 is normal, anything over 125 is diagnosed as diabetes). I had to reduce my consumption of sugar to save my life.

I have seen first-hand where diabetes can lead. My father had also developed adult-onset diabetes. As he aged, I watched the common symptoms appear one by one. His eyesight worsened. Wounds took a long time to heal. Finally, a wound didn't heal, gangrene set in, and he had to have a leg amputated. A year later he died of a heart attack.

Even with that motivation, it was very very difficult for me to stop eating sugar. If you are here on this website, you probably share my opinion that sweet foods are one of life's greatest pleasures. Luscious slices of a perfectly ripe peach floating in a bowl of cream, buttery baklava dripping with honey, real maple syrup on a stack of pancakes, mouthwatering strawberries dipped in bittersweet chocolate. What would life be without these pleasures? It's natural to love sweets. In fact, loving the taste of sweets and desiring them is programmed into our bodies by Nature to guide us to healthy foods to eat (sweet whole foods, that is, not refined sweets!).

For several years I tried the avoid-it-altogether approach, which didn't work. Deprivation may be possible for a day or a week or a month, but not in the long term. Because I didn't know how to eat sweets in a healthy way and didn't know the difference between one sweetener and another, the end result of that attempt was continuing to eat just as much refined sugar as before. This led to being rushed to my doctor's office to receive emergency insulin injections. My blood sugar was up to 509.

I had to do something different. Fortunately, I had a clue. Earlier in my life I had recoverd from multiple chemical sensitivites (MCS) after I found the key to making lifestyle changes: when you find healthy ways that bring more pleasure than unhealthy habits, it's easy to make the changes and stick with them. Applying this philosophy, I discovered I could satisfy my natural desire for sweets without consuming more sugar than my body could handle.

What worked for me was to eat a variety of wonderful sweets--including occasional, very small amounts of cane sugar--in reasonable portions, as treats in an otherwise nourishing diet. Sweets became a friend to enjoy, not an enemy to fight. And then an amazing thing happened. As I began to allow myself to eat sweets, my desire for them became less and less. My body chemistry actually changed to the point where now I actually desire very few sweets. Though I still have the ability to appreciate a really fine dessert upon occasion, I enjoy it as a treat--not my major food group at every meal.

Following this plan, both my weight and blood sugar have come down. As of this writing, neither are yet normal, but I've kept more than fifty pounds off for over five years and my blood sugar is out of the danger zone. Both conditions are continuing to improve. Slowly, but improving steadily, rather than bouncing up and down. I'm also doing other things, of course, to improve the condition of my body, but controlling sugar intake has been a key factor.

While researching the new revised edition of my book Home Safe Home, I had the opportunity to take another look at the sweeteners on the market today. A lot has changed in the last twenty years! With greater public concerns about obesity and diabetes, more sweeteners are available than ever before. And, some of the old natural sweeteners that we tried and rejected in the past are now available in more useable form. I remember trying to make brownies with dried powdered stevia leaves, back in 1985. They were awful! But today stevia comes in easy-to-use crystal-clear drops that can sweeten many foods.

The biggest surprise for me in all this was to find that after about two years of eating these natural sweeteners, I really have no desire at all to eat refined white sugar. I don't even like the taste any more. It is easy for me to pass by a bakery or an ice cream store and not even want to go in. It is easy for me to not order dessert after dinner. I know I can make any dessert I want from healthier sweeteners and ingredients and be perfectly satisfied.

You can have your health and eat cake too!