How Can We Reduce Sugar Overload On Our Family During The Holidays?
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The pandemic has brought along with it two stark contrasts when it comes to eating habits. On one side, there is a renewed awareness about strengthening your immunity with real foods like turmeric, black seed, citrus foods, and ample sunshine, and on the other, this lockdown had us spending record breaking hours in the kitchen, baking bread, whipping dalgona coffee and making vlogs out of it.
With festivities in full flow, and most fitness regimes having suffered a setback, the last thing we want is to overindulge during the holidays.
While this is quite a challenge for us adults, for our little ones, it’s even more so. Having so much holiday fare around, controlling sugar (how long does sugar last?) intake for children can be incredibly hard.
Why Do We Have To Hold Back On Sugary Foods Anyway?
Apart from the obvious tooth decay, childhood obesity, high blood pressure, fatty liver disease and diabetes in children are all linked to surplus sugar.
Sugar is also responsible for negatively affecting children’s mental agility and strength. Some studies implicate high sugar intake with poor thinking abilities and memory.
Before we dive into how to manage these sugary overloads with kids, there are some facts about the kinds of sugar that are available in foods. Basically, divided into two types, Natural and Added, sugars further exist in many forms.
Natural Sugars
Found naturally in foods such as fruit, vegetables, and dairy products.
Accompanied by protein, vitamins, calcium, fiber and other essential nutrients.
Don’t cause blood sugar levels to spike the way that added sugars do.
Don’t spike insulin levels, which can cause sugar lows and cravings for more sugar.
Added Sugars
The main sources of added sugar include sodas, candy, ice cream, baked goods, sports drinks and sweetened dairy. Savory foods like breads, tomato sauce and protein bars (how long do protein bars last?) also have added sugar, UNLESS stated otherwise.
Contribute zero nutrients and are empty calories.
Your body doesn’t need added sugars!
With regular use, added sugars disturb your metabolism, cause weight problems, and raise the risk of heart disease, diabetes, tooth decay etc.
How Can We Reduce Sugar Overload During The Holidays?
The holiday season can’t be all about restrictions and a little preparation can go a long way in keeping the holiday season fun and healthy. Small changes to portion sizes and carbohydrate counts can go a long way to keep blood glucose levels in target without giving up favorite foods.
For children over 2 years old, less than 25 grams of sugar daily is the limit advised by the American Academy of Pediatrics. For those younger than 2, this limit is 0. Yes. However, I find this task to be the easiest for my toddler, since she’s too young to even ask for it, so it’s up to me, but for my other two, I do the best I can!
Here are some ideas to reduce sugar consumption in your family throughout the year. These take time but are effective and worth the efforts!
Keep Track Of Your Sugar Consumption
Track how much sugar your kids consume daily. Be aware that sugars are present even in foods we don’t normally expect, like condiments, dressings, spaghetti sauce, breads, buns, lunch meats, and canned vegetables! As often as you can, make your own or buy brands that do not feature added sugar in the ingredient labels.
Read/Know Nutrition Labels
Labels are notorious for hiding sugar behind it’s several synonyms. Steer clear of products that have glucose, agave nectar, sorbitol, fruit juice concentrate, barley (how long does barley last?) malt syrup, sorghum (how long does sorghum last?) syrup, brown rice syrup, (how long does brown rice syrup last?) dextrose, fructose and anything that ends with “-ose,”! Often, you can continue to purchase kid favorites by just changing the brand you buy. Buy better(healthier) brands of Instant Oatmeal, granola bars (how long do granola bars last?), cereals, muffins, and yogurts.
Add Nutrient-Rich Snacks To Your Child’s Diet
Nuts (how long do nuts last?), olives, smoked salmon, and charcuterie are excellent alternatives during the holidays. Vegetables, low-fat dairy products, cheese, whole-grain crackers, fruit and select yogurts are good choices instead of candy, pastries, and cookies.
Bake More Often
Baking at home is a smart way to have fun cooking with the kids, allowing them to have something they love and also control the kind and amount of sugar that goes into your baked goods. You can even replace all the sugar with pureed fruit!
Eliminate Sugar Added Beverages
And never look back! Juices, whether natural or artificial, contain no fiber and the empty sugars can be too much for children. I would go as far as to say that there is no reason why your home should have sweetened beverages. This rule extends to flavored milks, and flavored malt powders too. Sweetened beverages make up for the majority of added sugar in the Western diet today. Let’s not be a contributing factor to this statistic!
Plan Your Family’s Meals And Snacks
When you plan your meals and snacks, it helps ahead of time for when your kids are hangry! Meal prep in advance as per your convenience and serve what you prepare! Best way to get kids to eat what is served is to start mealtime when they are sufficiently hungry but not starving! This will save you many dinner table power struggles and will invite children to try what is on the table.
Intentional Trade-Offs With Healthier Sugars
If your kids are old enough to identify their craving for something sweet, its best to start with fruit. Growing up, my mother had a plate of seasonal fruit ready by the time lunch was done, so there was always something fresh, cool, and sweet to bite into. This satiated our cravings, as well as controlled any sudden spikes in blood glucose.
Reduce Their Sugar Tolerance
With time and continued efforts, your family will reduce their sugar intake and so, their tolerance for sweet foods will reduce to its natural state. This means that a mildly sweet dessert will gratify them perfectly, unlike someone with heightened glucose tolerance. This is a gradual change but completely possible.
Ideas You Can Incorporate During The Holidays To Keep Check On That Sweet Consumption
No Skipping Meals
Even on days you have a late lunch planned, don’t let children stay hungry all the hours leading up to the lunch. Offer their timely meals through the day to prevent unhealthy and excessive snacking.
Stay Hydrated
Cravings can be our body’s cry for water. Our liver struggles to breakdown glycogen (a storage form of sugar) when we are dehydrated. And so, we crave sugar. Keep kids well hydrated at all times.
Don’t Be Shy Of Fats
When fat is removed from food, sugar is often substituted to add flavor, which means, more added sugar and more calories. Cook your holiday dishes in healthy fats like avocado oil, extra virgin olive oil, clarified butter or ghee (how long does ghee last?), etc. Avoid refined oils as much as you possibly can!
Portion Control
Fill plates with equal servings of veggies and protein. Make sure there is at least one food that is their favorite. If your kids, like my son, love going back for seconds, use smaller portions the first time around.
Substitute White Sugar And Reduce Quantities
Check if the recipes you are planning to make over the holidays can use healthier alternatives to sweeten them. Here I talk about which natural sweeteners you can use to replace processed white sugar. Most times, I find recipes work the same, even if I reduce the quantity of sugar mentioned, by a fraction.
Bid The Stress Adieu
When feeling stressed, your body’s stress hormone, Cortisol, starts acting up. Cortisol can give you all those cravings, so its important to keep holiday stress in check. While it may not have been a possibility until now, with half the extended family showing up for festive dinners, the pandemic has given us the perfect opportunity to have a calm, connected and low-stress holiday. Be prepared to take steps with exercise, self-care, a supportive system and regular, quality sleep, which all help you manage stress better.
Keep It Moving
A great way to de-stress is to NOT head for the T.V right after your meals. As a family unit, use the holidays to get into a more active routine. Head out for a walk, or a good ol’ family wrestle. Exercise and movement are natural ways to lower blood glucose levels, and this is recommended for both kids and adults.
Begin a new family tradition that doesn’t revolve around food, cooking and stressing over meal prep. Find an activity you can partake in like a 5k run. Go have a tour of the holiday light displays.
And lastly…
Don’t Always Deprive
Denying yourself doesn’t last for people, especially little people. For my kids, I like to use the 80/20 rule, so, 80% of the time they’re eating the way they should – home cooked, fresh, varied foods. The other 20% of the time they eat a slice of pizza each, share the big thing of popcorn, (how long does popcorn last?) brush their teeth and hit the bed.
My big takeaway from this sugar season is going to be that, the more we focus on eating real food and not processed, sweetened fake food, the easier its going to get.
