The Sweet Life

Abandoning sugar has been a keynote for me. Sugar cravings were a plague, not only mine, but the kids', especially Myron, who seemed always to be begging for sweets of all kinds. Two movie-theater boxes of candy that had come home with us as part of a door prize from a church party sat, staring, on the hutch-top. the SweeTarts were most obnoxious, having the "virtue" of not containing corn syrup. I liked to pretend that this fact could outweigh their other ingredients, as if the omission were going to be noted by my cells and taken as some kind of penance to expiate things like Blue 2 Lake. This was before beginning the Nourishing Traditions regime. So I gave in now and then and had one, or two, or a few that I didn't bother to count. But they made me feel yucky. They only intensified the deep hunger I was trying to relieve, and then I'd start shaking on top of that.

I'm trying to remember what we ate the very first night I made a "WAP" supper, which essentially meant: soak the rice and butter everything, but I draw a blank. Whatever it was, though, the desire for sugar seemed to halt abruptly. I had not felt this satisfied and "fed" in ages. the next morning was soaked porridge with a goodly helping of raw honey, butter, raw milk, and flax seed. The satisfaction continued. As time went on, the box of colored, flavored sugar pellets gathered dust and I rather forgot about them. I noticed Myron's pleas declining in frequency as well. And whenever he does say, "I just want something sweeeeeeet, Mama!" I hand him a teaspoon of raw honey, which makes him happy. Or a slice of melon, or an apple (peeled), or a bowl of frozen blueberries, or a few raisins.

Finally, one evening Ryan threw out the forgotten box of SweeTarts, along with their companion, an unopened box of Good & Plenty, which now sounds like a better description of my new menus than a box of empty candy.