What about sugar addicts?

[Whalequeen]

I have struggled with sugar all my life, moreso after I quit smoking 5 years ago. I miss those fat and sugar baked goods. Anyone have anything to combat this?

[colonyofcells]

Can maybe use a high fruit diet as a transition, altho a high fruit diet is quite expensive. Our primate ancestors did eat mostly fruits which easily explains why we all like sweet stuff. Then later on, can replace the fruits with cheaper starch staples. Can remove the animal products and just take vitamin b12 supplement every day. Another way is to sweeten the starch staples such as add fruits to oats. For the addiction to fat, can maybe use durian and avocado as transition foods.
http://cdn2.arkive.org/media/F5/F544750 ... -fruit.jpg
https://i1.ytimg.com/vi/WV39cllr0P8/hqdefault.jpg

[Whalequeen]

Thank you. I have been vegan for a year now, so already done eating animals. I eat a lot of fruit. It's the "cakey" stuff I miss. But I just have to realize that stuff will do me no good.

[Whalequeen]

Maybe pancakes will do the trick

[colonyofcells]

Can do lots of vegan baking with less fat to comply with mcdougall diet. Most of the non mcdougall baking recipes do continue to use oil.
There's lots of vegan cake cookbooks altho they are probably using oil that is not allowed in mcdougall diet :
http://www.amazon.com/Have-Your-Cake-Ve ... egan+cakes

[Whalequeen]

Perfect thank you!!!

[colonyofcells]

In baking, oil can be substituted by flax seed meal or prune puree or apple sauce, etc. In baking, Dr mcdougall suggests to replace the oil with fruit or tofu. Flax seed and soy like tofu are still a bit high in fat.

[dailycarbs]

Sugar is vilified these days. I'm a sugar addict. Frankly, I don't see anything wrong with it. Rather than "should" myself to death about what to eat, I indulge my sweet tooth with fruit when it calls for it. Fruit satisfies me very well.

That said, the craving for baked goods never really leaves. For one thing, they're everywhere! The smells and sights are glorious! But when you reintroduce those foods to your taste buds, it's like an alcoholic trying to take one little drink. Doesn't work. So it's best to go 100% clean and stay that way. That said, do the best you can with compliant treats. I like Cathy Fisher's recipes quite a bit.

http://www.straightupfood.com/blog/category/dessert/

[eXtremE]

I am also an ex sugar addict. I was eating tons of the stuff at one point in my life. I simply went cold turkey and now have the occasional treat and have not fallen off the wagon yet.

[colonyofcells]

Can probably eat more sweet stuff and nuts and seeds if can exercise more.

[Melinda]

I make no oil muffins and cookies. That said, I don't eat a lot of them. But I really enjoy them. There are a couple of great muffin recipes in "Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease". Also Mary Mcdougall has recipes on this site. Just make sure you eat them as a treat, after you have mostly filled up on good stuff. And try to listen to your body - sometimes when a person wants sugar, what your body wants is FUEL right away, in which case rice, potatoes or oatmeal can also satisfy the need. Try not to think of yourself as an addict - the media is fond of that but I believe it is your body saying "I need fuel now!".

[patty]

Maybe pancakes will do the trick

I make these Pizzelle cookies with tofu, vanilla, maple syrup and flour. Figuring out how to use the machine without oil was a little bit challenging.. to say the very least. EdgeCraft were nice enough to refurbish my machine after two weeks, as it wouldn't open. I am not sure what happened, it could have been another recipe I was using or my cleansing it. In between having my Pizzelle machine refurbished I used a Panini and I found a recipe that was simpler with less variables. And of course no oil. The thinness and the intricate design of the Pizzelle is what creates a type of crispness.

HealthyVegan shared his wife does the same type of thing with a waffle iron. When not cooking with fat/oil it is difficult or impossible to get a crisp cookie. I finally came up with the recipe from a site for a vegan waffle cone where the recipe for whipped the cream, the tofu was used. They taste pretty good, the sweetness you can control. The learning curve is very deep. Hang in there, because you won't miss anything cooked with fat or oil.



Know what your triggers are. I stay away from anything with coco or with caffeine and nuts. I make sure I have my reward foods so I am not tempted. I practice HALT Don't get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely and Tired. Satiety comes from starch, starch veggies, legumes and grains.

Aloha, patty

[nayasmom]

Thank you. I have been vegan for a year now, so already done eating animals. I eat a lot of fruit. It's the "cakey" stuff I miss. But I just have to realize that stuff will do me no good.

I suspect the reason you still crave "bad" sweets is because you haven't actually stopped eating sugar. Fruit has sugar, and I found that once I severely limited my fruit intake (too-high triglycerides), my taste for sweets pretty much disappeared. When I do eat sweets now, like the jelly bellies yesterday, I go crazy, literally.
I don't know if there's a period of adjustment that needs to be survived.
If your craving is actually for carbs, not just sugar, then perhaps you need more whole-food starches in your diet.

Robyn

[roundcoconut]

I do think that for certain people (high susceptibility to binge eating or compulsive eating; strong surge of dopamine from ingesting simple sugars), the above rule is the way to go!

I actually think it's kinda sad that people sometimes mistakenly think something is wrong with them if they are the type who cannot ingest refined sugars without triggering cravings for more such sweets. I don't know what percentage of people that is, but I go back to the phrase that this is a battle that our bodies were not designed to fight.

Simple sugars (fruit) do exist in nature, and most humans can incorporate fruit into their diet. (If stopping at two pieces doesn't happen naturally, then put the manual brakes on. If you're eating more than 14 pieces of fruit a week, it *may* be that you've allowed fruit to serve as a stand-in for the compulsive eating of refined sugars that you used to do on a SAD diet. Not necessarily, but *sometimes* this is the case!)

But refined sugars (including pulverizing dates in a blender, synthesizing tree sap into maple syrup, or turning the stevia leaf into a consumable powder) can take power over a person's appetite. If you've ever eaten more than you originally intended, of substances containing refined sugars, then there is *some* susceptibility to the addictive powers of refined sugars.

Depending on each person's level of susceptibility, you may or may not be able to keep sweets in the house, may or may not be able to eat the occasional off-plan sugarbomb (e.g. piece of birthday cake), may or may not be able to recover quickly if you *do* ingest refined sugar. Joan Ifland, who does a lot of work on food addictions (but has nothing to do with the WFPB community), says that it takes four days to get refined sugar out of your system -- until you have four days without refined sugars in your system, you don't know what it feels like to be cravings-free. (I am only talking about those with food addict susceptibility).

I once lived with a guy who was like Doug Lisle -- he would open a pack of sugary junk food and eat one, and leave the package on the counter, and just walk by it all night. The product would go stale -- that's how little he cared about sugar. Wanna guess whether I gained weight living with him? Yep.

[kirkj]

It is really easy for me to binge on some foods. I can get into trouble with pretty much anything baked, including plain bread. It is easiest for me to never have these things in the house, though I will eat a piece of bread if I am out to dinner. But, I go out very infrequently.

When I want a sweet treat I sometimes make soft serve in my food processor with a frozen banana, frozen sweet cherries, cocoa powder, almond extract and maybe a bit of added soymilk or water.