Urban Suburban Mommy

Tag Archives: sugar

Oh sugar.

Posted on by Posted in The Struggle is Real .

There are two types of snackers in this world. The first are sweets people, the second are savoury snackers. Whether you can control yourself or you’re an indulger, there’s always a go-to.

Yes, those salty, garlicky kale chips in your hand, for example. Good choice, you savoury person you. At least it wasn’t a bag of potato chips or a stash of pork rinds, but you’re still a savoury.

And you – yes, you, who just “straightens” the edge of the cake, never taking a slice, just nibbling and pecking for a little sugar punch to the taste buds – you, my friend are a sweets person.

Me? I lean towards savoury. Give me salt, a dose of something fried, a little spice and I’m in snacker’s paradise. I love chocolate ice cream – I mean, come on! It’s ICE CREAM, but I know in my heart of hearts if you offer me movie theatre popcorn with extra butter I’ll denounce both Ben and his partner Jerry (unless it’s really hot out, but that’s not a fair fight!).

The problem with snacking is that I’m a snacker. It doesn’t help with the battle of the post-baby bulge (and certainly didn’t help in the battle of the pre-baby bulge, either), but after years of trying different methods of healthy eating and weight loss, I’ve learned what works for me.

Cutting out the beloved carbs.

Sorry carbs.

Carbs are essentially sugar. Whether it’s refined sugar, or carbohydrates, which the body breaks down as sugar, both forms of sugar are not doing us snackpacks any good!

Carbs are the 21st century scourge and scapegoat the way saccharine and diet colas were the solution to all problems in the 70s and the removal of all fat was the answer to our weight-control prayers in the 90s. Those fat-free foods, what? How can you have fat-free sour cream? Fat-free potato chips? Fat-free turned out not to be such a great idea either.

My favourite quotable quote of the recent nutritional revolution is from a book I listened to (I went through a phase of listening to audio books on my daily commute) called Skinny Bitch. Author Rory Freedman said ‘Whenever you see the words fat free or low-fat, think of the words chemical shit storm.’ Truer words, my friends, truer words. 

Not only do I NOT want to eat a chemical shit storm, I do not want to feed my family a chemical shit storm. I don’t want to teach them that chemical shit storms are a good replacement real food.

But what I also learned is that fat is not the enemy and sugar is actually not my friend. That fats are not the evil monsters I once thought. This is a realization that many people are just now starting to discuss.

I’m not even going to get into the politics.

Because politics.

I’m also not a nutritionist so I’m not giving advice here. This is just my personal experience after trying to figure out all of this nutrition stuff.

I live better when I live without carbs. Atkins, Paleo, South Beach, these fad diets are actually not fads at all. They are lifestyle changes to remove some foods that best allow for weight control and curbing cravings.

Yep. NO CARBS. Generally the average person is supposed to consume between 225 grams to 325 grams of carbs a day – roughly half of a day’s caloric intake will be from carbs. But if carbs are cut to a maximum of 50 grams per day, the body goes into ketosis. This is a state where it burns fat for fuel instead of sugar.

Who even knew a body could do that?

I’ve tried it and I like it, but I find it can be hard to sustain. But without carbs, I get no cravings. I get no hunger pangs. I get no sugar rushes or crashes. My body burns my fat supply as readily accessible fuel. It allows me to make better food choices.

There’s definitely something about sugar…

My mantra: Food is fuel. I can enjoy a nice steak, just skip the dinner rolls. I can have some savoury kale chips, just smaller portions. I can even indulge in chocolate, so long as it’s good, dark chocolate with no sugar added. I seriously love 85% cocoa chocolate.

It’s astounding what the body can do. There are apps to help track carbs and lists of healthy and nutritious foods that will give you all of the nutrients you need, it’s just a shame there’s no app that can actually convince me to put down the snacks and get to the gym!

NOTE: There are differing views on ketogenic diets. A ketogenic diet has been considered beneficial for medical reasons – like treating epilepsy, weight control – but can be extremely dangerous, too, specifically to diabetics. Before embracing this diet, please do your own research and talk to your doctor.

 

Sweet caramel apple crumble

Posted on by Posted in Delicious Dishes .

I love this recipe. I learned it as a very young child and have grown up making it. It’s a staple part of our Thanksgiving dinner, but it’s really one of those desserts  you can enjoy any time of year. I find it so quick and easy to throw together, and there’s no need for precision on this. You need more sugar if you like it sweet – less sugar if you don’t. Either way, it’s still pretty sweet as you need the sugar to caramelize.

Word of warning – you’re going to get the recipe the way my mom taught it to me – with pinches and handfuls instead of cups and teaspoons, though I’ll try to give some approximation. Do not be scared off of making this. It’s an easy recipe with only a few ingredients and it really can’t be ruined regardless of the varying amounts. Seriously. Just fine tune it to make it your own.

What you need:

– 3 to 4 handfuls of quick oats
– 1 cup butter
– 6 to 7 nice apples – I like a mix of gala, empire, mac, spy – peeled, cored and sliced thin
– 4 to 5 pinches cinnamon
– dash of vanilla
– 3 handfuls brown sugar
– 2 handfuls white sugar
– 3 pinches salt
– flour as needed

What you do:

Preheat oven to 325°. In a big bowl mix half of the sugar, 3 to 4 pinches of cinnamon, 2 pinches salt, apples, vanilla and 3 to 4 pinches of flour. Toss it all until the apples are well coated. If your apples are very juicy and you find there’s a lot of liquid, add a few more pinches of flour until the mix is a bit dryer – but not to the point where all the liquid has become a paste.

Put the mixture into a 9 by 13 baking dish or a deep, large pie dish.

In a fresh bowl: Add the butter, a pinch of salt, a pinch or two of cinnamon, three handfuls of oats and the remaining sugar. Get in there and start pinching and twisting the butter into the other ingredients. This delicious buttery sugary mixture will start to clump up. Keep going until all the butter is broken in. The friction that you create with the pinching helps the butter melt into the oats and gets the whole mix combined. If the mixture seems too buttery you can add more oats. More buttery or more oats – you can’t really go wrong.

Cover the apple mixture with the oat mixture and put it into the oven. It takes 45 minutes to an hour, your nose will tell you it’s done. But you can leave it longer. The longer it sits in the oven the more the butter and sugar will caramelize. That caramelization is sooooooo delish.

Let cool for 10 minutes and serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

 

The birthday party rant

Posted on by Posted in The Struggle is Real .

I’m betting I’m not alone in this, so feel free to give me your 2 cents.

Birthday parties drive me nuts! These kid parties are out of control.

Now let me preface this rant by saying, I love throwing birthday parties, I love everything birthday! I think it’s a great opportunity to celebrate. That’s not the problem. It’s the insanity that has started to swirl around the birthday party expectations that’s making my head hurt.

IMG_8339

The presents:

I have a $25 limit on birthday presents. I like my kids to pick out their own gifts, since they know what their friends like. I actually take the time to have my kids add stickers, make cards, draw on the paper and have some fun with it – as long as I’ve remembered before the party and am not racing across town to try to get them there on time and whipping into the local toystore last minute (thank goodness they offer free gift-wrapping services!!).

But I’ve got 2 kids. They’re well liked and get invited to a lot of birthdays. We’ve had weekends where there are two birthday parties for each kid. $100 in presents, and that’s not the only parties they’ll have that month. It gets EXPENSIVE! People complain about the cost of daycare, the cost of diapers, well here I am to add birthday gifts to that list! Never mind that my weekends are not my own.

I kind of like these new ‘group gift’ sites that handle the guestlist. There’s one that is used pretty commonly around here, where the child receives money and splits it between a specific present they’re saving for and a charity of their choice. So instead of 25 Lego sets the kid can buy a bike and donate to the local animal rescue. You just transfer the cash right then and there while you’re RSVPing and you’re done.

I don’t love the ‘expectation’ of gift giving, even though it absolutely is an expectation, but it’s organized and easy and so I’m good with this.

The venues:

I feel lucky that my kids are spring and summer babies, I can have parties outdoors. Living in the city, I have a small house that doesn’t easily accommodate more than 5 kids at a time. I feel they won’t remember specific gifts, but they will remember the big, fun parties, so I try to throw them at a community centre party room or the big park at the end of the street. I like to invite the whole class and always offer that siblings are welcome. I find it no trouble at all to bake up a few extra cupcakes and make it fun for all.

I can’t understand some of the venues in the city. I just can’t justify $500, $600, $800 on a kid’s birthday party! It’s not even so much about the money (although I think that is steep!), it’s about the expectations we’re creating for our kids. With a small home, I get it. We need to find a venue, and frankly, it’s pretty sweet to be able to pack up and leave the mess for someone else to clean up, but the aquarium, science centre, museum – these ‘high-end’ party venues don’t make sense to me. The guest list is extremely small, the cost per child very high and then, it seems, there’s a need to outdo other parties, or ‘better than last year’ even.

SMDH. They’re 6, they don’t even know.

IMG_7609

The birthday child:

These big venues, the big productions, this can be a bit overwhelming to the birthday child. Know what I hate the most though?

All of the presents.

In years past I tried “your presence is presents enough” type cuteness for No Gifts Please, but they got gifts anyways. And the kids want gifts. My husband pointed out that it was all part of the party expectations for our children. That they would be sad to have all their gifts taken away. Instead, they open them up slowly, over the following few weeks, and enjoy them one at a time – instead of opening them all at once and being overwhelmed and undergrateful.

And all of the gifts – they have enough toys. As much as I LOOOOOOVE Lego, superheroes, trucks, Skylanders and Transformers, they have enough. We tried the “one in, one out” method, but it was painful. We’ve asked them to donate, but I don’t think they’re quite ready for that yet, last year my older one was so stressed out about having to pick what to give away and not enjoy that I quickly put the kybosh on that idea. Why have a party if it’s going to stress your kid out?

The invitations:

I love designing their invitations. I have them printed up at the local copy store and even though I get rave compliments – and offer to do them for other mamas – they’re actually cheaper than buying invites. Especially when you’re handing out 30-40 of them. (Or 60 – like last year, when instead of giving them out to the daycare and the class, Urban Suburban Daddy misunderstood my instructions and stuffed them into all of the daycare cubbies of the other two classes. So we had 3 daycare classes, a school class plus siblings. Lesson learned.)

I also email the invitations to all of the parents. I never know if the kids get them home or not. My son occasionally gives me an invite a few days after a party has already happened.

The politics & the fallout:

“I invited him but he didn’t invite me.”

“I wanted to sit next to the birthday girl.”

“I wanted the piece of cake with the blue rose.”

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHFFFFFFFTTTTTT

Seriously. Sit back at a birthday party and notice how many little squabbles occur over the course of the 2.5 hours. Kids have developed these crazy expectations and are indulged in ways they can’t manage. They are fed junk food and sugared up, and then sent home to mama a very wired, hot mess.

Is it a drop-off party? Do I stay? Do I go? What do I do with my other child if it’s not a drop-off party and numbers are a big deal? I’ve tried to pay for my other child, I’ve tried to find another parent who can take mine. I’ve tried to understand why my son would sooner give up his XBOX than miss a birthday party. It’s a social standing and a testament of friendship – plus they get to do all kinds of cool stuff, from circus classes to science experiments, to being taught how to make pizza.

I have no idea what the solution is, but I feel much better getting that off of my chest!

Suburban Mommy Michelle adds: My son just recently started JK and I too feel like I have now become part of the birthday turbine.  In fact, I do remember dropping a pretty penny on my son’s last 4 birthdays.  In fact, for what I spent on his 1st birthday party, our family could have enjoyed a vacation instead!  Our second is born in the summer, so hoping this helps with eliminating some costs on venue.  I do agree that birthdays are out of control – now that I think of it – so is every holiday.  We have become such a commercial society.  Perhaps instead of presents this year, I will ask if parents minded chipping in for things like daycare, diapers, formula..you get the drill.