Cutting out sugar

[Eva's Mummy]

I think both dd1 and dd2 get way too much sugar so I'm on a mission to drastically cut it down.

Obviously the easy but is it cut out treats but I would like to be able to swap them for some home made sweet treats if anyone has any ideas (nothing too fancy as I'm not a great cook).

Also tomato sauce is a downfall,  pasta sauce ( red pesto is a favourite ). Even cereal is so full of sugar so we've kind of got rid of that for wholemeal toast at breakfast but that's a bit boring every day. 

What kind of things do you all feed your Los that are low sugar. I'm finding it quite hard to know what to feed them.

[C&B&E]

Breakfasts I often do porridge. Either with raspberries, bananas or apple, raisins and cinnamon.
Or pancakes with oat flour (just grind up porridge oats) and ground almonds, and serve them with fruit.
Or eggy bread.
 We've also just discovered spelt flakes (rude health brand) which have no sugar. We mix them with sugar free muesli.

For a sweet snack, something simple like popcorn is popular here. I mix butter out coconut oil in while it's warm, and sometimes a drizzle of honey our date syrup.

Do you make your own tomato sauce? I add a grated apple  to add a bit of sweetness.

[deb]

Breakfasts & snacks don't have to be sweet; they can be savoury too. Eggs, fish, breakfast meats aren't sweet, and for snacks veg and a dip made w/yogurt or sour cream can be tasty too. Also things like cheese & luncheon meats. And protein snacks are generally more satisfying for longer than carb-based snacks anyway, so no "sugar crash."

[Katet]

I found when my boys were younger actually showing them "sugar foods" & saying that they could have 2/day really helped, so they learnt to pick between say Jam on a sandwich was never as good as a sweet biscuit. What I've found with DS1 is that he will eat Chocolate, but he won't eat any old confectionery because he doesn't really enjoy a jellybean that much so he'll not eat it. They are a bit older & we buy a certain amount of "junk' for the week & if they choose to eat it all in one day they can, but that's it for the week kind of thing... so  they don't.

I've found with pre teen boys knowing the time they are most likely to want junk is also valuable. - for them it is when they come home from school, so I will make things like French toast or roast Cauliflower or left over lasagna for their afternoon tea as that has a knock on effect of them not looking for the sugar foods compared to if they just pick up a piece of fruit.

[We Three]

  We don't buy cereal with high sugar content. In the US, Cheerios have just 1 gram, but I understand it's higher in other countries?

  We also don't drink juice....since most can carry 20-30 grams of sugar! We do buy a brand that has "just" 8 grams occasionally....but mostly we just drink water.

   Whole grain breads....ours has less that 2 grams of sugar per slice.

  For snacks.....goldfish have less than 1 gram. Peanuts have none....cheeses have none. Graham crackers are low, though I don't know exactly. I don't worry about the sugar that is in fruit, as it has the fiber and antioxidants that make it valuable. Berries especially, which are superfoods.   

 For tomato sauce, many of the jarred brands are high, but I often make my own, or at least add fresh ingredients to the jarred kind. We don't love a heavy red sauce....so for us, if I buy a jar that has 10 grams, and I add my own tomatoes, olive oil, and chicken broth to lighten it up, I have cut the sugar down.

 Read the labels.  It's shocking how much sugar is in some foods, that you would never think!

 In America, you'd notice that on EVERY food label, it lists the RDA of every nutrient listed.....EXCEPT sugar.       Because if they listed the RDA of sugar, nobody would buy the items.  Thanks FDA.....for being sketchy and shady.

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

We stopped buying juice ages ago (much to DH's dismay - apparently he feels we need every kind of food/drink available just in case someone stops by and wants it lol) & we don't have any sugary snacks (except fruit of course). They do get candy the odd time but we just don't buy it unless it is for something like Xmas or Halloween. I think we have more issues keeping the salt intake down tbh!

[creations]

Cereal we get the plainest muesli (no added sugar or salt, mostly flakes and grains with a lowish % of nuts and sultanas, I actually add a couple of handfuls of extra sultanas to the entire bag and mix it up), I soak it the night before just in a tub measure out how much muesli he will eat then pour on some milk until it barely covers the top, by morning everything is soft and mushy rather than hard and chewy.  Some muesli is very high in sugar even those without added 'sugar' have high dried fruit content which means it is not fantastic for teeth although dried fruit has nutritional value that sugar doesn't so I personally prefer the dried fruit over pure sugary cereal iyswim.  I actually bought a high fruit content for a few months for DS to get him onto the adult muesli (from a baby muesli which I think was quite sweet, it had dried fruit but was all kind of ground down) and then reduced the fruit content because we have dramatically reduced dried fruit intake for him.

omelet, French toast (eggy bread) or home made scotch pancakes or mini muffins made sugar free are good for breakfast.  Again I don't know if you are looking to cut out dried fruit too...you can make pancakes with ripe fresh banana without dried fruit, same with muffins, or with grated fresh carrot, sweet potato or apple/pear to give sweetness.  If your kids are used to very sweet things you could start with a batch that has a couple of prunes or handful of sultanas whizzed into the mix to make it sweeter but later on cut that down/out.
White bean cupcakes
choc kidney bean cup cakes

If you are happy to switch to dried fruit you can half dip dried apricots into chocolate, it's not something I'd do every day, about once a year perhaps but they do look very special and like a big treat.

I saw a thing on Jamie Oliver site which was a snickers bar made out of tahini, almond butter, I think it had date syrup (which is going to be really sweet) and nuts in, dipped in choc.  There are all sorts of variations on-line for healthier versions of bars/sweets although I haven't tried any.

Pasta sauce we make our own either with a can of plum toms or chopped plum toms or a carton of passata (it is 100% toms and nothing else, the low price shop brand is only about 35p) and we just use chopped onions, garlic, herbs, the toms and then whatever veg we are using.  It's really not hard to switch to passata from a branded jar of pasta sauce, well I don't think so, and then you know a ton of extra sugar hasn't been thrown in.
Red pesto is not too hard to home make. A jar of roasted red peppers whizzed with nuts (or ground nuts), garlic, some oil from the jar of peppers and stir in grated parmesan.

DS's snacks are usually fresh fruit or a carrot cut into batons (they given them whole carrots at school and don't peel or anything so that's super easy!). Sometimes he has a couple of crackers or a pack of mini cheddars or a piece of cheese or he might ask for cherry toms or cucumber instead of fruit.
Occasionally dried fruit or a biscuit for snack.

We use regular ketchup tbh, because our general diet is not high in sugar or processed foods I am not bothered if DS has a spoon of ketchup or bbq sauce sometimes, I don't encourage it but if he asks for it I don't glare at him either