Sugar has been on my mind a lot lately. I have been trying to cut it down. Did you know that the World Health Organization recommends that adults stay under six teaspoons (24 grams) of added sugar (sugar in fruit, veggies and milk doesn’t count) each day?
It all started when a nutrition expert visited the MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group I am in back in December. Her talk was about stress and our ability to cope with it. Of course, when you are not eating well, stress builds and your health suffers.
I eat pretty well. 99% of the food we eat in our home is whole or homemade. We are constantly talking about the superhero powers our food gives us (yes, I have boys in the house). But my one Achilles heel is my baking. I LOVE to bake cookies, cakes, pies, and most any dessert. My desserts are loaded with sugar. Of course, I know sugar in large amounts is bad, but I couldn’t be eating that much sugar…right? I mean my Oatmeal Almond Cookie recipe on this website only has 3 cups of added sugar….dont hate the cookie.
Starting the day after our MOPS meeting I started keeping track of all the sugar we ate. I was surprised to find that we surpassed our 24 grams of sugar by breakfast time. Our favorite organic granola has 13 grams of sugar in 2/3 a cup. Well, who exactly has 2/3 of a cup of cereal? Not this family. Then we had organic mac and cheese for lunch (5 grams of sugar per 1 cup). Plus ketchup which has sugar and don’t forget the homemade cookie they all wanted for dessert. Arahagha! By the end of the day, we had consumed about 30 grams of added sugar per person in our family.
Things have started to change. I am not going down the path of eliminating added sugar completely, but I would like to keep our daily sugar intake to less than 24 grams. Most importantly, if we keep sugar out of breakfast, we usually meet that goal quite easily. So I have been on a mission.
I have tried all sorts of homemade granolas, but my kids haven’t approved of any of them. It is really hard to break them of the cereal for breakfast thing also. On Saturday, I made waffles. WHY DIDN’T I THINK ABOUT THIS BEFORE! I had totally forgot that my whole wheat waffle recipe has NO sugar. Yep, that is right, NO sugar. Awesome. The only problem is that maple sugar syrup is well sugar. What are waffles without syrup? So I also made a blueberry syrup with frozen berries. There is only a small amount of honey added to the syrup. Add in some sliced apples, Zweber Farms scrambled eggs, and a glass of milk and you have a healthy meal done in 15 minutes. No, really, 15 minutes. If you cook the eggs while the waffles are cooking, it is all done in no time at all. The best part is if you double the recipe, you will have extras that you cannot just pop in the toaster the next day for breakfast.
Whole Wheat Blueberry Waffles-No Sugar
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 baking soda
- 1 cup Organic Valley milk
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- 1 Zweber Farms egg, beaten
- 2 tablespoons Organic Valley Butter
- 1 cup frozen or fresh blueberries
Combine milk and lemon juice;
Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda;
Stir milk and butter into the flour mixture
Stir in egg and blueberries
Cook on greased waffle iron
Blueberry syrup
- 1.5 cups blueberries
- 1/2 tsp lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp honey
Mix the ingredients in a small saucepan. Heat over medium heat, stiring until combined. Remove from heat. Use on waffles and pancakes. Unused syrup can be stored in the refrigerator.
Enjoy!
~Emily
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