‘Year Of A Lot Of Sugar’ – My Family Ate A Lot Of Sugar For A Year
Inspired by research and writings by prolific food-industry authors like Ina Garten, and food bloggers like Heather Baird, Eve Vawter decided to try an experiment. She, along with her husband and children, spent all of 2011 eating a whole lot of sugar. Even though there are popular web articles and books where other families vow to try sugar-free experiments for a year, Eve felt it was in the best interest of her family to eat a whole lot of sugar.
How did you come up with the idea to eat a lot of sugar?
I love sugar. Most people love sugar. Sugar is not only in delicious items like cake and candy, but it is also in processed food items like ketchup and store bought pasta sauce. You wouldn’t assume sugar would be present in things like pizza, but I came to the conclusion that it is when eating at the fine dining establishment of Chuck E. Cheese with my husband and asking him why the pizza they serve is so delicious considering it is served in what is commonly known as the Ninth Circle Of Hell. He exclaimed it’s because “This pizza is filled up with a lot of G-damn sugar.”
How did the kids take to eating a lot of sugar in a year?
The first day was really an easy day for all of us. We ate pancakes with syrup and bacon that was probably cured in sugar followed up with some sugary orange juice. My younger daughter was 8 for most of the year, my oldest kid was 16. My younger daughter was amazingly flexible. At the beginning of the project she kept forgetting that we would be eating sugar, and I’d remind her there was no way she wasn’t having dessert — again — and she’d go, “Oh, okay!” and run off and have a cookie.
What kind of physical changes did you notice after adding sugar?
Adding sugar to my coffee in the morning made it extra delicious, and my kids enjoying a big bowl of sugar laden cereal in the morning made them happy and ready to start the day. After a long day we had some difficulties deciding between ice cream and cake for dessert, but I feel these decisions we made together as a family brought us closer together.
Would you recommend that other people try living a year with eating sugar?
Definitely. Sugar is a wonderful thing. Some of my very favorite items are the mommy and baby gummy bears from Sugarfina and making the homemade Oreos from the website Smitten Kitchen, which are actually far more delicious than store bought Oreos and actually easy to make. It can be a challenge adding extra sugar to your diet, and I’m not suggesting every family has the time or resources to create delicious items from scratch using a big ‘ol helping of sugar, but to these families you can easily find ways to add sugar to your daily diet. Anyone can buy a can of frosting and pass it around the dinner table to share with each other. There are many names for sugar, and a wise consumer can be on the lookout for all of them to find new ways to incorporate them into their diet.
For those of you interested in not eating sugar, you can purchase the book Year of No Sugar: A Memoir by Eve Schaub here. You cannot purchase Eve Vawter’s memoir “A Year Of Eating A Fuckton Of Sugar” in stores because no one wants to publish that mess.
(Image: Tumblr)
