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I love memoirs. I am fascinated by people and how they work and think and live, so when I see that there is a memoir to read, especially relating to health and nutrition I am all in. I was not disappointed with this book by Eve Schaub, telling the story of how she and her family of 4, embarked and managed a year of no added sugar (in particular fructose) in their food. It was challenging as you might imagine, especially since she had 2 children involved in this project.
Schaub is an excellent writer and easily draws us into the challenges of trying to be sugar free in this day and age. She is a gifted story teller so the book is a quick and easy read. I enjoyed her stories of their once a month desserts, their trip to Italy, and various other highlights of the year.
On a nutritional note I had a few mild issues. By my definition, this family was not really quite sugar free. They avoided fructose and white sugar, but did use date sugar and dextrose, which are still sugars. They also set up a once a month sugar treat, which is actually pretty reasonable for a year. It was interesting to me that they did not choose to use maple syrup or honey on their once a month cheats, but instead stuck with regular white sugar. There are a variety of ways this year of no sugar could have been implemented other than what the author and her family chose. I don’t have a problem with their choices, since the author fully discloses them and explain what and how they implemented their year.
I appreciated her conclusions and how difficult it was when the year was over. The year of no sugar was very clear, but after that year was over they still had to figure out how to live and manage their lives with the knowledge they gained over that eventful year. Actually it felt like they came out to a place not so different from where I am at. We enjoy some sugars on occasion but we don’t take sugar for granted. In my house we use some plant sugars like stevia and erythritol, for those of us who are low carb. My other family members use honey, maple syrup, and coconut sugar for the most part.
The Year of No Sugar is a quick and interesting read, that will leave you thinking about the place of sugar in your own life and may help you make a few steps to cutting back this dangerous and addictive staple in the American diet. I recommend the read.
To get your own copy at Amazon, here is my affiliate link.
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