There's sugar in my WHAT?!

Going into this "giving up sugar" thing, I figured I'd be giving up all my loves - cake, cookies and ice cream.  I never imagined that this would require me to also give up fruit. Salad dressing. Bread crumbs?!

Giving up sugar isn't for the faint of heart. It requires label reading and lots of attention to ingredients! My PLAIN bread crumbs ingredients list looks like this:

bread; high fructose corn syrup; corn syrup

What?! Not only is sugar the second ingredient, but also the third??? And the more I read, the more I'm finding sugar in weird (well, weird to me) places. Canned beans and tomatoes all have added sugar, things I use to make savory dishes have, surprisingly, a lot of added sugar.

When you're looking at labels, you can't simply look at the sugar content. It can be deceiving! "Sugar free candy" still has a sugar replacement, which won't help you kick the sugar addiction -- you're still feeding the "need" for sugar.  You have to read ingredients. The following are all forms of sugar that you should be avoiding:

• evaporated cane juice
• high fructose corn syrup/corn syrup
• stevia (more on this later)
• fruit juice
• sugar
• dextrose
• sucralose
• aspartame
• Splenda

Sneaky, isn't it, how many words there are for our beloved sugar?

Italian dressing mix for my favorite comfort food recipe? Sugar is the FIRST ingredient. Obviously I was disappointed (and terrified!) when I started to fire up my crock pot this morning. Never fear, off to the internet I went. I found a recipe at Mom Advice  for homemade Italian dressing mix and decided to go for it, omitting the sugar in the recipe.  So here it is, your first repalcement for something that really shouldn't need sugar in the first place! I also omitted dried celery flakes, as I didn't have that on hand.

Homemade Italian Dressing Seasoning Mix

Recipe from Mom Advice

Ingredients

1 ½ tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp onion powder
2 tbsp ground oregano
1 tbsp dried parsley
1 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tbsp salt (adjust to your own personal preference)
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp ground basil
¼ tsp ground thyme
½ tsp dried celery flakes

Mix all ingredients together and store in an airtight container.  To prepare the dressing: Mix two tablespoons of the mix with ¼ cup vinegar, 2 tablespoons of water, and ½ to 2/3 cup olive oil or canola oil.

And, in case you're wondering how my favorite comfort food turned out, my three year old daughter looked at me during dinner and said "Mommy, dinner turned out PERFECT!" I love her sweet little self!