Episode 20 - How To Cut Sugar From Your Kid's Diet

Join me and Michael Collins, founder of SugarAddiction.com and Board Chairman of Food Addiction Institute as we chat about how to cut sugar from your kid's diets. Learn what sugar does in children, it's effects on their mood and their development as well as how hard it is to break the sugar habit. We'll chat about the best practices moms can implement and specifically what we've found to work best when it comes to reducing sugar in kids.

Introduction (0:27)
The full effects of sugar (09:46)
Short term effects of sugar on kids (14:49)
Coffee You NEED to stay alert
How to cut sugar out of your kids’ diet day-to-day (19:22)
How to cut sugar by reading food labels (24:17)
How to cut sugar out of your kids’ diet when they are older (26:30)
How to cut out sugar long term with kids (30:37)
Wrap Up
Mentioned In The Podcast

Welcome to the Fit as A Mama Bear podcast. I'm Shelby, a certified strength coach, nutrition coach, mama to two, and all-around health nut.

This show is about a little bit of everything healthy, fit and natural related, so if you're striving to smash goals, eat better, feel better and enjoy the occasional mom rant, this is the place for you!

You're listening to Episode 20 today, and I’m chatting with Michael Collins, founder of sugaraddiction.com and board chairman of the Food Addiction Institute.

Introduction (0:27)

Thanks for catching today’s episode. I'm really excited about this one because it's one super close to my heart. One thing I’m extremely particular about regarding my kids' diets is reducing sugar, and I mean ALL sugars.

I never went with the typical rice cereal as their first foods and up until last year, even their birthday cakes, yes, the typical first birthday smash cake was sugar-free and homemade. It looked terrible to be perfectly honest!

I'm very firm on what my kids eat because I truly believe it shapes their lives and their health, not to mention their taste buds within the first few years of their life.

Unfortunately, sugar is marketed to our kids far more than we even realize and often mamas fall into the trap of grabbing what is easy instead of what is nourishing. And of course, I want to help fix that.

Today we're going to chat about what effects sugar has on our kids, what kinds of typical kid foods contain sugar and some actionable steps you can do to help your kids cut sugar from their daily diet.

With me here today is Michael Collins, and as I mentioned, he's the founder of sugaraddiction.com and board chairman of the Food Addiction Institute. He's been completely sugar-free for over 30 years and has worked closely with others to help them regain their lives from sugar addiction.

So I know that he too is passionate about helping kids cut sugar from their diets. Before we get into the bulk of the show, Michael, welcome to the Fitness Mama Bear podcast.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself, and how you came to be in your field

Well, I have the podcast version, but I can answer any questions after that! It usually brings up more questions than it answers. But, you know, I was a regular kid. I grew up like I thought everyone else did. My mom was my favorite sugar junkie. She loves sugar and she always had a stash somewhere that she thought we didn't know existed, but we did.

But we always had sugar around the house. I mean, we literally ate bread and butter, and brown sugar sandwiches and Kool-Aid with three times the recipe sugar in it.

And, you know, if we didn't put enough sugar on our cereal, and scrape up maybe a quarter or half-inch of sugar at the end with the milk, we didn't put enough sugar in there yet. We had unfettered access to that sugar bowl sitting there on the table for our cereal.

We were not regulated at all. It would be very strange in today’s world. And candy of all kinds. So it just continued till about 13.

I didn't realize, I don't think a lot of people realize that it was changing how I felt, you know, whether it was angry or sad, I mean I would have sugar or whatever and because it was almost free and around the house, I would just grab it.

And I don't think anyone realizes this is the two and two that people need to put together. So when I got to be about 13 or 14, I ran into beer and alcohol and drugs.

That party lasted till I was about 28 and I got sober. As I was getting sober, I realized that a lot of the people that I was getting sober with, they were substituting sugar for their addictive substance, sugar, caffeine, nicotine, you know.

I mean, it was a little bit better, but really they were pounded and people were gaining 20, you know, you hear about the freshman 15. When in recovery, it’s like the freshmen 50, getting heavier and getting a diabetes diagnosis.

So I kind of started studying it and I ran across a book called sugar blues, written in the 70s, redone in the 80s and promoted in the 80s.

The guy that wrote it was married to Gloria Swanson, the famous movie star. And they met at a party and, he was putting two lumps of sugar in his coffee and she said from behind, “I wouldn't have that in my house, let alone my body.”

They ended up marrying each other and promoted that book pretty widely. And I just really took to it, had a great history lesson and but it didn't really catch on because back then they were demonizing sugar and fat. Sugar was being replaced in all of our foodstuffs in the 70s and 80s.

But anyway, I studied it and I got into it and I raised a couple of sugar-free kids from the womb till they were six years old. And after that they only had, sugar once a month, maybe if they were lucky, at an outside birthday party for their entire childhood.

That makes my heart happy!

Right, I mean, and I had a regular life. I mean this was kind of scary back then. People were not into it and the sugar producers were big outfit.

I had a regular business career, and about 10 years ago I grabbed the name sugar addiction.com and I started to give out information, but it wasn't till about three or four years ago when we started coaching and online groups and stuff, that people really started getting success.

I started to really understand how it was done and was elected chairman of the Food Addiction Institute. So it's been a little bit of a wild ride for a long time.

But I have cut out sugar, of any kind like you say, 30 years, but I think my proudest accomplishment is the kids and raising them sugar-free and that experiment worked. I mean it really did.

I genuinely believe that that first thousand days, changes the way people's brain develops for sure, and a lot of other parts of their body too.

But for sure their brain, and it definitely worked on my kids. I'm the average intelligence, I think maybe a little above average, but my kids are like rocket scientist smart! That's my short version. I can answer any questions.

I love it. I love that you were able to get to 6 before having any real introduction to sugar. That's amazing, and a huge accomplishment because it's hard nowadays to keep them away from it. I feel like everyone is giving it to them.

I know! We fought with the parents and the grandparents and the schools, the Montessori school, the parents of other children. They thought we were depriving them. We really did. But a couple of anecdotes from my stuff.

As you talk about that first birthday cake, I mean, I got to dig up these pictures. They’re somewhere in my archives, but you know, they just threw it all over themselves, but it didn't look like anything, but it didn't have any sugar in it for sure.

Oh, mine looked terrible!

It didn't rise at all. It didn't do anything. It just sat there, but whatever. And yeah, I mean when the kids didn’t know what it was

You ever seen this episode where you're in a grocery store and there's a child in the cart stuck in the cart trying to reach the candy, screaming at the top of their lungs to get to that candy.

Yes, yes I have

My kids did not even know what that stuff was. They would build it like blocks. They thought they were colored blocks, they'd be playing with it. And I said, quit playing with it, but they didn't really know what it was, at 3, 4 and 5 years old

So that's how it worked with us, also. Now for grocery shopping, As soon as my girls could eat, we did baby led weaning, they were allowed to have a piece of fruit while we grocery shopped. It kept them calm, so they didn't want things.

They got to munch on something, and that's still going to this day. But now they grab mushrooms and green beans. Everybody looks at us funny.

That used to happen to us. They walk right into a restaurant and we'd feed him from the salad bar so they'd have all these vegetables and people said, how do you get your kids to eat? I said you don't give them anything else. That’s what they eat, and they like it.

That's been us too, as they really just don't know. They're starting to now because my oldest is in school, but they just didn't know any different. That's just what we eat at home. We all eat the same thing.

But I do get told I'm depriving them a lot and that gets me a little eye twitchy, because in my mind they're not, it's better for their health. But also we do have treats.

They're just different kinds of treats. Homemade, they just use different ingredients, that kind of thing. But I do get that quite frequently.

That's amazing. Cause you know, it's like there's not that many of us out there and it's just now starting to be more popular. And this idea that other people are telling you you're depriving them, it’s ridiculous.

It drives me bananas.

The science is there, I mean we can't diagnostically say all the maladies that sugar causes yet, but damn, we're close. And the most important stuff is the brain chemical stuff, the brain reward system, that little infant, and you’re playing with its brain rewards systems. Please. I mean, it's crazy talk.

The Full Effects Of Sugar (09:46)

Well, you kind of got the ball rolling for me. Why don't we talk about that for a second? Why don't you give us a little bit more background on what sugar does both short term and long term? Because I do think that there are effects both ways that we don't realize.

Sure. Well, the most important part that's come to the fore in the last five years is the stuff I like to talk about with the recovery and addiction background.

One of the main things that people understand is that 95% plus of all diets all say reduced the white stuff, white sugar, and white flour. And they do that. So you could lose weight. But the problem is, is there's also a corresponding statistic of 95%.

And this is in all of the scientific literature that 95% of people that lose any significant amount of weight, gain it all back in the first year and then some, they add to it. And so, what's the reason?

So it seems like if they can have success, why wouldn't they keep that? And really what it is, is that their brain reward system is being hijacked by the sugar, by the fructose actually, their GABA, their norepinephrine, their dopamine, their serotonin.

And the big one, oxytocin, and even their adrenals are being hijacked by sugar and they have used as I mentioned in my little bio, they've used sugar to manage their emotions. Like their parents used to do it when they screamed, they give them a cookie.

They've managed their emotions unconsciously all the way into adulthood with this legal product, that's legal to give to a one-year-old and now they're here and they don't understand why they can't put the stuff down in long term, right.

And as far as physically long-term, I mean there are 147 different maladies, and the studies, the peer-reviewed studies are all over the internet. You can just them just look them up – diabetes, heart disease, and gout. I mean it just goes on and on.

The list is endless of physical maladies. But I think the important part on how to cut sugar, is centered in the now discovered science of the brain reward systems being affected.

That's interesting. I actually hadn't considered that aspect to be perfectly honest. But you're right because that is the staple is to make them happy. Give them sugar.

Yeah.

In our first week of school, I was really nervous about my daughter going to JK because obviously, we eat very differently, and on the first day of school she came home and she was like, the teacher gave out Smarties. So my eye's twitching and I'm like, did she now, what'd you say? Like what for?

And it was literally because they sat in their seats properly and colored. And my eye twitched, I think it actually twitched, and I don't agree with rewarding that fully because that you just have to do what you're told. I'm sorry, but you don't get rewarded all the time for doing things that you have to do.

But if you are going to reward, what's wrong with stickers for a four-year-old, or stamps, or any possible other things than food because food is not a reward!

It was funny because before I even talked to the teacher, I told my daughter, I was like, okay, well I'm going to talk to your teacher because I don't agree with that.

I went in to talk to the teacher the next day and my four years old had already talked to her for me. And she had told her that she didn't need candy because she'd rather have stickers.

That's awesome.

Yeah, it was a proud mom moment. But it is done. That's just the go-to is to reward kids with random food.

Well, no, I think it's the unwinding of this, of 300 years of enculturation of sugar into the food system and the reward systems of parties and birthdays and everything that is going to take time.

Dr Lustig, a researcher about sugars and a pediatric endocrinologist most of his career is now really fighting this. You know, he says that’s going to take 20 or 30 years for this to turn around, but it's there, we're on the right side of history.

This is going to happen like seatbelts and cars, drinking and driving and smoking in public places. When science says that this is what's happening, it takes time to turn it around, but it is going to happen.

And like you're doing and like I did, it has to start with the next generation because you know, the power of the addictive nature of this stuff is big.

Believe me, I work with adults all day, every day and it is really hard for an adult with a decent sugar habit to get off it, and have one obtain 100% abstinence even though they know how many health benefits they derive.

Short term effects of sugar on kids (14:49)

Yeah, I know it's true, it is rather addictive. Let's talk about short term aspects of giving kids sugar though. So obviously every parent is going to know that when kids have sugar, they go crazy, and then they crash.

Let's talk more about focus. And I did want to get your opinion on shaping taste buds. So this isn't something I've researched.

It's just something that seems like common sense in my mind that starting your kids off early, very young with sugar-loaded foods is going to shape their taste buds. So then they're obviously not going to want healthy alternatives later on.

Oh, I agree 100%. I know that I had succeeded as a parent when my boys were about nine years old and I chopped up carrots, green beans, celery or something. I brought them over to them when they're watching TV and they said “yum!” They were really interested.

They ate it all up, you know, the whole plate of these veggies, right.

And so I really genuinely believe that you're 100% correct and, this is actually proven out with adults in a lot of cases. A lot of the adults that I work with, once they cut sugar out of their diet for 90 solid days of abstinence, when they ingest or re-injest sugar, it tastes too syrupy sweet.

If you know anything about, I think it's Michael Morrison or Michael Moss or something, there's a book called ‘Fat Sugar Salt’.

And what it studies is the Bliss point. And the Bliss point is a literal engineered point where the combination of sugar, salt, and fat is entered into a food product and they test it over and over and over and over again.

Mouth feel, mouth crunch, all these things that they test in laboratories with you know, consumer reports, consumer kind of people, consumer focus groups.

And they find this Bliss point, like Doritos is a perfect crunch, a perfect taste, a perfect salt. And they do this over and over and over. And that's how they get people addicted to these products.

So this actually exists on the other side, if you will, the side of the chocolate makers and the sugar makers and the chip makers and all these people, they have this process. So yes, 100% you are training your taste buds through children's taste buds.

My kids do not have any, I mean they're older now, they're 30 years old now, but they have no draw to sugar, no unnatural drawn to sugar. They can literally take it or leave it.

And because I just don't think they grew up knowing that this product would affect their emotional wellbeing in some way. That they could change and alter their emotions, and their state and how they felt and get a little rise in self-esteem.

And so when that happens and you have a child who's not raised with it, they are trained in a better way to manage their own emotions. They've got to talk to mommy. They've got to get a hug, they've got to call their friend.

They have to deal with the, you know, you have to get down on their level and you have to ask them what's going on, what's wrong? You can't just stick a cookie in their mouth and say you're busy.

And that's, you know, I don't make that as an indictment of parenting, but I just say that shortcut should not be available to folks and so you should stop doing it.

Why You NEED Coffee (18:25)

Taking a bit of a break here, are you a coffee addict? Because with two kids, I totally am. Actually. I've become kind of a snob when it comes to it.

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These ones are made with mushrooms. Which you think would be gross, but it's actually delicious. Mushrooms, chaga mushrooms especially have been said to boost your immune system, slow the aging process and fight inflammation.

So getting them into your diet regularly is a great idea. And what better way than with a morning cup of coffee Four Sigmatic has all sorts of coffee blends depending on what your preference is. But I'm a sucker for the coffee with Lion's Mane because I find it to be such a great morning kickstart.

And if I'm craving something before bed or I need a killer sleep, my go-to is the Rishi Elixir. It tastes delicious and it's super calming. So if you want to up your health game, check out foursigmatic.com and use the coupon code ‘mamabear’ to save 10% on your first order.

How to cut sugar out of your kids’ diet day-to-day (19:22)

Now, outside of typical things like candy and chips, because everyone is going to hopefully realize that those are not awesome foods. What day-to-day foods are kids eating, and where can we cut out sugar?

Yeah, great question. Almost everything in a bag, box or can, I mean it’s 84% I think, but it's above 80% of anything that comes in a bag and box a can, a plastic wrap of any kind has sugar in it or high fructose corn syrup or any of the 56 or 57 other names for sugar.

The one thing you have to watch out for, and I'll probably ruffle a few feathers on this, is to not substitute too much fruit and fruit juices. It's the fructose that's the offending molecule in this, right?

Yes. The packaged foods of every kind have it in some way, shape or form. But fruit juice has carried so much fructose that freshly squeezed organic fruit or orange juice has as much fructose as a Coca Cola in it.

And when that hits the child's liver, and think about an adult, but thinking about a child, it hits a small child's liver, the effects are the same, both in brain chemical, interruption, if you will, dopamine, serotonin, and how it hits the liver.

Because fructose can't be processed any other way in the body. It has to be processed through the liver. And fructose malabsorption and fructose intolerance are actually physical maladies, which have entire food plans for them. And most people don't even know they exist.

So one of the things I would caution along with the bags and boxes and cans, is go easy on the fruit juice. One study I think you would love, and with your research and how you're doing it with the kids is just recently, this is in November.

Not even a month from us speaking today, the American Dental Association, the American Pediatric Dental Association, the American Association of Pediatric Physicians, the American Heart Association, and one other, I always forget the last one but came out with a joint statement.

Now, this is the first time in history that any four groups of medical societies ever cooperated on anything, okay. And they announced it through the Robert Wood Johnson Association or Foundation, which is one of the largest nonprofits in the world.

That children between zero and five should have zero, not little, not a lot of modest amount, zero sugar-sweetened beverages.

You can look it up and put it on your website, and put a link to the study and everything. But it really is a movement forward for the kids and for society.

The study in this cooperative joint announcement between all those medical associations about children and sugar-sweetened beverages. Now, it doesn't mention the candy and the sugar and all everything else, but as far as drinking your sugar, that's a no-no now

That's a huge step forward.

Right. I agree. I mean I think it's just the greatest, it was so exciting to hear that. I think that was exciting.

Plus with the American heart association in there, I think it was a big thing for adults, but the idea that they actually said no, zero, I mean they didn't even give a recommendation of a little. Zero sugar-sweetened beverage for children from 0-5 and I love that.

I do too. So for anyone listening. I do a blog post on this that I'll link to about why we don't use juice boxes. They hurt my eye.

That eye is very good! It's very sensitive, very, very sensitive!

But things you can use instead, a few things that we use, are coconut water. For some reason, my girls just adore coconut water.

We do have a mini glass of that in the morning, but we also use chilled loose leaf tea. So I will brew up some herbal tea, I'll throw it in the fridge, chill it, and then they have reusable juice boxes for me to trick them when we go to parties, that they are having juice.

But those are a couple of the things we use instead of rocking actual juice boxes because it would kill my kids' stomachs to have an actual juice box.

Yeah, for sure

Now when we talk about the names of sugar, so that's one of the problems I think with a lot of moms reading food labels is it rarely says sugar on the food label.

So do you want to give us a couple of names, or a couple of words that sugar kind of manifests underneath that we can look for when we're trying to find half-decent things?

How To Cut Sugar By Reading Food Labels (24:17)

Oh yeah. One of the things, and if I had to do this over again, I gave him some treats from the health food store that I thought might've been better until I saw the movie.

That sugar film came out of Australia where the guy ate health foods from the health food store for 60 or 90 straight days, gained 40 pounds and everything went crazy.

But the answer to your question is obviously high fructose corn syrup, but barley malt is probably one of the biggest offenders in health food stores, barley malt, anything with an ‘ose’ at the end of it.

‘Ose’, ‘tose’, fructose. And one of the things, I found really prevalent and I actually believe this is the reason for the growth of the flavored water is they're sneaking under the laws of nature.

Anything that says ‘natural added products’, you think it's natural flavorings, is actually fructose. Granulated fructose.

And moms think, or everyone thinks that the word, or the use of fructose because its quote/unquote “a fruit sugar” makes a difference. When in actuality, it's worse. Agave is another one in the health food stores, that they’re trying to sneak in, which is like 60 to 90% fructose.

So agave syrup, agave, anything with an ‘ose’ at the end of it, dextrose. Anything that looks or sounds like a chemical experiment with an ‘ose’ at the end is probably sugar.

Okay. And I'd like to point out too that even when something says cane sugar or coconut palm sugar, well in your mind they may seem like healthier sugar variations. They still break down as sugar.

They're still sugar. So it is something, yeah. So it is something that you still want to avoid or at least reduce in your day-to-day.

Oh, 100%. That's absolutely true.

How To Cut Sugar Out Of Your Kids’ Diet When They Are Older (26:30)

Now for moms whose kids are already eating sugar, what are some of the things that they can do to kind of wean their kids off, to scale back and how long is that addiction going take to break?

That's a great question. And when I do these, usually I break this down and you're one of the first, I think maybe the first that I've ever talked to who has started from the beginning.

And so I break it down into the new pregnancy, and the 0-5 ages, like the Robert Wood Johnson announcement. And those folks, those kids, they don't know what it is and they're fine.

Where the difficulty comes in, is like you say, kids that have already been exposed to sugar in the early days and now they're between 4 and 5, 10 and 11 and you want to try and start cutting it back, right.

And here's the thing that most parents do not want to hear, and it's the same thing they tell you on the airplane is to put your own oxygen mask on first. Kids are brilliant

They will know. My mom thought she was hiding something with her stash and you know she couldn't understand why it would slowly disappear.

But, they really know what you are doing as they want. You know the saying “don't do as I do, do as I say” kind of thing. They know that you’re actually using sugar in different forms.

They want part of what you're doing. My father used to tell me not to drink, you know, and that didn't help me much. And so, what I'm getting to is that one of the things I've found, and I'm trying to institute it, if someone finds out they're pregnant, they can literally quit.

Like, even if they have a substance use disorder, they have a drinking problem or drug problem, that day, that hour, they quit the substance that they were abusing because they found out they were pregnant.

Right? We need to transfer this over to cut out sugar and parents need to realize this. Okay, and when they do realize it, their life is going to change. Their children's lives are going to change. They really just need to do it first.

We have a couple of coaches who have cut sugar out of their kid's diet and they start as your kids did, they start to be the teacher. They start to say, we don't eat sugar at our house. And this is why. Because you've sat down with them, you've explained it to them and you have cut out sugar.

And so they are right on board with it. They want to do what's going on in a family, with what mom and dad are doing, right? So that's what you got to do. You've got to go first and you got to be authentic and genuine about it and not just try and cut your kids off sugar. You've got to cut sugar yourself.

And I liked the point you made about talking to them about it. So by all means, we do use some sugars, we'll use maple syrup or honey, but we talk about the effects of sugar even with my four-year-old and my two year old who does not fully understand.

But we talk about how it doesn't help us grow, and it doesn't help us from getting sick and those kinds of things. And I think actually just opening up the discussion with kids helps a lot because they're more perceptive than we give them credit for.

So I think that's probably the best start for moms, is just talk about it. Talk about what it does, talk about why you don't want them to eat it and get them to make the link between sugar and how their body feels.

So I know that one takes a little bit. But what I've noticed is when my daughter has had sugar now she'll get a stomach ache and we'll talk about why she has a stomach ache.

And then it obviously leads back to, well this is what happens when your body is not used to sugar and you have it, it hurts your tummy.

And I think that alone has made a huge difference in kind of her understanding of why we don't consume sugar a lot - because it does nothing for us.

Sure.

So I think that's probably a good start too with moms.

How To Cut Out Sugar Long Term With Kids (30:37)

Now, what are a couple of things that we can do to keep sugar out of our kids’ diet long term? So that is my biggest fear. My girls are really awesome now, but what about when they're 8, 10 and 12?

Well one thing I do, and I'm going to answer that question, but I do feel drawn to tell you about is the maple syrup and the honey, I do want you to and all your audience to research fructose.

And this is the last five years. And the brain reward chemical stuff. The fructose in honey, in the fructose and maple syrup, it's no different than the fructose in coke, it breaks down the same.

So yeah, check into that. But the answer to your question is if you've done the beginning right, you've got to let it go at some point. I'll tell you a story, what happened when they were six years old.

What happened was, my mother used to tell me I was a perfect angel. I'm like, wow, come on, all moms say that. And she said, no, when you would fall asleep, your hair would get wet and there'd be a halo around your head on the wet pillow, from the sweat.

And I'm like, Oh, that's kind of cute. Well, I had never seen this in my children until six years old. So we're at a roller skating rink and, they were twins, so there's two of them.

The cake and ice cream comes out and both of their heads, they look up, you know - can we? They didn't even have to say anything, we just looked at them, it was loud there, we couldn't even hear them, but we knew what they were asking.

And we just gave in, we were tired at this point, you know, they had started school and we were fighting that.

And so we gave them the cake and ice cream. So for the first time, I walk into their room, you probably know where the story's going. I walk into the room, two wet heads on two wet pillows, wet hair, wet t-shirt, and halo around their head.

They were in sugar withdrawals.

Yes.

And so it's very real. So then at every birthday party, we would get it, and the same thing would happen. They'd have it, they'd be sick.

And I think if you graph it out if you map it out if you have a long period of no sugar and then they have it, you see the wildness and then you see the crash and you see the irritability, you'll start to understand that you are affecting the emotions of your children and you'll cut it back.

But at some point, you've got to let it go. You know, and by the time my kids were 9, 10, 11, 12, they were going out to birthday parties and I would say, you know, remember no sugar? And they would say, yeah, we know dad, we know.

And they would, you know what - they did at that point. But I think our job is pretty much done at 6, 7, 8, and 9. If we've really laid that foundation and they don't have that draw in their brain reward system.

If they don't know that, they can feel better. And kids don't know what they're doing this to themselves. And parents don't know what they're doing that to themselves or to their children.

They don't realize that they're changing their brain chemicals and they're managing the difficult parts in their lives. When they're upset, hurt, scared, worried or afraid, they are managing this by ingesting of a substance.

When you really put those two things together, then parents understand, right? They understand what this drug is doing to themselves and to their children, and the longer they can cut out sugar, the better their long term prospects of growing into a healthy adult.

I do have to trust them at some point, my girls are pretty good. They are pretty good mainly because we've talked about the effects of it.

I think one thing I lastly wanted to note for mamas who are starting out on cutting out sugar, it is a hard one. You are going to have to be patient. It is a very addictive substance and I think that one of the best swaps you can start to make is well, making your own stuff.

Try not to buy and just give them something, but make it with them and make it yourself and use fruit instead of sugar as a sweetener to start.

So using bananas, dates or those kinds of things in your baked goods can go a long way to sweeten it, so that they still enjoy it while they're doing that transition without loading up on just a bunch of honey or a bunch of maple syrup or whatever you choose.

So that would probably be a good place to start. What do you think?

Yeah, I mean transition stuff, even with the adults the fruit is varied, because people with heavy habits, the fruit will lead them back to the using if you will. But in the transitionary times, the fruit is a valuable thing. But, I would caution, keep an eye on definitely fruit juice. It should be eliminated for sure.

The high fructose kind of, high-glycemic tropical - bananas and dried fruit too, is I think at risk for people. Dried fruit has been a substitute fruit leather they call it.

I think they have different products made out of that. If Dr.Lustig is correct, and the researchers are correct, the fructose thing is very real and the dried fruit is no different than candy, sadly.

I'm sorry, but any transitionary foods like that would help, but you want to cut out sugar as best you can and have no to very little fructose as you can.

One note on the dried fruits, that's completely true.

If you've ever actually gone to the bulk barn and looked at the ingredients in dried fruit, just dried cherries or whatever you will, that you're scooping into your bag, it is cherries, palm oil and sugar.

Yeah, exactly.

They actually put sugar in the dried fruit. It drives me a little bit bananas because it's dried fruit.

All the dried bananas have sugar in them.

Oh yeah, that one's just ridiculous. So the sweetest fruit possible and they're still adding sugar. So be more aware of things that seem healthy, are not always what they appear. I guess would be where I leave you.

Well, I want to warn you, that you got to be a little bit of a pioneer because society is not going to come around to this for a while.

And you, the eternal vigilance necessary to shop like you're talking, is really hard. And you've got to be really educated, get yourself really educated.

But here's the thing, and I believe you are a perfect example, I'd said it earlier, parents will do for their children more than they will even do for themselves or another human being, right?

And if we start to focus on getting a good argument that the children are being affected, Dr Lustig says that we have obese one-year-olds, two-year-olds, three-year-olds, obese baby, obese at birth, right?

It's kinda crazy

It's scary.

Yeah. And it kinda hurts my heart. So anyway, you're going to need to be a little bit of a pioneer in this thing. You're going to need a little bit of that pioneer spirit that you're a little bit alone and try and join a tribe.

One of the fastest things we've ever done is we put a little Facebook group called Sugar-free Kids up and we've got a whole bunch of moms in no time joining. So if you want to tell the folks about that.

I love it, we will link to those in the show notes.

Wrap Up

So I think we are going to have to wrap it up there because otherwise, I could probably talk about sugar for the next few hours to be perfectly honest!

You and me both!

I just have so many opinions on it and so many questions, but I just can't express how passionate I am about keeping kids healthy.

And to do that, we need to focus more on quality foods and less on packaged processed ones. So remember mamas, you don't need to be perfect, but every mini swap you make is a huge positive step.

So you got this.

Michael, thank you millions for jumping on and sharing your expertise regarding how to cut sugar. I really appreciate you coming on and I love that.

There are such amazing advocates out there to help people cut out sugar. So for all of you looking to connect with Michael, you can find him at sugaraddiction.com, or on Facebook at @quitsugarnow, and I will link to those in the show notes for you.

I’ll also link to all of his other social channels so you can head to fitasamamabear.com and grab those as well as the lists of resources we touched on today cause you do, you did mention a lot of books, which is amazing.

And remember, if you're in need of fitness tips, workouts, and amazingly healthy recipes, check out my website at www.fitasamamabear.com on that note, check back soon to catch the next episode of the fit as a mama bear podcast. And if you took one lesson from today, I hope it's on making more healthy swaps as possible and that each one has a big impact. You've got this! Chat soon.