THE TRUTH ABOUT THE SWEET STUFF

Sugar baby

The truth about the sweet stuff + Harry’s super pure jam recipe.. 

Yesterday I was making my mum her usual breakfast of two pieces of toast with butter and raspberry jam and, as the jar was empty I thought i’d try a bit, and wow did it give me a rude shock! After not having really any conventional processed sugar for quite some time the taste of something as commonly used as jam was almost sickly it was so sweet. It’s amazing how our taste buds can become so accustomed to that intense concentration.

I love taking normal everyday favorite foods and inventing/finding a healthy substitute and amazingly, what I usually find in the process is that they generally take less time and are less fiddly than the conventional method and ingredients plus about 50 times easier than making them the traditional way. 

It seams to me that Sugar has been in the spotlight lately, Its the exclusion item of the moment..we’ve had no carb diets, low carb diets, no fat diets, low fat diets, (and look how they’ve turned out for out lovely yet slightly overweight nation, per capita)and now its the no sugar diets time to shine. Well what if I told you there is no need to exclude sugar, fat, carbohydrate, protein or salt. Here is a nice info graphic from The wellness worrior to explain what I mean. All of these are super important to provide nutritional balance in your body… All you have to do is provide it with the right stuff. That is: the raw, unprocessed natural variety such as: 

The natural fructose found in fruits and sweet veggies e.g carrot, beetroot, sweet potato and other root vegetables.

Organic maple syrup and real maple syrup (in the pancake mix area in the supermarket)

Stevia – In the sugar section of the supermarket, Stevia is derived naturally from the Stevia plant (known as Reb A). Super sweet and low in calories.

Cinnamon is quite a sweet spice and will lightly sweeten whatever you add it to, e.g, porridge. It also has other amazing benefits such as improved circulation and digestion.

What to stay away from:

Fake sugar- e.g diet soft drinks, lollies and deserts. Artificial sweeteners are both toxic and addictive, trust me, been there done that. Just to give you an idea here is a few of the known side effects of Aspartame, one of the most commonly used artificial sweeteners: headaches/migraines, dizziness, seizures, nausea, numbness, muscle spasms, weight gain (yes, weight gain, rashes, depression, fatigue, irritability, tachycardia, insomnia, vision problems, hearing loss, heart palpitations, breathing difficulties, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, loss of taste, tinnitus, vertigo, memory loss and joint pain.

Processed cane sugar – Found in most processed foods and most desert recipes.

Other processed sugars such as Honey, maple syrup and golden syrup.

For a great little vid of The wellness warrior Jess Ainscough interviewing the wonderful and knowledgeable Cyndy O’Meara on this subject go here

So here ‘tis: Harry’s oh so simple Chia raspberry jam:

Ingredients:

1 cup chia seeds

2 cups raspberries (thawed out if frozen)

Method:

Slightly warm raspberries in pot on stove until just above room temp. Whiz on high in a blender or food processor until smooth. Note: you can also mush with a masher thingy if you do not have a processor. Pour into a bowl and add chia seeds, stirng well. leave for 15 mins returning to stir every few minutes to prevent clumping, aaaaand.. DONE. That it, a beautiful fresh (Great with a raw desert or on its own) Raspberry jam. Store in a airtight container in fridge. Will keep for about a week, If it lasts that long!

x Natural Harry