For the dislike of sweets

I am Mummy L and I dislike sweets, especially THESE sweets (see below) when they are given to my kids.

I used to wonder why they kept popping up in almost every goody bag, and I had routinely been confiscating them, and relegating them to the fridge or bin.

Not only are they empty calories (read: zero nutrition) chock full of colouring and preservatives, they stick to teeth and gums like a Great Anti-Toothbrush, and give kids the crazies (read: sugar high).

Once, a mum I knew tried to dispute the “sugar high” theory, saying that she watched some documentary that debunked it. But simple O level biology attests to it right? And all the info on how quickly sugar gets into one’s blood, evidenced from how diabetics are treated (take some sweets and immediately you feel better if hypo-glycemic). Large amounts of glucose/sucrose/fructose/(any-tose that these manufacturers hide SUGAR under) for small bodies certainly cause them to bounce off the walls, from personal experience and from the repeated experience/observations of many other mums.

I was much stricter with #1, and she didn’t even get to taste chocolate till she was 1 yr 5 months. And I only relented with the Yummy Earth lollies since they were much thinner than the chupa chup ones and *seemed* slightly more healthy (organic lollipops made of real fruit juice and some with Vit C) when #1 was about 2.  Tod #1 still hasn’t tasted Coca-cola or any variant of that (to my knowledge at least) cos of the caffeine content, and she doesn’t get access to sugary carbonated drinks (vaguely recall some info that if distilled, almost half the volume of these drinks are sugar) either.  As for those sweet drinks that claim to be sugar free, usually they are sweetened with artificial sweeteners which are Even Worse for the body.

#2, lucky her, tasted chocolate before she was one, and had chocolate cake galore on her first birthday. She hasn’t had her first lolly yet, and I hope to keep things that way.
Even today, apart from special occasions like parties where every other kid is digging into the sweet pile and I feel too Scrooge-like to deny #1 her one weet/lolly/chocolate, she doesn’t get to eat “sweets” on a regular basis. Raisins (though undeniably sweet) are ok (at least they are discernable once-upon-a-time-fruits).

I guess there’s just enough glucose in normal everyday food for one’s body, and most processed food just overloads on sugar content to enhance appeal / mask the un-freshness of the food.

Despite my best efforts, #1 certainly has a sweet tooth, and relishes every lick of her “looolipop” as she likes to call them. But am definitely going to try to minimise the number of sweets the girls take for as long as I can! 🙂