Cutting the sugar

For a long time now, I've been thinking about my need to cut the sugar out of my life. I've become increasingly addicted.

As much as I love fresh fruits and vegetables, and eating healthy foods, I also have ridiculously powerful cravings for ice cream, brownies, cookies and cake. And, if quality versions aren't available, I'll dive right into the crappiest convenient store varieties and end up feel disgusting afterwards.

It needs to stop!

For the month of September, I've decided to cut out all refined sugar. I'm making my own rules here. I know I'll be miserable if I completely deprive myself, so I'm not cutting all forms of sugar. Honey, maple syrup and fruit will be acceptable. But, table sugar, anything baked with sugar, and any packaged products with corn syrup are out.

This means no sugar in my coffee, no ice cream, no store bought breads and no jam. It also means no chocolate. Don't be surprised if you find me trying to mix cocoa powder with honey to get my chocolate fix without breaking the rules. I might resort to straight up cocoa if things get really bad.

Besides an attempt to break my sugar addiction, I think this is an appropriate way to kick off Locavore Month. As I've done the past two years, I again signed up for NOFA-NY's Locavore Challenge. During the month of September, it's pretty easy for me to eat a mostly local diet. I wouldn't consider getting any vegetables, fruit or meat that weren't local. Most of my dairy comes from local sources. So, if I'm going to make this a challenge for myself, I needed to up the stakes. Using only local sweeteners seems like the way to go.

Now, I have double motivation to meet this challenge.

It's only 8:20 on the first day of the month, but I'm off to a good start. Breakfast was local peaches topped with Argyle Cheese Farmer yogurt. The super juicy peaches satisfied my sweet tooth. The vanilla yogurt was sweetened with honey. And, the black coffee went down just fine.

Tomorrow morning, I'll let you know how the rest of the day went.