Not happy, sugar bear!

Argh, matey, it’s looking definite that we should eat no more than 25 g sugar daily to reduce inflammation, control weight gain and manage blood sugar.

Not counting the 3 pieces of fruit I’ve had today, I ate 8 g sugar in my morning bagel thin and peanut butter and the lite sour cream and salsa on my lunchtime black bean-barley burrito. In my 6 ounces of red wine tonight I’ll get another gram.

If I want to have some of the M&Ms Stoic the Vast bought on after-Valentine sale yesterday, just 1/4 cup of the candy contains 27 g sugar!!! What the what? Do you know how small a helping of M&Ms that is? (And you really can’t stack them above the rim in that tiny cup.)

I knew I was eating too much sugar. Today I see it.

Tonight’s supper is a Summer Vegetable Cobbler (see the recipe here for this zucchini dish topped with basil-Parmesan biscuits) eldest daughter Joanna found in Taste of Home magazine. It’s got carbs in it which our bodies turn into sugar, but, for giggles, I’m just going to count food items that actually say sugar on the nutrition info.

So cobbler, wine and M&Ms and early which is always tricky because I have a difficult time going to bed at 6:30 p.m. I drink all my water which helps but you can’t chew/taste water so at 8:30 p.m. I have some “all natural” (whatever that means) nonfat black cherry Greek yogurt, a tee-insy cup that size of a small cupcake. 18 additional grams sugar.

What’s my total? 18 + 27 + 1 + 8 = 54 g sugar or more than twice my goal. For gosh sakes, no wonder I feel like a slug, a slug with achy (inflamed) hips and knees. And how does anyone (meaning you, JoAnn) eat fistfuls of candy, then hope to go about her life with energy or éclat? Conversely, how does someone like Stoic skim about 10 M&Ms from the top of my cup and call that enough?

Obviously, I need to plan my sugar consumption just as I try to do with my calories. I must skip sugar traps like processed foods and restaurant menus that slip spoonfuls of sugar into unexpected things like salads. (Steakhouse Salad at Outback Steakhouse, for instance, 29 g sugar — I learned that one the hard way.)

I’m hoping but not really hopeful that I can wean myself off this stuff. I wish I could (really) regard sugar the same way I’ve come to regard artificial sweeteners: Poison. I’m going to try and walk away from the kitchen with a bag of baby carrots or an orange, foods with natural sugars that last a bit longer in the physical system because of their fiber content and a bit longer in the appetite center because they require chewing. The more the better.

But as a friend’s toddler granddaughter recently said when asked if she has a sweet tooth: “I have a sweet mouff.” Me, too. Me, too.