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I am wanting to start buying more organic food, whole foods.

What is a good sub for sugar? A natural sweetener?

Would real maple syrup work? Brown Sugar? Honey?

Also white bread and such. Could I change that and make whole wheat bread instead? Which is better yeast breads? or more flat breads?

Hi there-

I know that there is a natural zero calorie sweetner that is organic..it's called PureVia...it's on the sugar isle.

ANd I've never made break so I don't know about the yeast. But I know that once I switched to eating mlti-grain bread or whole wheat bread I could feel a difference in my body.

Good luck with your diet change!! =)

How WONDERFUL that you're looking at diet and it's relationship to your mental and physical state! You GO girl. You're on the right track cutting out or replacing sugar and switching from white bread to whole wheat.

Many thoughts here. At the risk of sounding a little radical... so much of our diet consists of corn derivatives, preservatives, refined sugars and starches and processed foods. The most available and cheapest foods are loaded with fat, sugar, and salt the very substances that press our evolutionary buttons and cause us to gain weight and make us susceptible to anxiety, overweight, depression, diseases... we are what we eat. It is sooooo hard to eat well and make good food choice and it's expensive too, so just do what you can and find what works for you and be ok with not being able to do it perfectly all the time.

Our obesity and diabetes crisis isn't really about laziness or lack of personal responsibility, is really is hard and expensive to eat right! Our foods are making us sick and anxious and depressed. The chips are more affordable and appealing than the carrots. Ok, I'm going to stop with the ranting now...

Some basic things suggest are to add fresh stuff - raw fruits and veggies - and limit the refined sugars and processed foods, i.e., white bread, sugar, and things that come packed in cardboard and plastic packaging or things you get at a drive-through window.

Ask yourself do you really need to sweeten things? If you have a sweet tooth a good low calorie low glycemic index light flavorless sweetener is light agave nectar. Honey and molasses and unrefined sugar are great for sweetening. I'm not a fan of the artificial sweeteners because they are chemicals syntheiszed in a laboratory that are relatively new additions to our modern diets. We don't know the long term effects.

Good luck and let me know what you think and how it is going! Also check out the movie documentary Food, Inc.

Beth,

Good for you on making positive diet changes.

Good replacements for sugar are unheated, raw honey - if you can get local honey that's your best bet - stay far away from Sue Bee which is highly processed and heated.

Another good one is Agave nectar, I like the raw kind. A number of companies make agave nectar.

Also there is Stevia which is a non-calorie sweetener. It's a very strong powder, and you use a tiny tiny amount.

If you are looking for a good bread sub, try Ezekiel 4:9 bread or any kind of sprouted bread. Since these breads are very fresh and have no preservatives they should be kept in the refrigerator or freezer and eaten within a week.

Although a lot of regular grocery stores are starting to carry these types of items, I suggest checking out your local health food store, where you could probably get the best selection and pricing.

Like cutting girl wrote, fresh is the best out there. Eating a meal of whole ripe organic fruit or a fruit smoothie is the best you can give your body. Salads and veggies too. Be careful about salad dressings and eating a lot of fat as well, as that tends to happen with salads.

This is one of my all-time goals!!!

I took wheat out of my diet. No wheat = no cookies, no bars, no bread, no pasta. I'm not allergic, but I do feel better without it. Every once in a while, I'll have some pizza or something but a small amount is satisfying and very often it's not as good as I am imagining it to be.

I use Brown Rice tortillas and millet bread if I want bread. I mostly get my carbs from fruits and veggies and Cheerios at breakfast. And I found that by increasing my amount of protein I eat per day and cutting out breads, etc., I can eat about 300+ less calories per day than I was before while still working out as hard or harder than I did before and not get hungry. It is a miracle.