Everyday Systems

Sweet or not? I haven't had one since my childhood days, but as a recovering yo yo dieter, I was thinking about enjoying this once forbidden food in moderation, maybe as part of a otherwise healthy lunch.

Thoughts?

Fruits are fine. They are not considered "sweets." They go well with any meal--berries with oatmeal, half an apple as part of lunch, etc.

Fruit? Fruit is fine as part of a meal. I often eat a piece with every meal. Any diet that forbids fruit is suspect in my opinion.

I'm pretty sure you're talking about fruit snacks in the package...I'm a mom and know that they are probably the packaged sweets. I would say they are sweets, but if you can limit them and they keep you satisfied on N days, then whatever. But for me, they are pretty much in the sweets category.

Ah--good point! No, anything in a package and with sugar added is definitely a sweet. Only on S days.

What about healthy granola bars, like kashi? Those come in a package and do have a few grams of added sugar, but i usually like to crumble them up on top of yogurt, like cereal. What do you think? Rule breaker?

There are great recipes out there. You will enjoy making it.

I make a jar at the beginning of the week. Share with hubby and one of my kids. If I make chocolate granola I use 60% chocolate and we call it a treat. Otherwise it's breakfast. You can use lots of good recipes.

I tend to make what I feel like at the moment.

Basic ingredients:

2 cups of oats (old fashioned big kind)
1 cup of nuts (broken into bite sized pieces) and or seeds
1/4 cup of oat bran
1/2 cup of coconut
mix all that

liquids:
1/4-1/2 cup raw honey or maple syrup
1/4 cup oil/peanut butter/coconut oil
1/4 cup apple juice/sauce (The sauce can replace other forms of oil, optional)

extras:
cup of chopped dried fruit (anything you like)
choc chips
dates and bananas


mix the liquids pour over the basic ingredients.bake in oven (160c max) for 30 minutes. Turn every ten and make sure not to burn. Once done, switch off the oven, add the extras and pop back in cooling oven. Leave for 10-20 minutes. Take out cool and pour into a nice jar.

If you can't trust yourself with the jar on a counter (I struggle) tuck it away and pour into bowl at breakfast time. BTW I keep a measurement cup in my jar. To remind me if I'm trying to take to much. I keep a 1/3 of a cup and give myself 1-2 of those for breakfast.

This recipe looks so good. My daughter just bought coconut oil. So delicious! I think I'll swipe some of that. A bit of this will dress up my plain yogurt. I know what you mean by putting the granola out of sight, though!

Jocelyn, the beef with granola bars is that they are often touted as convenient and healthful meal replacements when they aren't. Even the "healthy" ones. Anything that is basically pseudo food that tricks you into eating more than you really need for satiety is suspect. Why do such nice grains have to be so compacted? Compacted compressed processed calories are often what gets us in trouble. And is it better than something you can do simply? Is the Kashi bar crumbled up really better than some nuts and raisins or some easy alternative? I personally would probably overdo even homemade granola. I've never found any cereal starch I like on yogurt, so I forego it. I like my cereal with milk and my yogurt with fruit or Iranian style. But the true measure is does it make YOU want more and eat more? If half a bar crumbled on your yogurt makes you love your meal and then wait for the next one, go for it. If it makes you start hankering for sweets, skip it. Why not some Kashi cereal itself?

I think the fruit snacks go too far. They are beyond even dried fruit in terms of processing, no? It's not that No S forbids processed foods. Not at all. But concentrations of foods until they are mostly sugar are... sweet.

I've made this recipe for granola for a long time. The source I got it from increased the oil to 1/2 cup and I usually add more almonds. I leave out the dried fruit because I'd rather add it (or fresh fruit) when I eat it. It's very simple and tasty.

While I've never tried it, I think if you were to press this in the pan after it comes out of the oven, it would make a great granola bar. It stays chewy for a while.

I've overdone it on regular cereal before, but not frequently, and never granola bars. If I overdo it, or break No-S at all, it's usually chocolate. I've actually thought about just eating 3 meals + dessert every day, just to remove the temptation of sweets, since I NEVER struggle with snacks OR seconds. When at my lowest weight, I was eating 2 meals + dessert every day, so I'm toying with doing that as well. But part of me once to tame my sweets habit once and for all, so No-S is still a consideration. Sorry for the tangent and thanks for the input!

noni: let me know if you try the recipe I posted.

wosnes: I have tried so many recipes and the one I gave is a mix of several recipes with an option to do what you want with it.

For me personally it helps me feel like I'm not deprived. I had melon, berries, goats yogurt, 1 tbs homemade peanut butter and a 1/3 cup of granola for breakfast and it was really really tasty...

I used to add nuts instead of granola but didn't like my family not having the real stuff or me making the real stuff and not being able to have it cause I was on a "diet".

I want to relearn how to eat .

Jocelyn, I think if you can have 2 or 3 meals and some small chocolate item a day, that would qualify as having tamed your sweet habit. Especially if you have a hard and fast rule about how much chocolate you can have at a time. Never more than such and such in a day. It's just another way of doing it. It's as moderate a way of living as any. And worth a month's experiment.

Loligoss, I made your recipe for granola. It is delicious. I put a TB or so in my plain yogurt for breakfast. I'll share some with my daughter and will hid out of sight the rest until I use it, to avoid temptation. After I'm done with this, I'll make wosnes's recipe. Thanks for the recipes, ladies!