UKC

I'm trying to eliminate processed sugar from my diet as much as possible, but I like cake and chocolate a lot!! So, I am on the hunt for naturally sweetened recipes. I don't want things with stevia etc, only real fruit.

I found a BBC good food one for a banana loaf made with wholemeal flour (this is also something I am keen to use as much as possible rather than white) that just used more banana than normal, and it's pretty good. 
 

I also already know about the banana ice cream trick (and found that adding cocoa powder to it makes it really good!), and have also tried pancakes made with just banana and egg too, also very good.

I'm not into dates and raisins, so fresh fruit or dried mango are really my sweetening options. 

I know there are loads of clever and health conscious people here, so you are bound to have some good recipes for me!!

Thanks

My old man was diabetic and as a result mum made sugar free cakes all the time - check out a diabetic recipe book..... they will have loads to choose from 

or just have sugar and control yourself as to how much you eat...….. I myself eat way way WAY to much 

Thanks, do you have/ does your mum have a favourite diabetic cook book? I just did a quick Google and many of the recipes coming up use artificial sweeteners, which I don't want.

will have a word and PM you any details …...

im assuming any successful recipe suggestions are rewarded with a slice ?!?!?!

Thanks!

Depending on how far away you are it might just have to be a photo of it! Lol

Coconut naturally adds a sweet flavour to recipes - the two ways I'd suggest to use it are dark chocolate covered coconut and coconut slices (plenty of recipes to look up - I don't have the one I tried handy).

For a really left-field suggestion, get a hold of some 'sweet cicely' and either have it raw or find one of the old recipes that uses it.

Get some protein powder into both to really up the nutritional value - banana flavour works best of course. Cut down a little on flour to compensate, and be prepared to add a bit of water.

These are also good:  youtube.com/watch?v=TrrsHJjSmiY&

Needless to say dark chocolate is the best low-sugar chocolate option. If you can't handle it straight get one with some sort of fruit zest in; which lessens the bitterness.

I don't do coconut either, or any nuts really. 

Sweet Cicely sounds interesting though, thanks for that suggestion! 

What's that?

Too late for Sweet Cicely, you'll need to wait till Spring. I like it as a foraged nibble but I don't think it's particularly sweet and it has an aniseed flavour which some might not like. I use honey to sweeten a lot of things, including my morning coffee, yum. Agave nectar is also good but I have no idea how processed it is.

Those pancakes look good too. 😊

I'm afraid I like dark chocolate a bit too much, once I start I can't stop! Probably won't use it for sweetening!

Chop up banana and freeze it. When you want to eat it, blitz it. It's excellent!

What is the point of naturally sweetened, white caster sugar is natural?

After a 2 day hangover from eating a whole bag of jelly snakes, I made the decision to drastically reduce the amount of sugar in my diet.

I started with my coffee, reducing from 2 to 1 to no sugar.  As a result of this and cutting sweet foods in general, I no longer crave sweet food. I do still eat cake and biscuits, but my palette has adjusted and I find them so cloyingly sweet I can only manage a small portion.

Well if I sweeten things with fruit then I will essentially go through a similar process as you did, as it will be less sweet than white sugar. There is lots of evidence to suggest that sugar is one of the worst foods we can put into our bodies. 

Coppella pressed apple juice!  But only Coppella, I don't know why other apple juices don' t seem to have the same result.

Add cinnamon ( at the last moment, or sprinkled over , it helps with the illusion of sweetness) 

Works with scone type cakes

The fruit has sugar in it.

What's wrong with stevia BTW? I had a quick Google but couldn't see anything obvious.

It's sugar is a mix of sucrose and fructose rather than just fructose. Fruit has far less sugar and it comes with a lot of fibre which slows down absorption into the bloodstream so doesn't spike your blood sugar. It also comes with many other benefits to our bodies in terms of vitamins etc. Loads of articles online highlighting why white sugar is so bad.

There doesn't seem to be a clear concensus, but some studies suggest that all the sugar substitutes make us over eat as our brains prepare for the sugar hit due to the sweetness but as it doesn't come our brains keep us hungry to fulfill this expectation, or something like that.

I basically need to not be craving sweet stuff, so flavouring with fruit instead makes things less sweet and weans me off my sugar addiction

Edit: this article highlights some of the conflicting studies. It sounds like small sample sizes in studies, so none of them very conclusive. I just think it's better to stick to real food.

https://www.livescience.com/39601-stevia-facts-safety.html

Isn't table sugar sucrose, i.e. a mix? And will you destroy the fibre in your preperation? Fibre does help mitigate the effects but I think you can get your essential vitamins and minerals from better sources, i.e. which don't contain the fructose.

I don't eat much fruit anymore. Basically berries with either fermented yoghurt or occasionally cream, as a desert. Stops me snacking on fruit (and cakes).

Seems to be the main problem with a lot of dietary 'science'. If I was going to bake I'd give stevia a try. Quick and easy to find out.

I got my sugars confused! Yes, it is sucrose (too many -ose endings! Lol).

Literally no dietician says that processed sugar is ok, it is universally accepted that it is really bad for you and brings no benefits at all. 

I can't find any good sources saying that fruit is bad. Clearly, too much of anything can be bad, but it's pretty hard to eat too much fruit! Even in a cake, it's hard to put in that much and still make the cake work, hence it's less sweet and you wean yourself off things being super sweet.

Stevia is sweeter than sugar, so even if I did use it, I'm not getting rid of my sweet tooth! Going cold turkey on something as addictive as sugar is pretty hard to keep up. If you substitute with something similar but better for you, it's easier. 

Not sure I've ever read anything so categorical. Glucose can fuel the body and the brain. I fail to see how what isn't a benefit. You can live without it, but the same applies to carbs. Fructose does nothing but harm as far as I know. Probably worth limiting fruit intake. As long as you get your essential vitamins and minerals.

Nothing as complex as a piece of fruit could be described as good or bad. And if you get essential vitamins and minerals elsewhere what is it doing for you? Sugar/fructose/insulin resistance/diabetes/etc.

That just means you use less, surely?

Fruit might be better for you, if you lacked essentials vitamins and minerals in your diet. Otherwise it might be worse.

Honey or date recipes are good alternatives. Honey cake can be awesome.

absolute bollocks. Fruit is recommended for diabetics and preventing insulin resistance

https://www.healthline.com/health/diabetes/insulin-resistance-diet

That's not how addictive substances work. Your body craves more. (Or mine certainly does!). 

I don't get why on earth you would be pushing sugar - do you own a sugar plantation?? 

No need to be rude. How can something that increases the insulin in the blood help insulin resistance? Which is cause by elevated insulin levels.

Except I'm not pushing sugar. You want to use fruit, which contains sugar.

Because fruit is complex and unprocessed it takes the body so long to digest it that the sugar is released very slowly, so no insulin spike. It also starts off with less sugar in the first place. 

I have linked to an article which clearly states that diabetic people should eat fruit, as do any articles about diabetic diets, yet you are still saying that it's bad for insulin resistance!

That doesn't explain how eating fruit helps with insulin resistance? Blood insulin levels will still rise after eating fruit. It just says it's better to eat fruit than just sugar. Which I agree with.

It looks like a bunch of common 'good' diet tropes by the looks. A lot of standard dietary advice isn't backed by solid evidence. A lot seems to be based on correlation, (X is linked to Y is the usual wording when there doesn't seem evidence of causation). Controlled studies tend to be thin on the ground.

You might find people who eat a lot of fruit are very health conscious and there are lots of other reasons they don't suffer from high rates of diabetes. That doesn't mean eating fruit will help at all. 

So why are we even having this discussion??

Fruit is good for diabetic people as it is full of lots of good stuff. It's not about the sugar being good for them specifically, but more that the sugar isn't bad for them. The rest of the fruit has all the beneficial nutrients which we all benefit from when we eat fruit and veg (veg also has sugar in it). So eating a good varied diet with plenty of veg and fruit is good for diabetic people just as much as it is for non-diabetic people. It is a much better carbohydrate source than white bread, for example.

I was wondering what's wrong with stevia.

That's just oversimplied to the point of being meaningless. 

The sugar will still cause an insulin response, despite it being somewhat mitigated by being in fruit, unless you destroy the fibre like in a smoothy. Since it's raised insulin levels that caused the problem in the first place it could very well be bad for them. Wouldn't they be better getting essential vitamins and minerals from foods with a lower insulin index?

Now your mixing up the fruit with other factors. Some of which have been omitted. Which is what controlled studies try to avoid. And it's why epidemiologic evidence often leads to the wrong conclusion. See Ancel Keys and the America Standard diet.

I changed my diet ~5 years ago as I was found to be Pre-diabetic.

The following is what I hold with after reading a lot:-

Dates are the very devil's food. Far too much sugar. Other dried fruits are not much different.

It doesn't matter where the sugar comes from, too many simple sugars are too many.

Complex sugars are better, and give a lower longer increase in glucose, thus satiating you for longer. Therefore you're less likely to snack. So porridge is my daily breakfast 300+ days per year.

Lots of fruits and quite a few vegetables are not good for you.

So I avoid bananas altogether. I seldom eat carrots for the same reason.

I substitute some of the sugar in a recipe with truvia. Too much makes it bitter anyway. I reduce the overall amount even after substitution.

Half of the old diabetic recipe books were not particularly scientific, and have way too much sugar in them. They take a big assumption that if you don't put any sugar in, or very little sugar, then the analysis will not have a high carbohydrate/high glucose content. 

Just trying to generally eat less overall is a good strategy for someone like me, even though most people say that I am slim/thin.

I do agree that we need lots of truly diabetic recipes, that have little sugar in them.

I have yet to find out why coconut is sweet. Is there still some unstated sugar in it?

Fructose was thought to be reasonable in the past, but it is still the devilish food substance.

Two books to read:-

The Sugar Detox by Brooke Alpert and Patricia Farris. Bantam books.

The 8-week Blood Sugar Diet by Michael Mosley, or it's rehashed equivalents.

I still have blood sugar levels and glycosylated intermediates that are too high despite my diet. I cannot do the more drastic diet due to long work hours/stress. I blame my parents genetically and environmentally. (Being brought up in Yorkshire with lots of home-made puddings and cakes.)

I have a guilt trip every year making my own Christmas cake.....

:-{

What Pound socks says about insulin makes sense.

(Sorry for the long reply)

It's good for you, dark chocolate, and there's something in it which helps with studying. 

Edit: As a type 1 diabetic, there's no food 'as such' which is bad to have, so long as one's diet is healthy in general terms, and blood sugar levels are well managed. It's more type 2 diabetics who are in a position where certain foods need to be avoided unless they want to become less healthy (without seeming to judge), or go onto different medication.