Hey There, Sugar

About a year ago, I got a tad frustrated with sugar.  It was around the time that the USDA and the American Heart Association began to get pretty specific about their recommendations on sugar intake for women.  The AHA suggests that women should only consume about 100 calories per day from added sugars (that's 6 teaspoons of sugar, or 24 grams).  Now, this girl has a serious sweet tooth and loves to bake, but I thought I'd give the recommendation a try-especially because diabetes runs in my family-and so I used a My Fitness Pal app on my phone to track my sugar intake.  Who knew that I would blow through my daily allotment by breakfast time?  Really?  Really.  Turns out, that cereal and milk have about 5 teaspoons of sugar.  Add that reduced-calorie orange juice and I was up to six teaspoons by 8 a.m.

I had to start thinking differently about this whole sugar thing.  Breakfast is tricky, because the simple, fast, seemingly healthy foods that we munch down right before we run out the door are not filling us up and are causing those dreaded sugar crashes by mid-morning.  I began switching things up this spring (right around the time I started eliminating processed foods), choosing oatmeal with nuts and berries instead of cereal, making green smoothies using natural sugars in fruit for that something sweet in the morning, trying out gluten-free toast with interesting toppings.

I finally came up with this savory breakfast item, and have been sticking with it for about a month now.  Rudi's gluten-free toast with Veganaise (I never thought I'd like it as much as butter or mayo, but it is AMAZING- look for it at Whole Foods), avocado slices, salt, pepper, and a dash of cayenne pepper.  It is seriously delicious and best of all, has only 3 grams of sugar.  That leaves room for 5 more teaspoons for the day- more than enough for that ginger cookie that will call to me by mid-afternoon.  After all, I still have the sweet tooth, and it's not going away.