How to Curb Your Sugar Craving with Veggies

By Heather Jernigan, CHHC AADP

Almost everyone craves sweets. Sugar makes us feel good. And, we want to feel good when we are stressed or overworked or exhausted.  While our ancestors got their sweet cravings from naturally sweet foods such as fruit, we have taken our sweet craving to a whole new level with refined sugar (which is in just about everything).

Refined sugar is a highly addictive substance.  Sugar enters our bloodstream at a strikingly fast pace – pushing our blood sugar sky high and giving us that deliciously-good feeling.  Not long after the sugar high, though, you come crashing down and may feel even more depressed, weary, or tired than before.

Refined sugar also lacks vitamins, minerals and fiber. Because of this, the body must pull from its reserves of minerals and enzymes to absorb the sugar.  So, not only is it harder to digest, it actually creates a deficiency in the body!

So, how can we get around this vicious sugar rollercoaster and give our body what it needs?  I mean, we cannot LIVE without our sugar, right?  I know this sounds crazy, but an amazingly easy but effective way to do this is to eat naturally sweet vegetables.

 

Here’s how:  Head to the Farmer’s Market and pick up some of these naturally sweet vegetables

 

Corn

Carrots

Onions

Beets

Winter squashes

Sweet potatoes

Yams

Turnips

Parsnips

Rutabagas

Red radishes

Daikon

Green Cabbage

Burdock

 

Take an “adding-in approach” where you put more of these into your daily diet.  Fill up on these veggies first without worrying about eliminating your sugar.

Be consistent – eat some of these everyday, and before long you will notice a shift.  You won’t be reaching for as many cookies! Your internal “sweet-0-meter” will be getting what it needs from these delicious veggies and won’t be screaming for a donut.  How cool is that?

 

And, here’s some benefits of eating such deliciously sweet veggies:

• They soothe the internal organs of the body and energize the mind.  No more sugar-induced exhaustion!
• Eating root vegetables, such as carrots, onions, beets, and sweet potatoes, makes you more grounded.  These foods eliminate the spacy feeling you may have after eating sugary foods.

Yumm – eating sweet veggies while feeling grounded and being able to pass up the chocolate cake.  That sounds like a recipe for success to me.