JOIN USIt’s quite common for one to believe that ‘a little sugar wouldn’t hurt’. But that little bit of sugar consumed in small portions makes a big one, in return affecting your health in the long run.
With many Bengalureans opting to be consciously healthy these days, the sweet sprinkle of sugar that one is used to having is becoming history by the day. Many are choosing alternatives for refined sugar like honey, jaggery and ‘Stevia’ (a sweetener).
It took a while for Arti Vineesh Kumar to embrace the sugar-free life. Her homemade jam and sauce business also took an interesting turn with her life changing decision. She says, “It was quite difficult to make the shift from refined sugar to a substitute. I’ve tried ‘Stevia’ but I didn’t like the taste much. I use unprocessed honey and palm jaggery for all my sweetening needs now.” She also wanted to help change the lifestyle of people who purchase products from her by reducing the amount of sugar in them. “It’s not that hard to make the shift. I am a lot more energetic and my body mass index has also reduced. It takes a bit of time and practice to get used to this, but it’s worth it,” she shares.
One of the major reasons that many are replacing sugar with alternatives is health issues. With the sedentary and fast-paced lifestyle that one leads nowadays, lifestyle diseases catch on quickly. That’s why Naganand Shrikakullam and his family have made the conscious decision to not buy sugar. He explains, “I have a family history of diabetes. The elders use Stevia and the kids have honey. We also give them jaggery as it contains iron. Anyway, the use of jaggery has been in place for years as traditional cooking uses this ingredient quite often.”
He also believes that ingredients like honey and jaggery enhance the flavour of the dish. He says, “It’s not always an option to add these while cooking because they can easily caramelise the dish. But honey is great for making a salad dressing. By not using sugar, the taste is definitely different but it helps build stamina and doesn’t make you hungry often.”
There’s also Jyothi Varne, a food blogger, who substitutes sugar with coconut sugar, jaggery, honey and blackstrap molasses. She says that she has definitely noticed a change in her health, thanks to the healthy switch. “Eating a dish made with these substitutes definitely makes you feel lighter and not bloated up. Cinnamon honey, as an add-on to my early morning drink, has helped me lose weight as well.”
As she’s also a regular baker, she says that these ingredients aren’t always easy to work with. “Jaggery tends to have a sticky consistency and definitely adds its own brown tinge to the dish. While blackstrap molasses has an almost slight caramelised sugar syrup-like flavour to it. I mainly use this for baking dishes comprising dark chocolate,” she adds.
However, for those who have made this shift from sugar, they haven’t been having it easy when away from home. It’s only recently that some restaurants are providing an option to not use sugar in the dish. Chef Girish Nayak, pastry chef at ‘Olive Beach’ and ‘Toast & Tonic’, says, “It’s quite challenging to bring out a dish without refined sugar. But we’ve started incorporating substitutes like jaggery for some of our dishes. If the customer is persistent, we warn them that the dish will not taste the same.” For those who love jaggery, the chef recommends the dessert ‘Expressions of Jaggery’ which includes variants of jaggery like syrup and powder.
“However, it’s with the use of other components like fresh fruits and bread that the dish becomes balanced and you wouldn’t believe that sugar hasn’t been added,” he adds. With this conscious decision to strike out sugar from their diet, many can vouch that their health has improved. So next time someone says that ‘a little sugar wouldn’t hurt’, one may just want to tell them otherwise.