Keeping the Sabbath: Resting in our Restless Culture

During my recent foray into the world of sugar-free living, I happened upon a memior entitled Year of No Sugar.

The author is a Vermonter who loves maple syrup as much as I, and actually convinced her entire family (consisting of a husband and two daughters old enough to count the cost) to abstain from added fructose for an entire year.

The book is entertaining and interesting. I'm not finished with it yet, and I don't know if I could give it the two-thumbs-up simply because the author seems to have a lot of anxiety about giving up sugar. (I fear some might read it and say, 'this giving up sugar thing is just too hard so I might as well have a cookie.') So the jury's out on the book, but the author is witty and insightful, and for my part, I'm enjoying it. Author Eve Schaub thinks about things. I like people who think about things.

In particular, I'm really enjoying how she details the experience of being counter-cultural. This is probably the main reason I was unwilling to give up something like sugar in the past--simply because sugar is such a huge part of our society. To completely abstain means disconnecting from people on some level. Yes, health is important, but we're all going to die someday (shocking, but true.) I can't see myself, or my children, being the odd-man-out at birthday parties or other opportunities to connect with people in our community simply because sugar is bad for us. When I die, I would rather have people say, 'she engaged with people and loved them well.' Not 'she was really healthy. And now she's dead.'

Swimming against the cultural stream is difficult, and one area where we have struggled is Sabbath-keeping. We are Christians, and as such are called to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Not because it's the law, from which we have been freed, but it's meant for worship, as well as for our blessing and rejuvenation. When I was a child growing up in a blue-law state, nothing was open on Sundays. So we went to church, unlike many (most?) of our neighbors in secular New England, and then we had a nice dinner. And then we hung out.

Over the last 30 years or so, something changed. Now everything's open on Sunday. Everything... but in Massachusetts you still can't buy alcohol on Sundays--which many describe as being a 'wicked pissah.' And somehow I just went with the flow. On the way home from church, I'd stop at the market or pick up the dry cleaning.

That is, until I moved to France.

Oh, the French.... how ironic that the righteously secular, nearly universally unchurched French would be so incredibly good at Sabbath-keeping! It's very easy to take a day of rest on Sundays in France. The boulanger and florist are open for a few hours in the morning so you can get your bread and flowers to take to grandmother's house for the leisurely, three-hour dejuener you will enjoy. But apart from that nothing is open except restaurants. In fact, it is the law in France that nothing else is open on Sundays. It is the national day of rest. Everyone takes naps in the afternoons and goes for walks. It's delightful, and I grew to love it.

Darling Son #1, in the bum-up napping position. 

I don't know how they sleep that way, but they do.

When I returned to America, home of the restless, I tried to recreate that Sabbath experience, but it's been hard. Very hard. Especially since having children. How can you rest as a mother when small children still need to be fed and minded? How do you keep the Sabbath holy when you live in a very secular Boston suburb, when sports games and birthday parties on Sundays are the norm? Do we totally opt out? Do we become so strict that we're weird? Do I mind being weird?

I don't know. But I still try. And this is how:

• Sabbath keeping requires planning. Years ago I read a wonderful book called The Ladies' Auxiliary, about an orthodox Jewish community. The author detailed all that was required of the women to prepare for the Sabbath, a furious effort that had to be completed by sundown on Friday. 
• To keep a Sabbath, you need to work the other six days. I try to avoid non-essential chores on Sundays. Shopping and laundry are done beforehand, unless there is some dire emergency for milk or clean clothes.
• Meals are simple. In nicer weather, the Darling Husband will grill something, or I'll make something the day before that we can just heat up.
• If we have company, we like to do it on Sundays. Saturdays are for errands and chores. Sundays are for fellowship. Cooking an elaborate dinner and the clean-up it requires is not restful (to me), so we keep it simple. It's about hospitality, visiting, sharing what we have.
• One person's rest can be another's work. Personally, I will exercise on the Sabbath, because for me, that is joy, rejuvenation and worship. Not that I worship the exercise, but I always find myself thanking my Creator in my lalala bliss that I can move and sweat and breathe. For me, it's restful. It might not be for someone else. 

Rest is important. It's how we are healed. It's when muscles repair and minds wind down. It's when we reconnect with our people. We're still working out how to keep the Sabbath in our non-restful culture. As the small people get a little older, new challenges present themselves. Some Sundays feel anything but restful, but we keep trying. We need rest and fellowship. They are as important for health as exercise and, well, rationing maple syrup.

What Would Half-Pint Eat? A Primer on Sugar

My last post announcing my decision to give up sugar for a while sparked some interesting discussion on my Facebook page and with my real-life-face-to-face friends, so I'm back to elaborate a bit more on what I mean when I say 'I'm quitting sugar' and more on Sarah Wilson's book that got me started. Wow. That was a run-on.

First, let's talk sugar.

The word conjures up images of the white, granulated stuff, but sugar comes in many forms. There's brown sugar, molasses, honey, maple syrup, anything that ends with '-ose,' anything that talks about 'syrup' or 'juice.' The list goes on and on. I found this list that seems pretty exhaustive. Some of them sound virtuous, but they're not. They're all sugar. And each one is pretty much as bad as the next. Even the highly demonized high-fructose corn syrup isn't significantly worse for you than regular sugar. 'Natural' sugars are problematic, too. Just because something is natural doesn't mean it's good for you. Tobacco is natural! So is arsenic. We live in a fallen world, people. But one sugar compound is particularly nefarious, and that's fructose.

I used to think fructose was better than regular table sugar. Fructose! That's fruit sugar! Fruit is good for you, so fructose must be fine as a sweetener, right? Wrong.

As it turns out, fructose is particularly troublesome for your body to metabolize, and here's why: table sugar (sucrose) is half glucose, half fructose. The two compounds are held together by a tenuous bond that is immediately severed when it hits the stomach. The glucose circulates throughout the body, giving energy to all your cells. Excess glucose will be stored, but your body will burn off glucose as needed. Glucose is actually your body's preferred energy source.

Fructose, however, goes directly to the liver. A little bit can be used, but the rest will be stored as fat. Our bodies were designed to metabolize about 6-9 teaspoons of sugar per day. Most of us--even those of us who are mindful of our eating--are taking in a lot more. My sugar research has involved a lot of talk of how cavemen ate, but really, we don't have to go back that far.

Just think Little House on the Prairie. Ma cooked at home from whole ingredients. There were no convenience foods stuffed with sugar, produce was not shipped across the globe year-round. The Ingalls ate what was in season, whatever could be harvested or Pa could hunt down and shoot. Even their sweets were seasonal.

Little House in the Big Woods details how maple sugar is made, and you learn what Pa went through to score some honey.

Yikes.

Both honey and maple syrup? Lots of fructose. This is a massive bummer, since as a New Englander, I practically have maple syrup coursing through my veins. I think maple syrup is a theistic proof, so you know I'll be back to moderate consumption one of these days. But you have to remember what it took to procure these fructose-laden delights--they weren't available year-round at the A&P. Any fat stores accumulated got them through the lean late-winter months when provisions were low.

You really had to work for your fix back then.

Does all this mean fruit is bad? 

NO! Fruit contains many micro-nutrients, water and fiber. The fiber in fruit serves as a protective mechanism--you're unlikely to consume crazy amounts of fructose in fruit because the fiber will fill you up. Though I'll admit I've tried in an apple orchard on a crisp, autumn day. Still, Wilson posits eating more than two small pieces of fruit per day could be over-kill.

The main problem is that sugars are now all over the place, and available all the time. If you refer to the list I linked above and poke through any packaged food item in your pantry (even the 'healthy' ones), you will almost certainly find at least one type of sugar in every. single. item. Even things that you consider savory contain sugar. This will be particularly true for North Americans, as our tastes have been cultivated to sweet.

One interesting thing about fructose, however, is that it is actually quite low on the glycemic index. The way fructose is metabolized means it really doesn't elevate blood sugar levels. Consequently, a food that is very high in fructose can still be labeled 'low-GI.' Just because you see a product labeled as such, don't assume it's low in fructose. Caveat emptor.

The other scary thing about fructose is that it doesn't flip the switch of the hunger hormone ghrelin. Ghrelin is is suppressed to tell your brain that you're full--time to stop eating! But fructose just doesn't register. Any calories you take in from fructose will be over and above what your body needs to be satisfied.

More on the Book

The 8-week sugar 'detox' I'm doing does allow for some sweet flavors, but not for a few weeks in the middle of the two month period. So yes, I'm off fruit for a couple of weeks. A lot of people kind of freaked out when they heard that, but really, it's only for two or three weeks.

And this brings me to something I really like about Sarah Wilson's approach to quitting sugar. A lot of people will throw science at you and leave it at that. You'll hear 'studies show X, so do X.' But some people hate X, or for some other reason they can't go straight to X. So they end up doing nothing. But there is a place where science and real life converge. That's the place that interests me, and that's how I try to approach health and fitness. That's what Sarah Wilson does, too.

The first week of the program just has you tapering down your sugar consumption. She doesn't have you quitting cold turkey, because she recognizes that's just too extreme for a lot of people. The second week she introduces fats, which is brilliant. Fat is yummy! Fat fills you up, and so she has you beefing up your diet (heheh, beefing!) with fat and protein. A spoonful of fat makes the medicine go down.

Then you abstain from anything fructose-related for a few weeks. This is partly physical--to rid your system of sugar--but it also breaks the psychological attachment to sweet, that need to have a little nummy-num after a meal. Honestly, I've found even after one week, the sweet flavors in some vegetables and in dairy foods are more pronounced to me. And yes, you can have dairy on the program, so my delicious, full-fat plain Greek yogurt? It's still in the game. Thank you, merciful Lord.

At week six, she reintroduces sweet flavors, and even includes recipes for chocolate treats. She typically uses brown rice syrup as a sweetener, which also freaks a lot of people out. Yes, it's a sugar, but it doesn't contain fructose, and it's really just used in a few recipes. It's not like she has you chugging it from the jar. I made her very yummy Coco-nutty Granola (recipe here) and used less brown rice syrup than the recipe calls for. It gave the granola a nice hint of sweetness, without being too much.

Wilson's approach is also very non-judgey and pretty laid-back if you 'slip up' and have some sugar. She reminds you it's no biggie, and just get back on the horse. I'm finishing up my first week and my clothes are fitting a little better. A friend told me I look thinner in my face. Not that facial bloat was a big issue for me, but I'll take what I can get. I did weigh and measure myself at the start, so I'll give you stats at the end. But any leanness that results from this will just be gravy (note I didn't say 'icing on the cake.') I am really more interested to see if it will help with my insomnia. If it does, I will give up anything--even maple syrup.

I'm Quitting Sugar

Ah, another Easter day has come and gone. We all got to jump up and down with joy at how much Jesus loves us, and... we got to eat candy. In my case--lots of it. There were egg hunts galore--one of them even beeped! We participated in a beeping egg hunt at the blind school near us. Darling Son #2 is visually impaired, and these blessed souls over at Perkins School for the Blind and MAPVI (Massachusetts Association for Parents of Children with Visual Impairments -- say that ten times fast) host a hunt with beeping eggs so kids who can't really see eggs can still scrounge around for sugary treats just like every other child.

Last time, I shared with you my deep, passionate love affair with chocolate, and let me tell you--it's deep. The problem with Easter chocolate is that pretty much all of it doesn't meet the standard for healthy, medicinal chocolate as outlined in my last post. But having a little not-dark-enough-and-too-sweet for a few days isn't so bad... or is it?

Well, according to a lot of smarter-than-I-am people, it is.

I started researching sugar because I was a little alarmed by how often I was dipping into the boys' Easter baskets. I figured since I gave them life, they can give up a few treats at Halloween and Easter (right?), but I started to go into binge-mode, and it wasn't pretty. I also felt like kind of a jerk. You know, taking candy from my babies and all that. (Please tell me I'm not the only one? Jerkiness loves company? Anyone??)

I came across this book by Australian journalist Sarah Wilson:

Wilson wrote this book after giving up sugar in response to her diagnosis of Hashimoto's Disease, an auto-immune disorder that affects the thyroid. I found Wilson's story intriguing, because while she admits to having been a sugar addict, her diet appeared quite healthy.

Like me, much of the sugar she consumed was 'healthy.' She took honey in her tea and yogurt, ate lots of fruit and... wait for it... dark chocolate. Like me, she was hardly chugging Coke or schnarfing down Oreos, but like me, if there were some yummy treat in the house, she'd eat the.whole.thing. I don't know if she has kids, but I bet she'd have taken a pretty hefty Mommy Tax on Easter. Just like me.

So I bought Wilson's book and have started her 8-week program. Normally, this is not something I would ever do. Philosophically, I don't believe in eradicating any category of food from my diet, unless there is a medical need to do so. I don't believe the food I eat, or don't eat, makes me 'clean' or righteous. What I just celebrated on Sunday has made me so. But I can't deny the pretty scary stuff I'm reading about sugar. And unlike some other diets that eradicate essential macro-nutrients, I don't need sugar to live. And I think I just might live better without it, or at least with a lot less of it.

So I'm quitting sugar. And I mean, really quitting sugar--no balsamic vinegar, even. (For a few weeks, anyway.) I'm absolutely certain I will eat sugar again. I'm absolutely sure I'll eat cake again... someday. But for the next eight weeks, I'm on the wagon. Expect to hear a lot more about what I'm not eating in the future...

In the meantime, what do you think? Have I taken leave of my senses? Have you raided your kids' Easter baskets, too?

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In other news, I wanted to let you know that I am not done with the Mummy Tummy series. The Darling Husband went out of the country for work for many weeks and I need him to take pictures! I suppose Darling Son #1 could take them... he's actually a decent photographer for a six-year-old. Still, they'll probably come out better with DH behind the camera, so stay tuned...