adventures in low fructose cooking: muffins

Well we're 6 weeks in to our fructose-free adventure. I was hoping that by now we'd have a bit more control over our appetites. Mine seems to be still fructose effected.

We have been eating a bit of 85% chocolate mainly because on holidays we weren't able to source anything stronger. BTW the Green & Black's 85% with Madagascan vanilla is far superior to the Lindt equivalent.

I also want to try eating more slowly and waiting (15-20mins) to give myself a chance to feel full.

I'm also taking the advice from The Sweet Poison Quit Plan of sticking to sweetener alternatives rather than glucose while we wait for our addiction and appetites to come under control.

Anyway I've gotten hold of Natvia which is I suppose the best of a bad bunch. It is derived from a natural source, part of the Stevia plant, is much sweeter than sugar but has many less calories. However, it hasn't been used for a very long time so the jury's out as to whether it has any harmful effects. A good thing however is that I don't think it has as nasty an after taste as some of the other sweeteners.

So here's our first go at baking with Natvia. We made banana muffins, a variation on the blueberry muffin recipe found on the natvia website. Find the recipe here. And while they're not fructose-free because of the banana, 2 bananas are spread over 22 muffins...

Our's were about half the size of the recipe so only needed 15mins. And they were quite crumbly so I may have over cooked them.

None of us could stop at one. They were a success all round. Even little badger thoroughly enjoyed his.

one month on - still fructose free

Well we survived the holiday period largely fructose-free. I think the Easter egg craziness might be the only time of year that is harder but we haven't felt deprived at all.

I meant to say earlier but I followed through and got rid of all our pantry and fridge items which didn't fall inside the 4g of sugar/100g of food guideline. It helped that we were moving and I didn't want to pack things I wasn't planning on using any longer anyway. We have moved in with my mother-in-law but fortunately she doesn't like a lot of sweet food anyway so it shouldn't be too hard.

We have started eating a bit more fruit. You can eat 1-2 pieces of fruit a day on the plan, so we're not going overboard. And we're trying to stick to the recommended fruit such as berries, kiwi, pears and citrus.

The other good thing is that with a good supply of dextrose we have started making sweet treats which pass the low fructose test. In particular we've tried a few recipes from the Sweet Poison Quit Plan. So far I've whipped up some ice cream, a butter cake and some vanilla egg custard. Yummo. I can also recommend the frozen mango yogurt from Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals, just substitute glucose syrup for the honey - although you'd probably go through your day's allowance of fruit in one go.

We have also enjoyed a fair few croissants - our new bakery treat of choice. Now just to make sure that it remains a sometimes food.

Giggi's 'artistic' fuzzy shot of a friend and I at Max Brenner's. Fortunately my husband was on the ball and ordered our coffees and croissants without the molten chocolate slathered all over them.

I'm surprised that 3 cafes we've visited in the last 10 days have supplied a small sweet treat gratis with the coffee. But I've been even more surprised by how well Giggi has coped with me turning them down. I think it's great that we've started this journey while we still have quite a bit of control over what he eats. Hopefully it will make it easier when he has more freedom in this area. Perhaps he won't have the taste for it and certainly he'll understand more of why we're doing what we're doing.

Which is:
    1) have healthy weights
    2) go back to normal appetites not subverted by fructose
    3) the prevention or mitigation of diseases such as diabetes, hyperglycemia, high cholesterol etc.

Happy New Year to you all. Here's to a happy and healthy 2012. Let me know if you're planning on joining us on this fructose-free but fulfilling ride.