Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

This topic has 50 replies, 14 voices, and was last updated 12 years ago by blue j.

Viewing 15 posts - 16 through 30 (of 51 total)

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April 18, 2013 at 4:16 pm
Misty
Participant
Oh my.. Lindsey I have looked into Xylitol before using and never seen anything like that. More research!?!? That’s bad. I may have to stick with Stevia. Which is just as good, hmm. Thanks
April 18, 2013 at 4:23 pm
LindseyD
Participant
I just wanted to post it, in case you had never seen the other side of the research. The only thing I use xylitol for is homemade toothpaste. I know it’s not recommended, but we like our toothpaste and I’m not ready to change until I find something I like equally as well.
April 18, 2013 at 5:18 pm
melindab72
Member
Does anyone know if coconut sugar tastes good in coffee? My dh can’t have coffee without sugar and he can’t not have coffee…lol. Right now he uses evaporated cane sugar. And he’s tried Stevia and doesn’t like it, too bad.
April 18, 2013 at 6:52 pm
momto2blessings
Participant
melindab, I wanted to cut back on sugar in my coffee but don’t like pure stevia in it (tea yes, coffee no!) So I now put a little cane sugar in and a little stevia. I’m using less sugar and it knocks down the stevia aftertaste. Hubby, however, notices…..
April 18, 2013 at 7:34 pm
LindseyD
Participant
I don’t think coconut sugar is good in coffee. It kinda makes it taste dirty?? For lack of a better description…
Dh and I both use liquid stevia in our coffee, and always heavy cream. Actually, he drinks coffee. I can’t have it. I drink Chocolate Mint Teecino and love it.
April 18, 2013 at 7:51 pm
Rebekah P
Participant
Everyone’s different…I love Coconut palm sugar in my coffee. I just add a little bit since I usually drink it black
(gross, I know.) My husband even likes it and he’s EXTREMELY picky.
April 18, 2013 at 8:41 pm
Jenni
Participant
What a great thread, ladies!
For the record, we only use fruit, maple syrup, and raw honey (all of those organic) to sweeten anything. I’m not very concerned with what my baked goods end up looking like, and let me tell ya, they don’t look that great. They taste good, though!
Here’s a recipe for frosting I totally made up on the spot when I realized that my birthday was the next day and no one in the house was planning to make a cake for me. Boo hoo, I know, but it was a great motivator to find something I could eat. I’m not big on measuring as you can see…
Skim the fat part off of a can of organic full-fat coconut milk. Put it in a bowl and whip it to a froth. It’s easier if it is at room temp to do this. Add in some pureed fruit for taste and color. Use less fruit than you have coconut fat. I used org strawberries – yum! But you could do mango, applesauce, anything. Ooh, kiwi would make a fun color! Add in some vanilla if you (or someone who will eat this) are/is not a fan of coconut flavor and put the bowl in the freezer for a few hours. Not too long or it will be frozen solid. Then frost the cake or cupcakes and put back in the fridge otherwise it will get gooey and run all over. It’s not perfect, but it’s very tasty and can be very pretty. It’s definitely more of a creamy, thick glaze than frosting.
Good luck!
http://www.alaskalockwoods.blogspot.com
April 18, 2013 at 8:47 pm
Bookworm
Participant
Misty, here is the video I mentioned:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM This doctor also has a book out called Fat Chance that has his findings in written form. I ran into this in a nutrition class I took and it has DEFINITELY changed how I feed my boys. There are a LOT of things out there that I now consider much less dangerous than added sugar–the two things I now totally exclude are transfats and added sugar. We really don’t do much for the sweet taste now except fruit. My family has heart disease, diabetes and other metabolic disorders running all the way through it, and these diseases kill more people and cause more disability than any others in American society today–and we are spreading them throughout the world with sugar. I don’t consider most sugar substitutes healthy—but I think they are less dangerous than sugar!!!! I will sometimes use a little mashed banana or applesauce or smooshed berries for a little bit of a treat–like maybe once a month, and sometimes I use a tiny bit of sucanat or honey to make it work out. We are actually getting used to it now and sugary stuff, my dh says, now taste really bad (he ate something at work and about gagged it was so sweet.) I really don’t think we were designed to eat so much sweetness. Dr. Lustig says that fructose is really a poison. A slow acting poison.
April 18, 2013 at 9:06 pm
blue j
Participant
I like the spoonable Stevita brand of stevia; we buy it in the “big” 16 oz container. It doesn’t seem to have an bitter aftertaste. 1 T of this equals 1 cup of sugar, so when we use it in baked goods, and we do use it that way, we often add in very finely ground coconut or very finely ground almond to make up the bulk so the stevia & coconut/ almond mixture equals the measure given in the recipe. Often the almond meal that I use is the left over meal from making almond milk.
We also have begun to use homemade date paste in recipes. Here is a link to making your own. So far, this is working well for us, though we haven’t used it in all applications and are still learning the amounts.
We have used coconut sugar and sucanat in the past, but after much testing, found that this was causing one of the VERY bad allergic reactions even though coconut doesn’t seem to bother me in the least. The girls crave the sucanat, so I pulled that out of our rotation for that reason. All this to say, if it seems to work well for you, use it. If it doesn’t seem to be working well for you or someone in your family, stop. We’re all different, and what works for one may not work for another.
April 18, 2013 at 9:47 pm
blue j
Participant
@Lindsey, so glad you posted those recipe links. The cocoa balls was one I had forgotten about. The girls have all voted that I need to make some tonight.
April 19, 2013 at 2:45 am
HiddenJewel
Participant
Someone will always have something negative to say about some food. So I don’t get too excited when I see blogs like the xylitol one unless it proves out for me. Stevia is bad, sugar alcohols are bad, agave is bad, wheat is bad, and on and on it goes. If someone notices problems when using a product, I say don’t use it. But others can use them with no issue.
However, if I had pets, I wouldn’t have xylitol in the house.
We just use evaporated cane juice and know that when we are eating sugary products, it is a hit on the system and needs to be monitored accordingly.
April 19, 2013 at 11:44 am
Misty
Participant
blue j mind me asking where you like to get your spoonable stevia? I am looking for a good source.
You ladies all impress me that you don’t use sugar. I use it way less than I grew up with but some of you don’t use it really at all. You inspire me. All that to say… I think if I belly upped on cookies around here I would be kicked out! I did tell my son we are going to start using moms sugar (stevia/truvia) and he about died. I promised hiim his oatmeal will still (which we make) taste great.
But I think learning from you is a wonderful gift and gives me sometihng to really think about. I know the one thing my family eats way to much of is bread (does it really matter that it’s wheat?), bread is bread. But it’s a cheap way to have breakfast, lunch or add something to dinner for the kids. Any thoughts on how to make cheap meals w/o the bread? (totally off subject I know)
April 19, 2013 at 3:28 pm
LindseyD
Participant
As a grain-free family (except brown rice occasionally) you have to get creative for sure! I don’t have time to write a whole lot now, but I will later.
April 19, 2013 at 7:10 pm
Misty
Participant
Lindsey that would be great when you can!
April 19, 2013 at 7:30 pm
LindseyD
Participant
Still don’t have a lot of time. We are taking a quick lunch break from cleaning out the garage.
We do use brown rice occasionally for fried rice or as a side to our meat and veggies. None of us has a sensitivity to rice, thankfully.
I have not found a great recipe for bread made from coconut and/or almond flours. Not anything that is sandwich-worthy anyway. I do bake muffins, cookies, and quick breads still, so perhaps some savory baked good could replace bread until your family becomes accustomed to not having the bread item with the meals. I understand that bread is an easy, quick filler for meals, but if you’re wanting to move away from eating bread all the time, the only way to do it is to just do it. We weren’t big bread people before, except that my kids love pbj. Now I can spoil them with their favorites like banana bread and pumpkin muffins, in grain-free form.
Not having bread, pasta, and such accessible has been positive because our veggie consumption has greatly increased. Really, veggies bought in season aren’t that expensive and can be a wonderful filler on a plate when cooked in a yummy way. We do still eat potatoes, another economical starchy filler. Sweet potatoes are something else we eat quite regularly. Lettuce is cheap this time of year. I’ve been paying $1-1.25/head for beautiful, large heads of organic red and green leaf lettuce lately. That’s less than a loaf of bread!
Your body has to learn the difference between “carb full” and “fat and protein full”. I find that serving good fats with our meals makes the difference. A cheap veggie like carrots won’t keep anyone full for long, but when I roast them in coconut oil and then serve them with butter, they’re suddenly very filling because of the fat. I know many limit meat consumption, but we don’t. We might eat 1-2 vegetarian meals per week, but even those are still with eggs. Eggs are another inexpensive protein choice. We also do a lot of soups, which can utilize the scraps or a veggie that you might not have enough of for a full meal but can be added to a soup.
Those are some ideas. Now I need to head back to the garage before my husband decides to keep all the stuff he’s got in the garage sale pile!