Hi,

I LOVE maple sugar.... YES YES i know it is cooked........but the source i get mine from ( maple valley in New York) is vegan and a one sugar house operation....

I must say that when I am craving something cooked or pasta/bread or chocolate and fruit, a salad or other simple raw solution doesn't work, I get a TBS spoonful of maple sugar..... and the craving goes away! (my goal is to work down to a TSP to meet my craving)

So my question is, is it my body craving or addicted to cooked foods? or is my body just telling me it wants ( not necessarily needs) sugar/energy in any form?

GOsh think....if it is just my body wanting sugar/energy and getting it from ANY SOURCE going 100 percent raw is just a switch to turn on in my mind.

Does eating the Maple Sugar meet a psychological need that the raw fruits or veggies doesn't SEEM to meet?

Can i be what i think?

tiff n twins

Find sweeter fruit!

isn't all maple syrup vegan? how can it be non-vegan? that's confusing.

if you really love it, eat it. there are no rules but the ones you make for yourself.

some not so good maple sugar people put in diglycerides.... not many, but yes i called ALL the prospective providers and asked their methods and ingredients... and YES to my amazement....... there were TWO who added things to their maple sugar... YUCK....

When i asked why they said something about clumping ...... i stopped listening at "diglycerides"

tiff n twins

Opinion:

-Remember there are no raw food police. Decide what goals and levels are right for YOU. You have my support on your goals - 100%. When you have transitioned to your satisfaction, you may find that you begin to prefer the longer-releasing sugars in vegetables and fruit...and not the blood-spiking simple sugars in refined carbs and sweeteners. Just my experiences.

-David Z. Mason

The need that you are satisfying with the maple syrup is the rapidity and rate that the sugar gets into your blood and satisfies the "hunger anxiety". If you were to eat the same number of calories of ripe bananas, and wait some minutes (say like 15-30), you could get the same level of sugar satisfaction.

By examining your habits, it is possible to see how much sugar your body wants on any given day. Just don't eat any other source of carbs during the day, and record how many spoonfuls of maple syrup you need to squash that anxiety/craving feeling. This will give you an idea of your daily carbohydrate need. You can record at what time of the day you took each spoonful so you could see your cumulative consumption for later benefit.

Then, perhaps on another day feed yourself banana-strawberry smoothies from the time you wake up, making sure that your sugar intake is similar to what your measured with the maple syrup. If you always have the sugar in your blood before you need it, the anxiety ought to disappear. Since you recorded the times your body wanted the sugar, you can be sure to have the sugar in your blood before the anxiety arises.

In the future, after you get comfortable with this method, you can started feeding yourself calories after they are needed, rather than before.

One other thing that may be interfering with your absorption of sugar from fruit is fat in your bloodstream. If you ate overt fats the previous day, when you are eating fruit, the concentration of sugars in your blood may be too low if you are already feeling some of the effects of insulin resistance. This is because fruit doesn't put the concentration of sugar into your blood that maple syrup does, and because you may have insulin issues, the sugars take much longer to get to the tissues where they can be used and the sense of craving and anxiety can stop.

You may want to not eat any overt fats for a few days before you try to satisfy your sugar needs with fresh fruit rather than maple syrup.

Wow.... thanks for the REALLY good info all!

I will be experimenting with this over the next few weeks....

MUAH

tiff n twins