Bennett - Sugar-Free Mom: Naturally Sweet and Sugar-Free Recipes for the Whole Family

This book is dedicated to my feisty grandmother Nancy, the matriarch of our family. The woman who loved to cook and instilled the value of a homemade meal. Who never showed favoritism to any of her grandchildren, yet made us believe we were each her chosen one. Who created memories in the kitchen that have lasted a lifetime and have been passed down to the next generation. The woman who always encouraged me to believe I could do and be anything and never doubted I wouldn't. Whose handwritten notes and scribbles from her recipes are my most prized possession today. I'm certain she's baking banana bread in heaven.

contents

introduction

When you come from an Italian family, learning to cook and bake starts at an early age. My happiest childhood memories have always been in the kitchen with my family, watching my mom and grandma. Cooking and baking for every holiday and every birthday was a family affair. If you had two able hands, you were involved in some way in the kitchen. With a pinch on the cheek, you were handed an apron and delegated a task. No one was exempt from helping, nor did anyone want to be.

The love for food has always been there. As soon as I could kneel on a stool by my grandmother at her flour-covered butcher-block table and make gnocchi and banana bread, I was hooked. Our passion for cooking and eating has always been our vehicle for showing our love for each other. If you didn't want it, you were still made to try it, at least once. It caused me to expand my childhood palette and become adventurous in the kitchen.

Taking these traditional and beloved recipes of my family and creating a healthier version is a challenge, but one I've grown to love. I am a foodie and I don't deny that. I'm also a health-conscious momma who had to give up sugar, but who still wants chocolate.

My love affair with sugar began early on. Not because my mother deprived me of sugar and not because I was brought up in an unhappy or sheltered life. It has always been a joy to eat, a joy to cook and share meals together, but unfortunately for me, sugar became an uncontrollable addiction.

For whatever reason that began in my childhood, sugar became my best friend. I was drawn to the comfort of baked products full of sugar. I was never an obese child. But by high school and throughout college years the sugar addiction became worse, in how I dealt with life, stress, school, grades, work, and relationships.

I cant say why I turned to sugar in my youngest years. I just remember being 15 and thinking I was chubby, so I went on a diet for the first time in my life. I looked through a fad diet book and tried cabbage and onions for a weekyes, a whole week! Then the next week I tried peanut butter and bananas, and it continued on and on, all the while doing a number on my digestion. But then everyone knows what happens with fad diets; they get less appealing as the time goes on, and that's why theres a fad. I did lose weight, but I also learned another way to eat what I wanted and not gain anything. I purged. I found it exciting to be able to have my cake and not gain weight. I was bulimic. Before I even realized it, time went on and it grew increasingly harder to hide this secret. I lost my hair, had popped blood vessels around my eyes, and even lost my period for a year. When I began having unexplained sharp pains in my throat I was not sure how much longer I could continue to do this. At the age of 16, I was lost, confused, and depressed, but my obsession to achieve a slim figure was my only focus.

When my parents discovered this situation they immediately sought help for me, and by the grace of God, I recovered. I gained weight and continued to gain, but I lost the desire to purge and have never desired to do so again. I have never shared this information on my blog, so it will be a surprise for many of my fans reading this. But sharing my story in my cookbook now felt right and natural, so here we are.

Although I stopped purging, compulsiveness with sugar continued to torment me. I packed on 30 pounds by the time I graduated high school. I felt drained, exhausted, and unable to break free. College brought new life challenges, but since my focus had changed, and I didn't care that I had extra weight on, sugar helped me deal with those challenges. The vending machine each morning was my fix. Like someone addicted to cigarettes, I needed sugar to start my day. My drug of choice was always the worst sugary item I could find, often a gigantic cinnamon bun.

One year after graduation, at the age of 22, I finally learned I needed support and accountability. Weight Watchers was wonderful and helped me lose weight and maintain my weight for the next 7 years, leading a noncompulsive way of life. By 25 I was married and by 29 I had my first child. Having a baby brought so much joy, but it triggered the obsession with losing the weight gained from pregnancy. I went back to Weight Watchers when my boy turned one, and I thankfully lost the weight and managed well until my second child was born 3 years later. The sugar addiction surfaced again, and I could not lose the weight from having my daughter, nor did Weight Watchers help me this time around. I ate all my points in sugary foods. I was stuck and miserable and desperate.

Through a friend I found a Christian program called Prism that was hard core. To me, anyway. It eliminated white flour and white sugar for 6 weeks6 weeks! I had never ever done anything like that before and for this sugar addict, it was my worst nightmare. But I needed the accountability, and it worked for me. It stopped becoming just about losing the weight I wanted and more about removing the obsession with sugar and finding freedom. For the next 3 years, I engulfed myself in learning everything I could about making recipes without sugar and refined flours. This became my new obsession, writing recipes, teaching classes at my church, and finding such joy in helping my friends by sharing my recipes. The passion for cooking Id had as a child was always there, and now it was being transformed into a new exciting challenge to remake healthier recipes of what I loved. I believe God turned what was meant for my destruction into His calling for my life. And I was happy.

In 2004, I was doing everything I loved. I had two children and I was home raising them and tutoring part time. There was no more obsession and my new passion was sustaining me as I continued to abstain from sugar and to help my friends. When I became pregnant with my third child, I was ecstatic, because we had been trying for almost 6 months. Maybe it was hormones from pregnancy or maybe it was pride. I had this whole sugar thing down, or so I thought. I knew what to do to lose weight and I knew how to maintain it. I wrote amazing recipes and helped my friends. I was on top of the world... with pride in myself. One day I just decided I could have a little bite of a sugary treat that everyone else was having.