Now coming to the end of January, I look back at how I’ve progressed with my New Year’s Resolutions and I’m feeling pretty good about myself. Some have been tougher than others, and I’ve used the holiday break as an excuse for not fulfilling some – but generally speaking, I’m improving. This blogging caper does help enormously too. It makes you accountable – even in a teeny weeny way.
So let’s do an update and I’ll share what I’ve learned along the way.
RESOLUTION UPDATE
(1) Sugar free challenge (apart from wine) – to stick to the ONE LINE RULE diet. (which is not eating products that contain more than 5% sugar)
Even though I confessed in Sunday’s blog that I finally broke my sugar fast on Saturday night while watching a movie at the Village Gold Class Cinema and devouring a Choc Top, I’m going to stick with this one. People have asked why, and I have to say one of the main reasons is how I FEEL. I feel happier and healthier and have loads more energy than ever before. That’s why this is the BEST of all my New Year’s resolutions. It really HAS made a difference.I’m not absolutely certain if it’s kicking sugar, or just that (touch wood) life is pretty good right now, giving me a more positive outlook, but I have a hunch it’s got more to do with the sugar business.
I also love the up-myself, smug feeling I get when standing in the supermarket queue with all those rows of sugar-laden chocolate bars staring at me, begging me to buy them. ‘Ha!’ I say to them. ‘Don’t even THINK you can tempt me! I KNOW you are evil and I am strong enough to resist you!!’ Juvenile, but fun. Empowering.
Emma the Guru’s recipe for chocolate protein balls has also been a big winner this week. I just LOVE them and they are now my regular afternoon treat. Just one… most days… Plus I managed THREE alcohol free days – a first in many weeks.
More food updates to come, so stay tuned. But I don’t get a tick for this resolution this week because of the Choc Top moment.
(2) Not to play I-Phone Games
Yes, all good here. A big tick this week.
EXCEPT… that I found a new replacement addiction. I did mention it in a previous Blog, but I’m now going to reveal the evidence. It’s quite brave of me really, because I know many will condemn me for being a complete nerd…
I HAVE SPENT COUNTLESS HOURS PUTTING TOGETHER A JIGSAW PUZZLE.
It all started when Veronica asked for a puzzle as one of her Christmas presents. She wanted something more challenging this time, so chose a 2000-piece puzzle. And after Christmas, she invited me to help her put it together. Like most teenagers, she lost interest not far into the game as it proved a tad more challenging than she’d expected…
Except that the rumpus room table was now covered with a barely completed puzzle and I couldn’t bear to pack it away until it had been conquered!
And so the fun began… It became an obsession. I’d start with thinking, ‘I’ll just finish off the parrot’s beak,’ and before I knew it, it was TWO AM!!!
Fletch was becoming quite annoyed. I was neglecting the family and household chores – scurrying away upstairs any moment I could to put this damn thing together. ‘See – the cockatoo is done!’ I’d squeal with delight. He didn’t get it.
Nor was the family pleased I’d covered the floor with pieces. The jigsaw was taking over our lives. But I did love the fact that being up in the rumpus room meant I spent more time with Tom who would be watching sport or playing Play Station with friends while I puzzled away. Every time I fitted a piece, I’d shout ‘YAY’, to which he had to shout back ‘YAY!’ It was a wonderful bonding ritual.
One kind friend suggested my obsession was a reflection of what was happening in my life. That I was figuring stuff out in my head while doing the puzzle and piecing together elements in my life that made sense. I liked that one. I’ll run with that.
I think Fletch was more concerned I was regressing into a second childhood. But wait – I found evidence on the internet that doing jigsaw puzzles is wonderful exercise for the brain and makes people incredibly smart. Which means I am now a genius. Cool.
As I neared the end, one missing piece from the Toucan’s beak was driving me crazy. I knew it HAD to be green and black with a stripe in the middle – surely not that hard to find? But no, many a lengthy search proved fruitless… I worried the makers had stuffed up and sold me a puzzle minus a vital finishing piece…was my mission pointless???
Then, at two-thirty in the morning, I thought I was done, but STILL the piece was missing. The anxiety was torturous. I had to get to bed!! An easel with newspaper underneath to protect the carpet was next to the table. I shoved it aside and shook out the paper – and SWEET JOY – the missing piece spilled on to the carpet in all its glory. Victory. My mission was complete. Ahhh….
It’s an on-going, eternal nightmare, but I get a BIG TICK every week till the end of March. The best thing about this resolution is that it means I try to clear away a little bit off the desk each day. So progress, yes, even though it’s just tiny steps.
(4) To go to the gym at least 3 times a week.
I did it! I actually got to the gym THREE times PLUS I have enlisted the services of a new personal trainer – Ross Sheridan – who I began work with on Friday. And you know what? If I hadn’t made an appointment to meet him on Friday, I doubt I would have made it to the gym. Hence the value of personal trainers. I really do need to be accountable… Still, very up-myself for making it to the gym three times. A big tick.
(5) To NEVER smoke another cigarette again.
The best part about this resolution is that it really belongs in last year’s resolution basket, and I am pleased to report, it’s SO much easier this year than last year. So, if it’s of any help to smokers out there, it DOES get better. I also suffer much less from smoker’s envy in social situations, which is fantastic. Another big tick.
Overall, checking the scorecard – that’s four ticks out of five this week, so I’m pretty happy.
Until next week!
I blame that seductive Gold Class cinema. How dare it be such a perfect host – wrapping me up in the comfort of those cushioning lounges, dim lights, luscious food and wine, transporting me to another world of cinematic fantasy – no wonder my defences were down!
For twenty-six days, I stuck firmly to the NO SUGAR – ONE LINE RULE diet, but an evening at the movies last night defeated me…
Knowing I was going out with friends, I’d deliberately stuck to a healthy diet all day. Muesli and yoghurt for breakfast, a can of tuna and Cruskits for lunch, cashews for a snack, plus homemade protein balls – making sure I ate nothing containing more than five per cent sugar.
I’d had an alcohol-free day, the day before, so was delighted when I spied a bottle of one of my favourite chardonnays – Shaw and Smith – on the Gold Class menu. Wine doesn’t come into my version of a sugar-free diet, so I thought I’d treat myself while watching the movie. And Gold Class is like flying first-class on an airline – just as comfy and uber-indulgent, but much more affordable…
Sucked into a world of make-believe and happily scoffing back my wine, it didn’t take long to forget about my sugar-free diet. Now I know I’ve had wine on many occasions while sticking to this diet, but I think it’s the combination of wine and being IN THE DARK and watching a movie, that led to my next mistake.
Towards the end of the movie, a friend passed along a box of another of my favourite treats – CHOC TOP ICE-CREAMS!! Without thinking, eyes still glued to the screen, I reached out and grabbed one, whipped off the cellophane and chomped away. After the first mouthful, the realisation hit me.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING????? DAMN! Too late. So of course, I finished it.
So there you have it. I will never be like Emma the Guru who hasn’t had a lolly for seven years. (see Friday’s blog) She has the resolve of a nun. But I DID last TWENTY-SIX DAYS!! I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. I knew I’d have to break sooner or later. And you know what, that Choc Top was the best Choc Top I’ve ever eaten in my life. Bloody well worth it.
Back on sugar-free band wagon today. Will keep you posted.
The more I talk with Emma Dumas about the sugar-free ONE LINE RULE diet, the more respect I have for her knowledge and advice. Henceforth, from here on, I will refer to Emma only as Emma the Guru. (and for newbies, the ONE LINE RULE diet means you can only eat products that contain five per cent or less sugar -always check the nutrition label on all products!)
I’ve been trying to stick to the ONE LINE RULE diet since New Year’s Eve. I’ve only broken it once – inadvertently – but it is tough. I REALLY miss my chocolate and cakes. And ice-cream. Another reason I call Emma – Emma the Guru – is that she hasn’t eaten ONE lolly or chocolate in seven years. Which is quite phenomenal. In a bow-down-and-scrape-WOW kinda way. Because I am a serious sugar addict.
Emma also sells one of the only breakfast cereals on the market, THE MUESLI, which is practically sugar-free. It’s mostly sold at exclusive health stores. You can find your nearest stockist by going to The Muesli’s website at http://themuesli.com.au Emma the Guru’s range is spreading far and wide. From this summer, you can now find The Muesli -even as far away as Lorne at a super cute health shop called Lorne Greens. Yep, I was there and saw it on the shelf. Very impressed!
And no, I am not paid to write this. I bought my own The Muesli at a local health shop yesterday. Emma is a friend, and I am supporting her product because I believe in it and I don’t ask for freebies. And it tastes bloody good. I can’t find anything else that comes close. If you can – let me know.
But it’s now 24 days into this ONE LINE RULE diet and it’s getting a bit boring. I’m also a bit worried that in order to compensate for the lack of sugary treats in my life, I’m over-indulging in every protein bar under five per cent sugar on the planet. This can’t be good – can it? I decided I needed to talk with Emma the Guru for some more advice – and hopefully inspiration – to keep me on the straight and narrow.
Here’s how our chat went:
Jen: So I suppose it’s not good that I’m eating so many protein bars and sugar substitute treats, is it? Emma: My belief is that the sugar addiction is very much based on that sweet taste which is what you crave. So if you can, try and get away from needing to supplement that sweet taste and ultimately that craving should go away. But in the beginning, particularly if you have been quite addicted, definitely take the odd substitute and have a couple of Jols or something.
Jen: Are protein balls okay? Emma: I think so. But I also make some great protein balls that have chocolate protein powder and raspberries in them. The kids love them in school lunches.
I had to interrupt our interview at this point, because the instant I heard about these protein balls, I just had to have the recipe. (That magic word ‘chocolate’ did the trick) Especially knowing what a good cook Emma the Guru is…
Ingredients: The Muesli (of course..) -2 cups
Fresh raspberries – 1 cup
Tahini – 3 to 4 tablespoons
Protein powder – 2 to 3 tablespoons (like Donna Aston’s Protein Supreme chocolate flavour)
Cocoa – a tablespooon
Sweetener – optional
If you’re a really big sweet tooth (like me) you may also want to throw in a spoonful of a sweetener like Stevia. Emma says you mix the whole lot up in a big bowl. The tahini makes everything stick, so you can then roll it up into small balls and place on a tray in the fridge to set.
It’s messy to make and you’ll start to feel like a mud wrestler, but on the upside, you get to lick your fingers.
Jen: I’ve given up so much. Why aren’t I losing weight? What am I doing wrong? Too much alcohol? Too many protein bars? Emma: I firmly believe that over time, you will absolutely lose weight. You will see it happen. It may just be a slower progression for some.
Jen: Well I suppose I have lost half a kilo. Emma: Well half a kilo is good! And you really haven’t had to put yourself out too much to lose it.
Jen: What else could I do to help? Emma: The other thing would be to cut out processed carbs. Anything white really. Processed breads, any processed foods. And generally the ONE LINE RULE cuts out loads of processed foods anyway. But if you do want to accelerate your weight loss a little bit, just cut out processed foods and anything white – potato, rice, pastry and definitely avoid pasta.
Jen: Generally speaking, what is your diet? Do you eat The Muesli for breakfast all the time? Emma: I do! I eat The Muesli every day.
Jen: What about morning tea? Emma: No. I find myself sitting at my desk and find myself thinking, “God, I’m starving!” but by then it’s one o’clock in the afternoon and time for lunch. And that is the first time I’ve thought about food because The Muesli seriously fills me up. I might think to have a cup of tea, but I really never eat anything till lunchtime.
Jen: So what do you have for lunch? Emma: Lunch for me would be something from the fridge – mix up a whole lot of rocket with tuna or salmon and avocado. Or leftovers. I’m a big fan of leftovers. But I think if you’re modifying your diet and avoiding processed foods, then as long as you have a serve of protein and a big serve of salad, you’ll be fine and you will eventually lose weight. And cook a bit extra for dinner – like a bit of extra chicken of fillet and then you can eat that for lunch the next day.
Jen: How important is exercise?
Emma: Oh, I ‘m a big believer in exercise – as much for your mind as anything else. But while exercise helps, I think we lose sight of the fact that losing weight and keeping your body the way you want it is 95% about what you put into your mouth. So yes, I exercise most days – walking and pilates – but first and foremost, I watch what goes into my mouth.
Jen: I love snacks though. So any tips for that problem? Emma: Well the protein balls we just talked about are good. Or some cheese. And blinis. (small pancakes) Make these with rolled oats or oat bran – I even grind up some of The Muesli – mix that with some egg and yoghurt, salt and pepper and make little blinis. These are divine with smoked salmon, cream cheese and capers.
Jen: What advice can you give me to keep going and stick with this sugar free mission? Emma: It always depends on just how bad your addiction is. You’ve just got to keep telling yourself that it is an addiction and that it is something inflicted on us by a food industry that will keep on doing it. Everywhere you go, we have sweet treats on shelves in shops, shoved in our faces. It is tough. But the health benefits are massive and you will feel so much better.
Okay. I’m convinced. I’m going to stick with this sugar free mission for a bit longer. Especially now I have the recipe for those chocolate protein balls!! I’ve got a whole tray of them in the fridge now. Enough writing – time for a snack!
(p.s. For the recipe, Emma the Guru recommends using Donna Aston’s chocolate protein powder called ‘Protein Supreme’ as others on the market are loaded with sugar. Donna’s on-line store is at http://www.donnaaston.com/store/index.php?category=3)
This will be my fourth week on the sugar-free ONE LINE RULE diet and I confess, this last week has been the toughest yet. The novelty has worn off and the temptations are becoming harder to keep at bay. A dinner-party with friends on Saturday night saw me knocking back the offer of chocolate Lindt balls on a plate – my favourite EVER chocolate – and that hurt!
(p.s. For newbies to this regime, the ONE LINE RULE diet means no products containing more than five per cent sugar. It’s all about checking the ONE LINE on the nutrition box of any product you might be tempted to eat. Over 5% and it’s OUT.)
Then yesterday, Ronnie decided she might become a CHOCOLATIER after finishing school, so she really needed to learn how to make chocolate NOW. With my help. Without me licking my fingers???? Do you know how hard that is??? You could have put me in the Tower of London and strapped me to a torture stretcher and I would have been happier.
Most teenage daughters persecute their mothers by getting smashed and coming home late in the wee hours of a Saturday morning… Not my daughter. No, she wants me to MAKE CHOCOLATE with her. So demanding. AND she is well aware of my anti-sugar campaign. Unbelievable.
Breakfasts are also tough. I love THE MUESLI but I also like variety. So to mix things up, I usually add a dollop of natural yoghurt to my muesli most mornings and sometimes a bit of fresh fruit. Otherwise, here’s a couple of alternative brekkies that hit the spot:
(1) Uncle Toby’s Instant Oats with a dozen fresh raspberries. There’s no sugar in the porridge and I’m allowed one serve of fresh fruit a day, so this is fine. The raspberries give the cereal a little sweet kick and you can always buy a box of frozen berries when they aren’t in season.
(2) Good old Vegemite on toast. Always a winner and butter is acceptable so, you feel like you’re sinning but you’re not. Sadly, peanut butter doesn’t cut it – the 7.4% sugar content takes it over the limit… sigh.
A BREAKFAST EXPERIMENT THAT DIDN’T WORK
So as you know, I’m very much missing my daily sugar fix. I ‘get it’ now when I remember what Emma The Guru said about sugar being an addiction as serious as any drug you can think of. Withdrawal can lead to desperate behaviour…. like this.
Even though I am coping (and enjoying) the breakfast options above, this morning I was particularly missing the concept of JAM on toast. Caving in to nagging from the kids, I’d purchased a whole loaf of WHITE sourdough bread. Now, there’s nothing better than a thick slice of white bread, toasted, dripping with warm butter and raspberry jam. I couldn’t get this image out of my head. I didn’t want Vegemite. But I knew that the EVIL, WICKED jam, beckoning me from the fridge, had to be kept locked up and well away from my sugar-free self. Still, the thought kept nagging at me. There must be another solution. And then I had a light-bulb moment.
There WAS something in the fridge that MIGHT work as a substitute. The ONLY acceptable BELOW five per cent sugar yoghurt I’d been able to find on the market was TAMAR VALLEY and I had a tub of raspberry yoghurt in the fridge. Ah ha!! Surely that would taste like jam? I would scoop the jammy bit out of the yoghurt and put it on my toast!
This does NOT taste good. I would NOT recommend trying this for breakfast, or any other meal for that matter. Just so you know. I don’t always get it right.
Managing Director and owner of The Muesli, Emma Dumas is a crusader on an anti-sugar campaign. And not just to promote her breakfast cereal. She firmly believes SUGAR is the root of all nutritional evil. After interviewing Emma, I’m pretty much convinced too, so now the Muffin Top journey has ended, I’m going to try another experiment. I’m going to add another test of willpower to my list of New Year’s Resolutions. But more about that later.
Let’s chat with Emma first. This is the third in my series of interviews, under the banner ‘Inspirational Life Changes.’ It’s about people who successfully change careers at some point in their lives and turn to a job that’s quite different, requiring new challenges and skills. With people living longer, it’s a much more common choice, so it’s wonderful to learn from others who have been brave enough to take a leap of faith into another area of expertise and make it work. Their experience can teach and inspire us.
Before The Muesli took over Emma’s life, she was a successful television producer. From a stint in radio, she began working at Channel Nine in 1989. ‘I was in TV production for many years, starting at the Nine Network in Special Projects as a Producer,’ said Emma as we chatted over a coffee. ‘I then started up my own company, Prime Time Productions and left Nine in 1993.’
Working in Special Projects meant Emma was involved in the production of major live events, like Carols by Candlelight, the Logie Awards and the Arias. It’s a job requiring super organisational skills, not to mention a good dose of persuasiveness when trying to convince stars to appear on shows. Emma then produced several highly acclaimed programs with her own company, Prime Time productions with another partner from Nine.
‘Then I had the babies from ’98, so I sold out of Prime Time in 2000, just before the birth of our second, Sophie,’ said Emma. ‘From there, I had about six months off, then Michael Hirsh rang me from Working Dog so I started producing The Panel from 2000 until it ran its course, in about mid 2005.’
It was about that time that Emma’s good friend Donna Aston, (personal trainer for the stars and registered nutritionist) who she’d worked and trained with, sparked an idea. ‘She was saying to me, “My clients are doing my head in. They cannot get their heads around breakfast and get it right.” I’d written recipes for her over the years for several books so I said, ‘Oh don’t worry about it. I’ll prepare something.’ So I mixed up this concoction and started making The Muesli.’ Emma said, smiling.
‘I’d parcel it up in one kilo zip lock bags and started taking in ten or twenty at a time to her gym and they started to sell. It was based on the fact that people just could NOT get an option on a supermarket shelf that was actually healthy. There’s a big perception that all muesli’s are a health food and people are doing the right thing buying it, but they’re really grabbing things that are up to 48 per cent sugar. And that’s before you start thinking about the roasting and toasting and the damage to fats in all the roasted and toasted products.’
I voiced my disappointment, being a lover of the roasted and toasted variety, but Emma insisted NONE of them are any good. ‘Absolutely no good!’ she said sternly. ‘So with all those things in mind, I put The Muesli together. Something that was nutritionally great. Donna loved it. It was high in protein, the fats are all raw, so they’re in their essential form and it just happened to be naturally sugar-free, because I would never have included anything that was sugary – which is dried fruit or honey or anything like that.’
I’ve tried Emma’s muesli and also love it, but could have sworn there were sultanas somewhere in the mix. “No,’ said Emma. ‘That’s how it’s sugar free. Because dried fruit is concentrated sugar. Our muesli is fifty percent nuts and seeds. 36 per cent oats and 14 per cent coconut. And the nutrition panel contains just 1.6 grams per 100grams of sugars, which occur naturally from within those ingredients.’
Proof of it’s taste-good factor comes from it’s popularity. As demand from Donna’s gym clients grew, Emma found it difficult to juggle both her TV production job and being a muesli chef. ‘Well I was working as well, and so I was in a hairnet and gloves in the kitchen at night, mixing my fifty kilos a month in massive vats and chopping it my thermo mix and yes, it was tough. It really was. Particularly when I was doing things like Thank God You’re Here. They were massive days. I’d suddenly get an order and think, ‘Oh my God…’
From supplying just one gym, Emma’s business quickly grew. ‘Basically it’s been a learning process. The fact that our muesli has so little sugar in it appealed to me as a selling point. So down the track, I decided to team up with Heather Brodie, who is a friend, and then we started producing commercially mid 2010.’
Now Emma only uses her own kitchen for family food preparation. ‘We sourced a company called OmniBlend which is a co-packer. So they produce according to our instructions, making a blend exactly to my recipe and package it. It’s all done in a factory that meets all the food standards. Then we launched a website in early 2011 and it’s been growing ever since then.’
When working on the marketing strategy, Emma’s passion for the anti-sugar campaign grew. ‘We use a 99 per cent sugar-free slogan as part of the logo and the sugar thing kept resonating with me. I knew from research just how busy the marketplace was, so I knew there wasn’t any point putting just another muesli onto the shelves, among the dozens that are there already. I realised that the sugar thing was big. I also simultaneously became aware of David Gillespie who has written the book ‘Sweet Poison’ and he is brilliant. Everything he says, I absolutely subscribe to,’ she said, her voice becoming more emphatic.
‘I fully believe from everything that I have read, not just from him, but other research as well, that sugar is THE biggest health crisis the world will ever know. And the sugar industry – BIG sugar world-wide is SO powerful. The vested interests in keeping sugar in everything are so huge that they’re very, very good at information generation – information that creates confusion and clouds the issue and covers up what is happening.’
Emma then went into a detailed explanation about how sugar works. To summarise:
SUGAR = 2 MOLECULES (fructose and glucose)
FRUCTOSE is the ‘natural’ sugar everyone talks about.
Emma is not a fan of FRUCTOSE. ‘There are lots of foods that are labelled Only Natural Sugars and you can be guaranteed that they’re chock full of fructose. Sadly it’s the fructose that’s causing all the problems. Glucose is the basic building block of all energy. So our bodies utilise the tiny simple glucose cell for all of its energy.’
But apparently our bodies have not evolved in a way that enables us to process fructose. ‘The only area in your body that’s capable of doing anything with it – is your liver. So what it does, is to turn it immediately into fat,’ said Emma. ‘So fatty liver disease is something being diagnosed more and more and its because the fructose half of sugar. David Gillespie says that if you drink a glass of apple juice, the fructose in that glass of apple juice is circulating in your blood as fat, before you’ve even finished drinking that glass.’
And then Emma told me something I hadn’t known before. While other food types have corresponding hormones to let our bodies know when we’ve eaten enough, sugar doesn’t. Which means you can keep eating sugary stuff WITHOUT feeling full. ‘ It ALSO suppresses existing hormones, so not only will you take in more fructose, but you can keep taking in other stuff as well.’
Ouch. That sounds pretty bad… In effect, sugar can actually increase our appetite? ‘Yes,’ said Emma firmly. ‘It’s the single most addictive substance freely available.’
With that in mind, I ask Emma if her children are allowed lollies. And if so, do they actually eat them, given they must have heard her stance on sugar? ‘They do,’ she said. ‘Because I’m not a complete Nazi. But they’re very conscious of it. Although the 12-year-old is totally bored by me. But they take it on board and they do understand it and they probably do restrict themselves quite willingly without me needing to do much about it.’
Before you read the next part of the interview, take a look at this picture. A banquet of lollies to choose from that most people would find hard to resist… Is your mouth watering yet? Now read on.
Jen: And do you have a strict diet yourself?
Emma: I do. I lost about nine kilos in 2005 with Donna when I first began this. And I’ve kept it off. I basically cut out all processed foods – anything white – bread, potato and sugar. But I was never a massive sweet tooth. I’d eat a bowl of chips before chocolate.
Jen: How long since you’ve had a pig out on lollies?
Emma: Well, I used to eat dark chocolate, and I loved that but then I realised even that has too much sugar for what I want to do. I have to take this seriously, so sugar is the thing I completely restrict so it’s been a long, long time since I’ve had a lolly.
Jen: What, a year? (can you hear my incredulous tone?)
Emma, Oh no! It would be since 2005.
Jen: REALLY??????? Emma: Oh yes.
Jen: NOT ONE LOLLY? Emma: No.
Jen: You’re a freak.
There was a long pause, as I sat there stunned. How could ANYONE not eat ONE lolly for SEVEN years??? I mean, revisit that photo above. How could anyone say NO to that? But it’s a good thing, right? So how has Emma managed this – what is her SECRET to such amazing self-discipline?
Emma says it was probably easier for her than most, as she didn’t really have a sweet tooth to begin with. ‘I’d have a dim sim over a lolly any day. But it’s hard for most people because sugar IS the single most addictive substance. And if you are a sweet tooth, then you probably are addicted.’
That would be me… But Emma assures me there’s hope. ‘You can wean yourself off it,’ she said. ‘You will literally though, have withdrawal problems. Headaches and that kind of thing. And you can avoid chocolate and lollies, but the problem with our food source – the way that society is now – is that so many of the foods available for us that are on the supermarket shelves rare LOADED with sugar.’
‘That’s been my big thing that I’m campaigning about. Because sugar is killing people. It is completely implicated in every single health crisis we have going on. Obesity, Type 2 diabetes, kidney disease, liver disease, heart disease. You name it and sugar is implicated.’
But Emma says it’s a hard battle to fight because so many major corporations have so much money invested in industries that use sugar. ‘For instance, Sixty Minutes ran a piece about the dangers of sugar earlier in the year, but only two weeks later, Channel Nine had a piece on A Current Affair that exonerated sugar. Because of the advertisers. So the vested interests are massive.’
‘We’ve been terrorised for forty years by the slogan ‘Fat Free’ but to make the fat free food bearable, they load it up with sugar to compensate for taste. To make it palatable. And in those 30 to 40 years, the correlations between sugar consumption and the diseases that we’ve talked about are massive, And we’re not getting slimmer – we’re getting fatter a lll the time. You can guarantee the sugar industry has been behind the far-free campaign.’
So what do we do as a community, I ask? ‘I truly believe if people did nothing else but attempt to control their sugar intake by limiting anything that they buy, eat or use in cooking to LESS THAN FIVE GRAMS PER 100 GRAMS OR LESS THAN FIVE PER CENT SUGAR, it would make a difference. If we all did nothing more complex than that, we would see a massive impact.’
Emma calls it THE ONE LINE RULE. ‘And dieticians and nutritionists will jump up and down and say, you can’t put it all down to one thing, but what’s being prescribed and what they’ve been saying for the last forty years hasn’t worked. We’ve just been getting fatter and sicker. So I say, stick to this simple rule. Limit the sugar to this level and there’ll be a huge difference.’
I have a VERY important question that’s bothering me. I can cope with vetting the products I buy at the supermarket. I might even be able to cope with cutting out lollies.
‘Interestingly, fructose changes it’s structure in wine – in the fermentation process, ‘ said Emma. ‘So wine’s never good in excess, but it’s not as bad as you might think.’
THANK GOD. ‘So…’ I ask optimistically, ‘does that mean wine is better for us than apple juice?’
‘WAY better,’ said Emma definitively. ‘I’d be drinking wine over apple juice any day.’
YAYYYYYYYY. That’s the best news I’ve had all week.
More wine, less apple juice.
To get her message out there, (about sugar, not wine…) Emma wants to start speaking at schools to educate young people from an early age. With a Bachelor of Applied Science behind her, she has the credentials. ‘It’s just common sense,’ she said. ‘I’ve got two daughters at body-image age, and THE ONE LINE RULE resonates really well and really safely with kids at a dangerous age.’
‘It’s a much safer awareness than worrying about fatty food. Just look at the nutrition box on the labels of food and you’ll easily see whether there’s more than five per cent sugar or not.’
And what about fruit? Emma says one piece of fruit a day is fine. For breakfast though, NO jams or honey on toast. Choose vegemite or avocado instead. Better still, stock up on The Muesli!!
So that’s the challenge I’m going to set myself in the New Year. I’m going to add THE ONE LINE RULE to my resolutions list and see how long I can stick with it. Along the way, I’ll give you tips on which foods to avoid and which ones get a big tick.
Emma says while she misses the people and personalities she worked with in the television industry, she’s loving her running her own business with Heather. They’re extending their range of The Muesli to include a gluten free variety and even have plans to go international.
If you’d like to try The Muesli, here’s a SPECIAL OFFER. If you subscribe to this Blog (and it’s free, so just push the right buttons and you can do it in a minute) then just be one of the first TEN readers to email Emma, and she will send you a FREE 450g pack of The Muesli.
Happy Christmas!
Email Emma Dumas at [email protected] And to find out where to buy The Muesli, go to the website at http://themuesli.com.au
