Book Review: Year of No Sugar by Eve O Schaub

 

I’ve read a lot about sugar this year. When I saw Year of No Sugar I was intrigued because it’s the story of a family who gave up sugar for a year. The mother, Eve O Schaub is an American blogger. After watching the below video she did some research, spoke to her husband and two daughters and decided they would give up sugar for a year. 

Schaub talks openly and honestly about how tricky it is (and isn’t, in parts) to get two school age girls on board with a no sugar diet. The family agree that they will have one sweet treat per month – whether it’s for someone’s birthday or something else. It’s interesting to see that by the end of the year, they’re all finding the puddings they’d longed for leave them feeling a bit sick and headachey. 

This book also delves into how we’ve sort of lost touch with where our food comes from – and that is essentially what has allowed manufacturers to shove sugar into everything from crackers to bacon while we weren’t really paying attention. She tells one story fairly early on about a really depressing date night where she and her husband spent most of the evening trudging from restaurant to restaurant, trying to find something on the menu that didn’t have added sugar. I don’t think that’s a problem our grandparents would have had when they went out for dinner!

This book is witty and interesting; it highlights how difficult it can be to cut sugar out of a family diet, but also how easy it can be once you get used to it. By the end of the book, nobody is craving sweetness and Schaub has devised many clever recipes using dates to sweeten in place of sugar. 

The book also raises the issue of the fact that sugar and sweet treats are tied to so many aspects of our lives: birthdays, Christmas, other celebrations, and of course Halloween. There was one part that really struck me where she spoke about how we sometimes use sweet things to show our love and feel that if we don’t give our children chocolate or sweets or whatever else, we’re somehow being mean or unkind or unloving. I really struggle with that  and seeing it written down in front of me certainly gave me (sugar free) food for thought. 

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in nutrition and health in general; it raises some very interesting points, and is also a great read.

 Thanks for reading.

You can read my other book reviews here.