"Sugar" Spoken

Just One Word

The morning "sugar" was the only thing I said out loud in Relief Society — and everything I bit my tongue about.

This past Sunday in Relief Society, our lesson was on the Law of Health. To open the discussion, the sister teaching asked us a question: "What is one of the worst things you can give your children?"

My hand shot up before I'd fully thought it through. "Sugar," I said.

The teacher laughed. "Well — there goes my whole lesson!" And the room laughed with her. She went on to tease us about her own sweet tooth, and I laughed right along... but inside, I wasn't really joking. Twelve years of studying health, a good deal of it on my knees, and I meant that one little word with my whole heart.

Before class, a dear friend who reads my blog had leaned over and whispered, "This is going to be a great lesson for you to jump into." I nodded and grinned. And then — I didn't jump in. Comments went around the room, good and wise ones, and I had so much I wanted to say. Yet the only word that ever left my mouth was that first one. "Sugar." First comment of the class, and my last.

So here, dear reader, is everything I bit my tongue about.

Sugar wears a lot of names

First: "sugar" is a bigger word than most of us realize. It isn't just the white stuff in the bowl. It's the glucose, fructose, sucrose, and lactose on our labels; it's corn syrup and cane juice and malt; it's the honey and the maple syrup (both of which I love, and both of which my body still reads as sugar); it's the "organic" brown sugar that really isn't all that different from the regular kind. When I first started reading labels with new eyes, I was floored by how many disguises sugar wears and how many everyday foods it's quietly hiding in.

Why I keep the added sugar low

Now — I'm not out to demonize a birthday cake. Grace, friends. Grace. But I do try to keep added sugar low in our home, and here's my honest reasoning, minus the scare tactics: the major health authorities all point the same direction. Most of us — and especially our kids — are eating far more added sugar than is good for us, and cutting back is one of the simplest, most powerful things we can do for steady energy, mood, and teeth.

In my own family I can watch it happen in real time. A sugar high is a glorious thing for about twenty minutes... and then, well, any mother knows the crash that comes after. Less added sugar, and my kids are steadier — and honestly, so am I.

And one gentle word about fruit, because someone always asks: whole fruit is not the enemy. The fiber, the water, and the nutrients that come packaged right alongside the sugar in a real piece of fruit change the whole equation. When I talk about cutting sugar, I mean the added, concentrated, hiding-in-everything kind — not an apple.

The good news: we don't have to give up sweetness

Here's the part I find genuinely hopeful. We don't have to give up sweetness in order to cut back on sugar — we just get to be choosier about where it comes from. My two favorite swaps:

Stevia. It's a little leaf that happens to be wildly sweet, so a tiny bit goes a long way, with essentially no effect on blood sugar. (A happy update to my original post: the purified stevia sold here in the U.S. has been recognized as safe by the FDA since 2008, so it's on every grocery shelf now — no more hunting it down the way I used to.)

Xylitol. This one measures much more like sugar, which makes it lovely for baking — and it's one of the rare sweeteners that's actually good for your teeth, which is why dentists recommend it (it starves the bacteria that cause cavities). Two honest heads-ups, though: too much at once has a, ahem, laxative effect, so start small — and please hear this one, xylitol is toxic to dogs, so if you have a pup, keep it well out of reach.

And one more honest note, since this lesson was about our children: the best "sweetener" of all for little ones is simply less sweetness, period. The pediatric guidance I trust actually leans toward going easy on the no-calorie sweeteners for kids, too, and letting their taste buds recalibrate to less-sweet food. So in our house, stevia and xylitol are really my grown-up baking tools more than something I'm stirring into the kids' cups. For them, the goal is just... less. Whole food. Water instead of juice. Fruit for dessert more often than not.

That, in the end, is what the Law of Health has come to mean to me — not a list of rules to white-knuckle my way through, but an invitation to treat these bodies as the gift they are. The Lord promised health, and wisdom, and even "treasures of knowledge" to those who care for the temples He's given us. I don't live it perfectly; I've got my own sweet tooth and my own hard days. But I keep coming back to that one small word I said on Sunday, and to the quiet conviction underneath it: what we feed our families matters — for this life, and for the strength to do the work we came here to do.

So. "Sugar." That was my one word. Thank you for letting me finally say the rest.

With love,

Steffanie

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Nothing here is medical advice; please talk with your own healthcare provider — and your children's pediatrician — about what's right for your family.