by Clyde Starr

Created on: January 17, 2012   Last Updated: January 22, 2012

In today's overwhelming environment of fatty and sugary foods, conditions such as diabetes have run rampant. Now, although this condition is mainly caused by a genetic predisposition, its overall predominance in today's cultures is primarily involved with an overabundance of sugar. This can be granulated sugar, also known as table sugar, brown sugar, powdered or confectioner's sugar, and even raw sugar.

This of course begs the question, 'How do you sweeten your food and drink, without adding these sugars to them?" One way that works for you, the modern health-conscious cook, is to first start with ingredients that contain their own natural sweetness. Although fruits contain sugar, even in a high quantity, this sugar is fruitose, and ultimately it is handled better by the body. Many popular 'sweet' dishes can be made using a fruit base in order to give them the sweetness you want, without adding that extra white sugar that you would normally add.

An example is your standard, everyday Bolognese or Italian meat sauce. If you are one of those who like to make their sauce from scratch, you are already ahead of the game, as those fresh tomatoes actually contain some natural fruit sugars in them, and haven't already had sugar added to them in the canning process. If you start your tomatoes stewing in a pot on the stove, first, peel them, as the skin of the tomato can be quite bitter and cancel out the natural sweetness. Instead of adding sugar to the stewing tomatoes, which is normally part of the basic process, instead try adding a fruit component, recommendations include some sweet berries, such as strawberries or raspberries to the mix. Alternatively, for those who don't want to add actual fruit, you can substitute grape or apple juice, as long as it's 100% no sugar added for your stewing liquid, and another good idea is to use roma and cherry or grape tomatoes as your base instead of your garden variety steak tomatoes. Traditional Italian red sauces actually were made with roma tomatoes and sweet roasted red bell pepper, and if you get the bell pepper when its really bright red, and maybe mix in some yellow or orange bell pepper as well, you may get plenty of sweetness for your palate.

 As can be imagined, by creating a sauce with sweet ingredients, you don't need to add that extra tablespoon or more of sugar you might ordinarily be inclined to. Another often forgotten source of sweetness that is actually a staple in most cooking is the sweet onion.

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>