# sugar



## faze action (Aug 6, 2009)

I know that sugar is a major trigger (along with gluten) for my symptoms, which I am convinced is all related to SIBO/ motility issues. I've decided to further alter my diet and quit eating sugar (mainly quit sugary junk food and adding sugar to things like my coffee). I've attempted this in the past with varying results and I always seem to end up back on the stuff. Anyone have tips/experiences for making the "withdrawal" less painful?


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Some people will just use an artificial sweetener if they tolerate that, but it doesn't tend to break the taste for highly sweetened foods.You might think about what the sugar is doing for you besides just liking the taste. If it relieves stress or serves some other function like that, you might need to find something else to fill that role for you before you can get off it in the long term.And having a plan for what to do if you slip up so you don't just go right back to the old habit full time.


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## Korga (Sep 8, 2011)

Your body needs carbohydrates to function. If you have been getting them mainly from eating sugary foods and fruit, then you suddenly remove those, you will get massive cravings unless you replace the carbohydrate. Eating ample complex carbohydrates may help alleviate the sugar cravings. This would be things like starchy vegetables; Sweet potatoes, squash, Parsnips, Turnips, Carrots, brown rice.


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## faze action (Aug 6, 2009)

Hmmm... well I don't think I use sugar as a stress-reducer, but I hadn't thought of that so I'll try to pay closer attention. I tend to crave sugar only in the evening/before bed. Not sure why that is. Korga, I eat other carbs (mainly rice, potatoes, gluten-free bread, etc). I don't eat much fruit except for these summer months when I might eat berries, melon, etc. And I don't drink soda or juice at all either.The other times I've quit sugar the withdrawal was unbearable for the first 2-3 days and then taperted off, but I still craved it early in the evening. I think I just need to mentally prepare myself for that.


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## MajaSol (Jul 11, 2012)

Korga said:


> Your body needs carbohydrates to function. If you have been getting them mainly from eating sugary foods and fruit, then you suddenly remove those, you will get massive cravings unless you replace the carbohydrate. Eating ample complex carbohydrates may help alleviate the sugar cravings. This would be things like starchy vegetables; Sweet potatoes, squash, Parsnips, Turnips, Carrots, brown rice.


A MYTH! there is not a single biological function in the body that is dependent on sugar.. not a necsessary one at least.. carbohydrates from corn is also sugar.. how in the word did humans survive befor we had farming and sugar? if we were so dependant on sugar, we would not exist


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

I believe all hunter-gatherers did typically gather, fruits, veggies, seeds, nuts, wild grains, wild legumes, roots, etc which all have carbs. Part of why we called pre-agricultural people hunter-gatherers, not just carnivores/hunters. We domesticated things that we ate pre-agriculture, but we did tend to eat more of the things we could adapt for high yields and store than we did before we settled down.It isn't true that the only carbs come from domesticated grains.If you eat anything that comes from a plant, or any thing from milk that isn't fully aged or oils that are purified away from all other things you are eating some carbohydrates. It is actually kind of difficult to eat zero carbs unless you eat only meat and nothing else (and there are glycoproteins in meats so I dunno if even they are completely and totally carbohydrate free, but there isn't much, but most of why some people are allergic to certain meats is from the molecules that are both carb and protein)If you won't eat any carbs at all your body will convert food into carbs because it does actully need carbs to run, but it can make all the carbs the body needs from other things if you avoid them completely. So technically you don't have to eat carbs, but the body does need glucose (especially the brain, and it always needs some glucose even in starvation when it is mostly using ketones) and it will make the glucose from whatever you do eat.Part of why some people feel so terrible the first few days after staring a very low carb diet is that it takes awhile for the body to switch over to making glucose from other things (and getting some things to run in part on ketones) rather than just using whatever is available. After all a hunter-gatherer can't always eat a well balanced meal so the body does have to have some capacity to make what it needs from whatever you happen to feed it.







Although there are a few amino acids and fats we can't make and have to eat, but carbs are vital enough we can make them out of any food through gluconeogenesis.


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## MajaSol (Jul 11, 2012)

faze action said:


> I know that sugar is a major trigger (along with gluten) for my symptoms, which I am convinced is all related to SIBO/ motility issues. I've decided to further alter my diet and quit eating sugar (mainly quit sugary junk food and adding sugar to things like my coffee). I've attempted this in the past with varying results and I always seem to end up back on the stuff. Anyone have tips/experiences for making the "withdrawal" less painful?


the withdrawl symptoms will deminish after some time passes, som weeks, the less sugar you eat the easyer it is to stay away, i find it. sugar and other carbs make insulin go in a roller coster, making you want more sweets/carbs, making sure your insulin never does that - there is not that owerpowering urge.. .. its easier if I quit sugar all together.. . I never eat sugar or grains in any form - and you dont have to be superman to do that! hehe (ok - up to 50-60 grams of complex carbs from nuts and vegetables) and i have never felt better, my body do not need carbs to function well, my fysical form have never been better, very good stamina. the days i eat no carbs at all i feel just as good.. there is a transition period stopping carbs, because your body has been a sugar burning machine most of your life, stopping carbs forses the body in becoming a fat burning machine, that is strange for the body in the beginning.. but the transitionperiod will pass.. the body is well adapted to use fat as fuel.. our ancestors before farming normally lived constantly on a low carb diet and was fine, fruit only existet in the fall, other times of the year.. ketosis is a normal state.. Sweeteners that not effekt blood sugar is the best, they will not tripper a carb-binge like other arifical sweeteners. (light soda drinkers are not thinner than others - because it trippers urges)maltitol for instanse is horrible for IBS, it is a laxcative that makes u very gassy..i find stevia and erythritol the best, they are easy to add to recipies, 0 on the glycemic index.. erythritol have to be used in moderation if one is sensitive to it. erythritol is suppost to have antioxsidant effect, and is made from fruit.but if your sweet tooth becomes to strong, try fresh berries sprinked with erythritol, or add some vanillatasting stevia drops to youghurt natural. tastes wonderful, and put some berries in there it tastes wonderful. raspberries is the berris with the lowest carb content, that is my candy, home made low carb icecream made with vanilla stevia tastes wonderful i u have a icecream-machine.. low carb muffing with forest berries are good. with imagination and some cookbooks the sky is the limit!







i make home made raspberri jam once in a while, just fresh/or frozen whole raspberries mixed with som stevia or erythritol and a little psyllium husk for thickening, and u can use it on low carb bread or pancakes.. inulin can be usen in small amounts, because of sweet and plesant taste, and it is an prebiotic. sugar and carbs mess up the body in so many other ways that in your gut as well..


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## MajaSol (Jul 11, 2012)

Kathleen M. said:


> I believe all hunter-gatherers did typically gather, fruits, veggies, seeds, nuts, wild grains, wild legumes, roots, etc which all have carbs. Part of why we called pre-agricultural people hunter-gatherers, not just carnivores/hunters. We domesticated things that we ate pre-agriculture, but we did tend to eat more of the things we could adapt for high yields and store than we did before we settled down.It isn't true that the only carbs come from domesticated grains.If you eat anything that comes from a plant, or any thing from milk that isn't fully aged or oils that are purified away from all other things you are eating some carbohydrates. It is actually kind of difficult to eat zero carbs unless you eat only meat and nothing else (and there are glycoproteins in meats so I dunno if even they are completely and totally carbohydrate free, but there isn't much, but most of why some people are allergic to certain meats is from the molecules that are both carb and protein)If you won't eat any carbs at all your body will convert food into carbs because it does actully need carbs to run, but it can make all the carbs the body needs from other things if you avoid them completely. So technically you don't have to eat carbs, but the body does need glucose (especially the brain, and it always needs some glucose even in starvation when it is mostly using ketones) and it will make the glucose from whatever you do eat.Part of why some people feel so terrible the first few days after staring a very low carb diet is that it takes awhile for the body to switch over to making glucose from other things (and getting some things to run in part on ketones) rather than just using whatever is available. After all a hunter-gatherer can't always eat a well balanced meal so the body does have to have some capacity to make what it needs from whatever you happen to feed it.
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i know all these things, cutting sugar and grains, potatoes, rice, pasta etc, make you go on a low carb - not no -carb.. it is almost impossible to go on no carbs, that is not the idea.. fruits, veggies, seeds, nuts, wild grains, wild legumes, roots - are all low carb in the amounts they had it.. meaning they had a steady insulin most of the time, and not spikes in insulin that u have all the time in modern society way of eating..


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

A lot depends on who is defining what and I know people who avoid all veggies and fruits because they fear all carbs.And I've seen some paleo-diet people who seems to think there was very little but meat in the diet even if data shows some cultures did a lot of gathering.


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## MajaSol (Jul 11, 2012)

Kathleen M. said:


> A lot depends on who is defining what and I know people who avoid all veggies and fruits because they fear all carbs.And I've seen some paleo-diet people who seems to think there was very little but meat in the diet even if data shows some cultures did a lot of gathering.


depends on what tribe we talk about.. the inutites had no plant food at all, only animals they hunted and food from the sea.. they were as healthy as can be... very little sign of cancer, on obesity and som on... and they prove that one does not HAVE to eat plants, not that everybody should eat that, I could never have done that, to boring way of living.. but they had a lot of fresh killing, so the nutrients were fresh and not tampered with, they didnt get sick from loss of vitamin C. A doctor named samuel hutton lived with the inuites for 11 years, ate their food and stayed healthy, he didnt see any cancer in the population either.. why he didnt find cancer one has to debate, hard to know what excatly caused that, but i think the absent of carbs helped!But tribes in the jungle eat more plants, fruits, nuts etc... but u can not compere that to eating bread and candy and sodas, etc.. Albert Schweitzer, a doctor and misonary that worked in Africa in 1913, that later got the Nobel peace price, did not find persons sick from cancer. In a popultion that mostly lived on what nature provided for them; like meat, vegetables, some nuts etc. There were no grains(starch) or sugar. After working in Africa for a while suddenly more and more pasients got sick from cancer, at the same time as the local inhabitants starting to eat like the new people moving there, meaning more sugar and white flour... its the truth if u look it up.. cancer is not IBS at all!! but is in a motivation for cutting down/out sugars all together...


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

> But tribes in the jungle eat more plants, fruits, nuts etc... but u can not compere that to eating bread and candy and sodas, etc..


I never said I was,Inuits aside if you look at any other group and divide them between who eats plants and who doesnt--generally the more plants they eat, the lower the risk of any number of diseases. Plants have some great compounds in them you just can't get anywhere else.







You won't get the full range of antimutagens and anticarcinogens available to you from nature if you don't eat several servings of fruits and veggies a day. No matter which diet you eat (high carb low fat to low carb high fat or very high protien) I will always recommend more fruits and veggies and not to be afraid of the carbs in them. IBSers may have to pick and choose from the least gas producing ones, but I still believe you should get as many servings as you can tolerate of the ones you can tolerate and the widest variety you can tolerate. So 5-7 servings of 3-4 different ones every day is better than 3 servings of just one veggie.Too often fruits, especially, get painted as no different than cake.Be careful about the "the natives don't get cancer" as a lot of those societies you are much more likely to die of something else first, especially if they don't have access to modern antibiotics.I get the fervor for the low carb thing, but I do think some of the "proof" is not nearly as firm as some people present, but that is seeing things through my science lens.


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## faze action (Aug 6, 2009)

MajaSol said:


> the withdrawl symptoms will deminish after some time passes, som weeks, the less sugar you eat the easyer it is to stay away, i find it. sugar and other carbs make insulin go in a roller coster, making you want more sweets/carbs, making sure your insulin never does that - there is not that owerpowering urge.. .. its easier if I quit sugar all together.. . I never eat sugar or grains in any form - and you dont have to be superman to do that! hehe (ok - up to 50-60 grams of complex carbs from nuts and vegetables) and i have never felt better, my body do not need carbs to function well, my fysical form have never been better, very good stamina. the days i eat no carbs at all i feel just as good.. there is a transition period stopping carbs, because your body has been a sugar burning machine most of your life, stopping carbs forses the body in becoming a fat burning machine, that is strange for the body in the beginning.. but the transitionperiod will pass.. the body is well adapted to use fat as fuel.. our ancestors before farming normally lived constantly on a low carb diet and was fine, fruit only existet in the fall, other times of the year.. ketosis is a normal state.. Sweeteners that not effekt blood sugar is the best, they will not tripper a carb-binge like other arifical sweeteners. (light soda drinkers are not thinner than others - because it trippers urges)maltitol for instanse is horrible for IBS, it is a laxcative that makes u very gassy..i find stevia and erythritol the best, they are easy to add to recipies, 0 on the glycemic index.. erythritol have to be used in moderation if one is sensitive to it. erythritol is suppost to have antioxsidant effect, and is made from fruit.but if your sweet tooth becomes to strong, try fresh berries sprinked with erythritol, or add some vanillatasting stevia drops to youghurt natural. tastes wonderful, and put some berries in there it tastes wonderful. raspberries is the berris with the lowest carb content, that is my candy, home made low carb icecream made with vanilla stevia tastes wonderful i u have a icecream-machine.. low carb muffing with forest berries are good. with imagination and some cookbooks the sky is the limit!
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Thank you for the tips. Just to be clear I am really focusing on drastically reducing/eliminating _sugar_, not all carbs, mainly just simple sugars. My body doesn't seem to have too many problems digesting a potato, or a scoop of rice, but sugar specifically (and gluten) seems to set things off. I think the bacteria in my gut just hone in on it and feed like crazy, causing SIBO/IBS symptoms.This morning I replaced the sugar in my coffee with a small amount of agave, which I'm hoping does not spike my blood glucose like the sugar did. I plan on avoiding all other sugar throughout the day (the late-afternoon slump at work and when I get home tonight will be the real test).


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## MajaSol (Jul 11, 2012)

Kathleen M. said:


> I never said I was,Inuits aside if you look at any other group and divide them between who eats plants and who doesnt--generally the more plants they eat, the lower the risk of any number of diseases. Plants have some great compounds in them you just can't get anywhere else.
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tired with dabating with u, you can not say that i am wrong more than you are right. carbohydrates causes more oxidativ (dont know english spelling)stress. so the more carbs you eat the more antioxidants u need (vitamin c, flavanoids etc.)there are more anticarcinogens in vegetables than most fruit, and low carbers eat a lot of that! and berries!i dint say they never got cancer, just saying what doctors then rapported, and i find it suspisious that people got more and more sick the more common sugar and flour became in the diet...so they maybe died other ways in the "old days", in accidents, infections.. but a lot of them got really old and died of old age.. need proof of people become sick of the modern way of living, look in the street.. what do the average person eat? in america this is very obvious. not low carb i can tell u... scandinavia is changing the statistics, instead of obesity becoming more and more common, its the other way - in sweden anyway where it is more common, and we have never eaten less sugar (but some still do in large amounts







) - there is a wave of low carb going on.. doctors are starting to promote it. writing lots of books... its still controversial, but its a wave of the average person, we are discovering that the goverment recommendations, does not make the average person thinner, but fatter... me included, i lived by goverment diet recomendations believing it would make me well(low fat - whole grains, little sugar, and so on), became fat, tired, low energy, IBS flare ups, infections, problems of the joints, other illnesses that is to embarrasing to mention - they are all gone now. - more energy and I sleep better. But then again i am carbohydrate sensitive.. not everybody is that and tolerate carb better... one can not live like an native, that is obvious, but one can mimic it in your own way But i deeply respect your views... but apinions are like butts we say in norway, always divided, hehe







Diet is a personal choice and will always be


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## MajaSol (Jul 11, 2012)

faze action said:


> Thank you for the tips. Just to be clear I am really focusing on drastically reducing/eliminating _sugar_, not all carbs, mainly just simple sugars. My body doesn't seem to have too many problems digesting a potato, or a scoop of rice, but sugar specifically (and gluten) seems to set things off. I think the bacteria in my gut just hone in on it and feed like crazy, causing SIBO/IBS symptoms.This morning I replaced the sugar in my coffee with a small amount of agave, which I'm hoping does not spike my blood glucose like the sugar did. I plan on avoiding all other sugar throughout the day (the late-afternoon slump at work and when I get home tonight will be the real test).


sorry to blow your bubble, agave and table sugar is both fructose.. But a small amount is not a big deal.. small amounts of carbs in general is not a big deal either.. your are probably not that carbohydrate sensitive like me would like to se my before and after photo on low carb? i am still not done with my "transformation" but here goes, it is in norwegian, but u can look at the photos, the top tree ones are 1,5 years old or something, the bottom one is from one month ago (have become more fit after this photo http://www.themargareth.com/2012/07/fr-og-etter-lavkarbo-lchf.htmlyou asked for motivation for stopping sugar


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## faze action (Aug 6, 2009)

MajaSol said:


> sorry to blow your bubble, agave and table sugar is both fructose.. But a small amount is not a big deal.. small amounts of carbs in general is not a big deal either.. your are probably not that carbohydrate sensitive like me would like to se my before and after photo on low carb? i am still not done with my "transformation" but here goes, it is in norwegian, but u can look at the photos, the top tree ones are 1,5 years old or something, the bottom one is from one month ago (have become more fit after this photo http://www.themargareth.com/2012/07/fr-og-etter-lavkarbo-lchf.htmlyou asked for motivation for stopping sugar


Agave is fructose and glucose... the glycemic index is lower than table sugar, which is why I'm using it. Sorry, but you're not blowing my bubble.


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## MajaSol (Jul 11, 2012)

faze action said:


> Agave is fructose and glucose... the glycemic index is lower than table sugar, which is why I'm using it. Sorry, but you're not blowing my bubble.


yepp in that sense it is better! But it is still sugar


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Maybe all Scandinavians are logical and rational. I just know too many Americans who tend to be if it is worth doing it is worth overdoing and do low carb to the extreme, for example doing Dukan Attack every day rather than every so often (all protien, no plants, with a bit of oat bran)Anyway back to the point of the thread after all no one is saying sugar is healthy.







Even all the low fat recommendations were not saying eat all the sugar and white foods you want, at least none that I saw. Maybe it was different where you are.Biologically we have a craving for sugar as in nature ripe fruits are an occasional treat and seem to have been something we were attuned to when it was a few and far between kind of thing. I think the big thing is how to deal with the slip ups that gets you back on track rather than just revert to old habits is key. How to do that really varies, but it can be really hard for some people to change their diet, so keep at it. Some people really have to work at just keeping it out of the house so the opportunity for temptation is a lot lower.


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## MajaSol (Jul 11, 2012)

Kathleen M. said:


> Maybe all Scandinavians are logical and rational. I just know too many Americans who tend to be if it is worth doing it is worth overdoing and do low carb to the extreme, for example doing Dukan Attack every day rather than every so often (all protien, no plants, with a bit of oat bran)Anyway back to the point of the thread after all no one is saying sugar is healthy.
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Maybe we biologically crave sweet?, but not nesessary that often, on the low carb I dont crave sweets 95% of the time (OMG my sugar cravings was off the roofs before), if i could have a choice now i would choose a steak dinner, with butter sause and vegetables over dessert any day.. almost never have dessert -dont need them.. dont feel like having.. my body and mind have axsepted that sugar is not food - after beeing stricked for some time.. and when i once in a while crave, i have berries or youghurt natural, or make a healthy snack.. I only eat home cooking from cratch, and it does not have to take that much longer time.. but getting to this state of mind can be hard, not without effort! its a bit like cognative therapy you do on your self, change your behavioral patterns practice makes perfectNot having sugars or carbsrich foods in the house i find help ALOT, that is a good thing, no temptations at home, sugarfree peanut butter is the closed you come to candy in my cabinets


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Part of why the "keep it out of the house" seems to work is that it seems that in a world where sugar is rare, but comes with some high quality nutrition you need (ripe fruits and berries) being programmed to want it on those rare occasions you find it probably helped us survive.But what is a good thing when something is uncommon and when you find it you should eat it, doesn't always work so well when you are surrounded by sweets 24/7/365 like we can be in modern times.After all if humans had a natural aversion to sweets there would be no danger to introducing a culture eating healthy foods all the time to soft drinks and snack cakes.


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## MajaSol (Jul 11, 2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sXhKQEdIDa0#!Sugar, cancer, and obesity on 60 minutes.. a film everybody should see..


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## foilswan (Apr 13, 2012)

What has also helped me curb sugar cravings is to eat nuts (either peanut butter or drink warm unsweetened almond milk) or take a tablespoon of raw apple cider vinegar in about 4 oz. of water. Sugar cravings are fairly common after eating, and the vinegar helps a lot with that.


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## BQ (May 22, 2000)

> or take a tablespoon of raw apple cider vinegar in about 4 oz. of water. Sugar cravings are fairly common after eating, and the vinegar helps a lot with that.


Or Serve pickles(dill) with meals.... they have vinegar.


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## faze action (Aug 6, 2009)

foilswan said:


> What has also helped me curb sugar cravings is to eat nuts (either peanut butter or drink warm unsweetened almond milk) or take a tablespoon of raw apple cider vinegar in about 4 oz. of water. Sugar cravings are fairly common after eating, and the vinegar helps a lot with that.


Excellent! I've never heard of this before (regarding the vinegar), but after dinner is typically when I crave sugar (the only time of day really). I think I even have some cider vinegar at home too. Will try this tonight.


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## MajaSol (Jul 11, 2012)

faze action said:


> I know that sugar is a major trigger (along with gluten) for my symptoms, which I am convinced is all related to SIBO/ motility issues. I've decided to further alter my diet and quit eating sugar (mainly quit sugary junk food and adding sugar to things like my coffee). I've attempted this in the past with varying results and I always seem to end up back on the stuff. Anyone have tips/experiences for making the "withdrawal" less painful?


try yacon syrup someday - it only has the glycemic index of 3... better than agave or try eating something really salty when u want sweet, sometimes the crawing disappearsor eat a small bite of really dark chocolate - works for me!


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## faze action (Aug 6, 2009)

Thanks. I'll look up the yacon. The dark chocolate is a good idea (and one I;ve used before).I tried the cider vinegar last night (bought the unfiltered, unpasteurized, organic stuff) and it did help. I suspect if I keep at it that will aid greatly with weaning off sugar.


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