Meal Planning for Our 30-Day Challenge: No Added Sugar or Sweeteners

During our first 30-Day No Sugar Challenge, one of the most time-consuming parts of meal planning was having to read ingredient lists.  Sugar can come in lots of different forms, and it can be in pretty unexpected places.  The MOST surprising thing that I found with a sweetener added (dextrose) was iodized sea salt (why?!). Other things to watch out for are pasta sauces, condiments, salad dressings, bread, crackers, cereals, granola/health/protein bars, processed meats like deli/lunch meat, sausage, and bacon, and other “processed” foods. The good news is, there are more and more companies who are realizing that they can stand out from others in this area, making more options available at the store without any added sugar or sweeteners! So, you don’t have to harvest your own tomatoes to make unsweetened tomato sauce (hooray – though that does sound yummy). While doing this challenge means buying less ready-to-eat foods and more fresh ingredients that you’ll cook at home, there are options of items you can buy at the store that will save you time. Here’s a list of products without added sweeteners.

Perhaps doing a “no sugar” challenge is a little extreme for you, but you might consider reducing your sugar intake. Or, maybe a shorter challenge would be your cup of tea, for instance, a 3-day no sugar challenge. Whatever you decide, I hope that the following information and meal ideas are helpful to you on your journey.

Is it more expensive? How much did it cost?
I tallied up my receipts from our original 30-day challenge to get an idea of cost. Our general weekly grocery budget is $120, including paper goods like toilet paper and paper towels. For the whole month, our food budget is generally $480. We were willing to spend a little more during the challenge, so I didn’t “try” particularly hard to stick to our typical budget. For the 4 weeks, I used Walmart Grocery Pickup for our general groceries, and made a couple special purchases including bacon from Wegmans and apples from a farm. Our weekly Walmart grocery costs were $130.76, $122.89, $126.06, and $114.04. We also spent $18 on a bushel of apples, $25.27 at Wegmans for no-sugar bacon and tortilla shells, and $3.23 for Trader Joe’s mayo (which is delicious and unsweetened). Our total cost for the 30-day challenge was $540.25. This divided out into four weeks equals $135.06, or $15.06 more than our typical weekly budget. Not too bad. If I had challenged myself to stick to the $120, I’m sure I could have been even closer to our normal weekly grocery budget.

Reading labels:
Here’s a brief overview of what to look for on your labels. On the nutrition label, there is a line where it lists out the grams of sugar in the product. Having sugar listed here does not always mean that there is sugar added in the product. Some foods naturally have sugar in them, like tomatoes and dairy products. Some nutrition labels are adding another line which indicates the amount of added sugar in the item (for example, it may have 11g of sugar, with 9 grams of added sugar). That would mean that the food had 2g of sugar in it naturally, and they added 9g more into the product when they made it. This can get tricky, however, because they can round to zero if the amount of sugar added is small enough. A product could have an artificial sweetener and say “sugar free” or could have a very small amount of added sugar where they are able to “round down” to zero – so it technically could say 0g on the label, but still have an added sweetener or small amount of sugar. In addition, sugar comes from a plant, so it is a “natural” food. A label could say that it is “all natural” and still contain added sugar.

Basically, all of this means that you’ll want to check the ingredient list for sugar or sweeteners. I generally check both the nutrition label and the ingredient list. In the ingredient list on the product label, you’ll want to look for sugar as an added ingredient, as well as forms of sugar or sweeteners. There’s lots of other names for sugar and sweeteners. Generally, if I saw an ingredient that ended in “-ose,” I would look it up to learn what it was (and it usually is a form of sweetener/sugar). Here’s a great list I found from the Virta Health blog that includes lots of different names of sugar and sweeteners:

I’ve compiled a list of no-sugar/no-sweetener meal ideas and another list of products that we’ve used. I’m hoping that this will save you some time as you plan out your own eating challenge (or lifestyle!). You can read about our 30-Day No Sugar Challenge here. A great resource I love to use is the Daniel Plan Cookbook, which is full of recipes using whole foods. I originally had checked it out of the library, but liked it so much I bought one to keep! I found mine on Amazon.com.

We had a nice rotation of meals throughout the challenge, but we continue to discover more recipes and products that are helpful and delicious.  As we make more recipes and find more products, I’ll update this post and this list of store-bought products to include them. There are several sugar-free sweetener-free recipes that have become family favorites and a part of our normal dinner menu rotation, so I hope you are able to find some new favorites, too!

Dinners: 

• Roasted squash soup and tossed salad with homemade basil ranch dressing
• Haddock chowder 
• Homemade tomato soup (I used this recipe by Ina Garten; omit orzo if gluten free)
• Split pea soup
• Chili & corn chips (made with unsweetened tomato sauce – check out this list of store bought products)
• Secret Weapon Mac & Cheese (gluten free) with steamed or roasted broccoli (family favorite)
• Pan-fried haddock with roasted sweet potatoes & veggies; green beans (we generally buy bags of frozen veggies and rotate through the options, then use produce from our garden when in-season, or buy seasonal vegetables at the store).
• Taco dip casserole & tortilla chips – I really have no idea what to call this, but my husband loves it.  (Family favorite).  It’s basically a warm version of a dip I bring to parties, but with added chicken taco meat.
• Quesadillas with homemade guacamole (family favorite). We discovered that we absolutely love using Trader Joe’s gluten free brown rice wraps for these! They also have simple low-carb wheat wraps without crazy added ingredients (no sugar, too).
• Chicken tacos. Taco bowls. Taco salads. Tacos on sweet potatoes. Taco stuffed peppers. There’s so many taco options that are delicious and nutritious. We have some kind of taco-y meal once a week.
• Chicken salad with grapes, apples, & walnuts on lettuce wraps, potato chips
• Grilled chicken, potato salad, and cucumber tomato salad  
• Grilled chicken, risotto, roasted veggies, tossed berry salad topped with berries, cucumber, roasted almonds/nuts, feta, & sunflower seeds, with homemade strawberry vinaigrette
• Grilled chicken on a tossed salad with cucumber, tomatoes, cheese, bell pepper, carrots, and hard boiled egg. We like the making a homemade ranch dressing or using the ready made Newman’s Own Classic Olive Oil and Vinegar dressing.
• Caramelized onion burgers on lettuce and baked french fries 
• Chicken and eggplant Parmesan with brown rice quinoa penne, corn, & tossed salad
• Haddock or Chicken and roasted butternut squash; green veggie on the side 
• Chicken and creamy garlic mushroom risotto 
• Homemade pizza (here’s a biscuty gluten free skillet pizza recipe)
• Mini zucchini pizzas  
• Loaded baked potatoes or loaded baked sweet potatoes (family favorite). We enjoy topping our potatoes with steamed broccoli, cheese, sour cream, bacon, and onions.
• Goulash/Penne with meat sauce and a veggie side (raw or cooked!)
• Scrambled eggs (we add in lots of veggies and seasonings and call them gourmet scrambled eggs)
• Banana pancakes (gluten free) topped with fresh fruit (we love berries), thawed frozen berries, and/or homemade unsweetened whipped cream (yum). This has become a family favorite for special breakfasts, and when we aren’t strictly sugar-free, we like to add a few chocolate chips to each pancake and or drizzle with pure maple syrup.
• Breakfast casserole with no added sugar bacon
• Going out to eat is really really difficult during this challenge, but you can with Chipotle!!! Here’s a separate post on Chipotle because it’s so awesome.

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Snacks: 

• Hard-boiled eggs
• Apple and natural peanut butter/other nut butter of choice (almond is yummy)
• Apple and peanut butter yogurt dip 
• Banana with peanut butter 
• Fruit and yogurt 
• Tortilla chips and jalapeno dip 
• Tortilla chips and salsa with no added sugar (or make your own salsa)
• Banana muffins (gluten free, dairy free, & sweetened only with bananas!) 
• Smoothies!  You can be creative with this, but here’s a recipe we used.  
• Potato chips (generally the unflavored, original type have no sugar added)
• String cheese 
• Rice or nut crackers
• Trader Joe’s veggie sticks (I’ve found that other brands do have added sugar)
• Other unique snacks from Trader Joe’s
• Simply Nature Organic Cheese Puffs (from Aldi)
• Green Pea Crisps
• Date & Nut bars (like Elevation Pure and Simple bars from Aldi or Larabars)

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Breakfast ideas:

• Scrambled eggs & veggies or veggie and cheese omelet
• No sugar bacon (rare, but does exist!)
• Santa Fe scrambled eggs with black beans and avocado
• Plain oatmeal with mix-ins like fruit, peanut butter, almond butter, cinnamon
• Plain yogurt with mix-ins like fruit, peanut butter, almond butter, cinnamon
• Smoothies
• Breakfast casserole 
• Quinoa breakfast bowl
• Banana pancakes (gluten free & dairy free), topped with fruit and unsweetened whipped cream
• Ezekiel cereals without added sugar/sweeteners
• Ezekiel bread toasted, topped with peanut butter and fruit, eggs, or avocado

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Lunch ideas: 

• We mainly had leftover dinners for our lunches.  I purposefully try to make some extra to have lunch for the next day or two.  See dinner ideas!
• Garden salad topped with grilled chicken and homemade dressing or Newman’s Own Olive Oil & Vinegar dressing
• Berry Salad with cucumber, feta, toasted nuts, fresh berries, and homemade strawberry vinaigrette dressing  
• Tuna lettuce wraps 
• Egg salad lettuce wraps (with no added sugar mayo)
• Protein plates – mix and match a couple proteins with some fruits and veggies, like: hummus, hard boiled eggs, nuts, peanut butter, cheese, leftover grilled chicken, fruit (grapes, apple slices, orange slices, berries, etc.), veggies (carrots, celery, cucumber, tomatoes, broccoli, bell peppers)
• Classic boxed Mac & Cheese and peas. This isn’t my favorite, but I’ve turned to this when I needed a quick, kid-friendly meal. Just check the ingredient list, but the brands that I’ve looked at have all been sugar and sweetener free. There’s even organic and gluten free options out there now.

Dessert ideas:
(let’s get real, if you’re doing a sugar-free challenge, dessert isn’t a priority. Try to find something else to take the place of the dessert habit. BUT for when you really, really, would like a “treat,” here’s some no added sweetener ideas).

• Homemade pureed fruit popsicles
• Fruit & peanut butter &/or yogurt
• Strawberry “ice cream”

 
Was this list helpful to you? Is there anything listed that you’d like to learn more about, or would like a recipe for? Would you consider reducing your sugar or cutting it out completely for a time? Comment below!