Eating well does not mean that you must remove all kinds of sweets from your diet. You just have to be keen about how you please your sweet tooth. It's usual to gravitate towards sweetness, the problem is that most of the choices sold in stores are extremely processed and made with coarse sugar and/or elevated fructose corn syrup. We were never meant to eat intensely sweet foodstuffs. If you are used to consume these, your taste buds may be out of sync with the subtle sugariness from more natural sources. Give yourself a little time to correct it and you will find that you do not need all that sugar after all.

• Eat This: Dark Chocolate. Look for 70% or more high cocoa content in dark chocolate. More cocoa means less sugar. The cocoa found in chocolate has more flavonoids and antioxidants (good stuff!).
• Not That: Milk Chocolate Bar. The usual milk chocolate bar is full with sugar and milk fat. Look at the ingredient list and you will often get sugar listed first. A decent chocolate bar must have chocolate as the main ingredient.

• Eat This: Medjool Date. Gooey, Chewy and super-sweet, dates are nature's candy. They taste caramel-like out of the freezer. Be sure to eliminate the pit in the middle.
• Not That: Chewy and full of sugar, hydrogenated oils, and artificial flavours, caramels are simply junk food. No fiber or minerals to be found in these little wrapped squares. 

• Eat This: Banana Ice Cream. Freeze ripe bananas, and then mix them in a blender with a splash of non-dairy milk. Toss in some cocoa powder or peanut butter an all-natural, healthy bowl of soft food serve.
• Not That: Ice Cream. High in calories and sugar while low in nutrients, standard ice cream will not please your hunger for very long. 

• Eat This: Stevia (in coffee). If you like your tea or coffee sweet but want to evade sugar and artificial sweeteners, try stevia from a plant. It offers a sweet taste with no calories.
• Not That: Regular sugar offers nothing but hollow calories - and they can add up rapidly. Try gradually reducing the amount you add until you adapt to a less sweet drink. Or better yet: try the stevia. 

• Eat This: Fresh Fruit. Grapes, Pineapple, blueberries, strawberries, kiwi, apples, oranges etc... There are no bad fruits out there. Don’t worry about the natural sugar originate in fruit; it's what we were meant to eat. Fruits are naturally sweet, and they offer fiber along with a wide range of phytochemicals, minerals and vitamins to keep you full and aid to protect you from illnesses. Make it a point to eat fruit daily.
• Not That: Sugary Candy. Candies, especially artificially-flavored, are usually high in sweeteners. This can only add up to your unwanted calories.

Whatever you choose, they are all but sugar and artificial ingredients. They may taste good, but ask yourself if you actually want to put that into your mouth. Your body deserves to be treated better than that. Avoid the sugar candy habit by including natural sources of food into your diet. Always remember the Kumainment No. 8 "Hinay-hinay sa maaalat, mamantika at matatamis". It is as always the best to eat and do things in moderation as anything in excess is generally not good.

DMO II Karla P. Calapardo, RND

References:

• Smart Substitutions: Sweet Cravings

https://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/nutrition/smart-substitutions-sweet-cravings.html