We all eat too much sugar. Way too much.

And the scary part is that most times we don’t even notice or know. Sugar is in sweets (naturally), in candy (of course), but also in soda (easy to forget) and pretty much all other processed foods.

There is so much sugar in everything that our taste buds got used to it and don’t even notice it anymore. When we moved over from Germany more than 10 years ago, we first couldn’t eat any sweets or cookies because everything was appallingly sweet. We still skip most store cookies, but it’s scary how quickly you can get used to too much sugar and won’t even notice it anymore. We just have to look at our kids to see living examples of a whole different sugar perception.

Sugar gives you a quick rush and then a big and deep crash. And longterm it harms your health in many ways.

Try to stay away from things that have lots of sugar added. Once you do it, your sensibility for tastes will come back again and you will sense sweetness even without crazy amounts of sugar. Drink your coffee without sugar and if you don’t like it that way, maybe you actually don’t like coffee in the first place.

Rather than ‘sweetening’ your life with sugar (or artificial sweeteners which are even worse) go for things that provide you with slow burning glucose to give you energy for the day and keep up your willpower (we’ll talk about that in a few weeks).

And while we’re at it – cut down dramatically on salt. Again, almost all processed food has way too much salt in it. Sugar, salt and fat make for great (i.e. strong) taste. They don’t help you at all to get consistent energy or have a healthy nutrition.

Skip sugar, sweetener and soda. Go for nuts, veggies, fruit and infused water or tea instead. Ditch the salt and add some pepper to your life.

Uli always uses only half of the sugar (sometimes less) that is called out in recipes. We don’t drink any soft drinks (they are way too sugary, I cannot even stand the taste). We replace most of the salt with pepper. It may be a big step initially, but you will get used to it in just a few weeks and a whole universe of new, more natural and subtle tastes will open up for you.