I have few perfect rituals in my life but my morning tea is one that I thought found perfect, almost holy.
I wake, put on the tea kettle, choose my particular mug, (the one that is the right size, shape for my hand and mouth and insulates the tea properly). Once the kettle sounds its mournful cry I pour the water over the tea an inch or two, then I swirl the cup to let the tea "bloom" (as some do with a french press and their coffee). The liquid becomes dark and aromatic before I pour the rest of the cup and then cover it, letting it steep for at least thirty minutes. I have a black tea with bergamot blend that I have chosen for this ritual because it's mild. As it steeps it gets richer and fuller and perfumed but never bitter. I then stir the tea, keep the tea bag in, add organic 1/2 and 1/2 and two beautiful spoonfuls of sugar. But today is different.
Today I will not pick up my spoon, slide it through the amber-hued grains of sparkly raw sugar crystals and pick up a heaping dose. I will not watch the gem-like grains tumble into my cup of tea nor stir several times to make sure the sweetness is distributed throughout the entire warm mug.
Today I will try my morning tea without any sweetness and in anticipation, I feel already naked; like a vital part of my day is missing. I am akin to a quitting smoker who wakes that first day and lost without the morning ritual of opening the box, putting the cool sweet-smelling cigarette between their lips (they do smell sweet before they are lit), sparking the lighter, hearing the sound of the end of the paper engulfed in fire and finally getting that much anticipated first drag. I know these rituals and this loss because I was once addicted to smoking. This is of course different but similar. The anticipation, the hook, the loss.
I also know the feeling of entitlement. "I should be able to do whatever I damn well please! Whatever makes me happy! This is my life and life is short!" But yet life is short and sometimes we need to make tough decisions to make our time here healthier and of a better quality. Once you have faced an addiction head-on and kicked a habit or at least learned how to choose daily not to participate in an addiction, you know what this feeling is and can recognize it. Today I address the world, "Hello, my name is DK Crawford and I am addicted to sugar."
Like any good addict, I have bargained to keep my habit. "I'll only eat organic sugar and all-natural products." "I'll use another type of sweetener, or darker sugar." "I'll eat everything else healthy to justify a slight indulgence later".
The sugar discussion started for me years ago with various alternative health practitioners. I was told to cut down, use splenda, stevia, xylitol, raw honey, agave syrup, you name it! I have been told to lay off the white stuff that some have suggested might even be more addictive than cocaine!
Many years ago when faced with a health crisis, a guru at a health food store in Ocean Springs, MS recommended I take chromium supplements. She explained that as farming has changed, so have nutrients in the soil and our food doesn't contain the same vitamins and minerals we once got through nutrition, chromium being one of them and as we don't have the chromium we need, we crave more sugar. Well I tried the pills and the most remarkable thing happened...I stopped craving sugar!
But as those in denial do I stopped taking the pills and have been in sugary bliss ever since. Years later I tried a chromium supplement and it didn't have the same effect. I am researching if there is a particular one that is better than another or if I perhaps need a combination of minerals. I am also starting to grow my own food more and as the adage goes trying to "feed the soil, not the plants". It is important for us to build our soil so it's creating nutritious food again! It's kind for us, the earth and the animals who thrive on and in it. But that is only part of the puzzle.
I am happily not facing a health crisis at the moment but I am getting messages. Like Oprah once said, "Life sends you messages – first it will put a pebble in your path, then a rock, and then a brick wall. If I don’t hear the plink of the pebble, the rock shows up." I am not looking forward to hitting a brick wall. My recent first pebble was a few months ago when an alternative pracitioner told me to use unheated raw honey in my morning tea rather than sugar. Then an ayurvedic practitioner told me to stop using sugar in my tea and all-together. Then about a month ago I got a virus and a holistic M.D. told me that sugar would feed my illness and recommended I get off of it until I was well. Mind you, I had not mentioned sugar to any of these individuals, they simply brought it up themselves. Do you also hear the plink,plink,plink of pebbles? I started to feel like I was wearing a huge S on my forehead.
As my virus finally went away and I was better, I pushed the warnings under my finely woven carpet of denial and got the most interesting phone message from my brother out of the blue. "Hey sis, I was reading Dr. Oz's book and he said people who use sugar in their morning tea or coffee are more likely to develop pancreatic cancer than those who don't. So get off the morning sugar or swap to a sweetener ASAP!" Hmmm. That's three messages about my morning tea specifically in less than 6 months. And I know a thing or two about pancreatic cancer because my mother died of complications from it. That's the rock, now I'm listening because I really hate smashing into brick walls.
So I listened but tried to keep a little sweetness in my morning. If not sugar, then what? And the answer came in a few forms; xylitol, stevia, or agave nectar. Agave was the easiest to pick up at the store so I did. I started using it 2 weeks ago thinking I was helping my body due to its lower glycemic index levels. It was still good though didn't taste like my sludgy raw sugar. I was devoted in this effort and would carry the syrup with me when I slept away from home, so I wouldn't have to use sugar packets.
Last night at 12:01 am, I got another rock via email, an article about agave nectar entitled "This Sweetener is Far Worse than High Fructose Corn Syrup" Crap! Of course I've been off High Fructose Corn Syrup for years and even saying the name of that ingredient is like Beelzebub to me! So the rocks are bigger and bigger and rolling in my direction and damnit I want to get this before a bolder crushes me or worse. Thus how we came to today.
I am not vowing to get off sugar in its entirety, but I am trying to look specifically at this morning tea issue square on. I believe there is something to spiking one's blood sugar early in the morning with nothing else on your stomach that's bound to be disruptive although I don't begin to understand all the biology behind it.
So? you ask? What is the morning tea like? At first sip I was amazed at how much it tasted like....well....tea! Without the sugar spike on my palate, I get more tea flavor. And then it also tastes a little like the Atchafalaya Basin which I know only because I've knee boarded there. :) I am not sure if I will even want to continue my morning tea ritual without sugar, is it even worth boiling the water? but I will try it for a while. I have heard that it gets better and soon I won't even miss my glistening jewel-esq spoonfuls. Sigh...
