Sugar Free, almost.

I've always had sympathy for mom's with children or people with food allergies or intolerance. I have lots of friends and family that deal with these issues. Maybe that empathy developed as a way to prepare me for what we were to undertake.
Evan's body cannot process sugar the same way the rest of do. Whatever unused sugars that are in his blood stream get stored up in his liver and cannot be released. This causes him to have liver damage, hypoglycemia and other metabolic complications. The best way to counteract these problems is to eliminate sugar from his diet. It sounds simple enough until you consider that 'sugar'
means more than just the white sweet powder that we add to our cereal sometimes.

Sugar comes in many forms. Sucrose, Fructose, Lactose, Glucose, Galactose, sugar alcohols, and so forth. Most forms of sugar are indigestible for Evan a few are safe.

Now I am a label reader. There are forms of sugar in everything, even things that say sugar-free have things he still can't have. It can be very confusing. Take cheese for an example. The label says 0g of sugar yet I know that lactose is in cheese and lactose is a sugar unless it is an aged cheese at which point the lactose has broken down into lactic acid. Whew- I never imagined I would ever need to know that information, I just liked eating my cheese.

There are a many items that break down differently once they enter the body so if I have a question about it I scour the Internet to see if I can find out what it breaks down into in the body.
We need 'sugars' to survive. Fortunately, simple sugars (found in complex carbohydrates) digest slowly and are safe for Evan to consume.

So here is the breakdown: Find foods that can provide usable sugars, avoid unusable ones. If it is necessary to consume sugar to provide a variety or nutritional benefit it is to be kept to less than 2.5g an meal.

Sugars to avoid: Fructose, Lactose, Sucrose, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Honey, Sorbitol
Sugars that are 'safe': Glucose, Dextrose, Dextrins, sugar alcohols, Splenda, Nutrasweet, Stevia

We have found that even small quantities of some of the safe sugars can cause Evan's blood sugar to sky rocket and then bottom out. It is a game of finding that right balance. Something I never thought I'd have to worry about or understand but knowledge is power and in this case a life saver.