Does anyone else not like adding sweetner to family meals?

[FabFlo]

So many of the recipes call for sweetner and I feel uneasy when it's something the kids will eat.

For example the pulled pork recipe. I want to make it Sunday in the slow cooker but the DC will be eating it.

They eat sugar so maybe I'm just being a hypocritice.

I definitely don't get it when I see recipes containing sweetener that I'd never usually put sugar in

I suppose if you use a natural sweetener like stevia it wouldn't seem as 'wrong' as using chemical sweetener. Aspartame is scary stuff though...

Why would put sugar in pulled pork anyway to need a substitute?

I just skip the sweetener - always tastes fine

Sugar in pulled pork? FGS no.

Just leave it out. It will taste just fine.

That's wierd. I wouldn't use sugar in pulled pork anyway.

What kind of sweetener are they suggesting? If it's something that you genuinely do need to add it to, could you substitute honey? (not calorie free, but you don't need to use much). Or even regular sugar only has a small number of calories if you use it sparingly.

Depends what you're cooking, but we use balsamic vinegar to add a bit of sweetness to spag bol/lasagne, etc.

I never add sugar to any savoury dishes so certainly wouldn't add sweetener.

I'd agree calzone, sugar or sugar substitutes have no place in a meat dish of any sort

Brown sugar on the rub for pulled pork, no? sweet chilli sauce, sweet and sour, Tomato ketchup, red currant jelly with lamb, Cumberland sauce, lots of veg are sweet ( and made sweeter - parsnips in honey?). Don't see a problem if the recipe calls for it but would rather use sugar (usually not much) than sweetener. Have never seen a recipe with sweetener in it though.

I've followed SW for nine years hardly ever use sweetener and if I do I use Splenda and never in Savoury

I don't use sweetener in anything. Like you I'm not keen on the idea especially of DCs having lots of it. I don't think it's necessary and it's my one criticism of sw that it does tend to advocate the use of sweetener crap.

I would leave it out and add at the end if you think it needs it. I do put sugar in bolognese and tomato based sauces as it takes the bitterness away. But cooking more slowly and adding something like lemon juice or balsamic can also help with that.

Pulled pork normally has quite a lot of sugar in the marinade. I wouldn't use sweetener and wouldn't be sure it would work anyway, because the point of the sugar is to make it sticky as well as sweet.

If you google paleo pulled pork, you can probably find recipes with low/no sugar and no sweeteners.

Agree with knowler that use of sweeteners is one of the few major downsides of slimming world. That said, I've done SW quite successfully and never used any artificial sweeteners or eaten any muller lights or other 'diet' products.

I just leave them out from the savoury recipes and don't make any of the cakes and puddings, I tend to just use my own recipes and make them SW friendly by using spray oil instead of normal oil and make sure there is enough veg in there. My portions are probably also smaller than the SW 'pile your plate' mantra.

I also think that, if you are fairly active, you can stretch the plan quite a lot. I always used full fat Greek Yogurt and cottage cheese and had at least 2 or 3 portions of dairy a day and the only time I didn't lose was when I had too much white bread, processed crap, alcohol and fatty and sugary junk. I think restricting that sort of stuff is what makes it work, I don't think it's necessary to restrict normal dairy so much.

Sweetener is vile