Sugar is the new tobacco!

So last week Horizon was about the ills of sugar, which is something I have considered before on this blog. In truth I have a love hate relationship with sugar: I have a very sweet tooth, but I am fully aware of how bad sugar is. When I was a kid and I used to ask for sweets my Dad told me how the people who make sweets didn't like me very much and he was right. Now he commonly refers to sugar as the 'Devil's Grains'. Anyway, despite knowing all this I still struggle with suagr addiction and so does N, despite my best efforts early on.

The chief offender is my well meaning Grandad. He's just so lovely, but comes from a time when you showed children love by giving them sweets. Since my maternity leave started he has literally showered us with sweets and chocolate. I've had to throw it away (although the idea of throwing food away goes against the grain we were inundated) more than once. Fortunately, I was somewhat protected by reverting to veganism, but poor N was constantly taunted by the sweets in the tin and the chocolate in the cupboard.

So after the latest clear out I decided to take action and restock with healthy snacks. My (re)discovery was toddler snacks in the pharmacy aisle at the supermarket - organic sugarless snacks - brilliant, but why do food producers think that wanting to be healthy stops after 2! Not for us at least, dehydrated banana chips (as opposed to driedf and sweetened), organic maize tomato snacks and fruit juice ginger bread went into the trolley. I also saw they had oat bars, but thought I could make my own.

My first attempt was recipe free and turned into extra granola ;-) So I decided to find a recipe. I'm sorry to say I can't remember where I found the recipe (so if anyone can rectify my plagiarism then please do), but this is roughly the recipe (as I can remember):

3 apples grated (skin, seeds and all)
300 ml of apple juice
160 g of raisins (I think)
30 g of seeds (I used a misture of pumpkin and sunflower)
200 g (I think of oats).
couple of teaspoons of cinnamon

Cook the apple in the apple juice until it's cooked to a mush.
Add all the other ingredients.
Press into a greased 22cm dish and bake at c. gas mark 4 for about 25 minutes (keep an eye on them as I can't quite remember the timings).
Leave to cool for 10 minutes then score in the tin and leave to cool.
Turn out and eat!

Brilliant, sugar free oaty snacks, yum.