My nephew and his girlfriend visited me a few weeks ago. And they are both hard-core vegans by choice - giving up milk products to reduce cruelty and mistreatment to animals. And kudos to them for that!

I was born vegetarian and therefore did not make any choices on this issue except to continue what I was programmed from birth with. And therefore I continue to consume milk, yogurt, and cheese in plenty of quantity.

With my cardiac surgery, I was asked to decrease my fat intake. I was on a 40-40-20 diet (carbs-fat-protein) and it was a struggle to increase my carbs ratio to 55-30-15 that I was attempting to manage a change to. I have written about these struggles before. The increase in carbohydrate content also led to increases in dietary sugar though most of it is in the form of natural products.

I try to avoid added sugar in any form (like high fructose corn syrup) with a vengeance. My lactose intake does not spike my sugar levels, but yet the overall increase had increased my craving for food and my tendency to put on additional weight, which I have to keep fighting with both controlled eating and exercise.

Back to my current story. We bought some Oat milk for my nephew’s visit to our home. And over the next week, I used up what was leftover instead of my usual milk intake. And I kind of rather like the Oat milk option, though calling it milk would be a stretch. In the following weeks, further experiments continued. I tried out a combination blend of Almond-Cashew milk and also Soy milk from different brands.

All these unsweetened products had zero to near-zero sugar per serving and the accidental byproduct of this consumption was that my sugar intake dropped from about an average of 80 gms per day to around 45 grams per day. A sustained drop of 43%. My saturated fat intake per day also dropped by 20% each day.

And this was making a huge difference in how I feel. My body which usually responded badly to sugar being a diabetic for over 30 years started to feel different. A limited among of brain fog seems to have lifted.

Now, I am trying to see how I can eliminate most other natural sugars from my life. The rest of my sugar consumption comes from natural products now mostly from fruits and vegetables like Apples, Bananas, Carrots, Raw mangoes, etc.

Though I would not call myself vegan now as I still consume cheese, this accidental change has become a standard portion of my life. The conclusions of these experiments are statistically valid at a 100% rate with a sample size of one. This is a positive change that I welcome and I am going to take it, enjoy it and build on top of it - with further experiments and hopeful accidents.