Sweet, yes. Sugar? Not!

When I was diagnosed with diabetes eight years ago, my doctor told me about all the complications the disease could bring and warned me about going blind and of diabetes neuropathy, which could entail amputation, and all I could think about was, oh my god, I could never have sugar!

I don’t know if it’s in spite of or because of, but most diabetics I know have a sweet tooth — so sweet, in fact, that they become really adept at hiding their sweet stash from Gestapo family members. As a diabetic, you learn to live with the disease after the initial shock of diagnosis wears off (you’re shocked, of course, even though you’ve suspected for the longest time that the tingling of your extremities was not being caused by the weather!) Sure, the disease scares you and whips you into shape at first, then you begin rationalizing: it’s just one slice of cake, one bar of chocolate, one cookie, one scoop of ice cream….you get the picture.

Now there’s a restaurant/bakeshop that lets diabetics, dieters and those who want to control their sugar intake have their cake and eat it, too, without too much guilt.

SugarNot serves low-fat, low-carb and sugar-free items on the menu. They use the sugar alternative isomalt from Germany in all recipes requiring sugar like breads and pastries, their pastas are made from wheat, and they don’t even serve regular soft drinks in the restaurant to avoid sending mixed messages to the customers. After all, it doesn’t make sense that you eat sugar-free cake and then gulp down a can of soft drink, which by the way contains the equivalent of seven tablespoons of sugar.

Isomalt is made from sugar beet and tastes as sweet as sugar.

SugarNot owner Angeli B. Lambsdorff, one of seven partners, says the restaurant was conceptualized primarily for her diabetic father Eli Beltran. "When he was diagnosed about four years ago, he realized that his choices in food were suddenly limited and the alternatives were too expensive. So he thought of putting up a place for people like him who still love to eat and feel deprived because of limited choices."

It’s not only diabetics — or anyone whose blood sugar level is high — who are rejoicing at the menu. Dieters, particularly those on South Beach Diet, are finding things to eat without upsetting the scale. In fact, at SugarNot’s branch at the third floor of The Block in SM North EDSA, it’s not unusual to find people going straight from the gym on the fifth floor to the restaurant. A piece of cake without added sugar, for instance, has half the calories of a regular one. And most of the items on the menu have nutritional labels for calories, protein, and carbs.

"We have a nutritionist and a pastry chef and all our recipes went through a food lab to check the nutrient contents. We had to make sure that the levels are right for diabetics."

For starters, there are the usual soup choices of French onion, pumpkin, and minestrone, and salads such as mango salad, which combines greens with chunks of fruit, mushroom salad, tuna salad, and green tossed salad.

If you’re a dieter, just a bowl of soup and salad will fill you up good. But if you want more, fear not — you will not be forced to go on a diet. There are German sausages served with potato salad; sandwiches such as tuna, teriyaki chicken, and turkey ham and cheese. Their pastas will delight vegetarians, too, as the pastas algio olio, pesto, puttanesca, arrabbiata, and primavera contain no meat. (The last, though, could have added grilled chicken if the customer wishes.)

And then there are the cakes, looking and tasting as though they were made with sugar (I know, because I also eat regular cakes. Bad diabetic girl!). The tiramisu is my favorite with its thin, fluffy layers. There’s also mango cream cake, strawberry short cake, New York cheesecake, sansrival, carrot cake, Last Temptation, and canonigo with custard sauce.

It’s not easy using a sugar substitute with baked goodies. As Angeli tells us, the recipes were developed two years before the first store opened. First, they had to do a lot of research on which of the many sugar substitutes they should use; second, they had to consider the fat and carb contents as they wanted to cater to dieters as well. So apart from taking out the sugar, they had to take the butter out of the cakes, and use minimal all-purpose flour.

"And those three are the main ingredients," she says. "So we had to substitute them with isomalt, olive oil, and different kinds of flour such as wheat and soy from Germany."

What’s the most difficult thing in working with substitutes? "We’ve had cakes that were perfect in taste, pero kumakalat, they looked bad. Or because we keep the all-purpose flour to a minimum, the consistency is not there. Sometimes we had the consistency but not the taste. And we have to consider the cost and the right levels of ingredients. It’s a big challenge getting things right."

The tiramisu, for instance, took four months to perfect. And it’s worth all the taste tests!

From SugarNot’s bakeshop are whole wheat bread, ciabatta, focaccia, baguette, grossini; éclairs, profiteroles, silvanas; donuts in chocolate cider mango, mango and strawberry flavors; blueberry and banana nut muffins; brownies and chocolate oatmeal cookies. They also serve sugar-free ice cream, coffee and tea, and cold beverages using sugar-free syrups.

So what’s the verdict of diabetics and dieters on SugarNot? "We’ve gotten very good feedback," Angeli says. "We are our own worst critics — also my dad. Diabetics and dieters crave sweets and these should not be poor copies but should taste like the regular ones except they’re sugar-free."

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SugarNot has branches at The Block in SM North EDSA, The Podium in Mandalauyong, South Superhighway corner Malvar St. in Makati, and Westgate Alabang. Log on to sugarnot.com.ph, e-mail info@sugarnot.net.