I did all of these things faithfully until my son was three. Then, we moved back to my home state to be nearer my kin. He'd never had chocolate – I even gave up chocolate and caffeine and soda when I was pregnant and for the entire three years I nursed him. I never gave him regular sugar-loaded butter cream or shortening frosting on a cake. When I made his annual birthday cakes from scratch (I did use white cake flour instead of wheat or whole grain), I used a from scratch whipped-cream frosting that was only very lightly sweet. I also never keep plain white bread in the house. He'd almost never had soda. Even our unsweetened tea was decaf.

When they learned this after we arrived in NC, my kin thought my son was being mistreated – that's was my mother's literal denouncement of my nutritional constraints for my son. They promptly started sneaking around slipping him sugary treats. He also started pre-K about this time and sugary treats were everywhere in his life after that.