I'm with you, Ann. I never liked cold milk & dry cereal when I was a kid. And I didn't like sweet things for breakfast either. Pancakes & waffles never appealed to me. My mom always made something savory for my breakfast on school days. I'm also not a fan of the "just get used to it" club. There's a danger that the sense of deprivation will be so strong that it will eventually undermine any efforts to improve the diet -- all motivation will be lost. I think it's really important, when someone is on a restricted diet of some kind, to find foods that the person really enjoys AND are within the limitations. I think the idea of finding other breakfast foods that your husband can enjoy is a good one. I'm speaking from experience because my husband is on a sodium-restricted diet. Believe me, I work my tail off coming up with tasty low salt versions of the salt laden foods he used to enjoy. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to stand such a limited diet. Making the switch from half & half to skim milk is probably too drastic. Perhaps just going down one notch to whole milk for a while might be helpful. As others have suggested, a slow & gradual change might be best. Then go down to 2%. That might be a far as you can take it. Once you get below 2% milk, you lose a lot of flavor & texture.

My recipe for Anzac biscuits calls for it.\ Anzac Biscuits � Dark and Crispy 350 degree oven 1 � cups flour 1 � cups sugar 2 cups rolled oats 2 cups dessicated coconut 1 cup butter 2 tablespoons golden syrup 1 teaspoon baking soda 4 tablespoons boiling water Bring small amount of water to a boil. Mix together flour, sugar, oats and coconut in a large bowl. Melt butter in a small bowl. Add golden syrup and baking soda dissolved in boiling water. Make a well in the dry mixture and add wet mixture. Mix thoroughly. Roll small, uniform pieces of dough into balls and place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake for about 12 or 13 minutes. These cookies are flat and crispy and would make good sandwich cookies. Excellent with tea.

A great place to check on substitutions for ingredients is The Cook's Thesaurus. The link below will take you to syrups (liquid sweeteners). On a personal note, I avoid high fructose corn syrup at all costs, and use that wonderful, buttery-flavored, Lyle's Golden Syrup as a substitute for light corn syrup. I also use Steen's Pure Cane Syrup instead of dark corn syrup. -Grainlady Here is a link that might be useful: Cook's Thesaurus: Liquid Sweeteners

"Sugars" are not just one thing, nor are they from one source when dealing with bread making. You don't say what type of bread you are making that requires barley malt syrup, and that would be helpful information. -Table (white) sugar is 50% fructose and 50% glucose. -A bread making favorite of mine because it retards mold, staling, and aids in keeping bread "fresh" longer is agave nectar, which is between 56% and 92% fructose. -Honey, a great choice if you are going to freeze your bread (a well-documented topic in bread science), is 20% water, 30% glucose, 40% fructose, 1% sucrose. Sugar is hygroscopic and attracts and bonds to moisture. It keeps water from evaporating and reduces staling which is why enriched breads last much longer than lean breads. However, too much sugar in a bread recipe can damage gluten development as well as damaging yeast because sugar draws water from yeast and inhibits its growth. That why some sweet dough recipes include extra yeast to compensate for the higher percentage of sugar. They often require more kneading to develop gluten when they have a high percentage of sweetener in them; and they also take much longer to rise. You could use Osmotolerant Instant Active Dry Yeast (Fermipan Brown or SAF Gold), which is recommended for use in dough characterized as sweet, salty or low absorption. The osmosis is the means by which yeast cells absorb oxygen and nutrients and give off enzymes and other substances. This type of yeast is beneficial in certain types of recipes because osmotic tolerance is called for because the amount of available water in the dough is limited. Two tablespoons of sugar per cup of flour is about the maximum you can add without major gluten damage. "When dough contains a lot of sugar, the two gluten proteins link with sugar instead of with each other. Glutenin combines with sugar, gliadin combines with sugar, and very little gluten is formed." So what about barley malt syrup....? It's primarily maltose. You often find barley malt, barley malt syrup, or malted flour in sweet breads like Hawaiian Bread or Portuguese Sweet Bread to not only add sweetness, but it's not as detrimental to gluten formation as table sugar. Barley also contains enzymes that help break down big molecules of starch into the simple sugars that yeast can use. All sugars interfere with gluten development, but all sugars are not identical. Glucose, which is corn syrup, browns at lower temperatures than many sugars. Most sugars are hygroscopic and absorb water from the atmosphere. BUT, fructose, which is one of the two sugars in white table sugar, is more hygroscopic than most. That's why agave nectar and honey helps keep bread moist longer - they have higher amounts of fructose than sugar. FYI (free of charge information) - Yeast doesn't like lactose, the sugar in milk, so I avoid proofing yeast in milk, although you will find recipes that do that. Breads that contain milk/dairy products have more residual sugars than those containing only sucrose. You'll have to do your own research on the nutritional aspect. I'm in the middle of making potato soup for lunch and it needs my attention. Good luck on your studies. -Grainlady