HealthTuesdays: Just a Spoonful of Sugar, the secret about sugar intake
Just as I promised, I’m going to take you slowly, step by step into improving your health. When I first started on the journey of healthy living (which was only a month ago) I was so overwhelmed by all the information out there. On top of that, much of the information I was coming across was so extreme in its choice of wording that I was really skeptical.
But, as Dustin and I looked more into health, we both became convinced and hungry for the wonderful benefits of making healthy dietary choices. There are actually many diseases that can be cured or prevented by simply implementing a whole food plant based diet, not to mention the increase of energy you will have as a result.
I thought that a perfect place to start is with sugar.
Why is this delicious little friend bad for you? Well, mostly because the sugar we are consuming are not natural but highly processed. Corporations want to increase their revenue so they use cheap sugars such as high fructose corn syrup to sweeten their products. These affordable highly processed sugars are linked to most diseases and degenerative conditions such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes just to name a few.
In the last 100 years, with the increase of the consumption of sugar, (where the average American is consuming nearly one pound of sugar per day) came an increase of diseases. You can read more scientific reports about the connection between sugar intake and disease here.
Sugar also stimulates the same receptors that crack and cocaine does. Hm…maybe a hint that it just may not be that great for the human body. In light of that, don’t be surprised that as you cut back on it, you may feel some withdrawal symptoms. It may even take you awhile to quit the habit but just remember, one baby step at a time.
Not all sugar is bad. Your body does need natural sugar to function but the problem is that we are eating WAY too much of it and the sugar we do eat is pretty much fake stuff that mess with our bodies.
The body naturally will process sugar and turn it into energy but when we are feeding it non-stop, our bodies don’t have enough time to process it so it turns into fat stored up all over our bodies. Dr. Vaughn states that, “the combination of highly concentrated sugar and fats with an inactive lifestyle is the recipe for disease over time.”
Not only does sugar create a recipe for disease, but when we eat a large amount of artificial (processed) foods, we are forced to overeat in order to feel satisfied resulting in the ever growing number of obesity in this country.
Safe and Unsafe Sugars:
So what do we do now? Never eat sugar again? No, your body still needs sugar to function but we just need to extremely lower the intake and also choose to work towards feeding our body sugar from whole foods rather than the processed stuff.
Sugars that are really bad for you: white processes sugar, high fructose corn syrup, sodas, store bought juice, powdered sugar even the diet sugars.
Alternatives you can use IN MODERATION to help to wean yourself off of sugar: stevia (herb that tastes sweet but does not contain any sugar), organic cane sugar, organic raw sugar and agave. There is actually no “good” sugars that you can replace the processed sugars with and continue in your normal daily intake.
An example of the amount of natural plant based food to eat in order to obtain the amount of sugar your body needs each day is (15 grams): one apple, a small orange, few berries etc.
Lastly, don’t try to replace your regular sodas with diet sodas. Diet sodas are actually worse for you than regular sodas. The ingredient used to make diet sodas, aspartame, can actually “destroy the nervous system of an already compromised diabetic” (Dr. Vaughn).
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