As with most things in life, the first step starts with awareness. Often times, people have no clue how much sugar they are eating until they actually take the time to measure it!
Britain = 1 million tons a year, or 15 teaspoons each person, per day.
America = 22 teaspoons of added sugar per person each day.
The World Heath Organization (WHO) recommends less than 6 teaspoons (24g/30g) per day.
The sugars we need to be looking out for are Free Sugars & Refined Sugars. Free Sugars can be found in honey, fruit juices, and syrups. However, the main culprit is Refined Sugars added to food.
“Fat Chance” by Dr. Robert Lustig
Lactose = milk sugar, perfectly fine, not dangerous in any way, shape or form. For example, plain yogurt is perfectly fine: 7 grams, all lactose.
However, fruit flavored yogurt has 19 grams of sugar, and is the equivalent of eating plain yogurt plus a bowl of frosted flakes.
Sugar is the very first ingredient listed on the label for ketchup.
One bottle of minute maid apple juice has the same amount of sugar as 10x oreos.
What do you think has more sugar: Raisin Bran or Frosted Flakes? 19g total sugar, of which 8g are added. The raisins themselves are fine, the problem is they are dipped in added sugar to make them sweeter. Frosted Flakes has 13g added sugar.
We now know sugar is addictive, just like alcohol.
Starting from around the 80s, fat has been taken out of our diet, but obesity rates continue to climb due to the introduction of sugar.
Processed food has lots of negative aspects that can be covered up by the addition of sugar.
The Coca-Cola Conspiracy
• caffiene = mild stimulant, diahretic (makes you urinate free water)
• salt = 55mg, makes you thirsty
• sugar = hides the salt
They know what they’re doing, they purposely engineered the drink so you will buy more.
How Much Sugar?
A little is ok, a lot is not. We have a limited capacity to metabolize sugar in our livers. We can usually consume 6-9 teaspoons of added sugar per day. The WHO says 24g or 6 teaspoons per day. The problem is Americans consume 22 teaspoons of added sugar per day.
What happens to all the excess sugar? The liver turns it into fat, it mucks up the workings of the liver, causes all the chronic metabolic diseases we know about: type-2 diabetes, lipid problems, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, cancer, and dementia.
Sugar used to be a condiment, maybe 1 teaspoon a day. Today everyone is eating the equivalent of 6 deserts a day, in terms of the added sugar that’s been placed in the food by the food industry for its own purposes.
Avoid packaged foods, read the labels. Real food works. Food should convey wellness, not illness.
What is Refined Sugar?
All sugars are natural, and come from plants. Sugar Cane is a huge grass that grows in tropics, packed full of sugar. Sugar Beets also have particularly high concentrations of sugar. Sugar can be separated from these plants by removing the roughage and fiber, resulting in a milky white liquid. Carbon Dioxide is used to remove impurities like wax, gum, and fats. Next it is boiled down to a dark thick syrup, which upon cooling, the sugar will start to crystallize out. Resulting in refined sugar – pure calories or energy.
The Dangers of Refined Sugar
One of the problems with sugar, is it allows you to take on large amounts of calories very quickly. Sugar is one of the cheapest form of calories. It’s bad for your teeth, and sugar not burned off can turn in to fat very quickly. In large quantities the liver will convert it into fatty acids that your body will store as fat, which can lead to weight gain & obesity. Excess weight can lead to heart disease, diabetes, and other long term conditions.
When you combine high percentanges of body fat levels with high sugar intake, this creates excess stress on the liver, and mainly on the pancreas. Without correcting the issue, over time it will be required to take insulin via injection – which is what can be required for people with Type II Diabetes.
If abiding by the recommended WHO recommended amount of 6 teaspoons (30 grams) of sugar per day, over the course of one year without being burning anything off, translates to 10 pounds (4.5 kilos) of fat. Since the average person eats double that, your looking at 20 pounds of fat.
When your liver has too much food inside of it, it starts to have this long silent scream, which indicates a condition called Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease. Which can lead to Type II Diabetes.
Sugar isn’t the direct culprit to these diseases, but because it’s energy rich, it is most likely to contribute to overall body fat, which is what causes the damage.
Why we Crave Sugar
Why is the food industry putting sugar in products we assume are completely sugar free? Why do sugary soda drinks affect our appetites in a way that makes them the biggest problem of all?
Neuro Scientists have documented the effects of sugar on the brain in real time through MRI brain scanners. There are parts of the brain that are involved in the reward system, for example the strayeter, which reacts when you have very pleasant experiences. Consuming sugar will also activate the strayeter(sp). Our body is hard wired to enjoy sugar, which worked well in ancient times of food shortages, when high energy sugary foods were literally the difference between life and death. But today, cheap sweet sugary foods are all around us.
Deceptive Sugar Foods
If you’re brain is egging you on for a sweet treat, are there any better than others? A teaspoon of honey is actually no better than a teaspoon of white sugar, if fact it actually has more calories since it is denser than sugar. Brown sugar has a bit of molasses in it, but still contains roughly the same amount of calories as white sugar. Candybars, doughnuts, and sodas are obviously high in sugar. But breads, pastas, and cereals can be even worse:
Pad Thai noodles = 9.5 teaspoons (47.5 grams)
Bran Flakes = 3 teaspoons (15 grams)
Sweet & Sour Chicken w/Rice = 12.5 teaspoons
Baked Beans = 6 teaspoons
Heinz Ketchup Bottle =
Ginger Beer = 20 teaspoons (60g)
1.5 litre Strawberry Flavored Water = 18 teaspoons
Sparkling Water = 13 teaspoons
Sports Drink = 15 teaspoons
Orange Juice = 8 teaspoons (40g)
The cold reality is that if food manufactures removed all sugar from their foods, nobody would want to buy. Their goal is to create food items that sell well, which is quite simply, food that tastes good. In addition to tasting good, these foods are cheaper, have longer shelf life, and are more convienent. Suddenly the average consumer is facing an uphill battle.
We live in a busy society, which thrives on speed & convience. A fast food drive thru is infinitely more easy than taking a trip to the grocery store, picking out ripe fruits or veggies, and then having to take the time to prepare & cook them.
Sneaky Food Labeling
Cereal might only have 15g of sugar, but double check the portion size, and we realize that’s only per serving. With 10 servings in one box, it’s actually 150g of sugar.
Good Sugar Foods
Fruit is the answer. Only because the sugar is attached to so much goodness, like vitamins, minerals, and fiber. According to WHO, sugar in fruit doesn’t count towards your daily allowance.
However, fruit juices are an entirely different story. Because without that fiber, you are essentially drinking straight sugar. The WHO does count this sugar towards your daily allowance.
What’s the big difference between eating oranges, and drinking orange juice? Imagine you have 12 peeled oranges in front of you, how many could you eat before you feel you’ve had enough… Now imagine you a large jug of orange juice in front of you, how much could you drink before you’ve had enough? When put to the test, the results were 2 oranges if eaten whole (3g sugar), and 10 oranges (15g sugar) ala juice.
Not only is the amount of sugar greatly reduced from the whole oranges, the sugar is accompanied by fiber which causes the sugar to release slowly over time into your blood stream. However, drinking the orange juice not only provides 5x higher level of sugar, the sugar hits the blood stream almost instantly creating a sugar rush.
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When you consume a sugary drink, you receive a large chunk of calories in a short amount of time, in a form your body can’t detect well. Therefore you don’t feel any more full, and continue to eat the same amount of food as you would otherwise… People who have lots of sugar in their diets to tend to put on more weight, and that’s partly because the calories in sugary things (especially sugary drinks) aren’t the best at making you feel full. So you’re more likely to carry on eating, and therefore take on more calories.
Cold turkey, from a previous intake of seven sugary cans per day, will have withdrawal effects. Initially more tired than usual, more on edge, twitchy, shorter attention span & focus.
Average Brit = 50 litres of sugary drink in a year
Artificial Sweeteners can be 500x more sweet than sugar. While they undergo meticulous testing by scientists, there is certainly an attached stigma of being unhealthy. Which is worse, 10g of surlacose vs 12 lbds (5.4 kilos) of sugar?
6 week experiment:
Rick, 29 teaspoons to 7 teaspoons, lost 0 kilos due to increased alchohol
Kara, 28 to 3, lost 6 kilos, went down two dress sizes
Audrey, 23 to 1/4, lost 5 kilos
Simon, 39 to 1/4, lost 6 kilos, markers for fatty liver disease reduced by 40-70%
all four were at risk of heart disease & type-2 diabetes
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sugar:
remediesdigest.com/truth-sugar-video/
rticles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/12/31/bitter-truth-sugar.aspx
Parallels of Sugar & Heroin
mygreendiet.com/blog/how-sugar-is-like-heroin
disqus.com/home/discussion/mygreendiet/the_end_of_the_blog_is_here
How Sugar is like Heroin
I have been reading Eating For Beauty, by David Wolfe. I have really enjoyed reading it and learning more about raw food. I want to share this passage from the book about refined sugar:
Heroin is produced by taking the juice of certain poppy varieties and refining it into opium, then morphine, and finally into heroin. Similarly, refined sugar is produced from taking the juice of sugar cane or beet and refining it into molasses, then brown sugar, and finally white sugar…
Refined sugar is a drug that causes artificial highs, mood swings, depression, and energy crashes. In the sixteenth century, refined sugar was considered to be a recreational drug in the royal courts of Europe.
It takes 1.1 kilograms of sugar beets to create a mere 0.14 kilograms of refined sugar. Refined sugar is essentially a concentrated, crystallized sugar (page 38).
I love the analogy between sugar and heroin because sugar is absolutely addicting and destructive, yet we continue to eat more and more each year. Even worse, in the form of the more processed and likely more dangerous, high fructose corn syrup. If you eat a lot of sugar, it can be difficult to quit, you can absolutely expect cravings and withdrawals.
Comments:
…Wendy O. Williams had it absoultely correct when she compared Mrs. Fields’ cookies to being no better than a heroin pusher.
…Heroin is safer than sugar if used correctly and uncontaminated.