We have Meatless Mondays and Taco Tuesdays, so why not create a Sugarless Saturday?! Okay, so it doesn’t roll off the tongue as smooth as the other titles but I think it’s the most important one! Yes it’s Saturday, and I am choosing to not eat any sugar today. I mean that I am not eating any food that has “added sugar” to it. It amazes me how much sugar is added to food these days. I know for a fact that too much sugar causes migraines for me. I have always had to be super careful with my consumption. But sugar does much more damage than you think…it really should be avoided on all days of the week. Just a few reasons why:
- Sugar can weaken eyesight
- Sugar interferes with absorption of protein.
- Sugar can decrease growth hormone (the key to staying youthful and lean).
- Sugar feeds cancer.
- Sugar can impair the structure of DNA.
- Sugar greatly assists the uncontrolled growth of Candida Albicans (yeast infections).
As for HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup)…
HFCS makes you fat, but not in the same way that corn makes a cow fat. In humans, it does this in at least two or three separate ways.
HFCS is a fructose-glucose compound which contains an out of balance ratio of the 2 sugars. Depending on what you are consuming, you will have either HFCS 42 or HFCS 55. There is either a 5 or 6 molecule difference between the 2 sugars. This doesn’t seem significant, but this is where part of the problem occurs. When you add up the amount of molecules per gram and the number of grams consumed in a typical day it becomes astronomical. There is HFCS in bread, ketchup, salad dressings, and almost every processed food that is made in a factory environment.
When fructose enters the stomach, it is not digested. Fructose travels through the digestive tract to the intestines where it is transported to the liver to be processed. The liver processes the fructose into glycerol which is the backbone of a trigliceride. Triglicerides are fat which travel in the blood and are stored as energy reserves that build up around the waist line and hips. Obese people all have one thing in common. They all have a high level of triglicerides in their blood. These triglicerides accumulate on the liver. This leads to a fatty liver which causes other foods to metabolize at a slower rate. When your metabolism slows down, you become lethargic and your body does not burn energy efficiently. It becomes difficult to rid yourself of the fat build up even with exercise. Due to a lower metabolic rate, you will become tired very fast. The mass of an overweight body takes more effort to overcome inertia and it is a never ending cycle that leads to more weight gain.
Most processed foods also have MSG or monosodium glutamate. MSG confuses the leptin receptors in the brain. This causes you to think that you need more food which leads to more eating, more HFCS, and more weight gain.
Fructose is a naturally occurring compound that can be found in fruit like apples and oranges. The concentration of fructose in fruit is less than one tenth of the total weight of the fruit. If you eat 1 or 2 pieces of fruit in one day the amount of fructose consumed will still be insignificant.
Fruit also contains pectin, however, which causes short chain fatty acids to be liberated in the intestines. This produces leptin which prevents your body from absorbing too much fat and suppresses your appetite. The triglicerides that are made from the fructose in an apple are eliminated and cholesterol absorption is also reduced. Fruit is not an unhealthy source of fructose. Too much fruit is like anything else in excess. Moderation is the key. It is true what they say about an apple a day.
Concentrated fructose is not something that is found in nature and the human body is not adapted to accommodate this substance. There is a product that is now coming onto the scene called agave nectar. This is not a natural substance either. It is actually a higher dosage of high fructose corn syrup. Instead of calling it agave nectar, they should name it higher high fructose corn syrup. It looks the same, but it has a difference of 40 molecules which makes it 6.67 to 8 times more toxic than HFCS!
You can retrain your taste buds into not needing foods/sweets to be so sweet. Just keep eating less sugar per day and soon enough just a handful of berries or a plain apple will be sweet enough for you! I promise…I’ve been there!
To your health~~~
