It is interesting that the majority of nutritional books start with
the role sugar, or more specifically carbohydrates play in the body.
Our society’s collective sweet tooth is an adaptive response. It goes
back to caveman days and it’s what encourages us to eat foods that are high in
energy and nutrients. The problem is that the refinement of sugar has removed
all the beneficial nutrients, enzymes and other plant compounds that give
naturally sweet foods their goodness.
Sugar affects the human body in many ways. Some of these ways are good, some bad and some of the affects are very ugly. Energy created from sugar ingested into the body is one of the good ones. Humans need energy to function and the best sugars for this are ones listed on the glycemic index with a low rating. These sugars are let into the blood stream at a slower absorption rate which is healthy for the human body.
The bad and ugly news associated with sugars is that most are processed into
all kinds of foods humans eat. These sugars often carry a high glycemic index
rating which means that the sugars are absorbed into the bloodstream faster.
This causes the pancreas (the organ which maintains sugar levels in the body)
to give off insulin. Insulin is used to drop the blood-sugar levels in the
body. Not only does this fluctuation in blood-sugar levels put stress on the human
body but it also can lead to diabetes, increased chance of coronary disease and
also interfere with the absorption of calcium and magnesium into the human body
In small amounts, sweeteners cause no problems to most people, especially when
they are eaten in natural forms like fruit. Large amounts of sugar on a regular
basis however, cause insulin resistance, a state in which the body does not
respond to the hormone responsible for controlling blood sugar correctly.
Insulin resistance is a significant step towards adult onset diabetes. The
resulting chronic high blood sugar is usually converted to fat, leading to
obesity. Of course insulin is a hormone with many factors affecting it, not
just sugars in the diet. Things like binge and starve eating patterns
(including eating only one or two meals a day), stress and lack of sleep can
all cause problems with blood sugar, which lead to the seldom-diagnosed
hypoglycemia.
We might not even be aware of how much sugar we consume. Soft drinks are the
form in which most sugar is consumed. Sugar is also added to hamburgers to
reduce shrinkage and add juiciness, to breading in deep fried foods or to give
frozen fish a sheen. It is commonly added to canned and frozen fruit and
vegetables to maintain color and juiciness.
Diabetes,
coronary problems and the interference of other nutrients to the human body are
not the only health risks involved with the consumption of too much sugar.
Other problems such as obesity, suppression of the immune system, tooth decay,
kidney problems, depression and hypertension can occur. There are many other
problems associated with eating the wrong sugars or too many sugars too
quickly. Reading labels and looking for foods that are naturally processed with
low glycemic index rankings can help you eat healthier.
A small amount of table sugar or sucrose isn’t going to cause most people considerable problems. The trouble is, and the reason why many people consider sugar bad, is that most of us don’t stop at a small amount. Even when elaborate food plans are constructed and people are given a certain amount of discretionary or extra calories per day, they often consume way above the discretionary amount, and thus consume far more sugar than they need.
Consumers have become more aware of food labels in which ingredients have to be listed in order, largest amount on down to the lowest, so manufacturers have been listing several types of sugars instead of one. This way, the sugars can be further down on the ingredient list, even though the total amount is quite high.
Sugar has become a staple in our
modern diet, but why is sugar bad for your health? Many foods we eat on a
regular basis are loaded with sugar. Sometimes you can’t even taste the sugar
but it’s still in there. As delicious as sugar-laden foods may taste, the truth
is sugar is just bad for your health, especially when you start to overindulge
in it.
Sugar is a sticky substance and if
left in the bloodstream (instead of being burned as energy) the particles will
start to stick to the cells. The result is that if you are consuming a lot of
sugar each day, you will get more wrinkles, will experience a lack of mobility
in the joints, dry brittle nails and hair and a range of other health problems.
Reduce the amount of sugar you eat and
you will soon notice a positive change in the way your skin looks. The reason
for this is that refined carbohydrates such as white bread and other white
flour products, are high in sugar and will cause an inflammation of the skin.
This in turn creates high levels of free radicals which attack the collagen
that keeps the skin stay firm. Without enough of this collagen, you will start
to notice wrinkles.
Not
only are free radicals bad news for your skin they are also deadly for the
body, which is another reason why sugar is bad for your health. Free radicals
can cause a lot of damage in healthy cells and lead to many illnesses of the
body.
Sugary foods can also compromise your immune system. Research has shown that
white blood cells are less efficient at fighting illness when exposed to sugar.
A diet high in sugar will also raise your insulin levels quickly which can lead
to many other health problems. You’ll also lack energy as a result of these
sugar spikes and the drop in blood sugar that follows.
It’s no secret that obesity and weight-related illnesses are on the rise in
many countries and this is directly attributed to our diets and lifestyle. Our
bodies simply aren’t able to cope with such high sugar levels and this is why
illnesses like diabetes are at an all time high. Cutting the excess sugar out
of your diet is one of the best things you can do for your body.
It’s not easy especially the first few weeks when you will still experience
some sort of craving for sugar, but you can try to substitute with fresh fruit
which has a natural form of sugar and eventually your cravings will pass and
you’ll start to feel and look great.
You and I know
that sugar is harmful to our health. Diabetes, lowered immunity, obesity, fatigue, hypersensitivity, headaches and allergies
are modern epidemics that have been directly or indirectly linked to sugar
consumption. "White death" runs rampant in across the world diets.
But all hope is not lost! There are safer sugars, healthy sugars, and ways to
modify sugar intake so that it doesn't have harmful effects on our health, how
we eat it, and how to break its seductive call.
When gauging the
effect of sweets on your body, there are two factors we can use to determine
how safe a sugar is to ingest:
1. Is it a
"natural" sugar? To what degree has it been processed from its original
form?
2.
Where does this sugar rank on the glycemic index?
Glycemic index is a method of analyzing foods that are high in
carbohydrates based on how they affect the human body. A food with a high
glycemic index breaks down very easily to simple sugars, rapidly raising (or
"spiking") blood glucose levels and demanding an equally quick enzyme
and insulin response from the pancreas so that the sugars can be metabolized
and stored. Over time, consumption of a lot of high glycemic foods stresses the
pancreas and the immune system, and can cause the blood sugar highs and lows
endemic to diabetes and hypoglycemia.
Foods which are low glycemic, on the other hand,
contain carbs that break down more slowly to simple sugars. The absorption of
these foods is therefore more gradual and does not contribute to blood sugar
highs and lows.
High glycemic foods:
➢ potatoes
➢ corn
➢ wheat flour
➢ any processed
grains, particularly wheat and rice
➢ refined sugar
(white, brown or turbinado are all more or less equal)
➢
oranges, bananas, mango, pineapple
Low glycemic carb foods:
➢ apples, pears
➢ wolfberries, blueberries
➢ yam
➢ nuts
➢ legumes: beans,
lentils, chickpeas
➢ whole and
unrefined grains, especially barley and oats
➢ agave
➢
stevia
More thorough lists of foods and of their glycemic index exist, and may be
helpful if you're concerned about diabetes or the quality of the sugars in your
diet, kindly get the same from any dietician or Nutritionist.
Sugars: The Good
Are there really sugars which can improve
weight loss, support your metabolism, and improve health and vitality?
Part 1 of
"Sugars: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." Alternative sweeteners
which can actually be good for you include wolfberries, maple syrup, agave,
honey and stevia
Contrary to what
you may have been told, some kinds of sugars can be harmless - like the
naturally occurring sugars in fruits and vegetables - and others can actually
be beneficial, helping to support your pancreas, boost immunity, build and tone
muscle, and even lose weight.
Certain fruits,
such as the wolfberry, contain
polysaccharides or complex sugars which have been clinically shown to break
down tumours, improve eyesight, combat free
radicals in the body, and strengthen the liver and the pancreas. Wolfberry
polysaccharides also improve weight loss, boost metabolism, and provide a
natural sweetness which can replace refined sugar in your diet... and even
replace the sugar cravings which make it so hard to stay away from refined, high glycemic sweets.
There are many
alternative sugars and sweeteners recommended to replace refined white and
brown sugar in baking. However, most of them are hardly better than cane sugar
in terms of how they hit your body. Rice
syrup and barley malt, often
recommend in a macrobiotic diet, are far less refined and contain none of the
synthetic chemicals which make refined sugar so toxic. They do, however, hit
your bloodstream as a high glycemic food.
Maple syrup is an excellent substitute for sugar. It is high
in trace minerals like zinc and manganese, which can assist in heart health and
in balancing cholesterol levels. The only real downside to maple syrup is that
it is pricey and can be hard to find if you live outside North America. You
also want to watch which grade of syrup you're getting: The light "Grade
A" or "Number 1," supposedly the most desirable, can contain
formaldehyde runoff from the first extraction of the syrup under certain processing
conditions. All the other grades are safe, but Grade C (the darkest amber
syrup) is the best.
Honey is another item that's often presented as a healthy alternative to
refined sugar, but it is sometimes controversial. People who react to sugar as
a "brain allergy may react to honey the same way. It is high glycemic, and
hits the body as a hard sweet. However, most people digest honey much more
easily than sugar. Raw, unpasteurized honey is rich in elements which can help
with wound healing, kill bacteria, soothe sore throats and digestive upset, and
decrease local allergy symptoms. Honey is also sweeter than sugar by volume, so
you need less in baking or cooking.
Agave is a sweetener extracted from a South American cactus, and
traditionally used to make tequila. Often called "honey water," the
agave nectar or agave syrup is light, both in taste and colour. It is runnier
than honey and tastes much milder, but is in fact sweeter so even less is
required in cooking. Agave is extraordinarily low glycemic - it has almost no
impact on blood sugar, making it an ideal sweetener for diabetics and those who
are sensitive to sugars.
Stevia, an extract from the leaves of about several species of plant from
the genus Stevia, may be the most
perfect sweetener for the human body. Stevia has been shown to support the
function of the pancreas - increasing enzyme availability and improving your
body's ability to process other sugars. Stevia is sold in the U.S. as a dietary
supplement, and can be found in either liquid or powdered form in most health
food stores. It is sometimes criticized for its slightly bitter aftertaste. For
those who enjoy baking, however, you
substitute only a tiny amount for normal sugar - 1/4 to 1/32 the amount of
sugar called for, depending on the kind of stevia. Stevia has also been shown
to reduce cavities and has few to no calories (again, depending on the type you
use).
Sugars: The Bad
White sugar, high fructose corn syrup,
and even unrefined cane sugar all have health risks that you deserve to know
about before you bite into them.
Refined sugar
gets called "white death" for a reason: it's one of the worst things
we can do for our immune system, weight, and total health. Are you addicted to
it?
If it's white, it's killing you," has become the rallying cry of many holistic doctors when it comes to the dangerous impact of sugar on health. It may be overly simplistic, but the statement does sum up the situation when it comes to sugar and its impact. Not all sugars are unhealthy; certain sugars have minimal or no negative impact, and remarkable health benefits. But refined white sugar, the table sugar that most people use every day, is harmful, even in small amounts.
White sugar
suppresses the immune system. It has
been shown to decrease the vitality and number of white blood cells, the body's
immune response to invaders. Sugar also depresses the body's energy field and
makes your blood more acidic, both of which result in vulnerability to toxins,
bacteria and viruses. Sugar feeds bacteria like candida and yeast infections.
Refined sugar is
an extremely high glycemic food; it
hits your bloodstream hard and can have severe impact on blood sugar, insulin
levels, digestive enzyme count, weight, and the pancreas.
Refined sugar is
in almost everything, and can be very difficult to avoid unless you are
preparing all your own food from scratch. It creeps into sauces, salad
dressings, preparations of meat and other products, and prepared carbohydrates
- whether they taste sweet or not (sugar is usually added to prepared bread and
rice, for instance).
It appears under
many different names: glucose-fructose, fructose, fruit sugar, corn syrup,
high-fructose corn syrup and beet sugar are all heavily processed sugars which
can be dangerous to our health.
It has been
suggested that the way the human brain and body process sugar - especially
excess sugar, constitutes an addictive
pattern, making sugar the most common addiction in the world.
Brown and
demerara sugar are sometimes suggested as natural alternatives to white sugar.
However, demerara and brown sugar are
virtually the same as white sugar - the only difference is that some of the
molasses has been recombined with the refined sugar after processing. These
sugars have a glycemic index almost
as high as that of white table sugar.
Another option is
the relatively recent advent of "sucanat," evaporated cane juice, and
other forms of "unrefined cane sugar." These are better than refined
white sugar by a long shot, since they don't contain all the regular chemicals
that are used in sugar processing; however, they still have a high glycemic
rating and hit the body very hard, so they are best avoided for the most part.
Molasses is the
only sugar product which has a relatively low glycemic index. It is also high
in minerals, including iron and calcium. Of all the sugars that we can choose,
molasses is probably the best option in extracts from sugar cane - the darker,
the better. Even with molasses, though, I recommend caution and moderation.
Sugars: The Ugly
” Scarier than white sugar is the gamut
of “low-cal” artificial sweeteners - many of which have been linked to cancer,
dementia, depression, and more
I shudder when I see
"sugar-free" desserts. The artificial sweeteners that are being used
to replace sugar present serious problems that sugar can't even approach
I shudder when I walk past the "sugar free" desserts in the supermarket. Removing refined white sugar from our diet can only be good - but the mainstream artificial replacement is hardly an improvement. Artificial sweeteners are some of the scariest substances in North American diets today; they may aid diabetics - though even that is hotly debated - but they have also been linked to problems such as cancer, migraines, depression, birth defects, seizures, behavior changes, anemia, sexual dysfunction, thyroid dysfunction, and more.
Sugar
replacements like Splenda, NutraSweet, Sweet'N'Low and Equal have taken
supermarket aisles by storm. Their marketing calls them "low-cal" or
"zero-cal" based on studies suggesting that aspartame, sucralose and
others are "non-nutritive sugars" - they are impossible, or at least
very difficult, for the human body to metabolize. What can't be metabolized
can't be absorbed, used by the body for energy, or stored as fat. Since they
are intended to pass right through your digestive tract without any impact, the
calories of these artificial sugars don't "count" in terms of your
diet - making them low-cal or zero-cal.
The truth hidden behind this saccharin marketing, however, is less than sweet:
➢
Current research
conducted in Italy indicates that aspartame
is carcinogenic. Dosages lower (by
proportionate weight) than those considered safe for human consumption by
regulatory agencies in Europe result in lymphomas and leukemia in female test
animals. The same study showed no difference in weight between control subjects
and those consuming aspartame - belying its marketing as a weight-loss food.
➢
The original safety testing on aspartame before it
was released for public consumption resulted in brain tumors in animals treated
with the artificial sweetener. Although no similar tumors were found in control
subjects, this result was dismissed as insignificant.
➢
Sucralose (Splenda) is made from normal sugar
which has been chlorinated, producing a host of chlorine bi-products, including
dioxins and other organochlorines, that contribute to the widescale chlorine
pollution of waterways. These chemicals can work their way up the food chain
and into our bodies - and they stay there, lodged in fat cells. Dioxins
contribute to cancers, hormone imbalance, birth defects, infertility, and they
suppress the immune system. Chlorine contaminants are "so widespread, it
would be difficult to find any human being who does not have detectable levels
of dioxin in his/her blood," according to Stephen Ashkin, chair of the American Society for Testing and
Material's Task Force, Clinton's Green Chemistry Challenge Task Force, and
director of product development and environmental affairs for Seventh
Generation.
➢
Research on sucralose in animal studies has shown effects
including: shrinking of the thymus gland, enlarged liver and kidneys, reduced
growth rate, decreased red blood cell count (anemia), extension of pregnancy
period, birth defects, and atrophy of lymph follicles.
➢
Sucralose (Splenda) is produced at 98% purity. The
other two percent may contain contaminants such as heavy metals, methanol,
chlorinated by-products, and arsenic.
➢
Rumor has it that
aspartame was originally developed
as an ant poison, and was only later marketed as a sugar replacement when its
manufacturers realized that it would taste sweet. It reportedly works
remarkably well as an ant poison - better than most commercial pesticides.
➢
Saccharin (the artificial component in Sweet'N'Low)
appeared on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's carcinogen list from 1998
to 2000, before being removed for lack of sufficient data to meet the FDA's
criteria for a carcinogen. It occurs in only one place in nature: as a
component in coal tar.
➢
Aspartame breaks down, in the human body or
outside, when exposed to heat. Its by-products include methyl alcohol, aspartic
acid, and formaldehyde. Methyl alcohol is known to cause blindness; formaldehyde,
used as a wood preservative and to preserve laboratory specimens, is a
carcinogen and lethal in large doses; aspartic acid excites brain cells and
disrupts neural function - contributing to hyperactivity, emotional stress,
behavior changes, and loss of focus.
How to Help The Health of Your Family
Children are
especially susceptible to the effects of refined sugars. The goal of any
responsible parent is to slowly start decreasing the refined sugars in your
child’s diet and replace them with nutritional sources of carbohydrates with
slower releasing sugars.
Here are some
practical tips around today’s topic on sugar that can have dramatic effects,
both on a physical and mental level, on your child.
1. Never skip breakfast. It is not an old wives tale that breakfast is the most important
meal of the day. After a period of fasting during sleep, the body needs to
replenish vital glucose stocks. Breakfast is the meal that will stand as the
nutritional foundation for the rest of the day. Build a poor foundation and
don’t be surprised if the walls come down.
2. Eat a nutritional breakfast. Throw out the white bread and the sweetened cereals and don’t buy into
the marketing hype about corn flakes or sugar coated pops (with added vitamins)
being a good start to the day. This is rubbish as we will see a little later in
an example case study. We will look a little later at glycaemic load of foods
and what foods to avoid. For now feed your child some fresh fruit followed by
any combination of the following: rolled oats porridge, fish, lightly poached
or scrambled eggs (not fried!) and brown or wholewheat bread or toast.
3. Slowly replace refined sugars with better sugars. Fructose is an ideal sugar replacement
and is available in most pharmacies and health shops. Fructose is a more
complex molecule than glucose and although it will eventually be broken down
into glucose, it will do so slowly creating a better more sustained release.
Fructose, in my humble opinion, is also a far nicer sweetener than sugar. Also
try and stay away from other high release sugars such as honey and syrup.
4. Lunch time and Fruit. Limit access to rubbish foods. If your child is at school and does not
have the money to buy chocolates and fizzy drinks but rather has a nutritional
and delicious packed lunch then that is far better. Rather than giving a jam
sandwich offer a whole-wheat one with peanut butter (preferably unsweetened).
Give your child fresh fruit and/or vegetables at every meal. A tip here is
buying your fruit on the weekend, chop it up, add a little orange juice to
preserve it and put it in the fridge. This will act as a very good and
convenient source of fruit for your children and takes the preparation time
hassle out of supplying the fruit.
5. Avoid artificial or sweetened drinks. Children very often prefer plain water
by choice however if they are hankering for juice then provide pure 100% fruit
juice half diluted with water (should be as little preservative as possible –
if the expiry date says good until 2010 then it’s a no no).
6. Watch for signs of glucose imbalance. Children, especially active children do
not have the reserves that adults do and as such they are often prone to
nutritional dips throughout the day. If your child starts to play up and get irritable
an hour or two before meals then top them up with some fruit or a slice of
delicious seed bread and natural butter. Very often the bodies’ desire for
glucose will leave the child asking for juice or sweets and that is a warning
sign.
7. Top them up after sports. This ties in nicely with point 6, when picking your child up from
sports, take a banana or sandwich along – this will help top up the reserves of
glucose used up from the muscle and liver reserves and prevent a glucose
imbalance related problem.
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