How to Limit/Eliminate Excess Sugar in Your Diet

Sugar, including all the fancy/tricky named relatives and friends of it, is one of the worst things you can eat. It's poisonous. It's as addictive as nicotine. Ever tried to quit smoking without Jonesing like a madman for a lung dart? It consumes your thought process, your body goes through withdrawls...the idea that something we can eat could do that to us...well, that's just crazy to me! Here are just a FEW things that sugar can do to your body. Keep in mind, there are several more...these are just the ones I think are the worst.

Sugar actually suppresses your immune system. WTF?!! It can cause behavioral problems in children, including hyperactivity, temper tantrums, anxiety, and an inability to concentrate. I wonder if all these kids that have been diagnosed with ADHD have a lot of sugar in their diets? If they're typical North American diets with processed foods and sugary "fruit snacks"...well, you do the math. Sugar causes significant increase in triglycerides (aka =FAT...and not the good kind!) and also creates food allergies, and several other diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, cancers, obesity and arthritis. Again - these are just a FEW of the many horrible things that sugar does to your body. Read "The Sugar Blues" by William Dufty. Your heart will drop into the pit of your stomach.

Because this sneaky little bugger finds its way into almost every food you could possibly think of, you need to look for it in the foods you buy. I actually found sugar in the ingredient list on a perogy filling a while ago if you can believe it. First, you need to know what some of its many names are:

• Sucrose, fructose, dextrose, glucose, (basically anything ending in "ose") and ESPECIALLY glucose-fructose (another name for HFCS in Canada)


• High fructose corn syrup (HFCS)


• Cane sugar, raw sugar, brown sugar, organic sugar...it's all still sugar and as far as your body knows, it doesn't recognize any of them as healthy.

Syrups like corn syrup and brown rice syrup are also sweeteners and cause an increase in your blood sugar levels, but some not as fast as regular sugar.

If you're reading labels, you often see a number types of sweeteners in one item. For example, it's not uncommon to see things like molasses, honey, brown rice syrup, or cane sugar all together. That doesn't mean it's good for you - it means you need to know that all these things are sweeteners and if there are that many in one item, put it back, walk away and pretend it does not exist. It's especially important for people who are diabetic to know the different names of all these sweetening agents, and that they can cause a significant increase in your blood sugar levels.

Here are some tips for cutting out sugar/limiting your intake

Don't add sugar to your food or coffee.

If you're holding on to any extra weight and stop putting sugar in your cereals and coffee, you'll probably notice some weight loss quite quickly. I don't have sugar anywhere in my house, I'm not even kidding. I've got a friend who comes to my house prepared with her own coffee fixin's whenever she stops by because she knows all I have for adding to coffee in my house is ground cinnamon. She left some of her sugar chemical "creamer" at my house when she was over last weekend, and when she arrived this weekend she was shocked to find that I had thrown it in the garbage. You can't keep the stuff you're poisoning yourself with in my house! By the way - that flavored coffee "creamer" stuff everyone is on to is just not right, and did you know that you can light coffee mate on fire? For reals! FIRE, MAN!! That can't be good for you!

Limit Fat Free and Lite foods. Fat free and lite do not mean "no calories" or "good for you". In fact, they've got more sugar in them than full fat foods. Why? Because when the fat is removed from food, it tastes like crap. In order to get you to eat it, it needs to taste better. Enter: Sugar. And by the way - any of those "snacks" or things in packages pretending to be food are total garbage anyway. Remember, Fat Free & Lite are very different than "lean" when describing protein.

Read Your Labels: Now that you know what sugar is called in every language, you've got to become vigilant about reading labels. I can't stress it enough. Not only are you looking to avoid ingredients you can't pronounce or couldn't see growing in a field somewhere, you're looking for that little Nazi, sugar. It is in everything from bread, to cereals, yogurts, and all sorts of other things you assume are healthy for you. You do not need sugar in your bread, or your mayonnaise - these things taste perfectly fine without it. One of the reasons food industries put this in our food because it is addicting - you will eat more of it and that means more cashola in their pockets.

Avoid fruit juices and sugary drinks: Fruit juice, while it may be 100% pure juice, does not have the fibre in it that the actual fruit does. What that means is that it goes straight to your bloodstream as sugar as it doesn't get digested the way fruit does. It's drinking calories, and that's just such a waste. In general, not a good idea for any of us. And soft drinks are junk - period.

At first, cutting sugar out might seem like things have no taste, but mark my words - once you cut it out and have a taste of a salad dressing that's got sugar in it, you'll notice immediately how horrible and sugary it tastes. This process doesn't take long - give it a week or two. It also doesn't take long to get used to eating sugar again, so pay attention to how much you consume. Most of our taste buds are used to sugar because it is in so many things, but when you get rid of this crap in all your foods, you start to taste the beauty of food - real food. It has so much flavor to enjoy, and doesn't need the garbage added. I'm not saying that we should NEVER eat sugar, because Lord knows I love me a good dessert once in a while - but it's once in a while. It's called Moderation.

Here are some interesting links about the evil that is sugar:

Nancy Appleton - LOADS of information & research about the dangers of sugar.

http://nancyappleton.com/

Amazon - The Sugar Blues

http://www.amazon.ca/Sugar-Blues-William-Dufty/dp/0446343129

And a recent article about how HFCS causes High Blood Pressure and Heart Disease:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38046950/ns/health-heart_health/

I've started a petition to have HFCS banned in Canada and am in the process of collecting signatures. Contact me if you're interested in helping out, or check out the website we have dedicated to this cause.
www.banhfcs.northsun.ca