You've probably noticed more and more people talking about sugar nowadays, right? At least, if you pay attention, you'll notice that a lot of people in the health industry are strongly coming out talking about high sugar consumption and the consequences it's having in our society. And since this is a crucial time of the year, where there are even more desserts and sweets around than usual, I wanted to shed a light on it. Why is it that sugar is so bad, after all?
Well, first and foremost, is not that sugar is the enemy per se... It's the quantity and the type of sugars we are eating (refined sugars) that are the problem here.
When we were hunters and gatherers, we used to eat about 22 tsp of sugar/year. After all, fruit is only ripe for so long, and at specific times of the year, plus we'd be so lucky to run into a beehive.
In the 1800's our sugar intake was already at10 lbs/year - when we learned how to grow food, we started to grow more of the sweeter foods (what do you think you would choose to grow if you could - watermelon or kale?). But now we eat an average of 150 lbs/ year!!!!! (source Dr.Mark Hyman - watch this video) That's right - and if that's not alarming to you, it should be... It seems the inflammation caused by sugar, can even cause what doctors now call of Diabetes type III - Alzheimer's!
So what can you do, when you have such a strong dependency on sugar? We know sugar can be more addictive than cocaine, according to a study conducted with mice, but if you want to start somewhere, you can start creating massive changes just with these 2 steps:
Replace refined sugars in your recipes for more natural sources of sugar (like coconut sugar, dates, honey, etc). These won't spike our blood sugar levels as much and won't give you such a big craving like refined sugars. (try these refined sugar free recipes coconut and pumpkin bars and pumpkin spice cookies)
Eliminate completely your consumption of packaged foods containing hidden sugars. As a recent study points out "cutting 20% of sugar from packaged foods and 40% from beverages could prevent 2.4 million cardiovascular disease events, 490,000 cardiovascular events, and over 700,000 cases of diabetes in the US." (Science Daily via Dr. Mark Hyman). Please grab my free PDF with the 65 hidden names of sugar to help you identify the most common ones, and have it on your phone, for when you're grocery shopping.
To find more, watch this week's Tip of The Week here (or click below)
See you next week!
Marcia