As you know, I am always banging on about Sugar and why you shouldn't consume it in any form, so I decided to do a little cut and paste today, because I feel this article spells out all the reasons why you should avoid sugar like the plague cause both will kill you, and I think it is blunt enough for everyone to understand, I do think more and more people are now realizing that the problem with their diet and health comes down to Sugar, but the shops still sell it so some people still haven't got the message!
10 Disturbing Reasons Why Sugar is Bad For You Added sugar is the single worst ingredient in the modern diet.It can have harmful effects on metabolism and contribute to all sorts of diseases.Here are 10 disturbing reasons why you should avoid added sugar like the plague. 1. Added Sugar Contains No Essential Nutrients and is Bad For Your TeethYou’ve probably heard this a million times before… but it’s worth repeating. Added sugars (like sucrose and high fructose corn syrup) contain a whole bunch of calories with NO essential nutrients. For this reason, they are called “empty” calories. There are no proteins, essential fats, vitamins or minerals in sugar… just pure energy. When people eat up to 10-20% of calories as sugar (or more), this can become a major problem and contribute to nutrient deficiencies. Sugar is also very bad for the teeth, because it provides easily digestible energy for the bad bacteria in the mouth. Bottom Line: Sugar contains a lot of calories, with no essential nutrients. It also causes tooth decay by feeding the harmful bacteria in the mouth. 2. Added Sugar is High in Fructose, Which Can Overload Your Liver In order to understand what is so bad about sugar, then you need to understand what it is made of. Before sugar enters the bloodstream from the digestive tract, it is broken down into two simple sugars… glucose and fructose.
This is not a problem if we eat a little bit (such as from fruit) or we just finished an exercise session. In this case, the fructose will be turned into glycogen and stored in the liver until we need it. However, if the liver is full of glycogen (much more common), eating a lot of fructose overloads the liver, forcing it to turn the fructose into fat . When repeatedly eating large amounts of sugar, this process can lead to fatty liver and all sorts of serious problems (5). Keep in mind that all of this does NOT apply to fruit. It is almost impossible to overeat fructose by eating fruit. There is also massive individual variability here. People who are healthy and active can tolerate more sugar than people who are inactive and eat a Western, high-carb, high-calorie diet. Bottom Line: For people who are inactive and eat a Western diet, large amounts of fructose from added sugars get turned into fat in the liver. 3. Overloading The Liver With Fructose Can Cause Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease When fructose get turned into fat in the liver, it is shipped out as VLDL cholesterol particles. However, not all of the fat gets out, some of it can lodge in the liver. This can lead to Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD), a growing problem in Western countries that is strongly associated with metabolic diseases . Studies show that individuals with fatty liver consume up to 2-3 times as much fructose as the average person (7, 8). Bottom Line: Excess fructose gets turned into fat, which can lodge in the liver and cause non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. 4. Sugar Can Cause Insulin Resistance, a Stepping Stone Towards Metabolic Syndrome and Diabetes Insulin is a very important hormone in the body. It allows glucose (blood sugar) to enter cells from the bloodstream and tells the cells to start burning glucose instead of fat. Having too much glucose in the blood is highly toxic and one of the reasons for complications of diabetes, like blindness. One feature of the metabolic dysfunction that is caused by the Western diet, is that insulin stops working as it should. The cells become “resistant” to it. This is also known as insulin resistance, which is believed to be a leading driver of many diseases… including metabolic syndrome, obesity, cardiovascular disease andespecially type II diabetes . Many studies show that sugar consumption is associated with insulin resistance, especially when it is consumed in large amounts . Bottom Line: When people eat a lot of sugar, it can cause resistance to the hormone insulin, which can contribute to many diseases. 5. The Insulin Resistance Can Progress to Type II Diabetes When our cells become resistant to the effects of insulin, the beta cells in our pancreas make more of it. This is crucial, because chronically elevated blood sugars can cause severe harm. Eventually, as insulin resistance becomes progressively worse, the pancreas can’t keep up with the demand of producing enough insulin to keep blood sugar levels down. At this point, blood sugar levels skyrocket and a diagnosis of type II diabetes is made. Given that sugar can cause insulin resistance, it is not surprising to see that people who drink sugar-sweetened beverages have up to an 83% higher risk of Type II diabetes . Bottom Line: Because of the harmful effects of sugar on the function of insulin, it is a leading driver of type II diabetes. 6. Sugar Can Give You Cancer Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide and is characterized by uncontrolled growth and multiplication of cells. Insulin is one of the key hormones in regulating this sort of growth. For this reason, many scientists believe that having constantly elevated insulin levels (a consequence of sugar consumption) can contribute to cancer . In addition, the metabolic problems associated with sugar consumption are a known driver of inflammation, another potential cause of cancer. Multiple studies show that people who eat a lot of sugar are at a much higher risk of getting cancer (16, 17, 18). Bottom Line: There is considerable evidence that sugar, due to its harmful effects on metabolism, can contribute to cancer. 7. Due to its Effects on Hormones and the Brain, Sugar has Unique Fat-Promoting Effects Not all calories are created equal. Different foods can have different effects on our brains and the hormones that control food intake. Studies show that fructose doesn’t have the same kind of effect on satiety as glucose. In one study, people drank either a fructose-sweetened drink or a glucose-sweetened drink. Afterwards, the fructose drinkers had much less activity in the satiety centers of the brain and felt hungrier . There is also a study where fructose didn’t lower the hunger hormone ghrelin nearly as much as glucose did. Over time, because the calories from sugar aren’t as fulfilling, this can translate into an increased calorie intake. Bottom Line: Fructose doesn’t cause satiety in the brain or lower the hunger hormone ghrelin nearly as much as glucose. 8. Because it Causes Massive Dopamine Release in The Brain, Sugar is Highly Addictive Sugar can be addictive for a lot of people. Like abusive drugs, sugar causes a release of dopamine in the reward center of the brain . The problem with sugar and many junk foods is that they can cause massive dopamine release… much more than we were ever exposed to from foods found in nature. For this reason, people who have a susceptibility to addiction can become strongly addicted to sugar and other junk foods. The “everything in moderation” message may be a bad idea for people who are addicted to junk food… because the only thing that works for true addiction is abstinence. Bottom Line: Because sugar causes a large release of dopamine in the brain, it can cause addiction in a lot of people. 9. Sugar is a Leading Contributor to Obesity in Both Children and Adults The way sugar affects hormones and the brain is a recipe for fat gain disaster. It leads to decreased satiety… and can get people addicted so that they lose control over their consumption. Not surprisingly, people who consume the most sugar are by far the most likely to become overweight or obese. This applies to all age groups. Many studies have examined the link between sugar consumption and obesity and found a strong statistical association . The link is especially strong in children, where each daily serving of sugar-sweetened beverages is associated with a whopping 60% increased risk of obesity . One of the most important things you can do if you need to lose weight is to significantly cut back on sugar consumption. Bottom Line: Because of the effects of sugar on hormones and the brain, sugar dramatically increases the risk of becoming overweight or obese. 10. It Ain’t The Fat… It’s SUGAR That Raises Your Cholesterol and Gives You Heart Disease For many decades, people have blamed saturated fat for heart disease… which is the #1 killer in the world. However… new studies are showing that saturated fat is harmless . The evidence is mounting that sugar, NOT fat, may be one of the leading drivers of heart disease via the harmful effects of fructose on metabolism . Studies show that large amounts of fructose can raise triglycerides, small, dense LDL and oxidized LDL (very, very bad), raise blood glucose and insulin levels and increase abdominal obesity… in as little as 10 weeks . These are all major risk factors for heart disease. Not surprisingly, many observational studies find a strong statistical association between sugar consumption and the risk of heart disease. Take Home Message For people who can’t tolerate it, added sugar is incredibly harmful. Empty calories are just the tip of the iceberg.
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The saying "don't judge a book by it's cover" should be applied to your restaurant meals too, unless you are cooking every meal from scratch, do you really know what is in it? or more to the question what the food has been cooked in? We don't go out often but when we do, I always try to make the healthiest choices but even knowing (NOW) what I do, I am sure I am still consuming foods and food stuffs (pretend foods like vegetable and seed oils) each time I go out for a meal with my family. Living in a Country town doesn't offer the "Real Food Organic Restaurants" we don't even have a Boost Juice outlet (much to my disappointment) I love places where you can go and pick and choose what you want in a juice, I like to know that I am still getting more veg to fruit ratio rather than picking off a set menu, I walked past a coffee shop that had a big sign "Fresh Juice made while you wait" when I looked at what was on offer the only vegetable was a carrot! but heaps of fruit, I think they are missing the point, it is not about getting more sugar into your diet it is about getting more nutrients into your body.
After doing my first Juice fast (28 days) my body was actually craving the juices, in fact if I have a whole day without a vege juice, I feel yuk, a bit depressed even, or maybe it is not the lack of the nutrients in that day that the juice provides my body, maybe it is the crap in the food I have eaten instead that makes me feel yuk? I hear people making comments on how great the hot chips tasted wrapped in the butchers paper or newspaper and you just tore open the packet and started eating them, surely people do realize it is not the packaging that made the chips taste so good, otherwise we would just go back to the old way of wrapping the chips, No it is what they were cooked in of course, good old Lard!, saturated fat! I remember my mother cooked in beef dripping, lard or Superfry we couldn't afford Olive oil, well that was pre 70's before they convinced people that we needed to start cooking our food in fake oils, they scared people into thinking that by using butter and saturated fats that they were heading for heart attacks but now we know that the opposite is true. Our local fish and chip shop cooks in "Cotton seed oil" why? because it is cheap, and why run a business if you can't make a profit right? but i don't know about you but I don't eat cotton I wear it, and don't get me started on Vegetable oils, you just don't get oil from vegetables! you get juice I can vouch for that and from that juice you get heaps of nutrients, which also reminds me of pre 70's meals at home, mum would feed me an array of vegetables every day, but I question how much goodness I was actually getting, the vege was boiled limp, and all the goodness went down the sink when the vegetables were drained, so we are thankful to the Asians that showed us that you don't need to cook the life out of the food and it tastes great, but beware they love to use sugar! So back to choosing a restaurant meal, I read the menu carefully and don't like to draw attention to myself by quizzing the staff on each and every item, so I generally pick something that sounds like it would be close to healthy and try to enjoy it, but wouldn't it be great if you had more options, so not only could you pick your steak to be cooked rare, medium rare or well done, but also if it was cooked in oil, dripping or coconut oil? and what about your salad and chips that come with every meal, could I not have my salad with dressing? it wasn't mentioned on the menu but when it came it was glistering with (????) should all your extras actually be extra that you request? and the chips what are they cooked in? how are they cooked? sometimes they taste like reheated leftovers, which for me it is good thing because I try to avoid carbs and if they taste awful then it is easy, and what about restaurant roast potatoes, that are not even roasted and most people just leave them on the plate, doesn't this tell the staff anything? like maybe no one likes potato cooked this way!, Oh and you are fighting a losing battle if you are trying to cut down on the amount you eat, with the size of the plates they use these days is just utterly ridiculous, the plate I had on Monday night was about 15 inches in diameter it needed it's own lazy Susan. Anyway my solution is to not eat out, not that we do it that often, and to stick to what makes my body happy (Vegetable juices) and keep ranting and raving about the sugar and toxic oils, which I think is slowly catching on, having 2 daughters one who tries to cut back on sugar content and the other daughter is proving harder to convert, the later actually had an eye opening moment last week, when asked pick up a lasagne that was under 6g's of sugar per serve, spent sometime actually reading labels and was blown away by the fact that Weight Watchers Lasagne had 21g's sugar compared to the 6 grams, of the lesser brand name one, and for curiosity sake you should check out the difference on all of Weight Watchers products, they all have more sugar than the similar item, my daughter wants to know how anyone actually loses weight on Weight Watchers, and from experience it is from cutting down the portion sizes, feeling hungry all the time but sticking to it so you wont feel ashamed at weigh in, but I bet if they did a survey they would find that they have a greater amount of people that just stop going and who put the weight back on if not a bit more, because the diet is unsustainable and believe it or not concentrates on Low Fat, which we know now means more sugar! so ditch the carbs and bring back the fat So when is a diet not a diet? can you take a "fad" diet and make it a life style change? I don't like to say the word diet, as soon as you mention the word, you are leaving yourself wide open for everyone's opinion of what is good and what is not, you will receive more negativity than support, especially if this is "Diet #139" and you yourself will be having doubts and feeling deprived. I hate the word "diet" I prefer to think that I am changing the way I eat and what I eat that is sustainable for the rest of my life (now that I have found what works for me!), and trust me it has taken a long time, but I feel I am managing not only my weight but my health and diabetes too so it is not a diet it is a life style change.
Having said that I still read the diets and recipes that flood the Facebook pages, and I will recommend to anyone that asks, the way to go for optimum health and weight loss is Low carb high fat, I know a lot of people are scared by the term "high fat" but you should not be scared of the saturated fats that are good for you, it took the health professionals over 30 years to realize the advice on low fat anything and canola and vegetable oils was wrong! and in fact the wrong oils combined with sugar is what causes the inflammation that causes the heart problems, so what do you think about the health officials now? (for 30-40 years they have been feeding the public with the wrong information and making the nation fatter and sicker!) I know they make me angry, but what can you do the damage has been done, now it is up to you to undo as much of that damage as you can but working out which diet or "life style" works best for you and live with it, and not only will you be healthier but a whole lot happier. So how do you find what works for you? I did many years ago try the Atkins diet, the original Atkins designed by Dr Robert Atkins, I glossed over the details of the diet and stayed on the induction stage of the diet for way longer than I should have, I felt the diet was very restrictive and I felt deprived, but now I know this was because I hadn't kicked the sugar habit before I started, and if you are still craving sugar you will fail at all attempts to make your diet a life style change. I did lose weight and a fair bit of weight too about 17 kilos but it took about 4 months and I was unhappy, and when the weight started to go back on, I was even more unhappier, so I look at the Atkins as a fail for me, I didn't sustain the diet and I didn't keep the weight off. I am not trying to turn anyone off going on Atkins as it is primarily a Low carb diet, but it needed some tweaking and my taste buds needed to be sugar free, which they are now, and I basically live an Atkins lifestyle, i don't have carbs like (bread, potato, pasta, rice, SUGAR) but I get a small amount of carbs daily from my vegetable juices which is the key for me, when I was on Atkins I could have bacon and eggs, and meat and lots of veges, but I didn't like the taste of the veges, and I got sick of bacon and eggs (I know that sounds unbelievable, who gets sick of bacon right?) but if you have the same thing over and over you will get sick of it! [when I was 16 I went on a Israeli Army diet, which consisted eat apples for 2 days, then cheese for 2 days, boiled chicken for 2 days finishing with salad for 2 days, well back then I didn't like cheese so I went 4 days eating nothing but apples and to this day I can't eat an apple ha ha, also i did the same with tuna, for 6 months while doing tafe I took a small can of Tuna for lunch and now I don't like tuna] luckily for me I still like eggs and bacon occasionally and more importantly is, that I discovered all those vegetables that are good for you, like spinach, Kale, zucchini broccoli, fennel, cabbage, Brussels sprouts the list goes on and on, well they taste good in a juice! so now I get all the good nutrients in a juice, add in a lemon and lime some ginger and a green apple and you have a great healthy drink that is full of nutrition and tastes good, and the carb count is low!. That saying "don't knock it till you try it", is so true, 20 years ago if you said that I could get healthy lose weight and actually not feel deprived doing it, I would say "bring it on"! but then if you handed me a green juice and said it has spinach, broccoli, cabbage, etc in it, I would say "Arrr no thanks" and I wouldn't even try it, a bit like one of my daughters now, ha ha her reaction to juicing veges is "Hell No" but I think she is young give her another 20 years and she will look at food and lifestyle in a more matured way, like I do now. For those of us that have diabetes it is a juggling act, to find the right amount that works for you, something that you can call a life style not a diet, no one wants to diet for the rest of their life, especially when people scrutinize, every thing you eat once you proclaim to be on a diet, it is like they take it upon themselves to be your "guardian of the gob" put a handful of nuts in your mouth and on cue you will hear "should you be eating that?" and you should be grateful that someone cares enough, but it doesn't feel like that at the time because no one likes to be told what to do, and to be honest you have to take control of your own health, you have to want to lose weight more than you want the bar of chocolate or the cupcake, you have to make sacrifices, that you think you can't live without until you do and realise that you didn't need it, or want it afterall, and the bottom line is, you have to learn "Eat to Live" not "Live to Eat" |
Wendy MeersI am a mother of two grown daughters, 3 beautiful grand-babies. Retired freelance Web Designer and a Sugar Free - Juicing Crusader& Keto supporter Archives
May 2022
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