You Gotta Kick the Sugar Habit!
Americans eat way too much sugar. Besides the sugar we knowingly eat, it is in virtually all our processed foods these days. Go to your pantry and start reading labels. You will be surprised just how many of your food items include either sugar, fructose, corn syrup, or high fructose corn syrup. I know I flipped out when I actually looked at the ingredients on a jar of peanut butter. Here I thought it was a healthy thing to feed my kids! But it is loaded up with HFCS and so is the jelly that accompanies it in a traditional PB&J. Ugh!
Dr. Mercola once again has a great article about the dangers of fructose which I encourage you to read. But here are some highlights for you:
So a very important point is that if you take two animals and you feed one fructose and feed the other one the exact same number of calories but give it as dextrose or glucose, its only the fructose-fed animal that will develop obesity, insulin resistance, fatty liver, and high triglycerides, signs of inflammation, vascular disease, and high blood pressure.
Today, about 25 percent of all Americans consume over ½ pound of added sugars a day, according to Dr. Johnson's research. That kind of consumption equates to more than 180 pounds of sugar per year! And it just so happens this statistic dovetails nicely with the statistics showing that one in four Americans is either pre-diabetic or has type 2 diabetes.
Reducing sugar in your diet can be tough for some people. After all, sugar is just as addictive as cocaine!
I encourage you to read the article to learn about the safe level of fructose to ingest and healthy sweetener alternatives.
Posted in: health, HFCS on Sunday, March 14, 2010 at at 5:00 AM
We're working on it, but oh, man is it hard! We've already banned HFCS and high-sugar foods from our house, but things have a way of sneaking in.
The stevia has worked well for sweetening my coffee, but I'm going to have to look into alternative non-scary sweeteners for baking & cooking too.
It is hard, isn't it?! I have been trying to keep the kids off the sugar but I keep getting sabotaged by my hubby. I go to work on Mondays and he fills them up with candy bars and ice cream while I'm gone! We'll get it together soon enough, I'm sure. :)
Blessings!
Amy
i was going to make the obligatory synida joke about how i hardly eat any sugar at all-haha, wink, wink--being the super sweet tooth that i am.....BUUUUUT, then i hit on what is actually a very good point: being the food snob that i am, MY sugars are NOT processed; when i eat sugar, it's because i am eating sweets, yes, SUGAR ON PURPOSE. and it is SUGAR, not HFCS, etc. (yuk!) i also do use healthier alernatives such as agave which, i'm sure you know, but some readers may not, has a very low glycemic index. NOOO, i am NOT saying my sugar consumption is "healthful" because it is pure. i am saying that many people out there (most?) are eating as much as i am and MORE without even meaning to AND they are eating the ersatz, junk, fake versions.
Well, actually the verdict is out on agave being low glycemic. What we do know for sure is that it is almost all fructose and not a healthy alternative. I know... I thought it was a good one too, I mean, that's how it's advertised after all. (first clue) Here's another link for you all about agave - http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/07/02/Agave-A-Triumph-of-Marketing-over-Truth.aspx
Blessings!
Amy