Going Sugar Free

Like many kids I had a real sweet tooth when I was young, I doubt I was born that way but sweets and chocolate advertising targeted at the youth market certainly worked on me. It’s no wonder then that I found it hard to concentrate on one thing for long and all I really wanted to do was run about and play football!

Sugar is a lot more common than just sweets and obvious foods, because of its addictive nature food manufacturers like to put sugar in their products because it makes them more-ish and addictive. Not bad if you can sell something that people will want more of is it?

The problem with sugar is that it’s a non-food, it’s a stimulant, sure it has calories so it could be said it gives you energy, but the same could be said of alcohol. But those calories are empty at best and downright unhealthy in reality! Sugar provides a sweet taste but at what cost? Well I’ll tell you!

Sugar in the refined sense doesn’t get digested like a normal food, it’s absorbed directly into your blood stream as soon as it’s ingested, through the membranes of the mouth and digestive tract, and in fact you are lucky if any reaches your stomach at all. What this creates is a massive rise in blood sugar which gives you that temporary perky feeling after a sweet snack or sugary tea. But the party has to stop, detecting the sugar rush your pancreas squirts insulin into your bloodstream to control things, all well and good, but because refined sugar is an invention of modern food production your body is not really designed to reign in massive blood sugar spikes. It’s only designed to control the natural blood sugar rises associated with eating the natural un-refined sugars in natural foods. After a while the refined sugar roller coaster leaves your pancreas and you for that matter, exhausted and feeble, this is the basic foundation of diabetes where your pancreas cannot control blood sugar correctly so it either over or under reacts, leaving blood sugar rising dangerously high or crashing far too low.

The low that you feel after a sugar snack is blood sugar levels dropping too fast as insulin levels peak to control blood sugar, hence the low, and the psychological craving for more sugar, which if indulged, starts the whole process again. You can see how your poor pancreas is getting battered as well as setting you up for a day or mood swings and high calorie, nutrient void sugar cravings! No way to run a body is it?

So if you are a sugar fiend, realise that it is a mental addiction rather than a nutritional need, drop the sugar content off and be careful to look out for the hidden sugar in production foods, breakfast cereal is known to be loaded with sugar. Not a good start to the day at all! Your reward will be more useful level energy throughout the day, more stable emotions and less snacking!
It is also important to understand that naturally occurring fructose and other sugars in fruits and natural foods are much safer and more natural to eat. This is because they are a natural compound part of the food and therefore will be digested and used by the body in a more gradual and stable way. This avoids all the complications of refined sweeteners and is indeed good for the body! Your brain for example uses natural sweeteners as fuel! As we always tend to see, mother nature has all the answers for us, if we care to live by her simple rules.
I hope this information is useful, it's tricky because people obviously like sweet foods, and the more you eat the more sweetness you need to get the same taste sensation. But as we all know, what we want is not always what is good for us!