(NaturalNews) SUGAR SHOCK! How Sweets and Simple Carbs Can Derail Your Life, written by journalist Connie Bennett with Stephen Sinatra MD, is not just another low-carb diet book. In the book, Ms. Bennett explains the addictive nature of sugar and discusses the profound effects this can have on your health. She uses sometimes humorous, sometimes scary anecdotes of how sugar affected her own life to get the point across, but follows these up with scientific explanations that most lay people can understand and quotes from numerous scientists, doctors and other experts. To a person hearing about the evils of sugar for the first time, SUGAR SHOCK! can be frightening but is a real eye-opener. It should make anyone think twice before grabbing that cup of fancy coffee loaded with sugar or the early-afternoon candy bar and soda for a so-called “pick me up”.
A self described “sugar-shrew”, Ms. Bennett tells you what her life was like with sugar and about the revelations which led her to kick the sugar habit. A journalist by trade, Connie Bennett began investigating sugar after being diagnosed with "reactive hypoglycemia," or low blood sugar, a condition in which the blood sugar rises rapidly after ingestion of simple sugars, then plummets just as rapidly a short time later. In the first chapter, Ms Bennett is able to tie a huge number of seemingly unrelated symptoms to what she has termed "SUGAR SHOCK". She lists 44 debilitating emotional and physical effects of sugar ranging from mood swings and temper tantrums to thoughts of suicide. She also includes such physical symptoms as heart palpitations, fatigue, loss of coordination and fainting. I think the list is something everyone should read and remember. Ms. Bennett describes herself as a “crabby, cantankerous shrew” who had spent years alienating herself from family and friends. She was able to “cure” all 44 symptoms simply by eliminating sugars and refined carbohydrates from her diet.
SUGAR SHOCK! successfully ties in the increase in obesity and Type 2 diabetes to the increased intake of refined carbohydrates. She talks about all refined sugars, not just sucrose and makes a good case against high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) which may be the most harmful of all sugars. SUGAR SHOCK! even explores the effect of sugar and refined carbohydrates on aging. One interesting connection made in this book is that farm subsidies have kept the price of a few commodities, especially corn and soybeans, artificially low while prices for high quality fruits and vegetables have steadily increased. This has led to a surge in products that are extremely cheap to produce, most notably, foods and drinks sweetened with HFCS. These products contribute nothing but harmful elements to our diet yet provide manufacturers with their greatest profits.
Are all carbohydrates evil? SUGAR SHOCK! can be alarming to a person coming across this information for the first time. Although the hazards of refined carbohydrates are very well stated and explored, I don’t think enough emphasis is put on healthy carbohydrates and their function in the diet. Yes, she mentions whole grains etc, but the overall tone of the book is that carbohydrates are evil. Ms. Bennett's points about “good” carbs, which are essential to good health, tend to get lost in the midst of the sugar blasting. I don’t want you to think that Ms. Bennett advocates cutting out all carbs, because she most certainly does not and she does give appropriate information about which carbohydrates you should switch to. I’m just afraid, that to a first time reader, these points may be lost. Possibly an entire chapter dedicated to only healthy carbs would be helpful. I also found the book a little disjointed. Ms. Bennett would start to talk about something, then say “more on this in Chapter...”. Again, for the first time reader and especially for somebody being exposed to this information for the first time, it can be a little disconcerting. I would also like to have seen a recipe section included. Maybe Ms. Bennett will follow up with a cookbook incorporating the principles in Sugar Shock!.
Ms. Bennett concludes the book with a section for parents, a question and answer section on how to get off sugar, her own success strategies and an afterword with stories showing “signs of promise”. In a world in which we are constantly bombarded with sugar-filled foods and drinks, this book serves as a great reminder that these foods should NOT form the basis of our diet. Next time you have a craving for a soda or candy bar, read SUGAR SHOCK! and pass it on to your friends and family. If you are new to this information, after reading it the first time, go back and read it again. The book contains lots of wonderful information not just on sugar, but on trans-fats, artificial sweeteners and other harmful elements of most peoples’ diets. Some of this information may get overlooked during the first reading but is information you should really know. Bottom line, I would say that SUGAR SHOCK! is a must read for consumers of the Standard American Diet (SAD).
About the authorPatty is a recent convert to health through "whole foods" nutrition and alternative medicine. In April 2007, she was told to go back on morphine, get in a wheelchair and "learn to live with it". Since that time, she has spent countless hours researching nutrtion and alternative health. She comes to News Target with a unique perspective in this area after working in pharmacy and teaching pharmacology for 15 years, followed by 15 years as an RN. In less than 6 months of following this lifestyle, she has lost 50lbs, stopped over 20 prescription drugs and no longer has several "diseases".
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