(NaturalNews) We are encouraged to think of sugary foods as wholesome and desirable. Our children's fairy tales and stories are filled with sugary references, Hansel and Gretel for example. Every special occasion and holiday has its own sugar icon. Birthday cakes for birthdays, candy for Valentine's Day, Easter baskets for Easter, candy canes for Christmas.
Cookbooks call for cups of sugar for dessert recipes. Coffee breaks would hardly be breaks without sugared coffee and doughnuts. Bake sales are huge ways to raise money and Girl Scout cookies are a much-anticipated annual event.
We even equate sugar with goodness. Little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice. They then grow up to be someone's "honey" or "sugarplum".
Question: Is America committing gastronomic suicide with our current rate of sugar consumption?
Sugar (or sucrose as it is technically called) is more a drug than a food. Foods are supposed to have vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats, trace minerals and elements. Sugar has none of these elements that are essential for life.
Most people don't know how much sugar they eat. Why? It's not a matter of just keeping track of how many teaspoons you sprinkle on your cereal or pour into your coffee. 75% of the sugar we eat is already present in the prepared and packaged foods and beverages we buy.
Sugar is virtually invisible. Very few food items are sugar-free and sugar is the largest single ingredient in the American diet.
So, what happens when you eat a piece of chocolate cake?
First, your teeth come into contact with sugary foods. Tooth decay affects almost every person in the U.S. Sugar in the diet influences the sort of organisms that can colonize and grow on tooth surfaces. Everyone has some of these organisms, but people who consume a high-sugar diet have much more dental plaque.
When your chocolate cake reaches the small intestine, the sugar content of the cake passes quickly through the intestinal walls. This causes a fast and dramatic rise in the body's blood glucose levels... your blood sugar level. Glucose is blood sugar and is the energy source for each cell in our bodies. Every move of our muscles burns glucose and the brain needs glucose for all of its activities.
When this is working properly, we have a constant and even amount of glucose circulating in the bloodstream. Want to hear something amazing? This amount is only approximately 2 teaspoons! Your chocolate cake contains 10 teaspoons. Far too much for your bloodstream to absorb and use. Insulin, which controls the amount of glucose in your blood, is secreted from the pancreas. As it attempts to regulate this excessive amount of sugar, more insulin is issued. The insulin does its job, but frequently does it too well. Your blood glucose level will drop back to normal and will actually continue to drop until too much glucose has been removed from the blood stream. This means that now our muscles, tissues, brain, and other vital organs will not have enough glucose available to perform the necessary functions that they need to accomplish.
Your piece of chocolate cake disrupts the normal blood glucose levels and actually leaves you hungrier in the long run.
Over consumption of sugar has been directly linked to the following conditions:
Anemia, kidney lesions, fat deposits in the kidney, hypertension, arteriosclerosis, duodenal ulcers, asthma, common cold, obesity, gout, gall stones, inflamed gall bladder, allergies, tooth decay, pyorrhea, infectious diseases, indigestion, hypoglycemia, dermatitis, heart disease, and diabetes.
Scientists theorize that humans are born with a preference for sweet foods. This preference likely remains with us for our entire lives. However, there are healthy alternatives that do not wreak the havoc that sucrose does on the human body. The two most readily available and healthy alternatives to processed sugar are raw honey and pure maple syrup. Give your body a chance to wean itself off the drug of processed sugar and give either honey or maple syrup a chance in your diet. You will be thankful both in the short and long term!
About the author
Jo Hartley
Wife, Mother of 8, and Grandmother of 2
Jo is a 41 year old home educator who has always gravitated toward a natural approach to life. She enjoys learning as much as possible about just about anything!
http://loftymatters.com - Current Events
http://winemaiden.com - Simply Abundant Living
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