Is Sugar Killing Me?

Understanding more about sugar and sweeteners can be very important to your health. Most people, including experts, would agree that a great way to improve health is to decrease your sugar intake. Cutting back on sugar would decrease your intake of calories that can cause excess weight as well as your chances of getting diabetes – both very serious problems in the U.S. as well as other areas.

It has been estimated by the United States Department of Agriculture that the average American consumes over 160 pounds of sugar per year. At the turn of the 20th century the average consumption was recorded at 40 pounds per year. Now this begs the question whether the increase in diabetes, obesity and several other health problems over the last couple of decades is merely a coincidence? I don’t think so. The inconvenient truth is that something as innocent as a grain of sugar has been scientifically proven to be just as addictive as cocaine and food manufacturers are exploiting this legal drug.

About 65% of U.S. adults are overweight or obese. Childhood diabetes has increased tenfold since 1985 and it is predicted that if this trend continues, one out of every three children born will develop diabetes in their lifetime.

The biggest culprits are soft drinks, which make up about 33% of overall sugar intake for the average American. People who argue that switching to energy drinks are healthier would be wrong, because energy drinks pretty much consist of water, sugar and artificial flavors. However, sodas are not the only source of sugar by far. Manufacturers are hiding sugar in products we never even thought contained sugar in the first place, such as almond milk, ketchup, barbecue sauce, salad dressings, packaged meats and too many more to list here.

In order to save money, food industries started to replace sugar with fructose corn syrup. Corn syrup, which looks like honey, is 24% water and 76% sugar. To make matters worse, 83% of teenagers go to a school where soft drinks, energy drinks and candy are actively promoted. The constant advertising on television, radio and the internet is astonishing. It shouldn’t be difficult to understand why so many people are struggling to lose weight. It’s in their faces constantly, they are tricked into thinking some things are healthy and they are consuming sugar without even knowing it. 

There is no pretty way to say that a high intake can lead to death. According to a 15 year long Harvard study, the current levels of sugar intake doesn’t just add 10% of calories per day, but it also doubles your chances of dying from heart disease. As well, more than 10 million Americans suffer from some form of diabetes and about 4 million more are unaware they even have it. If it wasn’t for Mexico, America would be on top of the list for the country with the highest obesity rates, and everyone knows the consequences of being obese. Sugar ultimately creates an imbalance in the body that can lead to organ failure and several other pathological conditions.

How much sugar is in fruit juice?

There is one major point about fruit juice that I would like to make. Many people think that drinking fruit juices is a healthy option to sodas and things. Drinking fruit juices is not the same as eating fruit. These juices have been strained of their fiber and just the fruit juice alone is very high in sugar content. With no fiber, this fruit juice sugar goes directly into your bloodstream.

Here’s a short excerpt from the website: https://www.hookedonjuice.com/ 

12 ounces of >>>>>>>	Coca-Cola	Orange Juice	Apple Juice	Cherry Juice	Grape Juice
Total carbohydrates	40 g	39 g	42 g	49.5 g	60 g
Carbs from sugar	40 g	33 g	39 g	37.5 g	58.5 g
Sugar (teaspoons)	10 tsp	8 tsp	10 tsp	9 tsp	15 tsp
Calories	145	165	165	210	240

“WHAT DOES THE CHART TELL US? It tells us that no matter which fruit juice you choose, they all have more calories than the same amount of Coke. It tells us that juice — 100 percent juice, no sugar added — contains about the same amount of sugar (or even more — 50 percent more for grape juice) as the same volume of Coke. For this comparison we used: Classic Coke, Tropicana HomeStyle Orange Juice, Walnut Acres Organic 100 Percent Apple Juice, Eden Organic Montmorency Cherry Juice (no sweetener added) and R.W. Knudsen Unsweetened Concord Grape Juice. The numbers in the chart were calculated from the nutrition labels on the containers.”

Eating fruit is not the same as just drinking the juice. When you eat the fruit, you get much less juice and you get all of the fiber. So while you are getting some sugar, it is a much lower dose and it is absorbed much more slowly. I do recommend eating more of the low glycemic impact fruits such as berries and melons.

A Solution for Sugars and Sweeteners

But there are solutions. Ways you can have your cake and eat it without the health risks. Check out the section of this website called Sugars and Sweeteners for some great solutions.

Artificial sweeteners have been hailed at the great solution to replace sugar, however more and more information is coming to light that these alternatives are unsafe and even worse than sugar.

But what if there was an naturally sweet herb that has been used safely for decades in other areas of the world that could replace sugar? Well there is and it has finally started to catch fire in the U.S. It’s called Stevia.

Using stevia as an all-natural alternative to sugar works fabulously well and has many benefits!

Stevia rebaudiana, is derived from a plant in the chrysanthemum family grown primarily in South America and Asia. It’s sweetening qualities are complex molecules called steviosides. They are glycosides and make stevia up to 300 times sweeter than sugar. These glycosides don’t get absorbed into the body, they just pass through leaving no calories.

The advantages of using stevia are numerous. In its pure form, it’s non-caloric and doesn’t affect glucose levels, an advantage for diabetics as well as those suffering from candida. Also, it has no carbohydrates or fat, so it’s great for dieters, especially those watching carb intake. Unlike artificial sweeteners, high quality stevia has little aftertaste when measured properly. It has no known side effects like some chemical sweeteners and has been safely consumed around the world for decades.

With the widespread use of sugar and artificial sweeteners at dangerous levels, stevia is a welcome option for those who want to use more natural ingredients with no known side effects, no calories, no carbs, no fat and no adverse effect on glucose levels.

The website www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, under the direction of the National Institutes of Health, National Library of Medicine and National Center of Biotechnology Information, offers abstracts from stevia studies that indicate it may also aid in lowering blood pressure and regulating glucose levels. Here’s one such article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20370653

Imagine, a sweetener with no side effects except perhaps good ones, complete with potential blood sugar-lowering properties! That’s stevia!

IMPORTANT!  All Stevia products are not the same.

I have been investigating various Stevia products and have found some very important facts that you should be aware of regarding Stevia – mostly that many of the Stevia products on the market contain other ingredients than just stevia. 

For example: Stevia in the Raw is mostly Maltodextrin. 

Truvía is another stevia-based sugar substitute developed jointly by The Coca-Cola Company and Cargill. It is distributed and marketed by Cargill as a tabletop sweetener as well as a food ingredient. Truvía is made of rebiana, erythritol, and natural flavors. Because it comes from the stevia plant, Cargill classifies it as a natural sweetener. Since its launch in 2008, Truvía has become the second best-selling sugar substitute in the United States.

MORE WAYS TO REPLACE SUGAR AND SWEETENERS NATURALLY:

While there are numerous natural sugars/sweeteners available such as honey, agave, coconut palm sugar and others, most of these are fairly high in sugar content. On the glycemic index (GI), sugar is rated at 100. Honey and maple syrup are both around 50. Coconut palm sugar is a 35 and agave is below that even though agave has a high fructose content. 

Stevia is at zero, which is ideal, but many people have issues with the taste. Yacon Syrup is another good option as it too is at zero, and I covered info about this below. 

Another option is Monk Fruit or otherwise known as Luo Han Guo. Again beware of many forms of this sweetener being called Monk Fruit, but mostly containing a sugar alcohol such as maltodextrine or erythritol. 

Monk Fruit is also a zero on the Glycemic Index and one of the most exciting new sweeteners to emerge in the last few years. The plant is native to the Guangxi province in southwestern China. Luo Han means monk and Guo means fruit – thus Monk Fruit. 

I found a source of Monk Fruit without sugar alcohols made by Virgin Extracts ™ and you can buy it on Amazon – here’s the link: 

There’s another natural sweetener you can try. It’s called Yacón syrup . Click on it and the link takes you to the Wikipedia entry about it. But in short, it is extracted from the roots of the yacón plant. The syrup is made with a similar process to maple syrup. 

People in South America have eaten yacón for centuries because of its nutritional properties, few calories and low glycemic index.

The FOS (Fructo-oligosaccharides sugars) in yacón aren’t fully digested. The body treats them as soluble fiber and they pass into the gut where they provide beneficial bulk helping the movement of waste through the intestine. As well, I am told that they promote the fermentation of beneficial bacteria in the gut. As a result, they provide only about one third the calories of sugar.

Another huge benefit is that yacón is almost a zero on the glycemic index, making it suitable for diabetics. Tests have also shown other benefits including regulation of blood sugar and insulin levels and improvement in cholesterol levels.

You can order it on Amazon. It looks like a dark honey, but is about half as sweet as honey (and way lower than honey on the Glycemic Index). No bitterness or aftertaste. I am quite enjoying this new discovery!

New Book Coming Soon!