Sugar. Why it’s killing us and what to do about it.

April 12th, 2011
By Craig Fear

Every now and then I come across and article so important that I wish I could have everyone in the world read it. I think to myself, “My God, if everyone read just this, imagine how much suffering could be avoided. Imagine the far reaching effect this could have. Just imagine.”

Well, you may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.

I say this because I read just such an article yesterday morning. The title of the article is “The Cure for Diabetes”. And I want you to read it. And then I want you to share it with someone you know who’s been affected by diabetes. Put it on your Facebook page. Blast it out to the Twitter universe. Just share it with as many people as you can.

It will make you understand why we’re in the midst of this epidemic that is affecting tens of millions of us and why it’s showing no signs of stopping. It will make you understand how a few simple dietary changes can dramatically improve your life and the lives of your loved ones.

This is an epidemic that may do all of us in. Seriously, I’m not kidding. Because this one is very inconspicuous. It’s not on the front of your newspapers every morning. It’s not on your radio. It’s not featured on CNN or any other news program. But if you’re eating the standard American diet, it is on your breakfast plate every morning, it’s in your beverages, it’s in your lunch, your dinner and pretty much everything else you eat. And if you’ve read any of my previous blogs, you know I’m not talking about fat and cholesterol.

I’m talking about sugar.

We are killing ourselves in this country with the unbelievable amounts of sugar we collectively consume. Never before in human history have we introduced dietary changes so quickly and so dramatically in such a short time span. In the mid to late 1800s when sugar was becoming more available due to the Industrial Revolution, the average American ate about five to ten pounds of sugar per year. With the increased availability and efficiency in production, today the average American consumes over 150 pounds per year. This is wreaking absolute havoc with our health.

When you’re done reading the article, I want you to take a simple home test to determine if you’re eating too much sugar. It’s what I call the Yogurt Taste Test. This test will gauge whether or not your taste buds are overly acclimated to sugar. Do it with your friends, your family, your kids and your colleagues as well.

Here’s what you do:

Buy full fat, whole milk, PLAIN yogurt.

Take a few spoonfuls.

Ask yourself, “Does this taste bland?”

If you answered yes, you have too much of a sweet tooth.

Whole milk yogurt has a natural sweetness due to the natural sugars present in milk. It is mildly and pleasantly sweet.

But if we’re so used to eating sugar, whole milk yogurt will taste very bland. This is why yogurt companies add all sorts of sugary fruit flavorings, most of which have added sugars, including artificial sugars. If you need that strawberry-peach-vanilla flavored yogurt or the blueberry-banana one to appease your taste buds, there’s a good chance you need and crave sugar in many of your other foods too.

The food industry knows this and they’re more than happy to oblige by tricking you into buying their high sugar junk food. On the front of their products, in big, colored lettering with lots of exclamation points and with the endorsement of some government health organization will be a low fat and low cholesterol label. Don’t fall for it.

Now look at the ingredients on the back. Along with a long list of unpronounceable, bizarre chemicals, you’ll see things like corn syrup, fructose, high fructose corn syrup, maltose, sucrose, dextrose, disaccharides, polysaccharides, etc. All hidden sugars.

We’ve become so accustomed to these things in our foods that we don’t even realize they’re unnatural and loaded with sugar. Worse, we become addicted to sugar. It gives us a temporary boost in energy and mood. This is why we reach for that sugary sweet mid-morning or mid-afternoon. It feels good but again, it’s temporary. Eventually we crash and we need more sugar. And the vicious cycle perpetuates.

Over the long term, our health deteriorates. It used to happen slowly, but today because we’ve become so ignorant and misinformed about diet, kids are coming into this world eating primarily sugar based diets. This is why type II diabetes can no longer be called adult onset diabetes. What used to take decades to unfold, is now happening in children. This is frightening.

I cannot over emphasize this enough. I will try though by using the caps lock key on my keyboard. THE NUMBER ONE MOST IMPORTANT THING WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR DIET IS TO REMOVE SUGAR!!! You must start understanding where the hidden sugars lie and to start weaning yourself off sugar. Please do it with your kids too.

The question is, how? On the surface it seems easy, but it’s often quite difficult.

Stay tuned. In my next article, I’ll give you several essential tips for how to do this.

In the meantime, here’s the link to the article, “The Cure for Diabetes”: http://bit.ly/eyPaA4

And again, please share it with others. And if you like this blog, please do the same!

11 Comments » | Posted in Diabetes, Sugar |