Prince's Diamonds & Pearls #85
Lick the Sugar Habit
“We consume, on average, nearly 150 pounds of sugar and sweeteners a year.” – Nancy Appleton
When I first read the statement, I thought that the claim was ludicrous. How could I consume my body weight in sugar? However when I really considered it and looked into the claim, I was astounded.
Like Forrest Gump, I enjoy Dr. Pepper. One can of Dr. Pepper contains 40 grams of sugar and if I went a full year with only drinking one 12 ounce can of Dr. Pepper each day, at the end of one year I would have consumed over 32 pounds of sugar! And this is just one item. What would be the total number of sugar consumption when I take into consideration my daily meals and snacks?!
Throughout the world, there exists “sugarholics”, slaves and victims of sugar. And I must admit that I’ve been a longstanding member of the club. Your body only needs two teaspoons of blood sugar at any time to function properly. This amount can be obtained easily through the digestion of unrefined carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Even if we ate no glucose or refined sugar at all, our bodies would still have plenty of blood sugar.
Between 2001 and 2018, world sugar consumption increased from 123.454 to 172.441 million metric tons. Refined sugar is 99.4 to 99.7 percent pure calories – no vitamins, minerals, or proteins, just simple carbohydrates. Sugar upsets the body chemistry and devastates the endocrine and immune systems, leading to a host of diseases and conditions:
The minerals needed to digest sugar – chromium, manganese, cobalt, copper, zinc, and magnesium – are stripped from the sugar during the refining process. This, in turn, forces the body to deplete its own mineral reserves to process the sugar. Since enzymes are dependent on minerals to function, they do not function optimally. This, in turn, causes incomplete digestion of food. Undigested food gets into the bloodstream and the cells cannot get the nutrients they need from the food in this undigested form. As a result, our immune system must come to our defense and escort the undigested food out of the body. The immune system, which was not meant to do this continually, becomes exhausted. The exhaustion of the immune system is the beginning of degenerative disease processes.
Human evolution has not yet caught up with the sugar industry. For many thousands of years, mankind ate no refined sugar at all. Early man ate meat, some vegetables, fruit, seeds, and nuts. The past couple of hundred years of sugar is merely a moment compared to this, and our bodies have not yet evolved mechanisms to cope with this glut. Therefore, our bodies are not able to metabolize large amounts of sugar on a daily basis.
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One of the problems with regulating sugar consumption is being able to identify the foods that contain it. It’s not always obvious. Many foods, however, do contain sugar:
We all have cravings and addictions. However, ultimately, you are the one who is responsible for what goes into and what does not go into your mouth.
Start reading food labels. Be on the lookout for any words on ingredient lists that mean sugar. This would include honey, maple syrup, corn syrup, corn sweetener, dextrin, barley malt, rice syrup, glucose, sucrose, and dextrose. Ingredients must be listed on products labels according to their predominance, but don’t be fooled by a product that lists corn sweetener as the third ingredient, brown sugar as the fourth, and dextrose as the fifth. This is a deceptive method of dealing with a lot of sugar in a product. If these three types of sugar were combined on the product’s ingredient list, sugar might very well be the first ingredient on the label.
I’m not suggesting that you go cold-turkey with removing sugar out of your diet. I recommend making small changes to your lifestyle. My wife substitutes milk in her coffee instead of using cream. I try to restrict my consumption of sweets to the weekend instead of mindlessly eating them throughout the week. I notice that when I am not working towards the smaller victories over excessive sugar consumption, that I do end up getting sicker easier and more frequently.
Are you fed up with being groggy or easily agitated? Do you want to remove the suffering of joint paint or inflammation? Look into your diet. Sugar may be the culprit.
I challenge you to take inventory of what you’re eating. See where you can make small, but manageable changes that will take you into a healthier direction. Success is not just about professional growth and career stewardship, but one must also make personal health a priority.
References: Lick the Sugar Habit by Nancy Appleton.