Anyone else out there break into the Easter basket this weekend? Perhaps, like me, you had a few too many treats and not enough greens. Given all the chocolate bunnies, eggs, jellybeans and peeps still hanging around this day after Easter, I thought I would explain again why I like to say that sugar is the devil!
Last week, in case you missed it, 60 Minutes aired a report entitled “Is Sugar Toxic?” I highly recommend you watch the brief 14 minute video if you haven’t done so already.
In the piece, they interview several doctors and scientists, including Dr. Lustig from the University of California of San Francisco. You might recall that I shared a lecture by Dr. Lustig with you in my first ever blog post titled (no surprise here) “Sugar Is the Devil.”
The 60 Minutes story reinforced many things I’ve been talking about for some time. The piece is full of hard evidence, and touts some breakthrough research being done that proves sugar is much worse than previously thought. As you know, I think excessive sugar consumption is one of the main causes of obesity, diabetes, cancer and heart disease. And the really scary thing about sugar is that it is not just in sweets – it’s in practically every processed food we Americans eat -- including bread, yogurt, salad dressing and more.
How did we end up with all this sugar in our food? In the 1970’s, some not-so-smart politicians used the partial results of one study that linked dietary fat to an increase in heart disease to make the case for an enormous reduction of dietary fat in the American diet. Unfortunately for us, this faulty study ultimately led to a government mandate to reduce fat and thus began our obsession with the low-fat diet.
As the 60 Minutes piece proves, this grand experiment has been a colossal failure. You see, when food manufacturers started cutting out the fat, the food didn’t taste very good. They had to replace the fat with something and they chose…wait for it…SUGAR! Now we know what happens to all that extra sugar. First of all, your body stores excess sugar as fat – but not all of it. Some of that excess sugar gets into your bloodstream, where it turns into artery-clogging cholesterol. We also know that sugar is addictive, much like heroin or cocaine. (Yes, you read that correctly.) Your body craves it in ever-greater quantities.
Fast-forward almost 40 years and here we are… fatter and sicker than ever.
So what can you do about it? Well, in the near term, you can put down what’s left of that chocolate bunny and you can start to eat mostly real whole foods. Sugar in its natural state is nothing like the refined stuff you get in sodas or muffins, and even seemingly healthy foods like granola bars and nutrition shakes are loaded with sugar. Start slow if you have to. Try to replace one snack each day with a piece of fruit. That’s not a big sacrifice but it can have major results. If you work to eliminate processed foods from your diet you will go a long way toward preventing a whole host of illnesses and diseases.
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