Is Sugar Toxic?

[mckitterick]

First, read this NYT article on why sugar is so dangerous to your health. I'll wait.

I stopped eating refined sugars a year ago, and within two weeks I lost 10 pounds. I also started feeling healthier almost right away. This is why: Not only does sugar (cane, corn, you name it - refined sugar) make us fat, but it also causes insulin resistance. This makes it a primary cause for diabetes and metabolic syndrome. That means sugar causes heart disease. Worse yet, because of all these effects, it promotes cancer.

There's a terrifying thought, considering that it's in almost every prepared food you find in the grocery store.


Click the image to see the NYT article.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to give up refined sugar for one month. See how much your body responds.

Starting today, I'm giving up on diet soda, as well. Why? One's body sees the artificial sweetener and produces insulin in response... so the most dangerous aspect of sugar - that it promotes these diseases - can't be avoided by using artificial sweeteners in place of sugar. I've been noticing soreness in my guts, what appears from all symptoms to be a gall-bladder issue. Therefore, my body is responding to diet soda by producing insulin and increasing my triglycerides (blood fat) from artifical sweetneners.

*sigh*

I'll report in a month on how that's going. I hope to hear from YOU, too!

Good luck.
Chris

Comments

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

I looked at a package of 95% cocoa the other week and realized that the entire bar contains less sugar than... heck, than almost anything. But that feels like a slipperly slope....

I guess it all depends on your willpower.

[emt-hawk.livejournal.com]

We stop at Godiva's or Lindt stores and buy A truffle, not a bag of truffles. Or we buy a bag of individually-wrapped 95% chocolate chocolates, so we can eat ONE one oz chocolate, not a 16 oz bar of chocolate. Opening the second wrapper is usually not necessary after one.

And they're good in coffee, too.

If you deprive yourself of something you like, you are more likely to binge on bad stuff. So finding that a 95% cocoa treat settles the cravings, and is full of bioflavinoids, which are good for you, means that you are less likely to go after a three-pound brick of milk chocolate that has a metric crapton of sugar in it. Or find yourself waking up from an insulin coma, in a pile of aluminum-foil bunny wrappers, after a binge of post-easter sales chocolate.

Your Mileage May Vary,

--EMT Hawk

Re: I guess it all depends on your willpower.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Great points! I also have a shaker of high-fat, Dutch-process cocoa powder that I shake into coffee or hot milk. Yum! And you're right - the good stuff satisfies and doesn't leave you wanting more.

almost forgot

[emt-hawk.livejournal.com]

that one oz of 90% chocolate doesn't jack my blood sugar up.

--Hawk