Are You Sweet Enough?

Hi, I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since I last Blogged, well I have now lost 10 lbs in weight and counting, my next weigh in is on Sunday and unlike some people trying to lose weight, I can't wait as I am hoping to be in to the next stone, I'll keep you posted.  Here is an article on Sugar that I think is a must for everybody as it is for our Good Health, see what you think

Sugar
It’s said that for every American who eats only 5 pounds of sugar each year, another eats 295 pounds. This statistic is hard to deny, because about 60% of the U.S. population is now overweight or obese.

Part of my professional responsibility to you is to not downplay the serious damage that sugar can do to your body. I am passionate about communicating the harmful effects of sugar because I have seen clients and loved ones suffer from severe complications of type 2 diabetes, the onset of which was caused directly by their consumption of sugar and refined carbohydrates. Processed sugar (which is in cakes, cookies, processed cereals, and many other foods) can literally be considered a poison, which is anything that directly causes harm and can lead to a diseased state when you ingest it.

For starters, daily sugar consumption produces a continuous acidic condition in the body. The body combats an acidic condition by taking minerals from body tissues to buffer against the acidic environment and rectify the imbalance.

For example, the body may absorb calcium from bones and teeth to protect the blood. As a result, bones weaken (resulting in osteoporosis) and teeth decay (resulting in cavities). Excess sugar eventually affects every organ in the body.

Sugar has been proven to be the cause of several diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.

When the liver has stored all the sugar that it can, the excess is returned to the blood in the form of fatty acids. These fatty acids are then stored as fat in the most inactive areas of the body: belly, buttocks, breasts, and thighs.

When these areas become completely filled with fat, fatty acids are then distributed among active organs (heart, liver, and kidneys), increasing the risk of developing diabetes and disease in these organs.

It is well known and well documented that cancer cells can survive only in an acidic environment and will die in an alkaline (non-acidic) environment.

Sugar keeps the body in an acidic state, and tumors are enormous sugar absorbers.

Sugar consumption causes a hormonal roller coaster of alternating high levels of insulin and blood sugar. These hormonal shifts can dramatically affect your attitude and your ability to concentrate during the day. Also, if you replace nutrient-dense foods with processed sugar, the chances of acquiring one of the following diseases or side-effects skyrockets :

・ atherosclerosis

・ attention deficit disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

・ behavior problems

・ cancer

・ chronic fatigue syndrome

・ colon cancer

・ coronary heart disease

・ food intolerance

・ kidney disease

・ liver disease

・ malnutrition

・ osteoporosis

・ overgrowth of yeast, especially Candida albicans

・ tooth decay

・ violent tendencies

Even if you don’t consume candy or sweets outright, once you begin to read the labels of most snacks, cereals, and drinks you consume, you will notice that it doesn’t take much to consume approximately 80 grams of sugar—the equivalent of 20 teaspoons—in a day!

When reading labels, don’t be thrown off by strange words like sucrose, maltose, dextrose, glucose, and the like; any word ending in -ose is a sugar. Quite often, one product will contain five or six different types of sugar. When you add up all its many forms, sugar is frequently the greatest source of total calories.

How about fruit? Fruit contains sugar, but solely in the form of fructose, whereas processed sugar (sucrose) is made up of both glucose and fructose. By itself, fructose breaks down more slowly in the body; sugar and insulin levels remain relatively constant. In contrast, sucrose is processed extremely quickly, causing a "spike" in insulin levels—rather like a power surge followed by a rapid return to baseline levels—that is stressful for the body.

Fructose puts a lot less stress on the body than sucrose, and most fruits have a low GI.

The biggest mistake people make is falling for the marketing hype from juice manufacturers. They want you to think their "fresh juice" is actually good for you. If you read the package, you’ll see that many such products are made "from concentrate," which could easily be translated to mean "from syrup"

by Isabel De Los Rios

To find out more on Sugar and Sweeteners and how you can avoid those harmful substances
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Alison