Here’s a quick exercise for you: how much sugar have you eaten today? Perhaps you only counted a teaspoonful in your morning cup of tea, but have another think. The bacon sandwich you had for breakfast? Chances are there was sugar in that commercially-produced “healthy” wholemeal bread, and you copped an extra whack if you slathered it in HP sauce at 3.5g of sugar per serving. Salad and an energy drink for lunch? One can of Red Bull contains a ridiculous 27g of sugar;if you had dressing on your salad, you may have bumped the sugar still higher. Got peckish around 4 o’clock and had a cereal bar? Whoops – they can contain up to 18g of combined natural and added sugars. Adds up fast, doesn’t it?
To put that into perspective, current WHO guidelines recommend limiting your daily intake of added sugar to38g (nine teaspoons) for men and 25g (six teaspoons) for women: that means that just that one can of Red Bull either puts you over the limit or pushes you close to it. Not to mention that that recommendation is a maximum: you’d be better served by staying well below it!
Of course, by now most of us are aware of the sugar content of sweet drinks, confectionery and so on.What we need to look out for is the hidden added sugar in foods we think are healthy. Processed food labelled with things like “low-fat”, “high-fibre” and “whole grain” encourages us to think we’re making good food choices, but we often miss the secret buried in the nutritional information: extra sugar, under a variety of unfamiliar names, added to make this “healthy” food just as tempting to our sugar-junkie tastebuds.
You might not think your sugar intake is particularly important if you’re not actively trying to lose weight or manage a health condition like diabetes. However, research has shown that excessive sugar can have serious health repercussions beyond the well-known issues of obesity and insulin resistance. We know that yeast, or candida, feeds on sugar; a diet high in sugar encourages the growth of candida in your gut, crowding out beneficial bacteria and affecting not just gut function, but mental function too. Studies have found links between sugar and a loss of cognitive ability: in a 2012 study at UCLA, rats that were given fructose syrup in their drinking water found it much more difficult to remember their way out of a maze than the sugar-free control rats. Their brain cells were slower to signal to each other and they showed far less brain activity – after just six weeks of consuming more sugar than they should.
Quitting sugar can be as difficult an undertaking as quitting smoking; sometimes harder, since we’re bombarded with ads and smells from all sides. Sugar is absolutely an addictive substance: it sparks opioid receptors in your brain, making you feel good and crave more.Your gut bacteria also adjusts over time to fit your diet, so when you change it, your body will protest. You can ease the transition with natural sugar-free sweeteners like Xylitol: a corn-free sweetener that can actually have anti-candida effects.
Some people prefer to cut out sweeteners completely and get their tastebuds acclimatised to the natural flavours of whole foods. It’s true that making the switch from processed to whole, organic food is one of the best things you can do for your health. Things will taste bland at first, but plenty of people who make this change report that after a few weeks of avoiding added sugar, they find they can no longer tolerate the saccharine taste of the treats they used to love – and appreciate the natural sweetness of a piece of fruit so much more. In the meantime, you can try kicking your cravings with Nutrisorb Chromium, which helps you to control your blood sugar, cholesterol, weight and mental state. It’s a big help toanyone working towards a healthier lifestyle.We also recommend Sucroguard for help with balancing your blood sugar while you adjust your diet.
We’ll end this with the happy news that other tricks to break your sugar habit include exercise, black coffee and weirdly enough, sour flavours. Why is that so great? Because sour fermented vegetables like sauerkraut are also excellent sources of probiotics! How’s that for a two-for-one deal?
Reference:
‘Metabolic syndrome’ in the brain: deficiency in omega-3 fatty acid exacerbates dysfunctions in insulin receptor signalling and cognition. J Physiol. 2012 May 1;590(Pt 10):2485-99.