Comment Re:Sugar (Score 1) 329
Consuming sugar doesn't bother me.
It does bother me. Sugar and high-glycemic carbs trigger hormonal changes which trigger overeating in both animals and humans.
What does bother me is consuming all the preservatives in out food, and all the unnatural sweeteners that are included.
Agreed.
I wonder if high fructose corn syrup, calorie free sweeteners, and to a lesser extend, regular corn syrup....
HFCS is uniquely nasty, even more than sugar and other high-glycemic carbs, because it is absorbed more rapidly, metabolized primarily in the liver (as is the fructose in table sugar, only more slowly), often is contaminated by toxic levels of heavy metals, and also is usually contaminated by enzymes used in its production, which have the lovely side effect of continuing to convert starches in the digestive tract into more fructose, and also damage the intestinal flora which are now known to be a vital part of the immune system.
The "calorie free sweeteners" are almost uniformly awful, although some are more awful than others. Pure stevia is the only one with a reasonable safety record, and even that is usually adulterated with much less safe substances such as maltodextrin, sugar alcohols (which trigger moderate to severe GI distress in many people), or silicon dioxide (sand - supposedly, generally regarded as safe, but known to cause lung cancer if aspirated).
try going 2 weeks without any sugar except for naturally occurring sugars in fruits and the like... you'll get your actual sense of sweetness back
Agreed. I've tried it and it absolutely does work, but, beyond just losing a lot of the "sweet tooth" which is really an addiction, one will generally feel much better as well, and one's appetite also will gradually return to normal (most of us who consume excess sugar do NOT have normal appetites, and never will, short of eliminating sugar and other toxic sweeteners from our diets.)
I would say most Americans' health would benefit more by greatly reducing sugar and HFCS, if not eliminating them outright, than by any other single lifestyle change. But in addition to this, I strongly suggest:
- minimizing trans fats ("partially hydrogenated" anything);
- filtering one's drinking water (carbon filter and/or reverse osmosis);
- avoiding huge excesses of any single food;
- eating a varied, nutrient-dense diet;
- insofar as one can, avoiding pesticides and herbicides (e.g., wash fruit and veggies, try to buy organic or free range when possible, etc.); and
- supplementing carefully. Most of us can't get optimal amounts of vitamins C or D from our diets. Cheap multivitamins are known to do more harm than good, but judicious use of high-quality supplements, tailored to one's specific situation, is something I do, and recommend.
We do all these things, and, although I'm still overweight, I'm losing maybe 1-2 pounds a year, and none of us are hardly ever sick, even when exposed to other kids who are.