Recently I wrote out a list of the twenty-five things I do to stay healthy. Number nineteen was “I eat real sugar.” There has been a bit of controversy over this issue this week and so this article is a little bit of clarification on sugar and its substitutes.
I will start with regular old table SUGAR.
What happens in our bodies when we eat sugar? Well first off let me say that we eat sugar all day, every time we consume a carbohydrate. Carbohydrates come in the form of breads, pastas, grains, rice, vegetables, and fruits. Most of these sugars are great! Someday I will discuss in more detail the ills of white flour. For now, let’s just concentrate on refined sugar.
Refined sugar has no nutrients at all so when we digest it, the body needs to “borrow” nutrients from other foods we have eaten in order to break the sugar down into glucose. This borrowing is not the greatest, considering we need those nutrients to break down the other foods we have eaten. I might actually call it more like stealing considering they don’t ever give them back. Think of all the goodness nutrients you are eating, calcium, magnesium, and potassium, etc.; sugar is stealing those for its own selfish digestion. What about your bones? They still need those nutrients.
Sugar has a high glycemic index, which means it digests VERY quickly into the bloodstream. That’s the reason your afternoon coca cola gives you such pep. After that soda, your blood-glucose levels are very high and so your pancreas sends out insulin in order to calm down those glucose levels. This calming down has a tremendous drain on the body. Diabetes II can happen when your body has been calming you down for so long that it can’t actually secrete insulin anymore. Insulin is necessary in order for the glucose to be used for everyday functions such as picking up your handbag or remembering your phone number.
That is the shortest possible explanation of sugar, ever. Hopefully, though, you can now see that if we eat too much of the good thing we can cause massive damage to our bodies, not to mention gain weight. If we are using all our nutrients to break down our candy bar, how will we digest the rest of our food?
Now on to the fake stuff. The three most popular are Aspartame (nutra sweet), Saccharin (sweet and low), and Sucralose (splenda).
If you research these three substitutes, you will come up with a multitude of opinions and research. They are all the focus of much controversy. Some studies say it’s great and others say you will die a terrible disease from it. Sugar substitutes have been linked to cancer, MS, lupus, headaches, depression, bloating, rashes, loss of vision, diarrhea, anxiety, and a loss of good bacteria. Depending on whom you want to believe, it is either the cure-all answer to avoiding sugar or the devil incarnate. There is also controversy over who funded these studies as well. There are studies showing no long term negative effects from all three of these substitutes; however, if they were funded by the company selling them, how can we believe it? The most controversial substitute (Saccharin) has only been around since the late 60s and initially the FDA did not approve it because it was considered toxic. We as a society have not been eating sugar substitutes long enough to know the long-term effects. There have also been studies done that show that eating artificial sugar mimics sugar and insulin production without the pay-off thereby making the body crave even more sugar. This could lead to weight gain and sugar binges. This is why they make me uncomfortable, they are just too unknown. I recommend staying away from Aspartame, Saccharin, and Sucralose.
