Reducing Your Sugar Intake Successfully
When it comes to the taste of highly sweetened food and drink, humans are innately lured to the flavor.
For many, the urge to indulge is so strong that it is akin to several other addictive and pleasurable behaviors such as strenuous exercise, sexual climax, and the use of narcotics.
Due to a quick release of dopamine and endorphins within the brain, sugar brings on a surge of energy, happiness, and calm, at least temporarily.
Similar to the recent discovery of how unhealthy the wrong type of fats or a low-fat diet can be, new and innovative ways of sweetening up food and drink in America has lead to the understanding of another health care crisis.
The over consumption of refined sugar can be linked to nearly every type of major disease in modernized countries.
Following one of the largest, economical money trails back (over the last four decades) we would find the human experience expanding their desire to experiment with several different unnatural sweetening methods.
Although most of them have been marketed as 'safe' and 'natural' alternatives, objective, scientific nutritional diet studies have uncovered evidence to the contrary.
So, what sweetening agents, aside from just plain cane and beet sugar, are being used in the marketing of food and beverages, and for use in the home, in the United States these days? HFCS High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has gradually, and unsuspectingly, been released into the food supply.
Since its development, during the 1960's, ten to twenty percent of calories in the American diet now comes from this manufactured sweetener in the form of beverages, baked goods, candy, and condiments.
It is massively used because the flavor is much sweeter than regular sugar (sucrose), and cheaper to produce.
Corn does not have a high fructose content, in its natural state.
But it is rather easy, through a slight manipulation process, to spike corn's fructose content, up to 55 percent.
Compounding the over consumption problem of this sweetener even further, is the latest addition of genetically modified corn in the food supply over the last ten years.
Neither of which, the long-term effects on the human body are currently known.
What is known about HFCS at this time, is that small to moderate amounts do not appear to be all that harmful.
In larger amounts, however, it seems to be a different story.
The brain does not recognize the body's ability to satiate the appetite in the absence of low fiber intake.
The bottom line is this, the body does not metabolize this substance very well.
The liver has to do most of the work without the aid of the hormones insulin and leptin, which regulates blood sugar and appetite, respectively.
HFCS just skips right past the process of insulin and leptin production.
The tendency to over eat is easier to do when the signal of satisfaction in feeling full is not received.
Considering that an inactive body only needs about 2 teaspoons of sugar (glucose) in the bloodstream every few hours or so, you begin to see how overdoing it can play havoc with your weight.
Sugar, along with the combination of other nutrients available in complex (plant food) carbohydrates, in the form of whole grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables is a source of glucose that your body can handle quite easily.
Whole fruits have a naturally high fructose content, and can help you curb the need to satisfy a sweet tooth.
Sucralose One of the newest artificial sweeteners on the market, recently, is sucralose, (Splenda).
It has been associated with a few minor health complaints such as headaches, gas or bloating, and stomach cramps.
The brain is wired to associate sweet flavored food with a high caloric content in a dopamine release reward system.
Fooling the brain with a taste that does not deliver the calories may lead to rebound eating, thus canceling out any benefits.
Aspartame 'NutraSweet',(Equal) an older manufactured sugar substitute, appears to deplete the body's supplies of chromium.
This trace mineral is a necessary element for metabolizing sugar.
This sweetener has also been linked to a whole slew of unwanted side effects ranging from mild to severe in sensitive people from gastrointestinal and psychiatric, to neurologic and endocrine problems.
Natural Alternatives For baking, and other flavoring needs in the home, there are several other options that do not raise glycemic index levels as much as cane or beet sugar.
Some of these include dehydrated cane juice crystals (sucanat) and date sugar.
Liquid choices include agave syrup, amasake (rice syrup), blackstrap molasses, maple syrup, and honey.
Each of these alternatives offer some nutritional content.
If you are diabetic, use caution in not over consuming.
Xylitol has been used as a sweetener for around forty years.
It is a white, odorless crystalline powder that is naturally occurring in many fruits and vegetables, corn fiber, and birch trees.
It is 40 percent lower in calories than sugar.
It is mostly found in oral health products like gum, breath mints, hard candy, and pharmaceuticals.
A word of caution, do not use oral health care products containing xylitol for pets.
Xylitol is a known toxic substance for dogs.
The most popular sweetener in the natural alternative category, no hands down, is stevia.
Stevia is a herbal sweetener derived from the leaves of a bush like plant native to South America.
It is an all-natural herbal product with centuries of safe use by the natives of Paraguay.
It has been thoroughly tested around the world in dozens of tests and found to be non-toxic and safe, even in heavy amounts.
It is a wise choice for diabetics and for individuals who are fighting candida yeast problems.
This sweetening product has a large market share value in Japan and in several Asian countries.
Stevia has almost no calories, does not raise blood glucose levels the way other sweeteners do, and actually provides the user with a small amount of fiber.
Stevia is definitely a much safer option to the toxic time-bombs of artificial sweeteners.
As a little goes a long way, it is three hundred times sweeter than sugar, stevia can be both economical and practical.
For many, the urge to indulge is so strong that it is akin to several other addictive and pleasurable behaviors such as strenuous exercise, sexual climax, and the use of narcotics.
Due to a quick release of dopamine and endorphins within the brain, sugar brings on a surge of energy, happiness, and calm, at least temporarily.
Similar to the recent discovery of how unhealthy the wrong type of fats or a low-fat diet can be, new and innovative ways of sweetening up food and drink in America has lead to the understanding of another health care crisis.
The over consumption of refined sugar can be linked to nearly every type of major disease in modernized countries.
Following one of the largest, economical money trails back (over the last four decades) we would find the human experience expanding their desire to experiment with several different unnatural sweetening methods.
Although most of them have been marketed as 'safe' and 'natural' alternatives, objective, scientific nutritional diet studies have uncovered evidence to the contrary.
So, what sweetening agents, aside from just plain cane and beet sugar, are being used in the marketing of food and beverages, and for use in the home, in the United States these days? HFCS High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has gradually, and unsuspectingly, been released into the food supply.
Since its development, during the 1960's, ten to twenty percent of calories in the American diet now comes from this manufactured sweetener in the form of beverages, baked goods, candy, and condiments.
It is massively used because the flavor is much sweeter than regular sugar (sucrose), and cheaper to produce.
Corn does not have a high fructose content, in its natural state.
But it is rather easy, through a slight manipulation process, to spike corn's fructose content, up to 55 percent.
Compounding the over consumption problem of this sweetener even further, is the latest addition of genetically modified corn in the food supply over the last ten years.
Neither of which, the long-term effects on the human body are currently known.
What is known about HFCS at this time, is that small to moderate amounts do not appear to be all that harmful.
In larger amounts, however, it seems to be a different story.
The brain does not recognize the body's ability to satiate the appetite in the absence of low fiber intake.
The bottom line is this, the body does not metabolize this substance very well.
The liver has to do most of the work without the aid of the hormones insulin and leptin, which regulates blood sugar and appetite, respectively.
HFCS just skips right past the process of insulin and leptin production.
The tendency to over eat is easier to do when the signal of satisfaction in feeling full is not received.
Considering that an inactive body only needs about 2 teaspoons of sugar (glucose) in the bloodstream every few hours or so, you begin to see how overdoing it can play havoc with your weight.
Sugar, along with the combination of other nutrients available in complex (plant food) carbohydrates, in the form of whole grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables is a source of glucose that your body can handle quite easily.
Whole fruits have a naturally high fructose content, and can help you curb the need to satisfy a sweet tooth.
Sucralose One of the newest artificial sweeteners on the market, recently, is sucralose, (Splenda).
It has been associated with a few minor health complaints such as headaches, gas or bloating, and stomach cramps.
The brain is wired to associate sweet flavored food with a high caloric content in a dopamine release reward system.
Fooling the brain with a taste that does not deliver the calories may lead to rebound eating, thus canceling out any benefits.
Aspartame 'NutraSweet',(Equal) an older manufactured sugar substitute, appears to deplete the body's supplies of chromium.
This trace mineral is a necessary element for metabolizing sugar.
This sweetener has also been linked to a whole slew of unwanted side effects ranging from mild to severe in sensitive people from gastrointestinal and psychiatric, to neurologic and endocrine problems.
Natural Alternatives For baking, and other flavoring needs in the home, there are several other options that do not raise glycemic index levels as much as cane or beet sugar.
Some of these include dehydrated cane juice crystals (sucanat) and date sugar.
Liquid choices include agave syrup, amasake (rice syrup), blackstrap molasses, maple syrup, and honey.
Each of these alternatives offer some nutritional content.
If you are diabetic, use caution in not over consuming.
Xylitol has been used as a sweetener for around forty years.
It is a white, odorless crystalline powder that is naturally occurring in many fruits and vegetables, corn fiber, and birch trees.
It is 40 percent lower in calories than sugar.
It is mostly found in oral health products like gum, breath mints, hard candy, and pharmaceuticals.
A word of caution, do not use oral health care products containing xylitol for pets.
Xylitol is a known toxic substance for dogs.
The most popular sweetener in the natural alternative category, no hands down, is stevia.
Stevia is a herbal sweetener derived from the leaves of a bush like plant native to South America.
It is an all-natural herbal product with centuries of safe use by the natives of Paraguay.
It has been thoroughly tested around the world in dozens of tests and found to be non-toxic and safe, even in heavy amounts.
It is a wise choice for diabetics and for individuals who are fighting candida yeast problems.
This sweetening product has a large market share value in Japan and in several Asian countries.
Stevia has almost no calories, does not raise blood glucose levels the way other sweeteners do, and actually provides the user with a small amount of fiber.
Stevia is definitely a much safer option to the toxic time-bombs of artificial sweeteners.
As a little goes a long way, it is three hundred times sweeter than sugar, stevia can be both economical and practical.
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