How Sweet It Isn't

My name is Janet and I’m a sugar addict.  I am not unique in this.  I think all of us have those foods that are our dietary downfalls, the things that we had better not have in the house or we will eat all of them, all at once.

 

There are a couple of things about sugar in particular that make it problematic.  One is that sugary foods often don’t have a lot of other nutritional value.  We get sweet calories and not much else.  On the whole, most of us don’t need any extra calories of any kind and we’d all do well to make the calories we do get serve multiple purposes.

 

Sugar is also pretty much ubiquitous in our food supply.  It’s in almost every processed food, from spaghetti sauce to crackers to salad dressing.  Notice that none of those foods are things we think of as sweets.  If we set out to purge the added sugar from our diets, we have a lot of work to do.  Unless we really love reading labels and we enjoy the process of discovering new synonyms for sugar (hint:  honey and agave nectar and corn syrup and a lot of others are still sugar), the fastest way to get the added sugar out is to cook and eat from whole foods.

 

Sugar contributes to one of the hot buzzword problems of our time:  inflammation.  Inflammation has been implicated in all kinds of stuff from diabetes to rheumatoid arthritis to cancer.  Basically, a chronic inflammatory response in the body leads the immune system to attack healthy tissues leading to nasty results.  There are all kinds of drugs that help with inflammation, including our old friend aspirin, but dietary intervention can be very effective.  Anecdotal evidence is not the same as actual proof, but in my personal bodily chemistry set, I have a lot less muscle ache when I cut the sugar.

 

Then there is sugar’s relationship to one of the big health issues that a lot of us face:  metabolic syndrome.  A growing number of folks suffer from multiple chronic diseases:  heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol/triglycerides.  Most of these have a high correlation with obesity.  While there are multiple factors that contribute to obesity, we can’t ignore that excess calories don’t help.

 

Now, I admit that all the good reasons in the world can’t always compete with say, chocolate chip cookies.  We have a built-in love for sweet stuff.  This is where we have to put on our big-person pants and deal.  I am not a fan of motivation by stick, so here are some positive things to focus on while we make adjustments:

 

We will feel better.  Our base-level sense of well-being will improve.  We’ll get up in the morning less stiff, less sore.  Stuff we haven’t been able to do (hi, bike!) may become available to us again.

 

We will look better.  Sure, it’s not the most important reason, but it would be all right if our beautiful insides were reflected in our beautiful outsides.

 

We will live longer.  We have good stuff to stick around for:  love, adventure, grandchildren, a real haircut…

 

Let’s do it.