Do doughnuts, cookies, pastries, chocolate, and sweet beverages make you euphoric, as much or more than alcohol?
Do you know how eating these alter your mood and contribute to depression and craving for more goodies, causing a vicious cycle?
How would your life improve if you learned how food and addiction worked so you could stop using sugar as a drug?
RECIPE FOR DISASTER:
Refined, stripped, white or brown, crystalline sugar and high-fructose corn syrup in beverages, in combination with refined, stripped white flour and processed oils, are deadly combinations that make up a high percentage of daily calories in the typical North American diet, and increasingly in other areas of our world. These foods are cheap and easily available and causing major havoc to our health.
When our food intake is rich in refined sugars, refined flours, and processed oils, it truly is a recipe for disaster. We call those disasters “diagnoses names” like: diabetes, heart disease, inflammatory diseases, cancer, arthritis, and others.
SYMPTOMS OF A SUGAR-DRUNK
A “sugar-drunk” experience can be the same as those alcoholics suffer: Energy that spikes and crashes, moods that swing up and down like a roller-coaster, running into walls or falling down easily, slurring words, easy to anger or depressive states.
One of the first authors to alert readers to “the sweetest poison of all” was William Dufty, who wrote “Sugar Blues” in 1975 and discussed the correlation of refined sugar with addiction, as well as other mental illness.
WHY?
Refined sugar is made from raw sugar cane, beets, or corn. Sugar cane in the whole form as nature intended with the b vitamins, minerals, and fiber intact can be a healthy choice as part of a whole-food intake. However, when the nutrient-rich, dark molasses is removed from the sugar cane, the remaining crystals are highly heated, creating a molecular change that our human bodies do not process well.
Beets and corn are also a whole-food that when unadulterated and eaten as a vegetable are healthy choices. But when they are heated into refined white crystalized sugar or high-fructose corn syrup for soda pop and juice-flavored beverages, they no longer resemble whole-food in any way.
Flour when ground from whole-grains, can be part of a healthy, whole-food intake. But when flour is taken from a whole-grain and made into refined, processed, white flour, it is stripped of the bran and germ that contain the fiber and fatty acids, micro-nutrients and disease-fighting phytonutrients, and is no longer a healthy option.
Whole-grains, potatoes, and beans, contain two main carbohydrate components; fiber and starch.
Just as the brakes in a car work to keep the vehicle from speeding too quickly along a highway, fiber and starch are present in carbohydrate-rich whole-foods to keep glucose from entering the bloodstream at a healthy speed via the process of digestion.
Fiber and starch, as well as naturally present fatty acids and amino acids in whole-foods make the difference between “blood sugar swings” or a happy, pleasant food experience without negative side effects.
Food is meant to be in the most natural “whole” unadulterated state possible for human consumption. Our human liver has to metabolize thousands of chemicals. When we fragment essential parts of the whole – the fiber, the fatty acids, the protein, the starch – the body’s systems, including the liver, has to work that much harder to neutralize and to deal with the excesses that are being thrown at it.
Nutrient-stripped sweeteners, molecularly altered through high heat, enter the bloodstream at high-speed, just like alcohol.
Excess sugar that is not burned up through movement and exercise, not only turns into excess fat in the human body, but also causes fatty liver disease. Excess fructose (from refined sugar, not fruit) is particularly toxic to the liver, just as alcohol is.
HOW TO STOP CRAVINGS:
Doug Lisle, Ph.D., author of “The Pleasure Trap: Mastering the Hidden Force that Undermines Health and Happiness,” explains what cravings are.
“What are cravings and how do they affect your plan for healthy living? Cravings aren’t “bad.” They are just signals that you want something. When you are tired, you crave sleep. When you are thirsty, you crave liquids. And if you are getting good signals from someone really attractive, well, you know. So most of the time, cravings are operating as they are supposed to and not causing any mischief. The problem comes with cravings for unhealthy things, like junk food or drugs.” Read more here>
The 3-Step Solution
to Recovery
from Sugar Addiction!
STEP #1: Eat a whole-food, plant-based intake to provide the dietary fiber that keeps blood glucose stable. Ensure you are eating whole-food, fiber-filled, starch-based foods for the majority of your daily intake! Eat beans every day. Beans are so rich in dietary fiber and 1 cup a day provides 9-16 grams of fiber, almost a third of what we need daily. Eat whole-grains, whole-grain pastas, granola, and white, purple, or sweet potatoes with the skin! For at least a few months until your body recovers, severely minimize even the natural simple sugars (maple syrup, honey, agave, and dried fruit). Eat sweet, fresh fruit when a craving hits.
STEP #2: Enjoy doughnuts, cookies, pastries, and chocolate that are made with whole-food ingredients. Make sure they are oil-free too (and nothing deep fried), that have lots of fiber-rich ingredients. There is no need to sacrifice the enjoyment of natural sweetness and comfort foods, when we ensure ingredients that are just as sweet and delicious but do not cause the detrimental effects of refined, processed foods. Naturally sweet spices like cinnamon and anise can add extra delicious sweetness to dishes.
STEP #3: Replace all sugary drinks with water, mineral or carbonated water, or cold or hot herbal teas – Licorice root, cinnamon, lemon grass, whole-leaf stevia, rooibos, mint, chamomile, etc. Drink enough water, 6-8 glasses a day! Water keeps our cells working at their optimum, allowing detoxification pathways to aid repair, and rebalance organ function.
BONUS STEP! Get rid of all the “artificial” sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners set you up for more cravings in the same way, and possibly in an even more powerful way, than refined sugars.
Cravings will become a non-issue. They will become the natural signals that tell you you are hungry and need food. Food will lose it’s power over you when you take control over your choices and set whole-food parameters that nourish your body in a delicious, balanced way. You will lose the excess weight, control your blood sugar, reduce your risk for disease in general. Your moods will even out and you’ll feel and be more stable, with vibrant energy and glowing…with food!!
If the holidays found you in another slump of sadness and regret over your food and health, despair no longer! You can enroll in one of Victoria’s Whole-food Nutrition Kitchen eCourses, or get private 1:1 support, and get useful resources here.
~ Spend 10 minutes-a-day to overcome sugar addiction once and for all!
~ Learn to lose excess weight, hunger-free and sustainably!
~ Balance blood glucose so you can avoid unnecessary medications and hospital bills!
Dear Victoria, you are such a mine of good advice and I am grateful you have included “white poison” into you field of vision. Margaret has persuaded me to minimize the stuff and showed me the link between it and dementia/Alzeimers. Not that I was a junky, but I did eat too much of it. We now use stevia and laconda (spelling?) almost exclusively and we have cut way down on all sugary stuff. Margaret and I disagree of fruit which she says are highly concentrated with fructose and way beyond the origical fruits (apples, bananas, lineapple, etc).
Next Raw Food potluck someone is coming from Shaw TV. Perhaps you might like to attend and bestow some of your excellent advice on their viewers? I think it s the 2nd Saturday of February at the Mormon center on Bonnie Doon traffic circle.
Thank you dear David for your comments! Yes, the link between brain health and sugar is an interesting one. It seems from what I understand of the research, that too much fructose can lead to disease, but especially if it is in the form of refined sugars. Natural fructose from fruit, as you know, comes along in natures package with fibers, minerals, vitamins, and phytochemicals that help the body to process it…however, like every nutrient and every food, it’s about balance, so yes, we can ever over-consume too much fruit. I don’t think we yet have clear answers about exactly how much the ideal intake is.
I’m not likely to make it to the Potluck unfortunately, however Shaw TV has contacted me about an interview. All the best David!