Yay for you, on day 2 of 5 Days Low Glycemic Eating. Great work everyone! Join me on Twitter for live Twitter coaching until the challenge ends on Thursday
Whose grandma didn’t have big bowls of hard candies all over the house? My mom is now a grandma, and I feel like it iss only a matter of time.
As a child, weekends at my grandparents house always left me with a very round face. One reason: sugar. Every room had bowls of candies. There were the ones in the strawberry wrappers, the lemon drops, the raspberry candies, the jelly beans, and in the kitchen we’d find frozen grape bubble gum (don’t ask). It was one massive sugar party and it was the best time ever. I was always returned to my parents at the end of the weekend with a round little face and sporting my sugar-crashing-cranky-pants. Any of you taking up the 5 Day Low Glycemic Eating challenge might now be wearing these sugar crashing cranky pants.
Sugar is a drug. A delicious one, but a drug all the same. Some argue that refined white sugar is the most addictive substance on this planet. You might even admit this yourself. You have a little, you want a little more and than you find yourself needing your daily fix, whether it be in your coffee or tea, soft drink, muffin, breakfast cereal, bread, pasta sauce, salad dressing, fruit juice or after dinner cookie. Sugar is in everything and we are consuming more than we think.
The average person now consumes roughly 135 pounds of sugar per year. Holy moly! A person’s weight in sugar? Hello obesity epidemic and hello dentist! That’s also a lot if you are one of those people who never add sugar to your food. Its in our processed food and we don’t even know it.
Now my sweet little nutritionista/o health food loving readers, let’s not think we are all high and mighty as we shake our heads in disbelief and munch down on our honey sweetened granola sitting in a bowl of cane-sugar sweetened almond milk, topped with apple juice sweetened cranberries and maybe we are washing it back with a carrot/beet/apple juice thinking (now get into a hoity toity English accent) I don’t eat refined sugar…
Granted, white sugar is more refined than some of the others but brown sugar and “Sugar in the raw” is not much different. And then we get into the “healthy” sugars. What is your sweetener of choice? Honey? Maple syrup? Molasses? Cane sugar? Date sugar? Beet sugar? Palm sugar? Coconut sugar? Agave?
It is true that these whole and healthier sugars do have some of the minerals still contained. I would even argue that some like molasses and for sure raw honey could fall into the certifiable health food category. No matter how much mineral content these sugars contain, they are still sugars and we are still hooked.
We love the taste of sweetness. Sweets are the flavour of the heart. They make us feel good, feel love and often, when we are tired and crave that sweetness, foods that are high in sugar can give us a quick burst of energy. We are so hooked on the sweet taste that there are massive industries built up around this addiction. My take on artificial sweeteners is posted in length here. And then we have the more natural versions like xylitol and stevia. I use stevia on occasion but am still suspect of both for these reasons. 1) I don’t trust foods that start with an ‘X’ as in Xylitol and 2) stevia is a concentrated white powder than comes from a very green leaf. Hi there processed weird sweet food.
But we like to have our cake and eat it too. We are hooked on sweets, want sugars that won’t affect our blood sugar levels, and we want to find healthier sweetener options. That is why, my sweetness, we are doing this 5 Days Low Glycemic thing. We are working on breaking that sweet addiction, and maybe, just maybe, seeing if we can add it back in responsibly. Some of us may be able to, some of us may not.
I suppose, like all drugs, it simply depends on the level of addiction that we have reached.
Tomorrow we talk about the newest sugars to come about in our fair land- Palm and Coconut Sugar.
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Haha, I used to freeze Bubblicious gum too!
I totally agree with your post. In the end, sugar is sugar and should be eaten in moderation. To quote the famous economist Adam Smith:
“Sugar, rum, and tobacco are commodities which are nowhere necessaries of life, which are become objects of almost universal consumption, and which are therefore extremely proper subjects of taxation.”
Love that! And how we turn rasberry candies into economics is pure brilliance
I’m with you – foods that start with ‘X’ are a little strange.
Glad you brought up this point. Refined or not, I was under the impression that agave, honey, brown rice syrup, and fruit juice concentrate are forms of sugar.
Have you seen this article: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/03/13/richard-johnson-interview.aspx
Yep- that ones was well circulated. Thanks for posting as a great resource for others.
If you’ve ever abruptly stopped eating sugar (and were eating massive quantities before) you will know it’s a drug. The withdrawl is brutal. Last time I ditched white sugar, I had massive headaches, crankiness, insomnia, and broke out in a rash.
I don’t think you need to have even been consuming massive quantities. The challenge is getting people to recognize these symptoms as the withdrawal/cleansing. All too often we jump back into the pool before we have fully dried off- of you know what I mean- just setting the addiction deeper.
I will be the best grandmother ever, but no sugary candies. Promise.
I remember those sugary Sunday withdrawals. But getting a weekend off was worth every candy.
Hey! I’m not complaining.
Don’t forget the butterscotch candies.
I have grown my own stevia quite successfully but was unsuccessful in switching to it and ended up giving it away. I heard store bought stevia was mixed with ground up rice as a carrier…where is the greeness from the ground up stevia? Gradening season is here so try growing it yoruself if you can’t give up on the great sugar bug…it isn’t SO bad
You can get the stevia powder either ground with a starch or straight up- when it is straight up you see how concentrated it really is. I have a jar of the green stuff but i find it way too bitter and gross.
Sweets are a really tricky thing, because it is our first flavor as babies, if we were nursed. And traditional medicine like Ayurveda teaches that we need all 6 tastes in our diet. And it’s yummy so of course we want it. It’s really interesting that in Chinese medicine, they talk about full sweets versus empty sweets. Empty sweets are all the sugars. Full sweets are whole grains, sweet potatoes, carrots, etc. Turns out that the more we have of those full sweets, to satisfy our need for sweet flavor, the less we crave empty sweets. Seems to work for me, and I grew up with the candy bowls all around the house too!
My kids can’t believe I grew up that way.
The first step in getting the full sweets from grains is chewing. We often forget this little important step when eating.
Wow, this is a great article. I have a major sweet tooth and it’s nearly impossible to control it. Are you going to cover any tips for consuming less, or is that all in the guide? Is it best to avoid these forms all together and stick to whole sugars–like fruit and sweet vegetables–or just do the agave and stuff in moderation? So many questions. Sugar is such a sticky issue, pardon the pun.
“best to avoid these forms all together and stick to whole sugars–like fruit and sweet vegetables”
Yes.
On the advice of my naturopath, I began an elimination diet a few weeks ago which is, in essence, the “no-white diet” (no sugar – meaning most fruits!, flour/gluten/dairy) along with a few other allergens like soy. It’s been a very interesting ride to try and cut these things out of my diet, but one thing is for sure: I feel better than ever. My digestion and health problems completely improved, I lost a bit of tummy bloat and my skin looks clearer. In the past I had a pretty hefty sugar/sweet addiction, but I can honestly say life without sugar is not only *easier* than one might guess, but it is damn well better. I plan on living this way as much as possible into the future, although I do hope to have an agave-sweetened cookie or two from time to time
Meghan… I find, since stopping my use of the pill, my sugar cravings have increased 10-fold (if not more). I’ve been off it just over a month (was on it for many, many years). I won’t do the glycemic index challenge this time (though heavy consideration for next time). I was tempted, to be honest, but I feared I would go nuts-o if I stopped sugar during this mad craze. I can’t yet understand *why* my body is craving this. It’s missing something.. but what? If I did the challenge, would I be able to substitute something else in place of my sugar cravings for said challenge? Thanks for any thoughts
It’s not called a challenge cause its easy
oh! I want to alert you to a specific brand of stevia: steviaclear. It is the only one I can find that is processed without chemicals — only water. It’s alcohol free, too, and lives in a dropper bottle with only water. Stevia and water. Nothing scary. Nothing weirdly processed. Baking with it is really easy and you can even up the nutritional content of the food. You need 1 teaspoon stevia and 1/3 cup bulky liquid like yogurt, coconut puree (butter), applesauce, etc.
I love my steviaclear drops.
I’ve believed that sugar is as addictive as any drug for a long time now–and I am definitely an addict. It’s great being off the wagon right now (and I’ve never felt better), but I love that you acknowledged that some will be able to go back to it, and some won’t. In the past, I tried to re-introduce sugar (and by “sugar” I mean all-natural sweeteners–such as those you mention), with eventual disaster as a result. I think I’m one of those all-or-nothing gals when it comes to sweets. Also wondering: what’s your take on yacon?
Look forward to you post on palm/coconut sugar. I have been using a bit of it and I find that I don’t react to it the same way. I have also just discovered Jaggery which is the preferred sugar in Ayurveda and found in Indian shops. I don’t know too much more about it so would love your opinion on that.
Im a maple syrup and honey girl. I also have green stevia, bought in bulk at Planet Organic, its a little coarse/flaky and earthy tasting and not very much like the white or liquid versions at all….
Your mom’s comment made me laugh. I’ve always thought it fun to get kids high on sugar and then pass them back to their parents. I haven’t done that in years. It’s more fun in idea than practice, and not for what it does to the child, but the parent.
(I like to think that I can be mean when really I can’t.)
Wow this post really has me thinking. I have two daughters 11 and 9. The 11 yr old is obese, the 9 yr old normal. They regularly wear the cranky pants – that’s what we call them so it really got my notice when you referred to cranky pants. We’re still working on getting the youngest to eat anything besides bread and she has a real sweet tooth, but given their recent behaviour I might have to think more about getting sugar out of their diet – no idea how I’d really do it though.
Libby
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