Sugar free diet and some intuitive reasonings behind it
It was about 4 years ago when I saw a documentary about sugar industry which made me to think more closely the relations between sugar industry, unfair markets, robbery of 3rd countries just to feed western countries, weight problems, ADHD diseases, self discipline, even cancer. Documentary was not the following one (and it was translated in Finnish), but I found this from Google and it seems to contain same subjects.
After that I decided to try sugar free diet and find out, what kind of results and observations it might cause. I made a plan to start diet on January and stop it on June.
My quick observations were:
- It is hard to find products without added sugar, almost as hard as to find products without plastics.
- There are several forms of fructose and artificial sweeteners, that has same or worse effects as sugar.
- It is hard to leave sugar off from diet because our body has been saturated of it since early age. It is very addictive ingredient.
- Our body can produce sugar for it needs by itself, but for example lipids it needs, has to come from external sources.
I managed to go thru months and found it a good experience. So I planned to start it again from August and stop on Christmas. Then start diet again on January and continue to the end of June. I found it a good way for me to control sugar consumption and its been working fine ever since. On my daily energy needs all additional sugar is just extra and useless energy which gets stored on body. Diet also helped me to find new delicious fruits, berries, sugar free pies and cakes (yes, there are some) and vegetables plus favor 100% juices. Most difficult thing was to refuse sugar on family meetings and similar parties because of social pressure and questioning.
Now some experts say, that adding sugar to healthy food makes us to eat it more. Do you really think it is the reason for adding sugar? To make people eat more fibers? Or is it to make people consume more so that producers get more profits from corn flakes for example? More it seems like a conscious action taken to get people addictive to any food manufacturers want to promote and make them money. I dont think their first concern is our health.
How sugar can affect to your health
- Sugar can suppress the immune system.
- Sugar can upset the body’s mineral balance.
- Sugar can contribute to hyperactivity, anxiety, depression, concentration difficulties, and crankiness in children.
- Sugar can produce a significant rise in triglycerides.
- Sugar can cause drowsiness and decreased activity in children.
- Sugar can reduce helpful high density cholesterol (HDLs).
- Sugar can promote an elevation of harmful cholesterol (LDLs).
- Sugar can cause hypoglycemia.
- Sugar contributes to a weakened defense against bacterial infection.
- Sugar can cause kidney damage.
- Sugar can increase the risk of coronary heart disease.
- Sugar may lead to chromium deficiency.
- Sugar can cause copper deficiency.
- Sugar interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium.
- Sugar can increase fasting levels of blood glucose.
- Sugar can promote tooth decay.
- Sugar can produce an acidic stomach.
- Sugar can raise adrenaline levels in children.
- Sugar can lead to periodontal disease.
- Sugar can speed the aging process, causing wrinkles and grey hair.
- Sugar can increase total cholesterol.
- Sugar can contribute to weight gain and obesity.
- High intake of sugar increases the risk of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
- Sugar can contribute to diabetes.
- Sugar can contribute to osteoporosis.
- Sugar can cause a decrease in insulin sensitivity.
- Sugar leads to decreased glucose tolerance.
- Sugar can cause cardiovascular disease.
- Sugar can increase systolic blood pressure.
- Sugar causes food allergies.
- Sugar can cause free radical formation in the bloodstream.
- Sugar can cause toxemia during pregnancy.
- Sugar can contribute to eczema in children.
- Sugar can overstress the pancreas, causing damage.
- Sugar can cause atherosclerosis.
- Sugar can compromise the lining of the capillaries.
- Sugar can cause liver cells to divide, increasing the size of the liver.
- Sugar can increase the amount of fat in the liver.
- Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in thekidney.
- Sugar can cause depression.
- Sugar can increase the body’s fluid retention.
- Sugar can cause hormonal imbalance.
- Sugar can cause hypertension.
- Sugar can cause headaches, including migraines.
- Sugar can cause an increase in delta, alpha and theta brain waves, which can alter the mind’s ability to think clearly.
- Sugar can increase blood platelet adhesiveness which increases risk of blood clots and strokes.
- Sugar can increase insulin responses in those consuming high-sugar diets compared to low sugar diets.
- Sugar increases bacterial fermentation in the colon.
Source: http://www.healingdaily.com
More resources about the subject
http://www.medicinenet.com
http://www.sugarbusters.com
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Great post. I stopped eating sugar & white flour about 11 yrs ago. I can relate to your comments. There does seem to be mounting evidence that sugar (at least large amounts) are detrimental to health and accelerate ageing. I also find that pressure from others who are perplexed and sometimes offended somehow is perhaps the one difficulty.
Repaired your weblink faffingmyway. Thanks for comment, nice to hear similar experiences.
I also got a great book recommendation from @artlinkgallery:
Sugar Blues
Confession: I love candy. After reading this post I will think about twice when I’m eating them next time
Thanks for sharing, good read. Care to share how you fight sugar cravings? ^_^
Sure Marisse. At early stage, I used Spirulina, because it also had an effect of calming crawings. Worked quite good, but not perfect.
I eat sweet vegetables and fruits. They have natural sugar, which is good and works well. But you can still have problems if you have eaten a lot of hidden/evident sugar. I think its a matter of knowing your thoughts and feelings, how they arise, know effects from visual and maybe aural impulses, predict and foresee your actions. It will become easier when time goes by. Sometimes its better to progress with small steps, sometimes take the big one, its individual and only self knowledge will help on that.
Good & hard practice itself is the right attitude toward falls. Do not punish yourself by eating more or being pity of your condition. If you fall eating, enjoy and start over. Its not illegal.
I enjoy this site, it is worth me coming back
Kelli, thanks for comment!
Its been really easy season now with sugar diet. Last spring was hard, but now its different. I dont know if first part of the year is more difficult in general for some natural reason, change of seasons or something…
Impressing list of harmful effects of sugar -thanks!
Thanks for tweeting your post. Living sugar-free since 2009-03. Just threw away an “Organic Lollipop”, blogged about it, informed the supplier what I thought of this “gift” and then ran into Jim Humble’s malaria experiment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGjUp1zoov8 Got to get some of that stuff to try out.