Sugar Addiction

We all love sugar and sweet foods. We grew up on cupcakes and Twinkies and they taste great. And personally I must have inherited a very strong "sweet tooth". Until the past few years I was addicted to chocolate chip cookies and other really sweet foods. Now I couldn't even imagine eating them or having a snickers bar. The concentration of sugar would send me so far out of balance. One of the things I've really been trying to get a handle on is the level of sugar that is consumed on a daily basis. That includes carbohydrates like refined flowers etc. I've pretty much eliminated all refined carbohydrates, and now the only sugar I consume is fruit sugar and things like agave nectar and honey.



Cancer has 6 times the receptor sites on them for sugar than normal cells. Sugar is literally a "cancer magnet." And sugar can be linked to all kinds of other dis-eases. So I'm going to share with you some good sugar replacements that can raise the level of sweetness without disturbing or altering your blood sugar levels too dramatically.

TIP:
Try to extend as far out as possible these sugars in your smoothies or other recipes and add only a very very tiny amount of agave or honey to round out the taste and flavor.

So how would this look? Let's say you are making a fruit smoothie or a chocolate cacao smoothie. As your sweetener you could use a packet of stevia, a packet of xylitol and a half teaspoon of yacon root syrup. And if that still is not sugary enough or sweet enough, add a pinch of celtic or himalayan sea salt. That usually helps to bring out the flavor of sweetness. Then you could add just a little more of each one of the stevia or xylitol. And after that, if it's still not sweet enough, add just a pinch of agave or a half teaspoon of honey to help bring all the sweetness together. But try to rely mostly on the stevia, xylitol and yacon for sweetness and only as a last resort use the agave or honey as a treat. This little trick will help you keep it sweet without raising your blood sugar levels too dramatically.

FRUITS:
I would recommend staying far away from fruits that have no seeds. A lot of people recommend eating a no fruit no sugar diet. That might be good for a while to give your body a rest from sugar. But if you eat fruits you should aways eat the seeds of fruit (with the exception with maybe apples, although there is some debate as to whether or not the seeds of apples are actually dangerous for you). Seedless oranges, seedless grapes, seedless watermelons are particularly dangerous. Bananas and dates are really high in sugar as well. Bananas are 25% sugar! Great fruits are berries of all kinds. They are generally sweet, with low sugar and high minerals and high in antioxidants. Dried fruits are an even more concentrated sugar.

A NOTE ON WILD FOODS:Seedless modified fruits are really pathetic weaklings and not
natural and really don't provide the mineral content and vitamin content that we really need. If a fruit has to be coddled and taken care of every single day because any one of a host of molds or fungi could attack it in your garden, is this really something that is going to be healthy for you? So remember, something that can stand on it's own in your garden without being taken care of is a strong fruit or vegetable that his high in minerals and probably very healthy for you.

JUICES:
Try substituting celery for carrots as the base for your vegetable juices. Or maybe use only 1 carrot instead of 3-4 carrots per vegetable juice. Also if you use apples in there for taste, use granny smith green apples as they are the lowest apples in sugar.

RAW FOOD TIP:
Remember your addiction and lifestyle was something you were born with and something that you've been battling since you were just a little kid. Give yourself time to overcome these addictions. Be easy on yourself. Unless you are in a healing crisis and have a disease like cancer or diabetes. Then you have to be a little more cut throat about getting off of sugar.

We do not want to completely get rid of sugar in our diets. But we have gone so overboard in how we eat as a culture and completely abused this food that is has overtaken everything we eat. Our brain uses glucose to help it run and operate. So I believe we need to have sugar every once in a while as a treat but it's just gotten way out of hand and literally people eat it 3 times a day and even in their snacks and wonder why they come down with every cold and flu that goes around. We just not sensible when it comes to sugar that's all.

WHAT IS STEVIA?
Stevia is an herb that grows naturally in south america as a small shrub mainly in Brazil and Paraguay. Stevia is a part of the Chrysanthemum family. It is incredibly low on the glycemic index and in some cases sweater than sugar making it a great sugar replacement. Although if taken in too high of a dose it can leave a slightly bitter aftertaste. The glycosides contained in it's leaves are called steviaosides and make up about 10% of it's sweetness and some brands are 30 times sweater than sugar!. Stevia also contains zero calories. Stevia can come in powder or liquid extract form.

WHAT IS XYLITOL?
Xylitol is also a natural sweetener that can be found in plums, strawberries and raspberries. Most Xylitol is extracted from Birch bark and has about 40% less calories than sugar. Because Xylitol is granulated like sugar it serves as a great substitute for sugar in lots of recipes. There have been people even stating that Xylitol helps prevent tooth decay but I have not seen the evidence for this.

WHAT IS YACON ROOT SYRUP?
Yacon root syrup is mainly fructooligosaccharide which means it absorbs into your bloodstream very slowly. It comes mainly from Peru and south america and is pressed from the root.

WHAT IS AGAVE NECTAR?
Agave nectar comes from the inner part of the agave cactus plant that can be found in mexico. There are over 100 variates and blue agave is where the make tequila from. It is very sweet and tastes a bit like maple syrup and makes a great sweetener to smoothies and desserts and is very low on the glycemic index scale.

Great Link about sugar addiction
http://www.nancyappleton.com/NA144reasons.html





Here is a great video. I have link to buy this video at the top left of this page:


1 Comment:

Teri said...

Thanks, brother. I used to have this video on my site. I've been slipping lately, so watching this, I got tears in my eyes and it really encouraged me to get my salad, greens, raw food today, instead of coffee and Matrix food at my local cafe. Bravo!!!