Take a second and think about what you ate today – cereal, coffee, tea, yogurt, toast, eggs, fruit salad, peanut butter, nuts, veggies, sandwich, leftovers, juice…
How much sugar have you eaten today? Do you know? Do you care to know?
There is a lot of new research on how sugar, specifically the monosaccharide fructose, is affecting our health. Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist at UCSF is spearheading a campaign that suggests fructose is toxic to the body and needs to be significantly decreased in our diet if not eliminated. Whether it is processed high fructose corn syrup, table sugar, honey or even fruit, these foods may have too much sugar for our metabolisms to handle. Click here to watch a lecture by Lustig called The Bitter Truth where he explains the science and research behind his theories. Note – it is 90 minutes long but for those of you who are interested in this, it is well worth it.
60 Minutes did a fantastic piece this week on the subject and it highlights many of the explanations of why we have such cravings. One segment shows how the brain’s reward center is stimulated with sugar, which explains why so many of us crave it and think we are addicted. In addition, research is showing how sugar may be the main culprit behind heart disease – we have believed it was fat for all these years but maybe sugar plays more of a role. Sugar is obviously connected to our current diabetes epidemic but now research is connecting sugar to specific cancers as well.
In the 60 minutes segment Lustig says “We love it. We go out of our way to find it. I think one of the reasons evolutionarily is because there is no food stuff on the planet that has fructose that is poisonous to you. It is all good. So when you taste something that’s sweet, it’s an evolutionary Darwinian signal that this is a safe food.”
This goes back to our innate survival mechanism doesn’t it? Your body is always trying to make sure you never starve in a desert – that is the number one priority of your body even though that is not on any of our minds. This is extremely important to remember when we wonder why we do what we do.
It is time to become aware. Do you know what you are eating? Do you want to know?
Do you know what foods you eat that have added sugar in them? What do you add to your coffee? What is in your cereal, bread, peanut butter or salad dressing? How many sweetened products do you eat each day?
Lustig has presented to the American Heart Association to create limits to added sugars we eat. For men he suggests no more than 150 calories (37.5 grams) and women 100 calories (25 grams). That is not a lot when looking at the average American diet.
How much added sugar do you eat? What could you live without?