Sunday Story...Sweetness

Sunday Story…Sweetness

There is a drug so powerful that it addicts almost 100% of the people who use it. It is so insidious that the effects can only be seen over time. Yet the short term effects are immediate and noticeable in almost 100% of users. Long term it has been linked to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, neurological disorders, digestive issues, high blood pressure, lever disease, dementia, depression, and epilepsy.

This substance is so innocuous that it is virtually everywhere in our modern world. It appears as a dangerous and addictive white powder. It is available virtually anywhere and it is cheap. So cheap, in fact, that it is used in great quantities throughout our country. We manufacture tons of it and it does not occur naturally in nature.

It is everywhere. It is in our schools, our homes, our workplaces and our recreational centers. And it is killing us. We allow the schools to give it to our children as a reward. We give it to our children without thinking. I grew up on it and so did virtually everyone we know.

Most of us are addicted to it. We crave it and will ruin our health for it without thinking. The cravings are so powerful we will ruin our health before we try and quit. If we try to quit we will have withdrawal symptoms just like a crack or a heroin addict. It may be the hardest addiction to leave behind because we have been brainwashed to believe that it really isn’t ”that” bad.

The drug in question, the white powder I am talking about is sugar...the stuff that sits in the bowl on your kitchen table. You probably have a whole container of it somewhere in your house. Right now your children may have a whole bag of it stashed somewhere in the house. Of course their bag isn’t just pure sugar; no, their bag is worse. Brightly colored wrappers, fascinating logos and combined with other things to make it even more appealing and addictive they went out and begged on the streets for it just the other evening. And we, the adults, the grownups encouraged them to go. And some of us even shared in the spoils when it got home.

You may think this is radical thinking. How can a food be addictive? How can something that we thought was so good be so bad? There are lots of studies and books and articles that prove this out. And it isn’t just excess consumption, although excess consumption is very harmful. It appears that even a bit of consumption can have far reaching effects. And it is in almost everything you eat, if you eat any kind of processed food. For the record processed food is pretty much anything that isn’t meat, vegetables, fruit, seeds, or nuts. Bread, pasta, yogurt, chips, or pancake batter all have sugar.

And yes, fruit does have naturally occurring fructose (a monosaccharide sugar). This is one of the reasons fruit intake should be limited and fruit juice should not be ingested. Fruit juice has had the mitigating fiber and “food” removed from it and results in a pretty plain drink of sugar and liquid.

You have been conditioned to eat sugar your whole life. If you don’t believe me, if you think I am full of it just try to stop eating sugar for 30 days. All of it. 100% clean. After all if I am wrong you can always go back to eating it again on the 31st day. Oh and artificial sweeteners are probably worse. They act the same way in the body, they affect the same beta sites and they create the same insulin reaction as sugar. Except there isn’t any calories, no sugar for the insulin to act upon so there is a large probability that your insulin resistance is going to get worse (this is what helps create type II diabetes by the way)

You will experience withdrawals. You will have headaches, fatigue, cravings, and generally feel bad. Yet if you stick it out you will feel better in just a few days. It is going to be way too easy to fall back into the sugar abyss. Sugar is ubiquitous…it is everywhere. And the real challenge will be over the next 2 months.

This Monday marked the start. Not the start of winter, although winter is certainly trying to arrive. Monday was Halloween and the start of “treat” season. The next 2 months will be filled with candy, irresistible deserts, favorite comfort foods, and a wink and a nod to overeating. Guilt and pressure to “try everything” will be paramount. So much of the food we associate with comfort, and home, and the holidays are sugar laden bombs just waiting to go off to the detriment of your health.

Is your health important enough to you to stop eating sugar? Or have you dismissed me as some kind of crazy, a fruitcake who has fallen into the soup of crazy nutrition advice? You don’t have to believe me. You can do the same research I have done. Go ahead and Google it…sugar addiction. Or just about anything with sugar…sugar and diabetes, sugar and obesity, sugar and hyperinsulinemia, sugar and depression the information is readily available.

Or you can stick your head in the sugar bowl and say it just isn’t true. After all the government and the major food companies only have your health interests at heart. The only person who is going to suffer is you not the FDA or the USDA or Monsanto, or Pepsi, or Coca Cola. And really you have nothing to lose by stopping for 30 days. Just 30 days of no added sugar. C’mon you can do it!

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

Follow me at:
Twitter --- http://m.twitter.com/jmariotti
FaceBook --- John Mariotti
Blog Spots…John Mariotti
http://feel-good-friday.blogspot.com/
http://sunday-stories.blogspot.com/