Friday, July 13, 2012

Sugar = Poison!

Over the last few years, I've been hearing a lot about the white stuff.  No, I don't mean drugs, I mean sugar.  It's been around for many centuries and we've been consuming it for just as long.  However, we haven't considered it a poison until now.  
I have noticed that people have been looking after themselves better; which is great!  However, there is such thing as overkill with how well you look after your health.  And I'm no throwing stones either; I also did this to myself when I cut most of the salt out of my diet.
Years ago, I cut a lot of salt out of my diet.  This was great.  I stopped eating junk food - brilliant for the waistline - and I didn't get takeaways of any kind.  My doctors loved me!  But, nobody could take me to a restaurant; where the salt in the food was dreadfully high - well according to my body and my tastebuds.  It was horrible.  So, I had to bring in a little bit of salt back into my diet; just so I could be part of the socialising world again.  
It's the same with sugar.  If people cut it out of their diets completely, nobody can cook anything for their friends if there's sugar in it.  One of my wonderful friends dropped sugar out of his diet and he finds it hard to go out and have anything to eat; as he finds everything out there chock full of sugar!  He's found that his favourite food - pancakes - off-limits because they are too sweet now.  However, if he learned how to make them himself, he wouldn't have the problem; and I let him know that he could make them with only a tablespoon of sugar and not taste it at all.

But really, sugar isn't that bad for us.  It's all in how much was have each day and week.  I don't eat a lot of sugar in my diet; as over the years, I've noticed that I have cut back on store-bought biscuits and cakes and rarely - if ever - have sugar in my coffees anymore.  So, when I go out now, I buy water or find places that make really good coffees; so good that you don't need sugar to sweeten them up.  And that's when a place knows how to make coffee.
So, why call it poison?  Well, like anything, sugar is only poison if you have too much of it.  Like the adage:  'Too much of a good thing is bad for you', well, it goes the same for sugar.  I have found that too much of anything is bad for you; and when I've talked to my doctors, they've agreed.  It's all about proportions - the same way we should be eating other foods as well - and if we watch how much sugar we consume on a daily basis as well as on a weekly basis, we really shouldn't have any troubles with it.  And really, once we can figure out how much sugar we eat and how much we can cut back on - without treating it as though it really is poison - then we can really look at ourselves as healthy people who are on the right track.  
Now, I'm not saying that I'm a saint.  Like I said, I don't eat junk food or sweet things, but like anyone, I used to have a sweet tooth years ago.  When I was growing up, I was a kid who ate all the wrong things.  At high school, my lunch was a packet of chips/crisps and a Chock Wedge Ice Block with a can of Fanta.  Yep, not all that healthy, and chock full of sugar.  And my weekends treats weren't much better either.  I drank Coke-a-cola all weekend thinking it was the coolest thing to drink.  
Now, I'm vegetarian, haven't touch Coke-a-cola in over 8 years and haven't had a Fanta in around 12 years.  Softdrinks don't have a place in my home.  I drink mineral water with a Ginger cordial-like stuff (where you use just a tiny amount to make a lot) and my dessert?  Well, I make a pot of Green Tea and eat a few small chunks of Whitaker's Dark Chocolate; and if I want something more, I grab some cranberries or saltanas.  I cook every meal at home and use less than a cup of sugar a week in my meals and drinks.  And I use raw sugar at that too and not the refined white sugar.  
This kind of lifestyle took a long time to get used to - and I did go out and buy a piece of cake not so long ago and I could barely get three bites into it as it was so very sweet!  However, I'm so much healthier for the change.  I sleep better at night, make better choices when I eat out and don't worry about missing out on anything if I walk past 'Hungry Jacks'.  
Sugar isn't our enemy.  Just look at how long we've been using it.  Throughout the 20th Century, and all the times of how much cooking, food and sweets of those times, and nobody ever worried about how much sugar we were eating.  And now, it's 2012 and we suddenly claim it as Enemy No. 1?  Nah, it's not the product, it's us.  We are looking at it from all the wrong angles.

2 comments:

  1. had always heard throughout life(especially through the school years)that all foods from the food groups should be only in consumed in moderation.

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    1. How true that is. :)

      But sugar being called poison has been doing the rounds and the way people are reacting isn't good. And like I wrote, I've cut back on my consumption, but I haven't cut it out of my diet completely.

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