SUGAR
This is an interesting one... so to start heres a few annoying facts about sugar.
1- It has been found to be more addictive than cocaine
2- Fruit juice contains more sugar than coke
3- Refined sugar has no nutritional value
4- Australians consume an average of 105 grams of total sugar per day.
(that's 26 teaspoons a day ! )
5- The average Australian consumes 60grams of unintentional sugars per day
(meaning from low fat products or fruit juices ect).
Most people swing one way or the other with this. They either hate the stuff or they love it! And for a while I was definitely one who hated it. You could say I went a little cold turkey on the sugar, all the way to even cutting out fruit.
Now this isn’t something I recommended people doing so please don’t get me wrong, but for me and only for a little while it worked. I quit the sugar, thanks to one of my favorite programs I Quit Sugar by Sarah Wilson and it changed a lot for me. I don’t like very many programs as they seem so temporary and again I don’t recommend this for everyone, but this was just for my own health battles at the time.
When I removed sugar from my diet I removed all packaged foods, processed foods, chocolate (old fave), low fat everything, juices, dried fruits, normal fruits and much more. So what happened?
Firstly I was tired, like really tired; I was taking afternoon naps, I never take naps? You get what I mean by tired? But after a couple of weeks it had completely passed. Then my skin cleared up perfectly, and you can tell a lot about someone by their skin. What they eat, if they’re stressed, sleeping, drinking water ect ect but most importantly for me hormone health. My hormones thought life was all fun and games and when I stopped eating sugar it was the first time in years I had them under control!
So why does sugar play an important role in hormone health?
To me it’s about inflammation. Inflammation is a natural response to the body being stressed and to put it simply sugar stresses your body out! Your body cant control the rapid change in blood glucose so it stress’ itself out. Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) are formed when sugar is combined with fats and proteins. Too much AGEs can lead to oxidative stress and therefore inflammation.
But this is where it gets confusing; this is not the same for all sugars.
There are multiple types of sugar; some considered still good cause they’re “natural” and some that are bad like the standard white sugar you put in your coffee. But it’s not that simple. There are technically 56 types of sugar.
But only six that we come across every single day;
- Fructose: fruits and honey.
- Galactose: milk and dairy products.
- Glucose: honey, fruits and vegetables.
- Lactose: found in milk, made from glucose and galactose.
- Maltose: barley.
- Sucrose: made up of glucose and fructose and found in plants but also known as cane sugar (the bad stuff).
But don’t we need sugar to live?
Yes and No. We need glucose, which yes is a sugar but that doesn’t mean we need to eat rubbish to get it!
All carbohydrates are converted into glucose once they have entered the body. Glucose gives us energy and nutritional benefits. It is the added sugar (fructose and sucrose) that doesn’t give any beneficial nutrients.
One point to make is that all of these sugars are digested in the same manner when they enter the body yet the big difference in the types of sugar you eat is evident by reading your Glycaemic Index. Which is a point I make to many of my clients about controlling your blood glucose levels. So using rice malt syrup, honey or maple syrup will give you a slower blood glucose rise than other processed sugars.
Control my what?
Glycaemic Index. Yes.
The glycaemic index is a number associated with the carbohydrates in a type of food group; it indicates the effect of these carbohydrates on a person's blood glucose level. To control your blood glucose levels you can try increase your intake of healthy fats and proteins as they release a energy into the body at a slower rate and will keep you feeling full for longer!
But how do I know if it has hidden sugar in it?
If you were like me and ate things low in fat, that’s usually a good indication for high in sugar. I always look at the NIP on the back of a packet. Look at the per 100g of sugar and that is an indication of the percentage of it made from sugar. So if it is 24g/100g of sugar; that means it is made up of 24% sugar. Another way is to read the ingredients list, if there is sugar, fat or salt within the first three ingredients… no.
Here is a list of names food processing companies use to try and convince you something maybe healthy!
