Sugar, the white gold, the most irresistible apple of Eden. What’s so bad about adding a little sugar to our coffee? Well, if it was only a little teaspoon of the white stuff it wouldn’t be so bad. But nowadays sugar is everywhere, oftentimes cleverly hidden in most processed foods. Table sugar or sucrose is 50% fructose and 50% glucose, but there are many different types and names for sugar, and they are ALL evil. In fact, there are more than 60 different names for sugar (what a great way by the food industry to misguide you).
We all know beet sugar, cane sugar, coconut sugar, yellow sugar and glucose. Other types of sugar sound like they may actually be good for you such as evaporated cane juice, date sugar, fruit juice, honey, maple syrup, raw sugar, rapadura, brown rice syrup and agave nectar. Still other names for sugars are completely unrecognizable like barley malt, diastatic malt, ethyl maltol, lactose, maltodextrin, galactose and treacle.
Back in the 1700s the average Westerner consumed 4 to 6 pounds of added sugar in one year. Today the average is more than 80 pounds. The increase of sugar consumption goes parallel with the increase in obesity, no surprise there. About 60% of the American diet is comprised of ultra-processed food. Almost ALL highly processed food contains added sugar of some sort.
So why exactly is sugar so bad for you?
Sugars poison the mitochondria. Mitochondria are the part of your cells that produce energy (ATP). The more sugars are ingested the less energy or, what I like to call life-force, is generated. By inhibiting this process, you slowly poison your body, in fact cyanide has the same effect on your mitochondria, preventing energy production causing death.
Excess sugar also creates an inflammatory state in your gut microbiome. It creates an imbalance between friendly and unfriendly flora which will affect your health in a detrimental way, eventually laying the groundwork for many chronic diseases.
On the other hand, the less sugar you consume, the greater the biodiversity of your gut becomes. Those good bacteria will cause health and weight loss as a result.
Your pancreas produces two hormones, insulin and glucagon. Insulin is responsible for fat storage whereas glucagon unlocks fat storage. When you ingest sugars, the insulin tries to get the glucose out of your blood system. When you continuously eat foods with lots of sugar, insulin will be produced non-stop. The insulin will keep spiking again and again working overtime until, eventually, you become insulin resistant leading to type 2 diabetes.
Interestingly, insulin also blocks the activity of fat burning hormones. If insulin keeps spiking constantly due to sugar consumption that will prevent you from losing weight.
Sugar has no nutritional value whatsoever. In fact, sugar does not cause any growth other than in abnormal cells such as cancer cells where they will flourish.
When you ingest sugar about 10 of that ‘dose’ is turned into fat in the intestine and gets release in the blood as VLDL. The rest of the sugar goes into the liver. If the liver continuously get flooded by these sugars, it will increase liver fat storage which will eventually leads to non-alcoholic-fatty-liver-disease. This condition may be the cause of many health problems such as mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, drives to insulin resistance, heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s and most other chronic diseases. By the way, HFCS, high fructose corn syrup, does DIRECTLY to you liver!
Interestingly, sugar and alcohol is fermented by the same process in the liver. They both stimulate lipogenesis which basically turns sugar into fat. Again, a dangerous situation causing fatty liver disease and laying the groundwork for disease when overconsumed.
Sugar causes changes in your mental and emotional state because it affects the hormones serotonin and dopamine. You find yourself on a rollercoaster of sugar highs and lows which has been associated with problems in school, aggression, irritability, violent behaviour and dementia. It displays the classic criteria of addiction: increased intake – withdrawal – cravings.
Artificial sweeteners aren’t much better. In studies with rats, saccharine was 94% more addictive than cocaine. Artificial sweeteners signal the pancreas to produce insulin but the sugar calories never arrive and the body will look elsewhere to use the produced insulin, this will cause you to eat more (so much for ‘diet’ drinks). In a study sucralose elevated blood glucose levels by 14% and increased insulin levels by 20% on average which means your body will suffer from the same insulin spikes as regular sugar.
How can you get off this addictive sugarcoaster? Quitting cold turkey is tough. Start with baby steps and cut out liquid sugars which hit your system very quickly: soft drinks (one can of coke contains 16 teaspoons of sugar), fruit juices (20oz of pure orange juice contains 14 teaspoons of sugar) and dairy drinks (a 16 oz glass of chocolate milk contains 8 teaspoons of sugar, natural and added).
One way to diminish the sugar flood, other than simply cutting out sugars altogether, is by ingesting fiber. Soluble and insoluble fiber create a secondary barrier in your intestine that prevents early absorption of glucose, fructose, sucrose, simple starches etc thus taking some pressure off your precious liver. Fiber is also food for your gut bacteria creating a healthy biodiversity.
Build muscle. Exercise, and in particular resistance training, will build muscle in your body. Muscles are able to uptake some of that sugar consumption which can help balance your blood sugar.
Stay away from ultra-processed food, it is stripped of fiber and contains tons of added sugars. Stick to whole foods that are in their natural form. Vegetables and especially fruit contain naturally occurring sugars, they are perfectly fine to eat. They are whole foods full of vitamins, minerals and fiber.
Read the labels. Recognize sugar by its different names and pay attention to amount per serving, a serving oftentimes is very small. Just because a product is labelled as ‘healthy’, ‘natural’, ‘low-fat’ or ‘whole’ it doesn’t mean it is not full of added sugars. Be extra vigilant of everyday foods like ketchup, salad dressing, yogurt, sauces (spaghetti/ BBQ), sports drinks, health bars, soups and cereals. All these processed, innocent foods are laden with unhealthy sugar.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. Allow some cheat days and indulge in that piece of dark chocolate. Being to regimented and strict will cause binge eating if you ever fall off that sugar-wagon. The less sugar you eat, the less you will crave it. Stick to whole foods, your body and mind will thank you.