What does the word sugar mean to you? For many sugar is simply the white granular stuff which sits in a sugar bowl on their kitchen table and is something they add to sweeten their taste buds while they are drinking tea, coffee, having a bowl of cereal or for use during baking or adding to desserts.
Unfortunately it is not that simple anymore! Food manufacturers manipulate and disguise labels so you do not see what is in the ‘so called food’ or understand what the labels mean. The sugar found in sugar-beet is called sucrose, the sugar found in milk is called lactose, the sugar found in fruit is fructose. These sugars are broken down in the body differently. So often people will question their fruit intake but ignore the jam, honey, desserts, chocolate, fizzy drinks, alcohol, yoghurts etc in their diets as they have been told there is too much sugar in fruit. Let me explain, yes fruit naturally contains sugar, however this sugar is contained within soluble fibre, it is packed with an abundance of nutrients so you are absorbing it in the body very differently. There are a few people who need to moderate their fruit intake due to excessive candida or have difficulty assimilating fructose, 2-3 pieces of fruit daily is generally sufficient.
Aim for berries more so than very high sugary fruits such as grapes and bananas.So the next time you pick up a glorious juicy piece of fruit, enjoy every mouthful. When you look at the sugar in your sugar bowl understand it has been extracted from the beet from which it grew in and therefore is highly potent and concentrated form of sugar going into your blood stream.
The more processed sugar you have the more insulin you need to produce to keep it under control, this puts extreme pressure on your pancreas which excretes the insulin hormone. On top of this it affects your liver, spleen for immunity, bowels,( get clogged up with nasty bacteria, fungus, parasites etc all feeding off your sugar intake) adrenal glands ( your energy batteries) your weight, your energy , your sleep etc etc!
Let’s have a look at honey for a moment, many see honey as being very good for you, and yes there is research to say honey can help fight against bacterial infections etc however there are many different types of honey. Pure natural raw honey is the best one, Manuka honey is good to help soothe symptoms of colds, fight bacterial infections, claimed to help with ulcers and so on but most honey found on the supermarket shelf comes from bees which have been fed sucrose, yes sugar. So all you are eating in that incident is glorified sugar!
This week , start looking at HOW much sugar you are actually eating…it may give you that short burst of energy but soon you deflate and just crave more…Write down everything you eat and you may be shocked at just how much you are consuming. The adult body can only process a MAXIMUM of 6 teaspoons per day!!!
See you next week for part 2
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Gertrude Lawler, Health for life practitioner, practices in CLANE.
Enquiries or to obtain FREE ‘Beat the sugar blues’ please Email: Gertrude@kinesicare.ie
www.gertrudelawler.com
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