Escape the Sugar Jungle

If you’re wrestling with how to escape the sugar jungle, you’re not alone. Nearly two million people have watched Dr. Robert Lustig’s video, “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” or or seen his interview on 60 Minutes. A review of Lustig's work was published in the New York Times article, “Is Sugar Toxic?” by Gary Taubes (April 13 2011).

Dr Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist and the foremost authority on childhood obesity, shows how sugar acts as a poison in our bodies. Ouch! We all know sugar makes us fat, but did you know that it’s also involved in almost every health problem from arthritis to cancer to multiple schlerosis? To make matters worse, sugar activates our brain receptors in the same way as heroin and morphine do. No wonder it’s so hard to quit eating sweets!

Here are some guidelines to help you escape the sugar jungle:

1. Eat real food. Avoid food with labels, as much as possible. If you do have to eat from a box or can, check out grams of sugar in each container. The following are some of the many names for sugar: sucrose, fructose, honey, agave, cane crystals, corn sweetener, corn sugar, dextrose, evaporated cane juice, fruit juice concentrates, high-fructose corn syrup, lactose, maltose, malt syrup, molasses. Never use artificial sweeteners. They can harm the delicate chemistry of the body.
2. Eat regularly so blood sugar stays stable. Small meals, spread throughout the day, keep cravings at bay. Try a small handful of nuts, a hard-boiled egg, or bites of goat or sheep cheese with some crunchy vegetables for a small meal.
3. Don’t be afraid of fats. More studies are showing that carbohydrates (sugars, breads, pasta, cereal)are the real culprits in weight gain. Healthy fats, such as coconut oil, coconut butter, olive oil, avocados, and organic butter are excellent sources of fat.
4. Get enough rest. When you are exhausted, your adrenal glands get over-taxed, causing sugar cravings. To rest well, you also need to do some moderate exercise. Moving the body will stimulate feel-good brain chemicals to be released. These are the same chemicals we turn to carbs and sugar to release.
5. Accept that we all wrestle with emotions sometimes. Eating sweets can be an attempt to numb an uncomfortable feeling. Tools like Emotional Freedom Technique™ are very effective at getting to the deeper issues that food can never heal.
6. Eat fermented foods. I’m not talking about wine or beer here. It might sound a little unfamiliar, but people all over the world have traditionally used naturally cultured foods as an abundant source of probiotic bacteria. Unsweetened kefir, yogurt, unheated sauerkraut or kim chee, miso, natto and kefir made from young coconuts—each of these foods is rich in friendly bacteria that actually reduce the desire for sugar. They also strengthen the immune system.