This Valentine’s Day, if you truly love your sweetheart, do them a favor and don’t give them milk chocolates. Or a cake. Or cookies. Or any other sweet goodies.
As per tradition, Valentine’s Day is the perfect excuse for sugar overload. (Photo from Folksdaily.com)
We’re serious. Sugar kills: that’s the short story of it. The long story is that several studies have already published their findings on sugar. All of them have unanimously agreed that sugar is the single most damaging substance you can take in your body, far worse than salt or saturated fat. How so? Keep reading!
Perhaps the most famous study of all is the one by Dr. Robert Lustig. His YouTube video Sugar: The Bitter Truth went viral back in 2009, and is a real eye-opener. Dr. Lustig, an endocrinologist from California, has linked sugar to all major fatal diseases plaguing our generation today: cancer, obesity, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, and many others. (And we all thought sugar only caused cavities.)
Dr. Lustig also happens to be a brave man for pursuing his research. After all, his findings certainly don’t sit well with the very large and lucrative food industry, collectively known as Big Food, which uses sugar in just about everything. Not only that, he’s also up against the government which backs and subsidizes sugar companies (with taxpayers’ money!) As with most things, there’s a hidden politics to sugar.
Consider this: John Yudkin wrote about the evils of sugar way back in 1972 in his book Pure, White, and Deadly. More than 40 years later, and no definitive legislative action has still been made regarding sugar.
Sugar-Coating It
Pick any food package off the grocery shelf, and chances are sugar is the first thing listed on the ingredients.
Some manufacturers—aware that sugar is bad, but conscious about not having it at the beginning of the list of ingredients—have become adroit in disguising sugar, calling it by dozens of names: sucrose, fructose, glucose, dextrose, corn sweetener, molasses, honey, malt syrup, corn syrup, cane sugar, fruit juice concentrates, and a lot more aliases.
So even if people consciously avoid adding sugar into their coffee or tea, for example, they’d still be unknowingly consuming harmful excesses of hidden sugar in processed food—be it bread, crackers, ketchup, peanut butter, salad dressing, or even so-called natural juices.
The Trouble with Sugar
Even if manufacturers came out clean, it’s not like we’re going to quit sugar any time soon (just as we don’t expect you to suddenly quit sugar just because you happened to this article).
Sugar is one of the most addictive substances on earth. Manufacturers are assured of constant and loyal consumers, so long as they keep their products just the right sweetness. The trouble with sugar though is that it messes up with the reward centers of our brain in a big way. According to a 2007 study,
“The supranormal stimulation of these receptors by sugar-rich diets, such as those now widely available in modern societies, would generate a supranormal reward signal in the brain, with the potential to override self-control mechanisms and thus to lead to addiction.”
This addiction even surpasses cocaine. And sugar is bad and deadly because it fools our brains into thinking that we have to have more sugar, and prevents it from feeling sated and content. The result is that we eat more of the stuff, to the point that our body becomes overwhelmed. Excessive sugar taxes the pancreas, which secrete the insulin that regulates sugar.
Instead of being efficiently burned as energy, excess glucose gets stored as fat in our liver and tissues—the beginnings of obesity. From there, diabetes can kick in, and also diseases of the heart, kidney, pancreas, liver, prostrate and ovaries. Not only does sugar cause cancer, it provides the energy for cancer cells as well.
A Valentine’s Day All-you-can-eat dessert buffet. (Photo from Japantoday.com)
Of course, it’s not just sugar; a whole host of other factors such as lack of exercise, sedentary jobs and lifestyle, toxic environment, pesticide-laden food, antibiotics abuse, etc. contributes to diseases of the 21st century. But sugar is perhaps the most sinister of them all precisely because of its treachery. It lurks in virtually all food products we see on the supermarket shelves today, we can’t help but be drawn to them, and the government itself perpetuates this dependency of ours on sugar.
And let’s face it, how does one convince the public that a well-meaning milk chocolate bar on Valentine’s Day can actually have disastrous consequences?
How to Shun Sugar Once and for All
Just like any drug, it’s going to be tough quitting sugar. Steve of Nerd Fitness, who wrote a very compelling piece on why sugar is bad, provides tips for gracefully saying No to the stuff. He notes than one can either man up and go cold turkey, or slowly but steadily give up sugar. Identifying one’s cravings, substituting healthy meal options and activities, exercising, and deliberately ridding your household of all forms of sugar are helpful steps. It’s really an all-out commitment.
Don’t just rely on this one article, please read up more about the dangers of sugar. Now that you’re empowered with information, you know what to do. And yes, even if it’s Valentine’s Day, hold the sweet stuff (by the way, you’re better off with 70{e3829ec1db02d54faaf9fa2de0d48db26af01d7a7944a63c3b26976124791cab} bitter dark chocolate). Consider other non-sweet gifts: a book of their favorite author, tickets to a concert, something relevant or useful for their hobby, something they’re passionate about.
Finally, have a talk with your significant other all about sugar. They’ll love you more for it.
