Take One Giant Leap Into Achieving Great Health: KICK SUGAR!
What Sugars Can We Eat?
I recently saw an awesome article written by Nicole Tsong. She backed up very nicely what we've known for years-- sugar is BAD for us in many ways, but hard to cut from our diets because it is everywhere! About the time I saw her article, Mayor Mike Bloomberg was busy trying to ban large soft drinks from New York! Seems he wants to reduce the weight of a great many people, including school children, who are obese and therefore slowly declining into poor health. He seems to think that reducing the size of soft drinks will go a long way in achieving that goal.
I really appreciate the effort Mayor Bloomberg is making, but it is sad, because he hasn't a clue about how to go about achieving what New York, and yes, the rest of our country needs. The problem is mostly sugar, but there are other ingredients in soft drinks that we should not consume, among them- preservatives and phosphoric acid. Even so, it is no doubt the sugar he was trying to reduce, thinking that would solve some problems. Sugar is highly addictive to a great many people, and most coke drinkers would just get two smaller drinks if they couldn't get one big one. The same goes for burgers or any fast food that contains flour. Flour and sugar are addictive, not nutritious and definitely adds to that roll of fat many would like to see disappear. Instead of trying to make people buy less of what isn't good for them he should work on making companies create products that are good for us to eat and drink. Cane juice and honey are good, but for drinks that will be consumed in great quantity (we do need to consume lots of water), stevia should be used.
OK-- what if we went to the grocery store with our shopping list and found NO products that contained flour or other processed grains, NO products that contained sugars of any kind and NO products that had artificial sweeteners, soy products, or processed oils? Would you be able to get the foods you went in for? Probably not, and there is something very wrong with this picture. There needs to be more than fresh fruits and vegetables in the store for us and the things there should be healthy-- so why aren't they? Why are money-hungry companies allowed to manufacture unhealthy products and sell them as healthy? Why?
I've learned to shop about 3 stores to get the healthy foods we need and want that don't have ingredients in the labels that we can't pronounce, and are truly healthy for us to consume. If you're careful, you can find flour that is 100% whole wheat, bread too, but the very best breads, buns, cereals, English Muffins, pasta, tortillas and more, are the Ezekiel 4:9 ones. This company took their lead from the Bible where it says: "Take also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils and millet, and spelt and put them in one vessel…" Ezekiel 4:9. I doubt you will find healthier 'flour' products than these anywhere. We sweeten with stevia, honey and dried cane juice. We like coconut and olive oils, but use mostly REAL butter and REAL cream. Of course we LOVE CHOCOLATE!! So- we eat healthy chocolate- there's more than one, but Fred Meyer sells a very yummy dark chocolate ball with only healthy ingredients. It has a malt-ball middle surrounded by peanut butter and covered with healthy dark chocolate- nothing bitter here- it is sweetened with dried cane juice. We eat many fruits and veggies raw, but like many of our vegetables steamed and served with a pat or two of butter. Did I leave anything out? Yes, sometimes when having a nice steak dinner, baked potato, vegetable and salad, I like a nice glass of wine.
Since it is entirely possible to have and eat great foods and be healthy-- why don't all companies make them available in every store, with the bad unhealthy ones removed? I believe I know the answer to that, but it's a discussion for another day.
