The One Thing You Eat That's Slowly Killing You!

What is the number one thing that is in most foods you can find in the grocery store and is slowly killing you and your family?

Sugar...

This may not come as a surprise to you as many many studies have come out in the last few years linking a diet high on sugar with heart disease, diabetes, overweight, some cancers and more...

But what you don't know is that some of the things we think are healthy are actually jam packed with sugar! An amazing documentary I recommend you watch on this very subject is "That Sugar Film" it contains much of the info I'm going to talk about in this hub and it presents it in a very fun and entertaining way.

First of all...

What are the effects of sugar in the body?

Let's understand this before we go any further ok?
Regular table sugar is composed of 2 types of sugars, one of them is called "sucrose" and the other is called "fructose"...

Everything we eat is decomposed by the liver in order to be used by the body for whatever the body needs, sucrose is converted by the liver into "glucose" don't get too hung up on the names there is no test at the end of this I'm just looking to give you a general idea...

Glucose is what the body needs for energy, but in order for the body to use this energy it releases "Insulin" in the body...

Insulin acts like a key to unlock the cells and allow them to take advantage of that energy.

So far so good right?

Now the second type of sugar, "fructose" (which is also found in fruit, hence the name) is processed by the liver and turned into fat, now if this is in small quantities and with just fructose there's no problem, fat is also used as energy and we need a certain amount of fat to stay healthy, but remember how I told you Insulin was in the blood stream?

Well Insulin also has a very strict rule... No fat will be absorbed by the body while Insulin is in the bloodstream.

Of course when sugar is abused this will lead to a fatty liver, which can kill you, it can lead to clogged arteries that can also kill you, it will lead to weight gain, and more...

Maybe the name Insulin sounds familiar to you right?

It's because diabetes in short is a deficiency of insulin in the body therefore you can't process sugar regularly and you have to watch your physical activity because you don't get the same amount of energy from food as other people do.

You've probably heard that sugar is one of the leading causes for diabetes, and now you know why, it's because when you're body is burning the candle at both ends trying to process all the sugar coming in your body you start to get sick...

Now we all know the obvious foods with high levels of sugar right?

• Cookies
• Cake
• Ice Cream
• Candy
• Soda Pop
• etc.

But there are foods that most people consider healthy that are jam packed with sugar and you might not even know it...

For example, if you go to a restaurant and you want to take the healthy option so you go for the salad, even though the green vegetables are great for you health that salad dressing you like so much is packed with sugar!

You also may be trying to get a light breakfast and you say to yourself "maybe some high fiber cereal", even though fiber is good for you what you don't see is the cereal is packed with sugar and if you add fruit to that (even though it also has fiber and key vitamins) you're adding sugar on top of more sugar.

All sorts of things like:

• BBQ sauce
• Ketchup
• Yoghurt
• Some Protein shakes and bars
• Granola
• Fruit Juice

All of these things that you would never consider harmful and more are filled with as much sugar as candy...

I know what you're thinking...

What if I use artificial sweeteners?

Well this is even worse than regular sugar, the reason being is it's artificial, it's in the name...

The problem with artificial stuff is your body can't identify it, it doesn't know what that is so it treats it like a threat! Keeping your body on high levels of stress.

Your body goes into survival mode and then it tries to get the artificial sweeteners away from the body by ejecting it or storing it in fat, some studies suggest it can also produce diabetes and some forms of cancer.

So what's left?

Should you swear off sugar forever?

No, not at all...

Your body needs sugar to function but in a very low concentration, what you need to do is to remain vigilant of how many sugar is going into your body every day.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying some ice cream once or even twice a week.

But I'm talking about eating habits, for example if your day looks like this:

Breakfast:
Pancakes (that already have sugar) with maple syrup (more sugar) a bowl of fruit (more and more sugar), orange juice (lots of sugar) yogurt and granola (uber sugar!)

Lunch:
Salad with honey mustard dressing (some sugar), some BBQ ribs (more sugar) a large soda (so much sugar) and an ice cream sundae for dessert (so much sugar!).

Dinner:
Maybe keep it light and go for some cereal with some fruit in it (guess what... SUGAR!) maybe put some yoghurt on there (oh the humanity!)

You get the picture?

The average person eats over 45 teaspoons of sugar a day!
Some people go over this number, what you need to do in order to stay healthy is to keep your daily intake way lower than this!

Once again you still need and should eat sugar but keep it to a minimum.

Hope you found this helpful or alt least informative...
Share this with a friend you might help save their life.

Leave a comment below and I will see you next time :)

Yamil Senior Seda
Better Life Project.