Ohh, honey honey!

Everybody knows that sugar is not part of a healthy lifestyle, but is it possible that not all sugars are created equally?

This addictive additive is difficult to avoid and can be disguised in many ways on food labels. Some names for sugar that you might not recognize are:

• Dextrose
• Fuctose
• Galactose
• Glucose
• Lactose
• Maltose
• Sucrose

These are the most common, but there are over 50 different names that manufacturers can name sugar!

When you think sugar, you probably think white table sugar.

Table sugar is mainly sucrose, just one of the many faces of sugar! Sucrose itself is a mixture of glucose and fructose. All of these are sweet, and cheap additives that make candy and pastries oh so appetising.

Carbohydrates are a broad term used to classify food molecules that eventually break down into glucose. When you see the term “simple carbohydrates” or “complex carbohydrates”, this just indicates how long your individual digestion takes to break down carbs into raw glucose. Simple carbs are any carb found in powdered, crystallized, or liquid form.

Table sugar, brown sugar, white flour, honey, high-fructose corn syrup, agave nectar, and practically any food ingredient ending with –ose,  are going to be simple carbs. These break down quickly and can be a main cause of the dreaded blood sugar crash! More on this later.

Complex carbs are any carbohydrates that take a long time to break down into glucose.

Any whole plant food is going to contain complex carbohydrates, most notably fibre! Fibre is such a complex carbohydrate that some will never be broken down into glucose in the human gut; instead, fibre helps with digestion by feeding our good gut bacteria. Sugar can be scary, but as with most fears, when you understand what  you’re looking at, you can confidently be armed with the knowledge to overcome that fear.

It is commonly known that too much sugar will raise your blood sugar, or blood-glucose, as well as your insulin levels. If this elevated state is a constant part of your lifestyle, it can lead to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, arthritis, gout, fatty liver disease, and more. An important step to avoid these lifestyle diseases is to reduce the amount of simple carbohydrates in your diet. Candies and chocolate bars are the obvious choices to reduce, also flour products, juice, soda, and even white rice; these foods break down much too quickly.

At each meal, a nice trick to remember is the PFF Rule: Protein, Fats, and Fibre in each meal.

The combination of the three of these will help slow down the digestion and absorption of glucose!

Protein rich foods include meat products, eggs, nuts, beans, or legumes.

Fats can be coconut or olive oils, olives, avocado, nuts, and seeds.

Good sources of fibre are whole grains, avocado, beans, nuts, and seeds. You can also try substituting sugar free sweeteners but be mindful that your body will be  expecting carbohydrates with the sweet flavor, this can lead to some intense sugar cravings!

Sugar cravings are a real thing, we all get them, but what can we do about them?

Excess sugar in our diets can cause our bodies to release essential minerals to combat the effects of the sugar. This is one of the leading causes to of joint pain and bone degeneration.

Drinking mineralized water or adding trace minerals to your water are efficient ways to prevent this. Chromium and Vanadium are two minerals that actively help to suppress sugar cravings. When our blood sugar crashes, we instinctively are going to look for a simple carb to boost ourselves back up. In addition to some of the diet changes above, you can take a blood glucose balancing supplement like Gluco-FX or MetaglycemX.

Cravings aside, there are so many fantastic products that can help you lead a sugar-free lifestyle. If you really can’t avoid it then you can certainly try the tips above to keep your body in balance.

In Good Health,

Better Living Wellness Clinic
Wellness Clinic & Health Store
Natural Health Store Etobicoke
416-249-1895