Is Sugar Really that Bad?

Sugar is not a health food.

It is not pure evil either.

Sugar is the new villain in the obesity wars, but is it really? When various governments advised people to cut down on fat food manufacturers exchanged fat in foods for sugar, no one ate less and everyone proclaimed “low-fat diets don’t work”. I am sure that you can see the problem with this type of logic.

Three scientists in the 1960s were paid by the sugar industry to hide research that proclaimed sugar as bad for your health. This is still happening today in numerous ways in the food industry. For example,  if you are still on Facebook you have probably seen the ads from Keeping Canadians Healthy urging you to sign the petition to have the Canadian government rethink it’s new guidelines because they are proposing to cut out dairy as a food group. For the record, KeepingCanadiansHealthy.ca is the dairy industry.

This type of pass the blame and create confusion has been happening in the food industry for years. It is about creating confusion. 

Sugar has no nutritional value.

There are no nutrients in sugar. It is is a simple carbohydrate that is easily absorbed and doesn’t require any processing to be absorbed.

This can be very important.

In long endurance events having easy access to fuel for your muscles is critical. These events require glycogen replenishment and simple sugars are the most effective. After a long endurance event, you need to quickly replace depleted muscle glycogen and simple sugars are once again the most effective.

For the record, long endurance events are more than 90 minutes of continuous effort. Sitting does not count.

Naturally occurring sugar is not the same as added sugar.

I can’t count the number of times people who are trying to lose weight tell me, “I can’t eat fruit or rice or…it’s sugar”

Stop that right now. Please.

Naturally occurring sugars, you know the sugar in foods that don’t have labels. On foods with one ingredient. Whole foods. Plant foods. These are not the same as added sugars. These whole foods contain fibre, nutrients, vitamins and simple carbohydrates. They do not cause diabetes. They are not the problem.

There are many names for added sugar in foods. The simplest sugars are ingredients that end in “ose”, glucose, fructose, galactose etc. Maple syrup, brown sugar, agave, they are all sugar. These are the easiest to spot in foods. There are at least 61 different names for sugar listed in ingredients on labels. 

Sugar is everywhere.

Eat wisely. Choose foods that don’t need labels. Whole food, real food, plant food. If you do want to treat yourself to something sweet. Eat real sugar. Don’t eat artificial sweeteners.

Even though sugar is everywhere. It is a better choice than artificial sweeteners. Yes, eating less sugar is better for you, but substituting it with artificial sweeteners comes with its own consequences.

Research presented at the annual meeting of the Endocrinology Society in March 2018 has proven how artificial sweeteners change gene expression to promote inflammation and reduce fat metabolism. 

Dr Sabyasachi Sen, Associate Professor of Medicine at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. states,

“Our stem cell-based studies indicate that low-calorie sweeteners promote additional fat accumulation within cells compared with cells not exposed to these substances.”

Yes, sugar contributes to “empty” calories and yes, sugar is in all processed foods. However, eating foods that don’t require a label, foods with natural sugars is not the same as eating sugar. And, perhaps more importantly, sugar doesn’t interfere with your fat metabolism or change your genes. 

Eat more fruit. Eat less sugar and eat real food.

Change your mind, change your health,

Shayla