FOOD for THOUGHT: Sugar by Any Other Name Will Be as Sickly Sweet

(Dietary changes should be discussed with a health care provider.)

How many whole grains did you have time to try last month?  Here’s a quick piggy-backed comment to that topic before moving forward: in talking about grain, I neglected to discuss bread.  I hope, once we realize the impact of whole grains vs. stripped grains, that we can put that into our bread choices -- literally.  The goal is to make white bread something we just don’t buy anymore, a food it would not cross our minds ever to pick up.  Once you fall in love with the range of flavors & textures among whole grain bread, you will crave its taste & heartiness and forget that you are buying it for its nutrition.

The end of September was very busy for me, but let’s jump back in without delay.  I’ll keep this one short and sweet (but with no added sugar) as I hope to keep the topics coming more than once per week this month.  This is the third (and last for a while) discussion of sugar.  First we discussed how often sugar is added to foods that should not have any and how much sugar we consume with little or no awareness in FOOD for THOUGHT: Everything in Moderation Especially Sugars

http://westford.patch.com/blog_posts/food-for-thought-everything-in-mode...

Next we learned that eating too much sugar is as bad as eating too much fat and I learned that after personally avoiding corn syrup since the 3^rd grade, but publically giving it the benefit of the doubt, it was time to go public with an expert’s backing in FOOD for THOUGHT: Late Leptin & the Ghrelin Gremlin

http://westford.patch.com/blog_posts/food-for-thought-late-leptin-the-gh...

Now it is time to review an earlier lesson, but first we must learn some necessary vocabulary to complete it.  Here is our word list (the words are all synonyms; can you guess of what?):

AGAVE / Agave Nectar

ALCOHOL Sugars / Maltitol / Sorbitol / Xylitol / Alcoholic Drinks

BEET SUGAR

CANE Juice / Cane Crystals / Cane Syrup / Evaporated Cane Juice

CHICORY (for some reason differentiation is not required between the green leafy plant form and Chicory Sugar (like beet sugar) & Chicory Syrup (like corn syrup))

CORN SYRUP / High Fructose Corn Syrup / Corn Sweetener / Corn Syrup Solids

Crystalline Fructose (is concentrated, solidified High Fructose Corn Syrup)

FRUIT JUICE / Concentrated ______ Juice / Fruit Concentrate

HFCS (same as High Fructose Corn Syrup)

HONEY

MALT___ (things that begin with malt) / Malt Syrup / Maltodextrin / Maltose

MAPLE Syrup / Maple Sugar

MOLASSES / Blackstrap Molasses

-OSE (things that end with ose) / Dextrose (usually from corn) / Fructose / Glucose

/ Lactose (from milk)

Sucrose (same as saccharose; is one glucose bonded with one fructose)

SUGAR / Brown Sugar / Cane Sugar / Invert Sugar / Raw Sugar / Table Sugar / Turbinado Sugar

SYRUP (and things that end with syrup) Barley Malt Syrup / High Maltose Corn Syrup / Rice Syrup

Believe it or not this is only a partial list of common names for added sugar!  And I didn’t even list the fake additives, which are to be avoided even more (Aspertame, Saccharin, Sucralose, etc.).  At this stage of the game it’s mostly about QUANTITY – specifically reducing it.  There are arguably some QUALITY issues, but let’s start by moving into a reasonable range before we tweak substitutions.

Remember in the very first post when I asked that you read all of the ingredients of everything that you purchased or ate for the whole week?  I mentioned that we would repeat the exercise every season.  Well fall is upon us; so, please read those ingredients again – keep a particularly watchful eye for the above sugar variations.

CHALLENGE #11 of 50:

See if you can go 1 day, one 24 hour period, from waking to sleeping consuming no, nada, ZERO added sugar!  I am not asking you to give it up for life. Eliminating, rather than reducing, for even this short period of time will drive home the point of exactly how prevalent sugar is in what we consume.  After the chosen test day, just try to stay below the teens/20/36 gram marks for children/women/men respectively -- (while you can’t exercise twice as much and eat twice as much sugar, particularly tall and particularly athletic people do get a slightly higher allowance, but it works in reverse for the busy, but sedentary people and for those of us of shorter stature – I feel for you, I am a giant in my family at 5’5”).

It takes a month to six weeks to retrain your taste buds; so, this may be a tall order in the beginning.  The stricter you can be at the onset, the shorter the discomfort.  Near the end it will be much easier – more of a habit than an effort – and when you have succeeded in lowering your sweet threshold, you will find that your tongue rediscovers the fruit flavor in the pie and the chocolate flavor in the truffle and the honey, nutty flavor in the sweet bread or baklava.  You will no longer even like the candy that has more sugar than chocolate and the fruit tart that is coated in corn syrup, AND best of all you, won’t miss the sugar in your meals one bit.

QUOTE of the WEEK:

 

You know how you wake up in the morning and sometimes you look gorgeous and other times you look like you got hit by a mac truck? I realized that my mac truck is food. If I have no sugar, I have no under-eye bags and my skin is perfect.

Mariska Hargitay