By Debbie Zietlow, Integrative Nutrition Health Coach
Picture a moist, fluffy cake with rich, buttercream frosting. Mmm! Are you craving some now? (Sorry about that!) Did you know it’s actually written into our DNA to like and seek out sweet foods? Back before industrialized agriculture, people could only eat what was local and in season, and fruit – the original sweet treat – was only available in the warmer months. Our ancestors filled up on these fruits, adding stores of fat to get them through the harsh winter when food was scarce. Yes, you heard that right – stores of fat. Today, fruit from every corner of the world is available in our grocery stores every day of the year, as well as an overabundance of sweet treats and drinks. What’s more, sugar and its derivatives are found in a whopping 74% of pre-packaged foods!
The Standard American Diet (SAD), with its heavy reliance on processed, pre-packaged foods, is sad indeed. According to government statistics, the average American consumes 152 pounds of fat-inducing sugar per year! For decades we dutifully cut down on fat per the government’s misguided food guidelines, only to replace those calories with sugar, often hidden, while our waistlines grew and rates of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease blossomed. Today a full 70% of American adults are either overweight or obese. Yet the diet industry is booming as people try in vain to lose weight. Why is that?
Plain and simple, sugar is addictive. Our brains are wired to stimulate the brain’s reward center, the nucleus accumbens, when we eat something sweet, whether it contains real sugar or a zero-calorie sugar substitute, and when we eat processed carbs that get rapidly converted to sugar. We’re then hit with intense cravings to eat more and more of those foods. This is the same part of the brain that lights up when a drug addict takes a hit, or an alcoholic has a drink. While this feedback mechanism may have helped our ancestors fatten up for the coming food scarcity of winter, it does not serve us well when we no longer face a food scarcity but rather a food (especially processed food) overabundance. The more sugar and processed carbs we eat, the more the award center lights up, and the more our desire for them becomes reinforced. So how do we break out of our sugar addiction?
Easier said than done, but if you can break away from sugar, sugar substitutes and processed carbs that get rapidly converted to sugar by your body for 10 days, your cravings will slow down to a crawl or even stop, allowing you to indulge in a sugary treat once in a while without resulting cravings. Since sugar and its derivatives are found in 74% of packaged foods, moving to a whole foods diet is key! And don’t worry, fruit (whole fruit, not fruit juice) is not only okay to eat all year round but is a vital part of a healthy, well-rounded whole foods diet. You just want to keep your daily portion to only a few servings per day of low-glycemic fruits such as berries and kiwis, while moderating your consumption of higher glycemic fruits. If you do buy pre-packaged foods, read the ingredient label carefully and avoid those with sugar and hidden sugar code-words, such as high fructose corn syrup, corn sweetener, brown rice syrup, evaporated cane juice, anything that ends in “-ose” or starts with “malt”. Totally avoid refined carbohydrates such as flour, which get converted immediately to sugar in your body.
If you are ready to reclaim your health and break up with sugar once and for all, I highly recommend reading Dr. Mark Hyman’s best-selling book, “Food: What the Heck Should I Eat?”, his “no-nonsense guide to achieving optimal weight and lifelong health.”
Best of health to you!
