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If you're a baby boomer, sugar was, and may still be, as much a part of your life as oxygen and water. So many boomers' nutrition came from sugary Frosted Flakes and Coco Puffs for breakfast, Twinkies and Sno Balls with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and white sugar laced cakes and pies topped with ice cream for the evening dessert. Wow.
As consumers and our medical experts wised up to this onslaught of sugary buzz, food manufacturers wised up too at hiding sugar in bread, condiments, pizza and so on and so on. Today the average American eats 100-160 pounds of sugar per year! This despite the fact that diabetes is epidemic in the U.S. Read on ... there is a natural alternative!
The Real Price of Sugar
US $55.00
As sugar rushes into the bloodstream, insulin is released in an endless attempt to keep blood sugar levels stable. Not only does the excess insulin cause fat storage, it increases the likelihood of asthma, gallstones, arthritis and tooth decay, while it raises triglyceride levels, linked to heart disease and suppresses the immune system.
This rush of insulin leads to hypoglycemia; a state where the body is unable to stabilize blood sugar levels. Ultimately, the overtaxed pancreas can no longer produce an adequate supply of insulin to keep the blood sugar balanced and bingo you the win diabetes and a system in shock.
Will It Make You Crazy Before It Kills You?
While making you fat and deathly ill, sugar's greatest assault may not be to the body but to the mind. Studies show, as does observations of children given a sugary treat, that sucrose and the foods it's hidden in, causes mood swings, confusion, depression, personality changes, anti-social behavior, violence and even mental illness. Hypoglycemic, the body's reaction to long term sugar overdoses, has also been linked to mood swings and violence.
White sugar is a drug, as purely refined as cocaine and just as addicting. It has been "refined" of any minerals, vitamins and enzymes the sugarcane plant once possessed and is no longer a food, providing zero health benefits.
If you're feeling sad, mad or just not glad take a look at your sugar consumption over the past 24-48 hours. Chances are you are crashing from the sugar buzz and your blood sugars are in total distress. You cannot feed a healthy mind with nutrient-devoid foods.
If Not Sugar, What?
The controversy over artificial sweeteners continues. Aspartame (NutraSweet and Equal), Saccharin (Sweet'N Low and SugarTwin), Acesulfame K (Sunett and Sweet One) and Sucralose (Splenda).
There are as many experts claiming them safe as there are claiming them a health risk. The truth is the experts don't know and can only seem to agree on one thing: these products are synthetic compounds without nutritional value.
A Natural Alternative
Stevia, native to South and Central Americas, is a natural sugar substitute from the chrysanthemum and sunflower family. Two to three hundred times sweeter than sugar, stevia is gaining support as a low carbohydrate, calorie free product that has negligible effect on blood sugar and is useful for weight loss and diabetic control.
Although widely used in Japan and Canada, the U.S., requires stevia be labeled as a supplement. Both Coca-Cola and Pepsi are working to replace sugar and artificial sweeteners with their own branded stevia.
Sold in power or liquid extract form, stevia is very heat stable and is perfect for cooking and baking.
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