Sugar Diaries - Part 2
Here’s a great way to make you feel good. Sugar! It will trigger certain hormones in your body as it gives you a rush of pleasure, soon to be followed by a crash that’ll make you wish you were in bed all day!
Do you remember a time when you were feeling low? Were you fortunate enough to have parents that looked after you and baked for you? Or better yet, baked with you? Treats like cookies, sweetbreads, and everything else that can put a smile on the 7-year-old-you’s face? Can you recall all the memories involving ice cream after long hot summer days and that midnight run to the grocery/convenience store to get your sugar fix?
How do we traditionally celebrate joyous and momentous occasions? Typically, by eating something sweet. Birthdays, weddings, new years, any celebration - usually calls for something sweet and that’s just the way most of us were raised. We were raised in a culture that celebrated with sugar and as a result, we associate sugar with pure, sheer, joy. Sugar is happiness.
Our commercialization of holidays has also resulted in more sugar being consumed. We start the year with sparkling wine, then follow up with heart-shaped chocolate on valentine’s day. Then comes easter and every chocolate suddenly transforms into sweet little eggs - because rabbits lay eggs, of course! Then comes a brief intermission known as summer where we suddenly become obsessed with fitting into our bikinis, which do us the honour of avoiding sugars for a while. Soon after, we enter the pumpkin spice season, also known as fall or autumn. This is quickly followed by Halloween and you can’t have Halloween without candies, right? The transition becomes even more rapid as we enter thanksgiving (or Turkey slaying day) and stuff ourselves with pumpkin pies and tarts in addition to the cranberry sauce that pairs so well with turkey. Soon after, Christmas follows and the shelves at markets are loaded with beautifully decorated and wrapped holiday-themed boxes of chocolate.
Sugar is simply embedded in our culture. Which is why it is so hard to avoid it. It’s even used as a preservative and flavour enhancer so it finds its way into many packaged goods - whether or not you define them as sweet or savoury, check the nutrition label next time you are shopping and pay attention to the sugar content of your foods. It’s hard to follow the recommended WHO guidelines when everything left, right, and center is laced with sugar.
Sugar is naturally found in fruits, vegetables, dairy, and carbohydrates. This sugar that is found in whole foods is well balanced with fiber, antioxidants, water, and other vitamins and minerals and our bodies take time digesting these sugars. These are not included in the recommendations and overconsumption that I am talking about. Here, we are talking about the added sugars. The effects that these added sugars have on our health can be deadly if we keep up our daily overconsumption of sugar. Effects on our heart - our cardiovascular health. Excess sugar will be metabolized by the liver into fat (like it does with alcohol) therefore resulting in fatty liver, which then increases our chances of heart disease and diabetes. Not to mention increased blood pressure and blood sugar, and overall inflammation which in turn further increases our chances of heart disease. Sugar also has an effect on our hormones and coupled with the inflammation can affect how estrogen is metabolized. Conditions like PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and endometriosis are further exacerbated in a body that is struggling to balance the metabolism of sugars. If you are menstruating, are you getting increased pains and cramps to the point that it is negatively affecting the quality of your life? That’s not normal and if you are supplementing the pain with more sugar, then you are in for a ride.
Keep in mind, there have been studies that have shown sugar’s effects to be similar to that of heroin. These studies have been done on rats and so there is an assumption that it may affect humans the same way. Sugars certainly affect our brain in ways we are only beginning to comprehend but until we have all of the facts together, we can safely say that there is no harm in reducing our added sugars. We know sugar affects the brain but to what extent? It’s debatable. I don’t think it looks very positive considering the mere absence of sugar from our diets when examining the historical existence of humans. The evidence is there to point out that we are consuming TOO much sugar than our predecessors and the effects of those added sugars on our bodies is nothing short of negative.
What we shouldn’t do is vilify sugars entirely to the point that we have to cut out fruits, vegetables, legumes, and other complex carbohydrates that are part of a healthy and well-balanced diet. No food group should be vilified to the point of extinction as that will backfire. Developing habits take time and reducing sugars from our diet should be a gradual process vs an all-out zero added sugar diet. You’ll drive yourself crazy, or hit a low that could only be filled with withdrawal-like symptoms resulting in binge eating. Conversely, it’s quite naive to defend food service providers and thinking that they have our best interests in mind. Did you know that Dietitians also work for companies like Frito-Lay? Corporations employ health experts to defend their agenda and that’s just business. We can’t rely on the advice we hear from the mass producers of sugars as they are the ones in business and have a product to sell and to market. If sugar has become such a strong part of our culture, then indeed it will be a long and hard battle, one that may last generations and will require the support of all of our networks, to finally result in a reduced intake of sugar. This will be achieved through hard and consistent work in changing our habits, our culture, and our behaviours and attitudes towards sugar.
We have to look at sugars from many perspectives. The history, the culture and how our habits and behaviours might be sugar driven. Moreover, if sugar is having an effect on our hormones and our brain activity then we certainly want to manage our emotions when it comes to sugar. Quitting cold turkey will not be a good idea as it won’t be sustainable due to the impending environmental pressures of cultural practices, rituals, and decade-old traditions.
In short - let’s try to make tiny habits in reducing our added sugars. These baby steps can come a long way and let’s get those around us involved and accountable so it becomes more of a community-driven movement that will benefit more than the individual. That would be promising and that’s exactly what I intend to do.