Thursday, February 14, 2008
Sugar Free Makes You Fat? Sweet Valentine's News
Well, it's about time.
For years I've been writing that despite all of our fancy glycemic indexes, studies of blood sugar and new chemicals that claim to make it "taste good, sugar-free" ... that natural is still the way to go (see Human Petroleum and The Sugar-Coated Truth). I've heard all of the claims about artificial sweeteners ... they can cause cancer, harm health, cause you to gain fat, and everything else.
Rather than joining in that debate, I've always felt that you should ask a different, more important question. Not ... is the sugar substitute bad for me, but rather, what about it is good for me? Does it add value? Nutrients? Vitamins? Minerals.
If you follow my journal you'll see I'm no perfect saint when it comes to nutrition. However, when I'm "on plan" and "eating clean" that doesn't mean it's all sugar-free, fat-free, or any of the so-called "free" foods out there. Breakfast is quite often french toast (yes, with maple syrup - all-natural maple syrup, not the maple-flavor high fructose corn syrup most people drink). When I want my oatmeal sweet, I don't reach for the blue, pink, or yellow packets. I just add a teaspoon of natural sugar. No, I don't sweat it, either - it's a whopping 4 grams or 16 calories and if that is going to make me fat then I don't know if there's hope for eating anything!
The bottom line is too many people are still stuck in the either/or approach - either I eliminate all sugar, OR I just go on a rampage and I'm "off plan." The reality is that with time, you can slowly grow to appreciate the naturally sweet taste of fruit. Instead of grabbing a diet soda, you can embrace a glass with half sparkling water and half all natural cranberry juice.
Then there is always the, "I'm eating sugar-free and healthier choice so I can eat all I want" myth. People are being fooled. If you want to know what you're eating, just look at where the surplus is. Dairy? Corn? Everything you touch in the packaged section of the store is going to be loaded with high fructose corn syrup, whey, and other additives. But those same packaged goods will offer the relief in the form of chemicals. Why people still want to "eat healthy" out of a can or from a package that is only 200 calories but loaded with sodium and so sorely lacking in nutrition that I still feel a Snickers bar would be a better choice (hey, I can pronounce the ingredients on the label) I have no idea.
Anyway, it seems more people are waking up and starting to take notice. Time magazine just published an article that asks ... Can Sugar Substitutes Make You Fat?. It's a good question. And the answer is that it appears when you eat normal, whole foods (those ones that God created for us ... or, if you prefer, our bodies have spent millions of years of evolution adapting to, either way, the whole, natural foods are what our bodies were intended to eat), your body responds. You don't have to worry about silly synergies or deficiencies caused by interactions (did you know that omega-3s work hand in hand with Vitamin E, for example? Oh, how interesting, things in nature rich with one also have the other, like egg yolks from chickens who have natural diets).
When you take in the stuff that mankind in our infinite wisdom decided to tamper with and "make better", guess what? When fed to rats, and I'll be the first to admit we aren't rats, but its interesting to see that when they are fed the sugar free foods, not only do they tend to eat more, but their bodies don't respond to the artificial sugar in the same way they respond to natural sugar ... instead, their metabolism slows down! That's right. Natural sugar - that teaspoon I put in my oatmeal or the tablespoon I pour over my french toast - seems to raise metabolism over time compared to artificial sweeteners.
Of course, is this really breaking news? I wrote Ten Fat Mistakes almost a decade ago and the intro still holds true. It's a quote that's older than Christianity, and it reads:
"If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health."
— Hippocrates c. 460 - 377 B.C.
That's a 2,000+ year old call to moderation. Couldn't we stop stuffing ourselves with shake powers, wolfing down artificially sweetened sugars and munching on sugar-free cookies and instead enjoy a nice piece of free range flesh meat, drink some tea with some all natural cane sugar for a switch and wash it down with an all natural dessert like my daughter's espresso chocolate chip cookies?
Hopefully we'll learn that there's really nothing new. Diet trends and fads will come and go. Scientists will continue to discover some new nutrient in some fruit or vegetable. While the supplement companies scramble to isolate and market this potent panacea of health, the rest of us with just laugh because we didn't have to wait for the scientists to figure it out ... instead, we just eat the natural foods and take advantage of everything that hasn't been discovered yet.
Take care,
For years I've been writing that despite all of our fancy glycemic indexes, studies of blood sugar and new chemicals that claim to make it "taste good, sugar-free" ... that natural is still the way to go (see Human Petroleum and The Sugar-Coated Truth). I've heard all of the claims about artificial sweeteners ... they can cause cancer, harm health, cause you to gain fat, and everything else.
Rather than joining in that debate, I've always felt that you should ask a different, more important question. Not ... is the sugar substitute bad for me, but rather, what about it is good for me? Does it add value? Nutrients? Vitamins? Minerals.
If you follow my journal you'll see I'm no perfect saint when it comes to nutrition. However, when I'm "on plan" and "eating clean" that doesn't mean it's all sugar-free, fat-free, or any of the so-called "free" foods out there. Breakfast is quite often french toast (yes, with maple syrup - all-natural maple syrup, not the maple-flavor high fructose corn syrup most people drink). When I want my oatmeal sweet, I don't reach for the blue, pink, or yellow packets. I just add a teaspoon of natural sugar. No, I don't sweat it, either - it's a whopping 4 grams or 16 calories and if that is going to make me fat then I don't know if there's hope for eating anything!
The bottom line is too many people are still stuck in the either/or approach - either I eliminate all sugar, OR I just go on a rampage and I'm "off plan." The reality is that with time, you can slowly grow to appreciate the naturally sweet taste of fruit. Instead of grabbing a diet soda, you can embrace a glass with half sparkling water and half all natural cranberry juice.
Then there is always the, "I'm eating sugar-free and healthier choice so I can eat all I want" myth. People are being fooled. If you want to know what you're eating, just look at where the surplus is. Dairy? Corn? Everything you touch in the packaged section of the store is going to be loaded with high fructose corn syrup, whey, and other additives. But those same packaged goods will offer the relief in the form of chemicals. Why people still want to "eat healthy" out of a can or from a package that is only 200 calories but loaded with sodium and so sorely lacking in nutrition that I still feel a Snickers bar would be a better choice (hey, I can pronounce the ingredients on the label) I have no idea.
Anyway, it seems more people are waking up and starting to take notice. Time magazine just published an article that asks ... Can Sugar Substitutes Make You Fat?. It's a good question. And the answer is that it appears when you eat normal, whole foods (those ones that God created for us ... or, if you prefer, our bodies have spent millions of years of evolution adapting to, either way, the whole, natural foods are what our bodies were intended to eat), your body responds. You don't have to worry about silly synergies or deficiencies caused by interactions (did you know that omega-3s work hand in hand with Vitamin E, for example? Oh, how interesting, things in nature rich with one also have the other, like egg yolks from chickens who have natural diets).
When you take in the stuff that mankind in our infinite wisdom decided to tamper with and "make better", guess what? When fed to rats, and I'll be the first to admit we aren't rats, but its interesting to see that when they are fed the sugar free foods, not only do they tend to eat more, but their bodies don't respond to the artificial sugar in the same way they respond to natural sugar ... instead, their metabolism slows down! That's right. Natural sugar - that teaspoon I put in my oatmeal or the tablespoon I pour over my french toast - seems to raise metabolism over time compared to artificial sweeteners.
Of course, is this really breaking news? I wrote Ten Fat Mistakes almost a decade ago and the intro still holds true. It's a quote that's older than Christianity, and it reads:
"If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health."
— Hippocrates c. 460 - 377 B.C.
That's a 2,000+ year old call to moderation. Couldn't we stop stuffing ourselves with shake powers, wolfing down artificially sweetened sugars and munching on sugar-free cookies and instead enjoy a nice piece of free range flesh meat, drink some tea with some all natural cane sugar for a switch and wash it down with an all natural dessert like my daughter's espresso chocolate chip cookies?
Hopefully we'll learn that there's really nothing new. Diet trends and fads will come and go. Scientists will continue to discover some new nutrient in some fruit or vegetable. While the supplement companies scramble to isolate and market this potent panacea of health, the rest of us with just laugh because we didn't have to wait for the scientists to figure it out ... instead, we just eat the natural foods and take advantage of everything that hasn't been discovered yet.
Take care,
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