Only OK Occasionally Foods -- part 6
Welcome to our health & self help blog.
In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.
Today's post: Tuesday, 6-20-2006
Only OK Occasionally Foods -- part 6
( I'm including this section in my blog because eating health-enhancing foods as a permanent lifestyle is a lot easier & more fun if you have some variety in your food.
The key to eating them safely is to eat them very occasionally & NOT more often than that.
Some might be OK 3 times a month, others might be safer once or twice a year.)
Three other keys are:
1. Eat less of them on the days you do eat them than the people do who are clueless about the health effects of the foods they eat.
2. Eat them with Superfoods or foods that lessen or prevent their bad effects.
3. Some of these foods are OK for some of you but not others.
SUGAR.
The bad news is that most Americans eat enormously more of it than their bodies can process & stay healthy.
This is often because sugar is an ingredient in a packaged food or a fast food that the people eating it don’t know is there.
And, the health effects are made far worse since you have to get enough exercise for your body to process sugar well -- & most Americans now don’t get that much exercise.
Add to that the fact that in most packaged & bottled foods & drinks today, the sweeter & cheaper high fructose corn syrup has been substituted for sugar & is MUCH worse for you, & you have the train wreck in poor health & obesity our country is experiencing.
(High fructose corn syrup is so bad for you, I’ll list it later in the upcoming foods to totally avoid section.)
In addition, the people who eat the most sugar also tend to be the same people who don’t exercise & don’t eat enough fresh whole fruits & enough vegetables.
Lastly, eating sugar tends to trigger an oxidant effect & produce glycosylation, or “browning” of your cells & damages them -- & their DNA.
So why is sugar here instead of in the NEVER eat category?
For these three reasons:
1. Adding sugar to foods makes them taste better – sometimes a lot better.
And having some of the things you eat taste good or really good helps you enjoy life & stay with a healthy way of eating.
2. If you do get enough exercise & eat enough fresh whole fruits & enough vegetables--& you’ve kept your fasting glucose & HBA1C (the 90 day blood sugar average indicator) in the desirable range, your body can safely handle eating sugar a few times a week.
This is NOT the six or seven times a DAY the average American eats. It’s more like two or three, or at most four, times a week.
(Read the book, Why French Women Don’t Get Fat, for an idea of the difference that makes !!)
3. If you simply ARE going to eat something that tastes good because it’s sweet, no matter what, sugar is a MUCH better choice generally than artificial sweeteners.
And, it’s dramatically better & SAFER for you than high fructose corn syrup.
I’ll cover high fructose corn syrup in the upcoming foods to NEVER eat section.
Oddly, the studies done on people who drink diet soft drinks have found that those who do it to lose excess fat weight tend to do no better than those who drink soft drinks with high fructose corn syrup, which is not very well at all.
To the extent researchers have studied why, it looks like people want to boost their blood sugar if it’s a bit low or they want to have sugar to boost their serotonin levels when they are under a bit of stress are the ones who reach for a soft drink or food that tastes sweet.
And, since the artificial sweeteners don’t do either of those things, people usually compensate by eating high carbohydrate foods of another kind to supply the missing effect.
And, although artificial sweeteners have been tested as safe for most people over short periods of time, it’s still questionable in my mind as to how safe they are for several years or decades of use.
Stevia is not sold in very user friendly or easy to use forms. But it is a noncaloric sweetener that is actually a food & likely to be safer.
But it doesn’t taste like sugar. So when I tried it as a substitute I found the slightly oversweet & marshmallowy taste not very appetizing.
And, like everyone else, I noticed that there was no sugar reward effect to eating it.
What has worked for me as part of dropping my fasting glucose from 115 to 85 was eliminating foods that had sugar added & just eating sugar in just slightly smaller amounts & just 3 or four times a week.
It also helped that I eat sugar with cinnamon. (See the cinnamon Superfood blog post here. Eating cinnamon with sugar tends to prevent sugar’s worst health effects.)
And, it helped that I have been taking chromium polynicotinate, which also helps boost HDL cholesterol. And, I added 200 mg a day of alpha lipoic acid, which is an antioxidant itself & which also helps boost the effect of both the water soluble & the fat soluble antioxidants one eats.
Plus I continued to do both cardio & strength training exercise each week.
And, I enjoy the sugar treats I do allow myself & do NOT feel deprived of it the rest of the time.
Which is why I include sugar as an OK food to eat occasionally – just not very often.
In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.
Today's post: Tuesday, 6-20-2006
Only OK Occasionally Foods -- part 6
( I'm including this section in my blog because eating health-enhancing foods as a permanent lifestyle is a lot easier & more fun if you have some variety in your food.
The key to eating them safely is to eat them very occasionally & NOT more often than that.
Some might be OK 3 times a month, others might be safer once or twice a year.)
Three other keys are:
1. Eat less of them on the days you do eat them than the people do who are clueless about the health effects of the foods they eat.
2. Eat them with Superfoods or foods that lessen or prevent their bad effects.
3. Some of these foods are OK for some of you but not others.
SUGAR.
The bad news is that most Americans eat enormously more of it than their bodies can process & stay healthy.
This is often because sugar is an ingredient in a packaged food or a fast food that the people eating it don’t know is there.
And, the health effects are made far worse since you have to get enough exercise for your body to process sugar well -- & most Americans now don’t get that much exercise.
Add to that the fact that in most packaged & bottled foods & drinks today, the sweeter & cheaper high fructose corn syrup has been substituted for sugar & is MUCH worse for you, & you have the train wreck in poor health & obesity our country is experiencing.
(High fructose corn syrup is so bad for you, I’ll list it later in the upcoming foods to totally avoid section.)
In addition, the people who eat the most sugar also tend to be the same people who don’t exercise & don’t eat enough fresh whole fruits & enough vegetables.
Lastly, eating sugar tends to trigger an oxidant effect & produce glycosylation, or “browning” of your cells & damages them -- & their DNA.
So why is sugar here instead of in the NEVER eat category?
For these three reasons:
1. Adding sugar to foods makes them taste better – sometimes a lot better.
And having some of the things you eat taste good or really good helps you enjoy life & stay with a healthy way of eating.
2. If you do get enough exercise & eat enough fresh whole fruits & enough vegetables--& you’ve kept your fasting glucose & HBA1C (the 90 day blood sugar average indicator) in the desirable range, your body can safely handle eating sugar a few times a week.
This is NOT the six or seven times a DAY the average American eats. It’s more like two or three, or at most four, times a week.
(Read the book, Why French Women Don’t Get Fat, for an idea of the difference that makes !!)
3. If you simply ARE going to eat something that tastes good because it’s sweet, no matter what, sugar is a MUCH better choice generally than artificial sweeteners.
And, it’s dramatically better & SAFER for you than high fructose corn syrup.
I’ll cover high fructose corn syrup in the upcoming foods to NEVER eat section.
Oddly, the studies done on people who drink diet soft drinks have found that those who do it to lose excess fat weight tend to do no better than those who drink soft drinks with high fructose corn syrup, which is not very well at all.
To the extent researchers have studied why, it looks like people want to boost their blood sugar if it’s a bit low or they want to have sugar to boost their serotonin levels when they are under a bit of stress are the ones who reach for a soft drink or food that tastes sweet.
And, since the artificial sweeteners don’t do either of those things, people usually compensate by eating high carbohydrate foods of another kind to supply the missing effect.
And, although artificial sweeteners have been tested as safe for most people over short periods of time, it’s still questionable in my mind as to how safe they are for several years or decades of use.
Stevia is not sold in very user friendly or easy to use forms. But it is a noncaloric sweetener that is actually a food & likely to be safer.
But it doesn’t taste like sugar. So when I tried it as a substitute I found the slightly oversweet & marshmallowy taste not very appetizing.
And, like everyone else, I noticed that there was no sugar reward effect to eating it.
What has worked for me as part of dropping my fasting glucose from 115 to 85 was eliminating foods that had sugar added & just eating sugar in just slightly smaller amounts & just 3 or four times a week.
It also helped that I eat sugar with cinnamon. (See the cinnamon Superfood blog post here. Eating cinnamon with sugar tends to prevent sugar’s worst health effects.)
And, it helped that I have been taking chromium polynicotinate, which also helps boost HDL cholesterol. And, I added 200 mg a day of alpha lipoic acid, which is an antioxidant itself & which also helps boost the effect of both the water soluble & the fat soluble antioxidants one eats.
Plus I continued to do both cardio & strength training exercise each week.
And, I enjoy the sugar treats I do allow myself & do NOT feel deprived of it the rest of the time.
Which is why I include sugar as an OK food to eat occasionally – just not very often.
posted by David at 4:40 PM
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