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photo credit: Mel B.

The problem with sugar is simply that all plants and animals utilise sugar as a means of storing energy. The sugar that is of the most use to us is sucrose, which is the main sugar in our diet. This dietary sugar appears to have been intended to come from plants that make sugar as part of the process of photosynthesis.

Health experts always dispute just how much sugar is needed in our diets. Surprisingly the answer is no sugar is needed, but since the 1500’s when refined sugar first became widely available, it has been used to sweeten food and make it more appetising.

Our problem is we like sweet tasting foods, and of course people buy sweet tasting foods rather than blander ones. Which do you enjoy more, cereal with some sugar and milk, or cereal with just milk?

Additionally sugar gives you an almost instant energy kick, but although it will give you that instant energy it provides no valuable nutrients.

Unfortunately sugar is easily changed to fat, hence the saying from your lips to your hips. Excess sugar simply leads to obesity and dental problems because bacteria in your mouth can easily break down any sugar there for energy and in the process leaves behind acidic residue which dissolve teeth.

Surprisingly while looking at sugar is for this article I discovered that a recent Harvard study where researchers looked at more than 38,000 healthy middle-aged women and their sugar intake, concluded that women with high sugar intakes were no more are at risk of developing diabetes than those who consumed lower amounts.

This would seem to suggest contrary to popular opinion that sugar levels are not the primary causative factor of diabetes. However it would suggest that sugar intake is one of the primary causes of obesity, as nearly everything we consume now has added sugar.

Scientists would recommend that no more than 10 per cent of our daily calorie intake should be sugar. Unfortunately this is just about impossible to keep to, because even one can of soft drink will exceed the average person’s 10% of sugar intake in an organic diet.

Unlike seventy years ago when most families grew or made a proportion of their own food, we now mostly buy ready-made processed food, and with additional steroids now being pumped into cattle to make them produce meat quicker, the end result combined with additional hidden sugar is a natural obesity trend.

What does this mean? Well it actually means that it’s not entirely your fault that you are overweight. Less food consumed today makes you fatter than greater amounts of food consumed in the first half of last century.

Consumer buying and manufacturers driven by profit have created a problem with sugar which is seriously affecting the health of many nations worldwide.

Simply put, this is why we are all suddenly becoming fatter more quickly and easily than ever before.

Tags: sugar, obesity, overweight



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