Holistic Nutrition Bytes--San Francisco Nutrition Consultation » sugar

Food for Thought: High Fructose Corn Syrup

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:42:40 +0000

Have you guys seen that commercial where the guy and girl are about to share a popsicle, and he’s like, “wait, doesn’t that have high fructose corn syrup in it?” and she’s like, “yeah, so?” and he can’t come up with a reason it’s bad, but he thinks he remembers hearing something about why he should avoid it, and she’s all, “It’s nutritionally the same as sugar and is fine in moderation!” And then the tagline appears, and the ad is sponsored by the Corn Refiners Association’s “Sweet Surprise” campaign (SHOCKER), wherein they encourage you to visit their website and find out the facts! You’ll be in for a sweet surprise!

So this guy should listen to his gut. Yes, high fructose corn syrup is bad. It’s in nearly every processed candy or soda or junk food, because it’s sweeter and cheaper and easier to process than real sugar, and corn is subsidized by the government. Yes, it’s linked to diabetes and obesity. You probably know all that. But this ad is annoying, because they’re saying that it “has the same number of calories as sugar and is handled similarly by the body.” Yes, it has the same calories as sugar, and yes, it will jack your body’s natural blood sugar levels the same as sugar, but what they’re leaving out is that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is highly processed and that much of the corn we grow here in the US is genetically modified. It’s not even close to being a real food. Of course, much of the sugar we consume in junk food is refined as well (it doesn’t start out crystalline white), but not nearly to the effect that HFCS is processed. Also, HCFS hits the bloodstream faster than sugar because of its chemical structure, and studies show it raises triglyceride levels (fats in the bloodstream) more than sugar.

Additionally, there is concern about the fact that nearly every processed food contains some kind of corn: your McDonald’s beef comes from corn-fed cows, your potato chips were fried in corn oil, your soda contains HFCS, and your bun has corn starch or corn flour. So much corn in everything you eat can lead to food allergies from a homogenous diet. We thrive on variety. I talk more about this in my post on the Cornification of America.

The wesbite (http://www.sweetsurprise.com) says that “High fructose corn syrup provides many consumer benefits.” Like what, diabetes? Look, I’m not going to going into excruciating detail about why HFCS is the devil. The fact is, the food industry puts this stuff in processed food because it’s cheap to produce, it’s cheap to process, it makes things sweet, adds structure to food and baked goods, makes sodas sweeter than sugar, etc. And yes, it is up to the consumer to take charge of his/her health and practice moderation, but this stuff is in everything. It’s everywhere. Kids are drinking this in juice, getting it in cereal, ketchup, fast food products. Here is a surprising list of foods in which you’ll find corn syrup or HFCS:
salad dressings
stove top stuffing
capri sun juice drinks
breads (like Pepperidge Farm’s line of 100% whole grain breads)
tons of cereal, mostly Kellogg’s
Eggo breakfast stuff
pop tarts (no surprise there)
nutrigrain cereal bars
crackers
cottage cheese & yogurt
ben & jerry’s ice cream
Oscar Mayer Lunchables
soups

The issue is that this ingredient is everywhere, and yes, it does lead to obesity because it causes high levels of insulin to be released in the bloodstream, and insulin triggers fat storage. It also sets you on a cycle to crave more sugar or sweets. In a perfect world, we’d all be eating whole foods that aren’t processed, but in the meantime, the food industry could stop poisoning us with highly processed chemicals that cause myriad health issues.

The website even has a section where nutritionists and dieticians state that HCFS is the same as sugar and blah blah blah the body can’t distinguish it from sugar and it’s fine in moderation. This is just irresponsible. As a holistic nutritionist, I would never advise anyone to eat HFCS — in moderation or otherwise. Look, avoid this junk. Really. If you want something sweet, choose foods that are naturally sweetened with honey, raw sugar, or stevia. Make your own desserts so that you know what goes into them. Don’t poison yourself with this crap and don’t feed it to your family. This is what’s wrong with our food supply: the majority of it isn’t even real food. It’s been manufactured in a lab to artificially flavor foods or increase the shelf life, as is the case with hydrogenated fats. When did we get to a world of foods with corn syrup and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils? Because it’s acceptable to choose cheap food production over our own health? Let’s stop the obesity and diabetes epidemic not by “moderation” but by avoidance of all non-foods.

Kick the Sugar Habit!

admin — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 06:21:47 +0000

I admit it. I have a sweet tooth. Big time. Ever since I was a kid, I took after my dad, who also loves the sweets. I’m not so much a hard candy gal, and I certainly don’t drink soda or sweetened drinks (yuck), and to be honest, I don’t care for overly sweet and sugary desserts. I’m a sucker for baked goods, though. And cheesecake. And pumpkin pie. Oh, and CHOCOLATE. Anything CHOCOLATE. Luckily I’m not a milk chocolate fan, so I stick to dark chocolate, 70 percent or more cacao. I have a square or 2 every day. It’s good for you and releases feel-good chemicals in the brain! I also make my own baked goods usually so I can adjust the levels of sweetness and make the necessary gluten free & dairy free adjustments.

more addictive than crack.

But here’s the thing. After the holidays, I noticed my sugar cravings creeping up on me. That’s the thing with sugar: the more you eat it, the more you crave it. This is true also with white flour products, which break down as sugar in the body, and also alcohol. Inspired by fellow nutritionists Erin Huggins, Diane Sanfilippo, and Ashley Mathe, I have decided to embark on the same 21-day sugar detox they’re doing! Starting Monday, January 11, so that I can polish off the remaining chocolate truffles in the house.

This cleanse means no sugar of any kind (including evaporated cane juice, brown rice syrup, etc), honey, agave, stevia, fruit (except green apples), white flour, booze, or sodas for 21 days. I have sugar sensitivity in my family: that means we are prone to sugar-based addictions (alcohol + food) and hypoglycemia. We have diabetes on my Dad’s side, too. Do you have a history of alcoholism in your family? Diabetes? Is anyone more than 30 pounds overweight? Do you or does someone in your family have trouble with bingeing? Then you DEFINITELY need this cleanse. It’s only 3 weeks!

Sugar is one of the most harmful substances we can ingest. It is linked to more health issues than any single other food. This includes alcohol, which acts exactly like refined sugar in the body. Ever wonder why there are so many donuts at AA meetings? Because alcoholism is a disease of sugar addiction. Take away the booze, and the sugar cravings transfer to food. Same goes for food addiction: any person who has problems with alcohol or food addiction (bingeing behaviors, cravings, anorexia, obesity) MUST eliminate white flour and sugar and alcohol from the diet to truly overcome the addiction. Eventually, the cravings will subside. But every time a food or alcohol addict eats sugar or flour, the cravings will be triggered.

If you need convincing about sugar’s harmful effects, look at this list (very nicely compiled courtesy of Erin Huggins).
Sugar:
*suppresses your immune system, LINKED TO CANCERS
* promotes weight gain and obesity
* disrupts the mineral balance (causing stress in the body)
* contributes to depression, anxiety and mood swings
* promotes gut dysbiosis or overgrowth of bad bacteria in the gut, such as candida
* contributes to insulin resistance and diabetes
* can cause hormonal imbalances
* increases risk for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis
* disrupt the body’s pH balance
* can cause hypoglycemia
* will reduce good HDL cholesterol and increase bad LDL cholesterol
* prohibits weight loss

SO. What are the benefits? Well, first off, I don’t want to be addicted to anything. I don’t want to have cravings or energy dips, and I want to feel my best! If you have those 3pm sugar cravings that you satisfy every day, now is the time to be free. It takes about 21 days to break a habit, and only about THREE for the cravings to disappear as your body recalibrates. So, you can expect better sleep, MORE ENERGY, clear skin, better digestion, stable moods, lower cholesterol & blood pressure, lower triglycerides, NO CRAVINGS, and…. weight loss, if that’s a goal for you! Expect a 5-10 pound weight loss over the 3 weeks. Can’t beat that!

So, what *can* you have? First off, eat organic. Follow my general gluten free diet, which includes the following:
-lamb, poultry, wild fish, eggs, beef, bison, buffalo
-as many veggies as you can handle and lots of leafy greens like kale, chard, collards, spinach
-legumes such as lentils, beans
-you can have green apples but no other fruit
-nuts, seeds, nut butters (READ LABELS!)
-gluten free grains such as brown rice, quinoa
-dairy, if you can handle it, preferably raw

What to avoid:
* white sugar
* brown sugar
* maple syrup
* agave nectar
* honey
* fruit juice or fruit juice sweetened food
* fruit, except green tipped bananas & granny smith apples
* stevia
* refined white flour – it acts like sugar in the body
* sugar substitutes – no diet drinks
* alcohol

Let’s do it! Quick pep talk: you might have some rough cravings for the first 3 days, but it is easier to quit cold turkey and get it all out of your system. DON’T give in! Tapering down makes cravings worse. Once you get to day 4 or 5, your cravings will be gone–you’ll see!!

I’ll post updates and let y’all know how it’s going. Who’s with me?

New Year

admin — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 05:26:42 +0000

One of the most common resolutions for a new year is to lose weight. (NOTE: this post is not entirely about weight loss). Of the people who make resolutions, roughly 45 percent (around 100 million folks) vow to lose weight. Is this you? Maybe your resolution is to eat better, exercise, be a better person? Resolutions can be good. On the one hand, striving to better yourself is a great goal. Gyms and yoga studios are packed in January! On the other hand, when March rolls around and the momentum has worn off, how do we get back on track Or stay on track?

Whether or not you make resolutions, a new year is always a good time to take a mental inventory. Do some emotional cleansing. What’s working for you? What patterns are you holding on to? What do you want to let go of? It’s easy to get stuck and feel comfortable. But sometimes the “all or nothing” approach can backfire. For some, taking smaller steps to achieve a goal works better. What has worked best for you in the past? Cold turkey, or easing into it? Honestly, in my years of experience working with clients, the cold turkey jump-right-in approach is more successful, especially when it comes to weight loss or cutting out certain foods (sugar, for example). Sugar has such a drug-like effect on the body that tapering down can actually make cravings worse.

Here are a few tips (I love lists):
1. If you’re looking to lose weight, don’t go the fad route. Avoid the grapefruit diet, the South Beach Diet, and cabbage diet, or the liquid cleanses. These work–temporarily. But you haven’t corrected the underlying cause of your weight gain, or addressed new eating patterns. Although it’s easier said than done (eat less and exercise more), if you’ve tried diets before and failed, consider that stress hormonal imbalances, digestive issues, food allergies, and detox issues can all affect your ability to lose weight. Consulting with a nutritionist can help you identify what foods are right for you (hint: eating too many carbs at breakfast–even oatmeal–can cause you to crave sugar in the evenings), and testing can identify hormonal or digestive issues.

2. Be realistic about setting up a routine. If you’re going to start exercising, starting out running every day might not be the best option. Your body responds best to different types of exercise, and interval training works better than pounding the pavement for hours. Better for your joints, too.

3. Keep a journal for your triumphs and defeats. You can learn a lot about yourself by going back and reading old entries. Also–see how far you’ve progressed!

4. Enlist the help of a buddy — and use him/her for support!

5. Reward yourself when you meet quarter or half way goals. Make it a shopping spree, a short trip, a weekend getaway with friends. Something to look forward to and to keep you on track.

6. Also, remember: it’s not easy, but getting through the first 21 days is the hardest part. It takes that long to break a habit and establish new habits. Regarding weight loss, there is no reason you need to constantly fight cravings. Are you waking up thinking about pasta, cake, cookies, sugar, chips? It could be low serotonin or dopamine. It could be low adrenal hormone levels. It could be a digestive infection, like candida albicans overgrowth. There are many, many physiological reasons that people have cravings and have trouble managing weight. It’s not just a case of low willpower. Find out the underlying reasons for your habits or health concerns.

Happy 2010!

Those Pesky Sugar Cravings

admin — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:59:53 +0000

I hear a very common complaint from clients: “I get so tired at 3pm.” or “I have terrible sugar cravings, especially after I eat or in the afternoon and evening time.” Is this you? Read on.

Sugar cravings occur for a number of reasons. Could be hormonal. Most commonly, it means you haven’t properly managed your blood sugar levels, meaning that you either waited too long to eat and experienced a sharp dip in blood sugar (hypoglycemia), or you ate a lot of sugar or drank a lot of coffee, which spiked your blood sugar (hyperglycemia), and now it’s plummeted again, leaving you craving more sugar as your body tries to establish homeostatis (balance).

Let me explain. Your brain and body need glucose to survive. When your body perceives that blood sugar is getting too low, it sends you a signal that it needs fuel. You get hungry. When you eat sugar, in the form of white sugar, white flour (breaks down as sugar), alcohol, sodas, candy, cookies, pastries, etc, your body uses a hormone called insulin to transport the glucose to your cells for usage. When you eat too much sugar, too much insulin ushers too much glucose into cells, leaving not enough in your blood. This means your blood sugar has dropped too low, so you crave sugar again to bring the level back up.

Stay on this roller coaster too long, and not only are you feeling crabby and tired and craving sugar throughout the day, you are also setting yourself up for insulin resistance, meaning your cells don’t want anymore of the glucose your insulin is trying to give. This sets you up for diabetes, or chronic hyperglycemia.

Enough with the physiology. Let’s say you start your morning with coffee and a pastry, or coffee and nothing at all. You probably feel pretty good until you crash, then you’re starving, jittery, anxious, moody, irritable. You eat, probably too much because you’re starving and miscalculated your hunger needs, and probably feel tired as all your energy is diverted into digestion. Or, you eat more sugar and put yourself back on the roller coaster. Or you get a wicked sugar craving later in the afternoon or evening.

Do you wake up in the middle of the night? This may be nocturnal hypoglycemia. If you’ve had alcohol that evening or haven’t properly managed your blood sugar during the day, your blood sugar drops too low at night, and you’ll be rudely wakened as your brain tells your body it needs fuel.

Mismanaging your blood sugar drives your stress hormone, cortisol, up. High cortisol=weight gain, inflammation, anxiety, and can lead to female hormone problems as well. Cortisol levels that fluctuate during the day = periods of fatigue (especially at the dreaded 3pm slump) and trouble falling or staying asleep.

Step One: eat every 3 hours, beginning within an hour of waking, to set yourself up properly for the day. Reconsider so much coffee, which jacks your blood sugar, and if you must, drink it with protein. Muffins aren’t protein, but a couple hard-boiled eggs will suffice. Ideally, your breakfast will have some good fats, good protein, good carbs (smoothie is so perfect here, with flaxseeds, whey protein, supergreens). Make sure you are getting protein with every meal and that you don’t booze on an empty stomach (leads to blood sugar spike and crash, meaning bigger appetite and you’ll eat more ’cause you’re buzzed. Then you’ll wake up around 3am, unhappy). Eating regularly means stable blood sugar. Know that sugar cravings can also indicate you’re not getting enough protein. Snack on almonds or fruit and walnuts if you tend toward hypoglycemia during the day.

Are you eating a lot of refined sugar and want to break the habit? Go on a sugar detox. Quit cold turkey. It will be unpleasant for about 3 days, but it will get easier. Plan a month with no sugar. Take a multi-mineral and extra magnesium to help, and take extra chromium to help with the cravings. A supplement with 5HTP or 500mg glutamine on an empty stomach helps break the cravings, too. Not to beat a dead horse here, but coffee exacerbates sugar cravings, so try some green tea for a while. Make sugar free treats (see below recipe) with stevia or agave nectar. Use this as an opportunity to get more leafy greens and root vegetables to replenish the minerals that sugar depletes. Know also that eating sugar triggers the craving for more sugar (this is why you can’t stop with a couple M&Ms), so just don’t go there for this month. When you try some sugar on day 31, I bet you find it too sweet. We are inundated with corn syrupy overly sweet junk foods in our society and are desensitized to sweet. A couple bites will do. I bet at the end of the month, you have more energy and when you try sugar again, it makes you feel crappy.

Chew thoroughly and eat slowly. Cravings for sweets after you eat indicate you are eating too quickly and that food is not being assimilated properly. Chew so that food can be mixed with digestive enzymes and fully broken down.

According to a Chinese proverb, “Sour, sweet, bitter, pungent, all must be tasted.” Know that sweet is one of the five tastes and shouldn’t be eliminated altogether. Substitute fruit and non-refined sugar sweets to satisfy your palate.

Sugar Free Cookies
1/3 c almond butter
2 Tbs butter or coconut oil
1.5 or 2 large pink lady apples
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
¾ c carob powder or 1/2 cup cocoa powder
¼ tsp sea salt
1 ¼ c brown rice flour or other gluten free flour
about 30 whole almonds (optional)
½ – 1 c carob chips (optional)
¼ c agave nectar or pinch green stevia (optional)

Grease cookie sheets and preheat oven to 350. Chop apples into small chunks and put in blender. Add almond butter, butter (or oil) and eggs. Puree. Can add a bit of water to make more of a puree. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, carob/cocoa powder and salt. Mix well and add carob chips. Add puree to dry mix and stir just until well blended. Add optional sweetener if desired (stevia or agave). Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto cookie sheet. If desired, press almond onto top of each cookie. Bake for 10 min or so – don’t overbake. Yum!

Calories: 70
Protein: 2g
Carb: 8.5
Total Fat: 3.5g
Fiber: 1.6g

“Healthy” Foods that Aren’t (recipe included)

admin — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 03:41:35 +0000

We are bombarded by advertising and beguiling food packaging enticing us to try this or that product because it’s healthful. Maybe it’s fat free, or sugar free, or made with whole grains, or baked not fried. It can get so confusing, figuring out what to eat. What’s healthy and what’s not this week? Hard to keep up with the research.

Let me make it real easy for you. If it’s in a package or a box, it’s processed to some degree, refined–meaning it’s been stripped of vital nutrients–or refined and fortified with artificial nutrients added back in. So, you know what I’m going to say next: stick to whole foods, eat out of the box, eat what comes from nature, and you can’t go wrong. If it hasn’t been around for over a thousand years, don’t eat it. To further clear some confusion, let’s take a look at some popular foods most consider healthy.

1. Yogurt. This is one of my faves, because everyone thinks yogurt is a health food, right? There are so many options! Fat free, sugar free, low fat, fruit on the bottom, whipped. Let’s look at the label on Dannon Yogurt’s Light & Fit Cherry. Less than 100 calories!
Ingredients: Nonfat yogurt (cultured grade A non fat milk, Modified Food Starch, Fructose, kosher gelatin, Vitamin A Palmitate, Vitamin D3), water, cherries, fructose, Natural & Artificial Flavor, Aspartame, Citric Acid, Potassium Sorbate, Asulfame, Sucralose, Sodium Citrate, Red 40, Blue 1
Now, I don’t have time to get into the specifics on these ingredients, but suffice it to say that this is a highly refined and even toxic product. It’s filled with chemicals, artificial flavors, colors, and preservatives, but it also contains aspartame sugar substitute, which is a neurotoxin that can have serious side effects and long term consequences. Folks, stay away from this stuff, commonly found in diet sodas and sugar free products. Seriously, it’s better to have the sugar than to ingest aspartame.

Back to yogurt: if it’s a fruited variety, it’ll be loaded with up to 10 teaspoons of sugar per single serving if it doesn’t contain a toxic sugar substitute. Skip the non fat versions: vitamins A&D in yogurt are fat soluble, meaning you need to consume fat with these vitamins in order for your body to absorb them. Nature is funny like that: it knows exactly what we need in our food for optimal health before it’s been tinkered with in a lab.

Plain, organic regular yogurt is fine. It contains probiotics to help digestion and is naturally low in sugar. Our palates are so used to overly sweetened foods that you may need to get used to its naturally tart flavor. Add your own berries or a bit of honey and enjoy.

2. Canola Oil. This is another good one. We’re told that canola is high in omega 3 fatty acids and holds up well to high temp frying, a great choice! You know what? Not. Canola is highly refined, usually genetically modified, and heated to such high temps during its processing that any very heat sensitive fatty acids are destroyed. During the chemical extraction process, solvents and deodorizers are used. You usually get it in a plastic jug at the store, and plastic reacts adversely with fats, changing its chemical structure and leaching chemicals into the oil. ALWAYS buy cooking oils in glass, never plastic.

Canola is not a healthy choice. Use coconut or palm oil for high temp frying. For baking, use safflower or grapeseed oil if you need an oil that doesn’t impart much flavor. Stick to the healthy fats, and always choose unrefined: coconut oil, olive oil, ghee or butter, flaxseed oil (do not heat; use in smoothies or salad dressing), sesame oil, walnut oil, safflower or grapeseed (occasionally).

3. Sugar-free foods. This is kind of a no-brainer when it comes to food processing: if something is made with or exists with sugar, and the sugar is removed and usually replaced with a sugar substitute, it is a refined and chemicalized product that is no good for your health. There are many sugar substitutes out there: splenda, equal, sweet n low, to name a few, and these contain saccharin, aspartame, or sucralose. As I mentioned earlier, these sugar subs are highly toxic to your brain and can cause anything from headaches to seizures. Note to self: I think I’ll dedicate a blog post to sugar substitutes one of these days.

Anyway, refined sugar is bad in excess, yes. Use rapadura or other unrefined sugars in baking. If you’re diabetic, use stevia or agave. But for god’s sake, stay away from chemical sugar free substitutes and the products that contain them: diet sodas, candy, yogurt, cookies, gum, whatever. Seriously, it’s better to just eat the sugar. Better yet, make your own version of the product at home where you can control the ingredients when you need a treat. You can use stevia for baking.

4. Muffins. Muffins sure are tasty, I’ll give ‘em that. But they’re also loaded with calories (around 600) and unhealthy trans fats and sugar. Yes, even the bran ones that seem healthy. Avoid, or make your own. I tried a wheat, sugar, and dairy free muffin the other day: it was made with buckwheat flour, applesauce, dates, and walnuts. Here’s a great healthy muffin recipe for you.
ed. note: I was going to add several more fake healthy foods, but this is already too long so you’ll have to tune in later for more.

(Gluten Free option) Muffin Base
2 cups gluten free baking mix (such as Pamela’s) OR whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2 eggs
2-3 tbsp agave nectar or honey, depending on how sweet you like
1/2 cup nut or hemp milk for dairy-free, or plain kefir or yogurt
1 tsp vanilla
¼ cup grapeseed, olive, or coconut oil
1-2 tsp spices, depending on what else you add in
optional add-ins:
pumpkin (1 cup) with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg to taste
1 cup blueberries
dried fruit/nut combo: cranberries, walnuts, dates, anything that appeals to you
poppyseeds, bananas, apples, whatever

Preheat oven to 400. Combine flour, spices, baking powder, and salt and whisk well in bowl. Combine eggs, agave, milk, pumpkin, oil, and vanilla; add to dry ingredients. Stir until moistened. Spoon batter into muffin tins. Bake at 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

My Experiement with Processed Food

admin — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 20:31:09 +0000

Today I woke up and went to Safeway with the following goal in mind: eat processed food for a day and assess how I feel, a la Supersize Me. You see, normally I feel pretty darn good during the days. I may have a smoothie with spirulina and rice protein and fruit for breakfast; a salad with chicken for lunch; and maybe some fish and kale with cultured vegetables for dinner. (throw some dark chocolate in the mix with plenty of green tea throughout the day) I buy 90 percent organic, from the farmers’ market when I can, and I avoiding eating boxed food. I make everything from scratch unless I’m dining out.

The payoff? Stable blood sugar, good energy, I sleep well and am focused (most days). So today, I decided to experiment first hand how a trip to Safeway could influence my mood/energy level/well being for the day.

First off, it’s worth noting that Safeway is a scene of misery and despair. With that said, I decided to attempt to “shop healthy” and not just choose what most would consider junk foods.

For breakfast, I choose a yoplait yogurt paired with trail mix that contained white chocolate chip looking things that I assume are meant to be “yogurt” but are really white chocolate candy.

i have to admit, though, it did taste good.

Yogurt seems healthy, right? It even says it has live and active cultures! Here is the ingredient list:
cultured, pasteurized grade A milk
sugar
nonfat milk
fructose
high fructose corn syrup
dextrose
modified food starch
kosher gelatin
artificial flavor, red #40, yellow #6, blue #1 (oh god, i feel ill already)

Since when does yogurt need high fructose corn syrup? Artificial flavors and colors? High fructose corn syrup is highly processed and will spike your blood sugar so fast it’ll make your head spin, kind of like mine right now. Ug, I feel nauseous. I fed part of this yoplait to the dog, and she wouldn’t even eat it.

On to lunch. I pick out a box of Thai Kitchen Curry Stir-fry Rice Noodles with sauce.

too sweet. yuck. i still ate it, however. sugar is addicting, after all.

I love noodles, and the ingredient list is somewhat non-threatening (meaning I could pronounce everything, and it can be found in nature), so I give it a go. I decide to add spinach, so I grab a bag of that too. I boil the noodles, add the spinach, and add the sauce. Yowza! Too sweet! Yuck. Boy, this really tastes like it’s from a box. 500 calories and 20 grams of sugar later (why do my noodles need sugar?), I feel like crap again.

Just to top it all off, I have an oatmeal cranberry cookie for dessert. It’s almost 2pm now and I don’t even want to think about dinner. I need a nap, and I predict I’ll be hungry soon since I’ve not had adequate protein with my refined carbs. Probably all that sugar – 20 grams in my yogurt and 30 grams in my lunch – and all those refined carbs have put me to bed and are going to fatten me up since they’re not satisfying.

Your meals should energize you, not fatigue you. Aside from feeling bloated and tired, I also feel kind of depressed that processed foods marketed as healthy are still filled with all this junk. I am also reminded that anything I cook tastes 100 percent better than anything in a box for about the same amount of time. The payoff? I get to feel good. Right now? I feel like shit.

The Latest Pharmaceutical LIE

admin — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:52:08 +0000

A new study (click to read) has made headlines and has people buzzing. Apparently, if everyone takes the cholesterol-lowering statin drug CRESTOR, you’ll have a 54% lower risk of a heart attack! It’s a miracle!

Folks, this kind of information is disturbing for many reasons. First off, guess who funded this study? AstraZeneca, maker of Crestor! Secondly, a nasty side effect of taking this drug surfaced: many people in the study taking Crestor (vs those taking a placebo) saw blood sugar levels rise or were newly diagnosed with diabetes. Reduce heart attack; get diabetes!

So, the recommendation is that everyone now begin taking this drug to prevent heart incidents. Do you know what other side effects (besides diabetes) statins carry? How about muscle pain and weakness, most likely due to severe depletion of CoQ10, an important antioxidant that supports muscle function. Wait, isn’t the heart A MUSCLE? There’s also fatigue, neuropathy, dizziness, cognitive failure, oh, and potential heart failure. Must be that if you starve the heart of CoQ10, it stops working?

Here’s the scenario: a busy doctor is working in his/her office when a pharmaceutical rep stops in and presents these results. Too good to be true! Here is the study: give your patients crestor, lipitor, or vytorin (other statins), oh and here’s a golf vacation for prescribing my drug company’s drugs. Well, the doctor agrees with the rep and accepts his/her vacation and puts his/her patients on said statins. And that’s how it happens. Any drug company can fund a study and publish favorable results. And just because it’s FDA approved, does that mean it’s safe? Remember what happened with Vioxx, the drug approved for pain, arthritis, etc? It caused up to 130,000 heart attacks and was eventually pulled off the market. Drug companies don’t want to wait years to run studies before they release new drugs on the market, because they’re losing lots of potential money on that drug. So they release drugs without thorough testing, and bad side effects (death, for example) surface before the drug is pulled off the market.

The pharmaceutical industry is a 643 BILLION dollar industry. They benefit from keeping you on drugs and will gladly give you more drugs to combat the side effects of the ones that are making you feel like shit. They don’t want to empower you to make healthy decisions, they want to keep you sick and on their drugs.

Back to statin drugs, cholesterol-lowering miracles. Cholesterol is synthesized in the liver, and your body needs cholesterol to make hormones and vitamin D. Cholesterol is not bad, but when levels are too high, it can build up and becomes oxidized, causing arterial damage and clogging arteries, leading to heart disease. If you go to your doctor with high cholesterol, does you doctor ask you what you’re eating? Probably not, but maybe you think saturated fat is the culprit, because that’s what you heard. Wrong. The famous Framingham Study found that saturated fat was not responsible for high cholesterol. The dietary culprits are actually too much sugar, eating oxidized fats such as hydrogenated oils and margarine, and a congested liver.

Let’s talk sugar. I’m not just talking cookies and candy, but also white flour and grains and alcohol, all quickly converted to sugar in the body. Sugar has long been linked to increased free radical damage, heart disease, and high cholesterol. Sugar increases triglyceride levels, and high triglycerides are linked to heart disease. Cut down on sugar, processed foods, glutinous grains and white rice.

Let’s talk liver. First off, drugs are hard on your liver! Your HDL (good) cholesterol helps remove excess cholesterol from the body by transporting it to the liver for its breakdown and excretion. A congested, overworked liver therefore cannot remove excessive cholesterol from the blood supply. Try adding a milk thistle and/or oregon grape root liver tonic to your diet, and cut down on the booze and junk foods. See my previous post on how to love your liver.

Know what else can cause high cholesterol? Constipation. When you’re not having a poop every day (at least one, max 3), waste sits in your colon and toxins and cholesterol are reabsorbed into the body. Ever wonder why Quaker Oats claims to lower cholesterol? Because it makes you regular! That fiber sure does get things moving, binds to toxins, and sweeps the colon clean. Better yet, try psyllium or flaxseed.

Cholesterol levels should be somewhere around 200. Big Pharma wants you to gets yours as low as possible, maybe somewhere around 120-150. This is not healthy. Low cholesterol has been linked to depression and increased mortality.

What to do if your levels are too high? Over 250? High LDL (over 130), low HDL (under 50)?
*take care of your liver, as mentioned above. See my “Love Your Liver” post.
*reduce sugar, sodas, processed foods, gluten (white, rye, barley, spelt, teff), white rice, white potatoes, hydrogenated fats, canola, margarine.
*Try CoQ10, garlic, pantothenic acid, or plant sterols.
*Make sure you’re regular – aim for a bowel movement once a day minimum.
*Get moving. Exercise!

An Ode to Sugar

admin — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:46:24 +0000

Well, not really. With Halloween (one of my favorite holidays) approaching, I thought it would be fitting to demonize sugar!

The “average american” consumes something like 150 POUNDS of sugar per year. It’s no wonder our waistlines are expanding, diabetes rates are the highest ever (even in 9 year olds!!), and cholesterol levels are rising. The pharmaceutical companies are having a field day with this. Used to be that fat was the bad guy. Have all those fat free products helped people lose weight? Guess not! Mostly because the fat has been replaced with SUGAR.

Sugar has all kinds of destructive effects on your health. Sugar causes inflammation in the body, raises insulin levels, and contributes to cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Sugar fries your adrenal glands, raises cortisol levels, and leaves you fat and fatigued. Sugar contributes to high blood pressure. Sugar raises cholesterol levels. Sugar depresses your immune system and can contribute to cancer by accelerating tumor growth. That’s right, sugar feeds cancer cells. Sugar causes candida, an overgrowth of yeast and bad bacteria in the gut that contributes to yeast infections. Sugar has been linked to nearly every human health problem.

Let’s say you wake up in the morning and grab a pastry and a coffee. After adding sugar to your coffee and consuming the sugar in your pastry, your blood sugar levels shoot up, and your pancreas releases insulin to usher all the sugar into your cells for use. Once all the sugar makes it into your cells, your blood sugar levels drop, and you crash. Maybe you get tired or moody or anxious, but you’ll definitely feel it. And even worse, you’ll crave more sugar. When you grab a snickers bar, the same reaction happens again in your body. But soon your cells decide they don’t need any more sugar, and so there it stays in your blood stream along with all that insulin. When the cells no longer use it, it’s stored as FAT. That’s right, sugar makes you fat. Even worse, now you have high blood sugar and insulin levels, and you’re on the way to diabetes or heart disease. Your cholesterol and triglycerides are probably high at this point too.

SO. What to eat? Just avoid the processed, refined foods. Anything in a box. Stick to whole foods – meats, vegetables, fruits, legumes. Avoid soda, for god’s sake. Liquid calories. Stop adding sugar to tea and coffee. Beware of fat free foods!

Read your labels!!! Sugar hides under all kinds of aliases. Brown rice syrup, evaporated cane juice, beet juice/sugar = sugar. High fructose corn syrup (the worst of all!!!), sucrose, dextrose, fructose = sugar. Look for the sugar content on the label. 4 grams = 1 teaspoon. A soda has 10 teaspoons!

Avoid artificial sweetners like Equal and Sweet & Low. They contain aspartame, which is a neurotoxin (read: causes problems in your central nervous system, kills brain cells, etc). Aspartame is usually present in those “Sugar Free!” products.

Stevia is a good substitute for sugar. It’s super sweet and if you find it unrefined (it’ll be green as opposed to white), it can be used for baking. Agave nectar is pretty good too – it’s low on the glycemic index. Honey is an ok substitute, as it contains minerals and enzymes if it’s raw, but it still has the same effect on blood sugar to an extent. Increase other spices like cinnamon, cardamom, or vanilla, which add a natural sweetness.

Read Ann Louise Gittleman’s book Get The Sugar Out. She outlines a whole plan to kick sugar.

alright, alright. Here’s a sugar free recipe. Give this to the kids instead of snickers bars. Don’t turn up your nose at carob. It’s delicious, really, and doesn’t have added sugar like chocolate does.

Carob Cookies (gluten and refined sugar-free!)
1/3 c almond butter
2 Tbs butter or coconut oil
1.5 or 2 large pink lady apples
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
¾ c carob powder
¼ tsp sea salt
1 ¼ c brown rice flour
about 30 whole almonds (optional)
½ – 1 c carob chips (optional)
¼ c agave nectar or pinch green stevia (optional)

Grease cookie sheets and preheat oven to 350. Chop apples into small chunks and put in blender. Add almond butter, butter (or oil) and eggs. Puree. Can add a bit of water to make more of a puree. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, carob powder and salt. Mix well and add carob chips. Add puree to dry mix and stir just until well blended. Add optional sweetener if desired (stevia or agave). Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto cookie sheet. If desired, press almond onto top of each cookie. Bake for 10 min or so – don’t overbake. Yum!