Sugar a powerful addictive drug

Hello everyone, just thought I would do a quick post to show you what to look out for next time you go shopping. I went to the supermarket and took these pics so I hope they are clear enough for you to see.

YOGURT

Farmers Union Greek style yogurt NO ADDED SUGAR with 7.2g of sugar in the nutrition information

Dairy Dream Thick & Creamy ADDED SUGAR with 18.6g of sugar in the nutrition information

There is no actual added sugar in the first product, yet the nutrition information states there is 7.2g of sugar in it. THAT'S OKAY. You get that with the dairy products, its natural sugar. It's the other product which has added sugar and increases it to 18.8g which is what we want to avoid.

NUT & FRUIT MIX

Pic 1 fruit & nut mix has no added sugar in the ingredients, whereas Pic 2 has sugar listed

My new IG friend Karin also helped me out with some foods in her local New York grocery store. Below she shows hummus dip, almond milk, roasted turkey breast, yogurt etc...  with some that have no sugar in the ingredients list and has highlighted ones that did have added sugar eg: brown sugar, organic cane sugar. 

So always check in the ingredients list, does it have sugar? Yes. Put it back and grab another one. 

No. Great. Grab that and you're done. Apologies for my poor camera and pics on here but I hope you get a little bit of an understanding of how to identify those foods that have added sugar in the ingredients list.

Also here is a wonderful article from Karin Adoni, Nutritionist and a Health Coach who wrote this to help support our sugar challenge and give us some more knowledge from a professional perspective. 

"You’ve heard of good carbs and bad carbs, good fats and bad fats. Well, you could categorize sugar in the same way.

 “Good” sugar is found in whole foods like fruits and vegetables, whole grains and   Legumes because it’s bundled with fluid, fiber, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

 For example, one cup of cherries contains about 17 grams of sugar a cup of chopped carrots 6 grams and a small sweet potato 26 grams of sugar, but all are so full of good stuff that it would be practicing bad nutrition to banish them. “Bad” sugar, on the other hand, is the type not added by Mother Nature, the refined stuff that sweetens sodas, candy and baked goods.

So Why do we need to Avoid Sugar?

Sugar stimulates a physiological stressor-reaction cascade that provokes

adrenaline and cortisol release and thickens the blood.

Sugar effectively disables your immune system by impairing white blood  

Cells functioning.

Sugar decreases your body’s production of leptin, a hormone critical for

appetite regulation.

Sugar appears to fuel cancer cells.

Sugar promotes fat storage and weight gain.

Sugar disrupts the effective transfer of amino acids to muscle tissue.

Sugar intake over time spurs insulin resistance, subsequent Type II

diabetes and the entire host of related health issues like nerve

damage and cardiovascular disease.

Yes sugar is that powerfully

So how will we know what contains natural sugar and what not?

Look in the ingredients and look for added sugar, they are so many words for sugar so here is a list of what you should be looking for:

Brown sugar

Fructose and crystalline fructose; high-fructose corn syrup

Invert sugar

Rice/corn/maple/malt/golden/palm syrup

Corn sweetener

Maltose

Sucrose

Glucose

Molasses

Syrup

Dextrose

Honey

Raw sugar

Lessen the sugar intake by skipping any product that contains sugar (or one of the above aliases) in the first three ingredients.

Absolutely avoid it if sugar gets mentioned more than once in the ingredients list.

Question anything claiming to be a "natural" or "organic" substitute for sugar; such sweeteners still contain calories and don't bring nutrients to your diet that are needed. 
If a product claims to be "reduced-sugar", it still contains sugar probably less then in the regular version, but its still too much sugar.

So just to wrap it up if you need a little bit of sweetness in your day go for products like stevia, sugar alcohols (eg: vanilla essence) blackstrap molasses or organic/raw local honey. For more info check out I QUIT SUGAR ebook and for those already reading it, what are your thoughts?

Another great article and read is healthy sugars at the organic lifestyle magazine. What do you think? Do you think you can break the SUGAR HABIT?

Happy HUMP DAY everyone and congratulations on making the half way mark!!!! Remember it takes 3 weeks to break a habit. Week one, gone. Welcome WEEK 2!!!! I'll be posting my daily food journal later today. Happy Thursday!!! 


Xx Dani