Top Sugar Questions
1. I don’t eat “sweets,” so how can I be eating too much sugar?
You may not be eating sugar directly, but you might be eating other foods that turn into sugar in the body. Are you eating cereal, bread, pasta, ketchup, French fries, salad dressing, packaged foods, fast food and the like? These highly processed, high carbohydrates starches quickly convert to sugar when digested, so if you think you’re safe just not eating sugar or sweets … think again.
2. What are hidden sugars and how can I know if they are in my food?
If an ingredient ends in “ose” – like fructose, dextrose, sucrose, etc., it’s sugar. Always check the label where it lists carbohydrates. Divide that number by 4 and you’ll see exactly how much sugar ONE SERVING of whatever you are holding in your hand contains.
3. How much sugar is too much?
Any added sugar is too much. Focus on fresh vegetables, grass-fed meats and dairy, and some, but not too much, fresh fruit.
4. Everyone in my family has diabetes. Isn’t it inevitable that I will, too?
Everyone has a different genetic profile and some predispositions toward certain diseases may run in families, however, just because you have a predisposition does not make getting the disease inevitable. “Genes load the gun, but ENVIRONMENT pulls the trigger.” A truly healthy diet that includes good animal fats and plants can keep you disease free.
5. Doesn’t eating fat cause high cholesterol and heart disease?
There is no correlation between cholesterol and heart disease. Cholesterol is mostly produced in our body and not derived from the food we eat. Cholesterol itself is not the issue – damaged blood vessels and constricted nerves from sugar make the inside of your blood vessels sticky, like Velcro, instead of smooth. Plaque build up in blood vessels is the result of these sticky surfaces catching the cholesterol and causing a build up.
6. What is the difference between symptoms and cause when it comes to disease?
The nomenclature of modern medicine is based on describing and treating symptoms of disease, but doesn’t address the cause. Sugar Crush threads that needle, clearly identifying sugar as the underlying cause in a wide array of common, debilitating modern ailments.
7. How does sugar cause nerve damage? What is the Global Compression Theory?
Sugar causes inflammation inside blood vessels, which leads to swelling and constriction and even a minor amount of constriction has a disproportionately large impact on blood flow to nerves. When these swollen blood nerve bundles pass through fibro-osseous tunnels, they push up against bone and cause even more constriction. It’s a kind of double-whammy. Eventually, the starved nerves lead to neuropathy, pain and end organ death.
8. What is a ketogenic diet?
A ketogenic diet is at least 75% fat and limits carbs to under 50 grams a day. It can be difficult to follow, but it is doable. Based on research from the Nobel prize winning physiologist, Otto Warburg, cancer cells need glucose to survive and grow, while healthy cells can survive on either glucose or the ketones, which are the byproduct of burning fat for energy.
9. What is your Green – Yellow – Red Fat Rule?
Making high-fat, low carbohydrate food choices can be daunting. Sugar Crush outlines this helpful rule for making the right choices.
Green – GO FOR IT. Any fat product from animals that eat grass is good, along with meats and eggs from organically raised, grass fed animals. These foods are naturally higher in healthy, anti-inflammatory omega – 3 fatty acids. Eat as many of these foods as you like. Because they will keep you satiated, you’ll soon find that you don’t want to eat the larger quantities you once did.
Yellow – CAUTION. Yellow represents any fat from a grain-fed animal. These cautionary foods are not going to be as healthy for you as their grass-fed, organic counterparts because they contain a disproportionate amount of pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids.
Red – STOP. DO NOT EAT. Red represents trans-fatty acids: artificially produced hydrogenated oils. Don’t eat these fats in any form. Ever. Your body does not have the enzymes to process and eliminate them. Again – READ LABELS.
10. Is there an alternative to the ketogenic approach?
Plan B is the blood sugar regulation diet. While the focus is still on eating more fat, of this approach allows you to choose carbohydrates that have both a low glycemic index and a low glycemic load. These are the carbohydrates that will have the least impact on your blood sugar.
11. What is the bottom line in removing sugar?
- Give up sugary drinks – including soft drinks and any kind of juice.
- Limit fruit – to really kick your sugar addiction, you need to cut back on sweetness, even from fruit. Switch your snacking to foods with higher fat and no sugar, like nuts, seeds and raw vegetables.
- Use real cream, not milk – one cup of milk, whether it is whole, skim or 2 percent has 12 grams of sugar in the form of lactose. That’s the equivalent of 3 teaspoons of sugar.
- Avoid soy – 90 percent of the soybeans grown in America are genetically modified to resist herbicides. Even if you don’t eat soy, it shows up in grain-fed meat, cooking oil and processed food.
- Learn to decipher food labels. DETECT HIDDEN SUGARS!
Jody