A few weeks ago I had a conversation with some of my friends. We were talking diet and I mentioned how that now that I'm off processed sugar I no longer crave chocolate and ice cream. They didn't believe me.
Earlier this year I started to notice something funky happening after I ate certain things. Not an allergic reaction, more like a case of the jitters. It also felt like my mind was on overdrive. After a snack of homemade ice cream one night I felt really yucky. Shaky, and my mind was racing. I thought back to what I had put in the ice cream. Milk, cream, sugar....
Sugar... for the next couple weeks I carefully observed my reactions to when I ate something with white or brown sugar in it. Each time I felt the same results. I also noted my reactions after having something with unprocessed sugar in it (turbinado, sucant, maple syrup) I had no reactions to those. That was it. I took any leftover white sugar and brown sugar in my house and gave it away or threw it out. No matter how much it cost, it wasn't worth how it made me feel.
When I do something, I don't do it halfway, cutting out sugar not only meant cutting out adding the sugar to things, it meant cutting out anything that had sugar in it(candy, cookies from the store, ect)
After throwing out the sugar I started to feel better, I wasn't shaky, my mind got clearer, my skin cleared up (excema), and more. After a couple months of feeling great I started to tell friends about how I was feeling and why. Of course, most people aren't convinced just by a personal story. Here are some things that processed sugar actually does to your body:
- Having sugar spikes your insulin levels. This is eventually followed by a crash which leaves you feeling sleepy and possibly hungry again.
- Sometimes we tend to solve this problem with more sugar even though our bodies aren't really needing more food, which leads to us overeating.
- Processed sugar my have once been sugar cane but due to processing and refining it's basically turned into a chemical.
- Sugar causes dental issues. Cavities, gum erosion, and more.
- Processed sugar can be the cause of diabetes, hypoglycemia, and hyperglycemia.
- It also increases PMS symptoms, causes an overgrowth in candida yeast growth, increases anxiety and hyperactivity, makes weight loss difficult because of spiking insulin levels.
The average American eats 2-3 lbs of sugar every week through things like peanut butter, cookies, breads, and many more products. Since processed sugar has no vitamins or minerals in it, your body has to use it's special store of vitamins and minerals to process it.
Out of all the changes that we've made in our diet over the last several months, cutting our processed sugars (both white and brown) has had the biggest impact on our health. Truthfully, it's be awesome! As I said above, we no longer crave sweets. We still like to make cookies, and cakes, and goodies, but with our unrefined sugars. Even though we like eating those goodies, I don't crave them like I did, in fact I'm pretty sure I've been craving apples, cucumbers, and other produce more than anything!
Don't forget to check out Part 1(Raw Milk.)
Do you eat processed sugars? Do you notice a different in your body after you eat them?
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Are all of your recipes formulated to use unrefined sugars? That is a huge part of the battle if you ask me – figuring out how to bake with out the white or brown sugar…
Any recipe that I’ve posted in the last 6 months should be. Otherwise I just substitute turbinado for white sugar and sucant for brown sugar in most recipes.
so if you don’t use white or brown sugar- what do you use in it’s place when baking and how much (the same amount as the recipe calls for?) do you use sweetener in your coffee – if so what!? I love my one cup of morning coffee and always put 2tsp of sugar and a bit of creamer
We use turbinado, sucanat, maple syrup, or honey. With turbinado or sucanat I add about the same amount(maybe a little less depending on the recipe since we aren’t so much into the sweet flavor anymore) and I’ve just started to replace with maple syrup and honey. With those you have to add less of another liquid to replace the sugar in the recipe. We aren’t coffee drinkers but my mom and my sister are and I believe they use a liquid stevia in coffee to sweeten.
Just curious if you have used either of these for making jams/jellys successfully? My mom was just diagnosed diatbetic so I have been looking for good alternatives.
I will be experimenting with it this summer. Although for a no sugar jelly or jam you could always use the No Sugar Needed Pectin.
Thank you, I have found some research on that. But all the reviews say the jam is very bland, although this is coming from a sugar obsessed culture. I am definitely planning on trying a batch of that though with a bit of honey. =)
While I haven’t completely switched over, awhile back I started cutting back on the sugar. I use 1/2 of the sugar in just about every cookie/quick bread recipe that I have the results have been great! I want to learn to bake more with honey, but haven’t been very brave yet.