Sugar Substitutes Are No Answer for Sugar Addiction
People are more aware than ever that what you put into your body is something you need to give serious consideration to and more recently there’s been growing concern over the negative effects that sugar can have on your body.
But humans have been consuming sugar for centuries so why is there so much concern now?
Well folks the problem is that there are two types of sugar – those which occur naturally and the far more dangerous refined sugar which you’ll find pretty much everywhere.
Sugar addiction is running rampant and sugar substitutes are not the answer.
One of the main problems with eating anything which contains refined sugar is that you’re effectively eating nothing but empty calories when you consume it. Now that refined sugar has become part of our everyday society and is part of every holiday season from Halloween treats, to Holiday Season candy, cakes and cookies, Valentine’s Day chocolates and in the kid’s Easter goodies.
In reality you can find some form of sugar in most of the stuff we eat and drink every day.
In Fact – People are Addicted to Sugar!
So it’s not just for the holiday sugar, it’s hard to avoid using it in our daily lives. In fact sugar addiction is now one of the biggest problems facing both developed and developing countries all over the world. Sugar usage worldwide has been increasing rapidly over the past hundred years or so and following along at a rapid pace you’ll find obesity, heart disease and diabetes escalating right alongside sugars escalated usage.
Refined Sugar and Sugar Addiction Dangers
We’re sure you’re wondering right now just how dangerous sugar could be? After all how can something which tastes so good be so bad for you? What you’re about to learn might come as a shock for you as to how addictive sugar can be.
Sugar Addiction Needs to Get Under Control
In numerous studies refined sugar has been shown to have what are called opioid qualities, which basically means sugar has the same addictive qualities as heroin for example. In studies conducted on rats where they were given access to as much sugar as they wanted to eat, there were significant withdrawal symptoms including screeching, mood swings and changes in their actual brain chemistry when the sugar was taken away.
As you’re probably aware eating a diet rich in sugary foods can increase your chances of developing diabetes, which is itself a very serious medical condition. Diabetes can lead to a wide variety of associated medical problems like necrosis of body tissue, coma and even death in extreme cases.
Diabetes is not where the buck stops when it comes to problems arising from sugar addiction. The health risks from eating too much sugar can also result in suffering from a whole spectrum of cardiovascular problems including heart disease and congestive heart failure.
More recent studies have shown that there’s evidence of a link between low bone density (osteoporosis) in children and teenagers and the consumption of sugary sodas – with most children drinking far, far too many of these. While some scientists believe that it’s the carbonation that promotes low bone density is not important because regardless, the sugar, high fructose corn syrup and sugar substitutes are the biggest problems we are seeing.
Did you know for example that the average American processes over 100-pounds of refined sugar every single year and that you can roughly add in the same weight in high fructose corn syrup? That’s 100 pounds of refined sugar plus another 100 pounds of pure high fructose corn syrup which is becoming clearer by the day is even worse for you that just pure sugar.
That’s nearly 200 pounds of sweet empty calories a year folks! Does anyone else think that we have a problem here?
Sugar substitutes to the rescue!
Or… Not so fast?
Is Solving Sugar Addiction with Sugar Substitutes a Good Idea?
The problem with avoiding sugar is that it’s been added to almost everything you find on store shelves, so this has motivated people to ask for, get and now use the “Sugar-free” options instead.
Unfortunately even when products are listed as “sugar-free” (meaning free of refined sugar) there’s an even more insidious danger lurking inside that packet or can…
Sugar Substitutes or Artificial Sweeteners!
What has surprised many scientists and nutritionists is that artificial sweeteners are actually far more dangerous than refined sugar in a whole number of ways. Firstly, people use artificial sweeteners to cut down on the number of calories they’re eating and in turn attempting to control their weight.
The problem here is that artificial sweeteners can actually make you fatter because they disrupt your body’s hunger response – when your body doesn’t get calories from these low-cal sweeteners you wind up with food cravings. This then leads you to trying to fill yourself with other foods and normally leads to a “crab frenzy” because your body is also in a low glycemic state.
So even though you’ve been drinking diet soda you’ll wind up suddenly having a craving for cake, pizza, candy, donuts or something else which defeats the purpose of using that sugar substitute in the first place.
Artificial Sugar Substitutes are Slipped into Many Products
What’s really scary is that artificial sweeteners are present in places you’d never expect to find them like in baby food, vitamin pills and drinks, fruit juices, diet meals, low-calorie foods and in all kinds of foods you’d assume are otherwise nutritious and quite healthy for you. To better understand how to avoid these artificial sweeteners you need to know all the names they go by.
Identify and Avoid Artificial Sweeteners
The most common artificial sweeteners are saccharine, aspartame (NutraSweet) and sucralose but neotame (used in many baked goods) and acesulfame are two new ones which are even more toxic than the ones they’re designed to replace.
In an effort to give you some perspective on how much of a problem this is when aspartame was first tested for use as a sugar substitute the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) refused to give it the all clear. There were early indications of several health risks involved in its use and laboratory tests on rats backed this up.
In fact aspartame has been linked to an increased occurrence of cancer, diabetes, obesity, headaches, seizures and a wide variety of degenerative neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, in people who are using this artificial sweetener on a daily basis.
There’s also the risk that aspartame can convert into glycol in your bloodstream when you consume too much of it, glycol being a common ingredient in antifreeze products – if you drink antifreeze it will kill you!
…Except in your case you’re getting that same glycol from drinking that diet soda you might have in your hand right now. In short artificial sweeteners and almost all synthetic sugar substitutes are nothing short of poison.
Why are Artificial Sugar Substitutes Bad for Your Sugar Addiction?
To date there have been well over 10,000 complaints lodged with the FDA in relation to the continued availability of aspartame but they will not discuss this issue with any form of media despite the fact that aspartame/NutraSweet is still in use in over 6,000 products available on the market today. The company behind this sugar substitute (G.D. Searle) have even tried distracting the public from avoiding their product by renaming it to AminoSweet in 2009.
You don’t need to take our word for it – you can Google the wealth of medical research out there on aspartame and the other artificial sweeteners on the market right now. There are hundreds of documents and studies available on the subject. Even Dr. Oz has gone public on the dangers of sugar substitutes, in the hope of keeping his viewers better informed and when talking sugar addiction, sugar is the number one food Dr. Oz wants out of your house.
Some people laugh at the idea of sugar addiction and just reach for a second round of cupcakes not knowing the damage going on inside their body until it festers into something serious. Breaking away from a sugar addiction is not easy but if you have patience and take it a step at a time, before long you’ll be looking back thinking it wasn’t really all that hard either.
To get a better handle on a sugar addiction without using questionable sugar substitutes read Eliminate Sugar Before Sugar Eliminates You also published by MyFitnessNut.com. In that article you’ll learn how you can cut your sugar intake as much as you want, with little to no sugar withdrawals.
