| Vibhu Krishna for CVNWS 1. Addiction Refined sugar is an addictive food. It has been likened to cocaine and other addictive drugs, in that neurochemically it causes a dopamine rush. One famous study reported that rats--even those that were cocaine-addicted or sensitized--still preferred intensely sweet liquid over a cocaine hit. Time and again, studies have shown these properties of white sugar in humans, as well. This isn’t just the stuff you add into your coffee. It has wormed its way into numerous packaged foods (even savory ones). It’s the food industry’s way of ensuring you keep coming back for more. |  Photo by Bethany Newman |
2. Increased risk of dying from heart disease
A 15-year long joint study between Harvard, Emory, and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) found death by cardiovascular incident (even in non-overweight participants) to be linked with sugar intake.
“Participants who took in 25% or more of their daily calories as sugar were more than twice as likely to die from heart disease as those whose diets included less than 10% added sugar. Overall, the odds of dying from heart disease rose in tandem with the percentage of sugar in the diet—and that was true regardless of a person’s age, sex, physical activity level, and body-mass index”
--Harvard Health Blog
3. Tooth Decay
When refined sugar hits our teeth, acid is produced as a waste product by the bacteria that help digest the sugar. Simply put, acid erodes our enamel, making our teeth more susceptible to cavities and tooth degradation. For this reason, the American Dental Association recommends limiting sugar intake. It is important to note that this doesn’t just mean saying no to doughnuts and brownies--beverages are packed with sugars and soft drinks are possibly the largest contributor to sugar intake in America, with about 52 gallons consumed per person per year.
4. Diabetes
When you consume sugar, your pancreas secretes insulin, which helps your cells take in the glucose and use it for energy and the liver to store excess. If you keep eating a lot of refined sugar, repeated insulin spikes and drops will lead to a quick depletion of blood sugar levels and the corresponding “sugar crash,” which may even lead you to reach for more sugar-dense foods. Over time, the pancreas tires out and stops producing enough insulin, leading to diabetes.
5. Refining Process
If the above reasons aren’t enough for you to consider decreasing your refined sugar intake, knowing more about the refining process just might. Candidly, it is...well...gross. Sugar either starts off as sugar cane or sugar beets. In a series of crystallization processes (heating, cooling, boiling, and separating), these foods are completely stripped of their water, fiber, and micronutrients, leaving highly purified sugar. Doesn’t sound too bad yet, right? A few added chemicals, a few washes--that’s old news.
But this sugar is then bleached bright white using animal bone char, typically pig or cattle bone. It is funneled through massive columns that “filter 30 gallons of sugar per minute for 120 hours at a time [and may contain] 70,000 pounds of char.” That’s bones from about 7,800 cattle for only one industrial sugar filter[1].
What remains is a bright white addictive chemical that gets added into thousands of packaged food items and makes its way into baked goods.
Still want to give your kid that cookie?
[1] https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Is+your+sugar+vegan%3F+An+update+on+sugar+processing+practices.-a0170412905
RSS Feed
