Did you know the average American consumes almost 152 pounds of sugar in one year? This is equal to 3 pounds (or 6 cups) of sugar consumed in one week! This alarming statistic equates to an average of 42.5 teaspoons of sugar per day and half of that sugar is in candy and breakfast cereal. The other half of the sugar disaster comes from processed food. If you go to the grocery store and read food labels, you are clearly in the minority of grocery shoppers. There was a time not very long ago that yogurt was good for you and it became a craze that made billions. We all remember eating breakfast cereal because it was nutritious and delicious. Sodas were the cool thing back in the day. Everyone drank sodas. They came in different flavors and they were satisfying. You can even get them “Diet.”
The Truth About Sugar Came Out
According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation, the average American drinks 44.7 gallons of soda every year. That’s about 487 cans or 286 8 oz. bottles or 85 2-litre bottles of carbonated sugary drink every year. To date, 53 different types of sugars are used in processed food and it’s not uncommon to find 5 or more different sugars in prepared meat, vegetables, fruits and dairy. When people discovered that fruits and vegetables are important to weight loss, the food manufacturers response was to add High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) to salad dressing. Also, misled by the manufacturer, consumers believing that yogurt was a healthy choice, and candy in the form of “nutritional bars” was a safe snack, consumed increased amounts that elevated their sugar intake. Consuming this much sugar equals to 37 pounds per person, each year.
Sport drinks became the next craze, promising to support the “athlete” to be their best. To be your best, you must have energy so “Red Bull Gives You Wings.” Another empty promise! As soon as people started ditching sodas for water, manufacturers realized they could sell more water by sweetening it with sugar. Parents fed their children yogurt, sodas, candy and fast food every day. By adding the vitamin flavored bottled water to their child’s diet, they thought they were doing the right thing. No one bothered to tell them that these products contained high doses of sugar. The food and beverage industry told the U.S. Congress that they are telling the public about the high sugar content. Read the fine print they argued, “People don’t bother reading the labels.”
When people started getting sick and battled with obesity, developed heart disease, cancers and strokes, the truth about sugar began to trickle out. State and local governments who attempted to warn the public about sugary beverages and snacks by increasing taxes received swift and humiliating defeat. The message became clear that to do anything about sugar would be difficult or nearly impossible. Childhood obesity exploded. Children started developing diabetes and cancer at an alarming rate. One recent study in the Journal of American Medicine (JAMA) showed that puberty started at an earlier age, with some children starting to transition into puberty at age eight. What this study noted was there was a common thread, sugar!
Excess Sugar Causes Developmental Diseases
Over the past years, lobbying groups have been calling for a change in the recommended allowance for sugar intake. Foodology is one of the groups lobbying our legislative bodies to set strict limits on sugar. Study after study has shown that sugar, in all its forms, is behind the proliferation of diseases, including developmental diseases in infants and children. Still, complete silence. Manufacturers dictated food tastes better with sugar and disguised its content. With legislative bodies paralyzed by money, the race to find and add more sugar intensified. The industry legal standing is that they tell consumers that sugar is in their product, it’s on the food label!
Excess sugar causes diabetes! That’s a fact. But even if excess sugar does not cause you to become diabetic, sugar will attack the Central Nervous System. That means children are at the greatest risk of neurological disease because of sugar. At a recent event, I presented three destructive powers of sugar. The first was the destruction of your sense of taste. The second most destructive power of sugar is short-circuiting your nervous system. This results in wild mood swings, depression, anxiety and confusion. The final and most destructive power of sugar is the weakening of nerve endings. Your sense of touch is greatly altered by high doses of sugar. Heart, liver, lungs and reproductive system is damaged because these organs and systems rely on neurological messages to work. Foods can help the body prevent and fight off diseases. If you have been diagnosed with metabolic diseases- -obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, stroke, dementia and Alzheimer’s, you’ve been consuming high doses of sugar for a long time.
Lose the Sugar, Lose the Weight
The supplement industry said fix your diet with the nutritional convenience nestled in their “magic bullet.” The “Diet” industry claimed they had the “magic bullet” that would help take off those unwanted pounds, and they used Hollywood Celebrities to market their diet programs with empty promises!
We say sugar is wrecking your weight loss efforts! The body’s metabolic system is all about insulin production. Insulin is sugar. That is all the food the body requires for healthy weight and efficiency. The body should produce insulin every time you eat. This hormone (insulin) is one, if not the most critical hormone produced by the body, but it will stop if you add too much sugar in your diet. This process operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, doing one thing; moving energy throughout the body! It burns and stores calories, rebuilds and renews cells, creates and disposes of waste. To lose weight, you must increase your metabolism, so you burn more calories than you store. Most dieters accept that all calories are equal, and it doesn’t make a difference where they originate from. That’s not true. Like “good fats and bad fats, “ and “good carbs vs. bad carbs” food also has good calories and bad calories. Have you ever eaten a big meal, then, an hour later, felt hungry again and needed to go raid the fridge and eat more? The bad sugar in the food you ate is to blame and sugar is in all processed food. Processed food may be convenient but have been stripped of the nutrients that give calories value. Processed foods like prepackaged meats and cheese contain cheap fats, modified grain- and vegetable oils (like soybean oil) and plenty of sugar.
When tackling diabetes and obesity, the solution is not going to be in medication or a magic “diet pill.” To make real progress against obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancers, stroke and cognitive diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s, we must attack the source of the problem–SUGAR!
Absenteeism from work and school is at an all-time high. Employees on medical disability for 30 or more days now total in the millions. You can go into any business in America and find three or more employees missing work every day because of illness. According to the Department of Health and Human Service, disability claims have increased ten per cent each year since 2002. We can cure and prevent most metabolic-related diseases such as diabetes, cancer and cognitive diseases by putting strict limits on sugar. We will not get help from the legislative bodies.
Help Is on The Way
The solution is educating employees and the public on the dangers hidden in food. We are eating way too much sugar. The solution is to educate our employees and family members on making better food choices and promote better eating habits. Foodology has been doing that for more than ten years with remarkable results! Food can restore, renew, heal and rebuild the body! Watch our video Diet Wars and invite us to your next health fair! Contact us at Foodology LLC. and let us help you and your employees’ name sugar and end it from your diet! Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and YouTube.
