Sugar. Nuff said.
Sugar is considered by many, the most harmful drug of all. Why you ask?
Well the first problem with sugar is very simple; it’s legal and marketed to hell. Supermarkets are a killer for all those helpless souls trying to beat the sugar buzz, due to that beautiful word, marketing. Leading brands of high calorie and high sugar foods actually pay big money to have their products placed at eye level on store shelves, the effect of which is temptation, as everything you are trying to avoid is in direct eyesight. KILLER.
The second problem with sugar is the buzz. You know that feeling as soon as you consume a sugary product and you feel like you’re high on life. Nope, you’re not high on life; you’re just high on sugar. When a high sugar product is consumed it causes an instant rise in blood sugar, leaving you feeling brighter and perkier. But just as quickly as your blood sugar levels rise, they come crashing straight back down, leaving you tired, lethargic and just plain grouchy. To get over the come down you have more sugar and so the cycle goes on, reinforcing both your sugar addiction (like an alcoholic sobering up will consume more alcohol), and resulting in weight gain through consuming mass amounts of energy dense foods that leave you feeling unsatisfied.
Not only does sugar show similarities to drugs, with regards to its resulting addictive behaviours, but Dr. David Reuben, author of Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Nutrition says, “…white refined sugar-is not a food. It is a pure chemical extracted from plant sources, purer in fact than cocaine, which it resembles in many ways. Its true name is sucrose and its chemical formula is C12H22O11.”
So there’s the big hype about sugar as a drug, but I suppose the question isn’t whether or not sugar is like a drug, but why it is the most harmful drug. This is where I come back to my original point about it being legal, as this is where the problem lies. A LOT of parents are feeding children as young as one (sometimes younger which is just plain horrific), those high sugar products, that set the population up for sugar induced, addictive behaviours in their everyday diets.
Despite the fact that governments and public figures are now regularly stating the disadvantages of consuming high sugar products, the fact still remains that sugar is legal and readily available at a very cheap price wherever we turn. Alcohol and smoking are both similar in that they are legal and considered socially acceptable and often a social experience, like sugar; the difference is, when breaking addictive behaviours with smoking and alcohol they can be avoided. However, food is faced three times daily, and often the choice to avoid their sugar addiction is too much for some.
If this doesn’t get you thinking when putting refined, sugary products in your mouth then just remember, you won’t get a superstar figure or mouth with a high sugar diet. Rotten teeth and lots of flab is the most you can hope for; if you’re one of those lucky people that can put whatever you want in your mouth and still look slim, then below is what you are doing to your insides.
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