the sugar blues

My name is Mindy, and I am a sugar addict.

I've known this for years. I love sweet stuff. For years, I've required "a little something" at the end of a meal. Not breakfast, but always, always lunch & dinner. In fact, I've been known to haul a bag of candy corn or fat-free brownie in my purse to someone's house...in case they didn't serve dessert. I'd bring a sweet in my purse to eat after we went to a restaurant, usually a fat-free brownie. And when I went on vacation? I nearly always packed a Rubbermaid container of those brownies...or a bag of dark chocolates...or else just hit the grocery store while we were there for a certain brand of fat-free devil's food cookies. I simply couldn't do without something sweet during the day...several times a day. I couldn't...or didn't want to try.

Lately it's come more and more into my consciousness that sugar may not be quite the innocent treat I have thought it was. In the wake of the health changes of the past few months, I've been doing a lot of reading. I highly recommend "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon. It's technically a cookbook, but is dense and wonderfully full of information about the history of food and nourishment. I also discovered "Sugar Blues" by William Duffy. This slim volume has been very eye-opening. Scary, even. A quote:

Refined sugar is lethal when ingested by humans because it provides only that which nutritionists describe as empty or naked calories. In addition, sugar is worse than nothing because it drains and leeches the body of precious vitamins and minerals through the demands its digestion, detoxification, and eliminiation make upon one's entire system. ~William Duffy, Sugar Blues (Warner Books)

Here is a website I came across recently, which talks matter-of-factly about what sugar does to the body, and gives some tips on how to cut it out of your life. In a nutshell, the health effects cited are:

• "Sugar increases fat storing"
• "Sugar disrupts normal brain function"
• "Sugar decreases your overall health and makes you age quicker"(1)

Also, I was thrilled beyond words to find this blog. It chronicles the writer's quest to be sugar-free for a full year (2008). I was so encouraged to find someone who tried, and succeeded, kicking her sugar habit.

Because, at least for me, it is a habit, an addiction. I've discovered that so many of my tastes are influenced by whether there is sugar in a product or not. My taste buds are trained to love the stuff with high fructose corn syrup, granulated sugar, and others. I've done a lot more label-reading these past few months, and have been appalled at how many supermarket items have sugar in them: often several kinds of sugar in one product. One of the worst offenders if ketchup. Also in the line-up are peanut butter, bread, crackers, cereal, salad dressing (I was hard put to find one without sugar in it!)...the list goes on and on.

I'm not saying that it's wrong to enjoy sweets. I believe God created us with "sweetness" as one of the tastes that our bodies crave. But the more I learn about refined sugar, the more disgusted I become. I'm trying to steer my family toward more natural sweeteners: honey, agave nectar, pure maple syrup, date sugar, coconut sugar. Even Rapadura, which is whole, unrefined cane sugar. I'm seeking things that are as close to the natural state as possible. The less refined, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

The point of all these rambles is this: I am going to try to truly kick my sugar habit. That's my goal for this year. It won't be popular. It won't be "normal." It will go against much of what the culture finds acceptable. And certainly, it won't be easy. I'm not entirely sugar-free yet. But I have hope. I'm going to do it; for my health, for my family, and also, because I feel so much better when I am avoiding that stuff. I know it will be worth it in the end.

Pray for me!



(1) http://zenhabits.net/2008/10/beat-the-sugar-habit-3-steps-to-cut-sweets
-mostly-out-of-your-life/