Cutting out sugar? Good luck!

When most think about cutting out sugar they immediately think ice cream, cake, cookies, pies, things along those lines. They ditch them but spend their time craving those sweet things and sooner or later talk themselves into "just one piece of candy"...and then it's all over. 

One of the reasons many continue to crave sugar is they don't realize just how much sugar is in the everyday things they eat. I read one estimate years ago that said roughly 80% of the food in the center aisles and frozen sections contained one or more forms of sugar. A more current study said 74% of our processed foods contain sugar. The decrease could simply be due to the fact that more and more of us are clamoring for healthy products.

Yours truly is a sugar-addict. The only way for me to curb my desire for sugar was to cut it out entirely. That meant I had to learn a lot about sugar. 

I've been sugar-free off and on since I was around 19. My interest in sugar, and being sugar-free, started when I walked into my dentist's office and he had a display of annual sugar consumption per person --- real sugar being used, not just photos. He started with a small baby jar with a tiny bit in it. 

I couldn't tell you the year he started but it seems it was around the time of the founding of America. The amount increased every year until the five pound bags (now I think they only sell 4 pound bags?) were 2 or 3 rows deep, maybe 3 wide and about my height. I don't remember exactly but it caught my attention. He was trying to prevent tooth decay. It was an eye-opener for me!

Back then the Internet and all the easy info at our fingertips didn't exist. I hit the library. I learned about what sugar did to our body, about how it was produced, about the countries that cultivated it and more. I read the book Sugar Blues (still have it). I went sugar-free for the first time.

Over the years I've done some back-sliding. It's hard to resist my mother's caramel cake, ice cream, and my biggest challenge...brownies. OK, OK, anything chocolate can tempt me!

Somewhere along the line I realized that one of the reasons I kept backsliding was that sugar was in almost every product I bought. Crackers, mayonnaise, blue cheese dressing, and pretty much every packaged or processed food. It kept my system tuned into sugar and it kept my cravings alive.

So, I started reading labels closer. I did more research. I learned that there are over 60 names used to hide sugar. Some of the products I bought had 3 or 4 different kinds. I knew they listed the ingredients in order of highest weight content down. Sneaky. They could put sugar as the 4th ingredient, then another type as the 6th, another as the 8th... Altogether the amounts were whoppingly high.

I did look at the amount in the top portion, the Nutrient Content, but if I was looking at something like raisin bran one would expect to see a higher sugar content, right? Why would someone add two or three other kinds of sugar to something so sweet? Yet they do.

Manufacturers weren't required to differentiate between naturally occurring sugars and added sugars in the Nutrient Content until recently (finally). The percentages are based on serving size so be sure to take a good look at the serving size first if you watch what you eat. The serving sizes are often ridiculously small and thus the content per serving of many things is skewed if you're just using that alone. Sometimes I'll look at the number of servings in a package and just roll my eyes.

Also, if amounts are below a certain threshold per serving they are allowed to put zero (0). Want to bet they play around a lot with serving sizes, what they want to promote and what they want to hide?

Now I wander through stores reading labels, looking at the list of ingredients first. I look at the oils, the sugars, and for other key things I avoid. I generally eat like our ancestors on the farm ate or earlier (aside from the fact that I don't eat meat...another blog for another day but it's mostly habit now that they sell meats without all the crap in them). I'm a mix of paleo, keto, plant-based, vegan, vegetarian --- in other words I've come up with a diet specific to my body and health. 

I don't think I really need to go into all the reasons sugar is bad for us, do I?

I did post a story (press release) on why sugar was good for you way, way back. No, not to ingest, but to heal wounds. I note that in one study cited they mixed sugar with iodine. (https://ramblingjan.blogspot.com/2008/10/healing-power-of-sugar.html)

Wondering what kind of names hide sugar in products? Generally, to make it easier, if something ends in "ose" or has syrup attached then it's sugar. However, they do get sneaky with the names as you'll see in this list of some sugars in our foods:

• Agave nectar
  
• Barley malt
• Barbados sugar
• Beet sugar
• Brown sugar
• Buttered syrup
• Cane juice
• Cane sugar
• Caramel
• Carob syrup
  
  
• Corn syrup
• Corn syrup solids
• Confectioner’s sugar
• Carob syrup
• Castor sugar
• Date sugar
• Dehydrated cane juice
• Demerara sugar
• Dextran
• Dextrose
• Diastatic malt
• Diatase
• Ethyl maltol
• Free flowing brown sugars
• Fructose
• Fruit juice
• Fruit juice concentrate
• Galactose
• Glucose
• Glucose solids
• Golden sugar
• Golden syrup
• Granulated sugar
• Grape sugar
• High fructose corn syrup
  
• Honey
• Icing sugar
• Invert sugar
• Lactose
• Malt
• Maltodextrin
• Maltose
• Malt syrup
• Mannitol
• Maple syrup
• Molasses
• Muscovado
• Oat syrup 
• Palm sugar
  
• Panocha
• Powdered sugar
• Rapadura sugar
  
• Raw sugar
• Refiner’s syrup
• Rice syrup
• Rice bran syrup
  
• Sucrose
• Treacle
• Turbinado sugar
• Yellow sugar

If you're concerned about high fructose corn syrup be sure to read this article. They have gotten sneaky about including it! https://livelovefruit.com/new-names-for-high-fructose-corn-syrup/ 

Here are names used by manufacturers to hide fructose:

• 
  Maize syrup
• Glucose syrup
• Glucose-fructose syrup
• Tapioca syrup
• Fruit fructose
• Crystalline fructose
• HFCS 
• Isoglucose
• Corn syrup
• Dahlia syrup

More reading if you'd like to delve deeper:

https://www.sweetleaf.com/how-sugar-hides-in-your-food/

https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-beauty/article/1937818/56-names-sugar-food-industry-uses-hide-how-much-their

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/8-ways-sugar-is-hidden 

https://asweetlife.org/how-food-companies-hide-sugar-in-plain-sight/

https://healthyeating.sfgate.com/different-words-sugar-food-labels-8373.html

http://sugarscience.ucsf.edu/hidden-in-plain-sight/#.X_CFIxZOmUk

https://www.fda.gov/food/new-nutrition-facts-label/added-sugars-new-nutrition-facts-label

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/finding-the-hidden-sugar-in-the-foods-you-eat

Adding Michael Pollan to my reading, listening list...

I have Google Alerts set up on a number of topics, some fun, most serious and related to health (mine or someone in my family). I remember seeing Michael Pollan's name in some of the articles I've read but have not taken the time to listen or find out more. He has been around for quite some time.

Based on some quick reading this morning, Pollan speaks common sense. I love his 7 Rules for Eating. I agree with so much that was attributed to him in the article.

We are obsessed with health in the United States. Yet we have some of the worst eating habits and the worst rates of diseases. It seems everyone is on a diet. I prefer not to think of what I do as a diet --- that is a brain thing as to me a "diet" is negative in my mind, it is something temporary with a specific goal of losing weight for the majority. Sometimes it's a change in reaction to a health scare (heart attack, etc.).

I also think everyone has to find their own way, find a way of eating 

I eat a certain way, I tweak it as I learn more, as I pay attention to my body...but what I'm trying to do is follow Pollan's #1 rule --- I don't eat anything that my grandmother (in my case, my great-grandmother) wouldn't recognize as food. As part of that, I basically try to eat like most did before manufacturers started messing up our food by processing it, spraying our foods with tons of chemicals and pesticides, modifying our foods so they wouldn't die when sprayed with pesticides, filling our cattle with hormones and antibiotics, feeding fish, chickens, and cattle with "foods" they were not intended to eat...I could go on.

We wonder why we are so ill? Why younger people are in the midst of a diabetic epidemic? Why ADD is happening with more and more frequency? Why Alzheimer's Disease and dementias are rising...and to younger and younger ages? Why our population is so obese? It's more than one thing, it's not just food. But food plays a huge part in it!

OK, stepping down from that soapbox! 

I like his 2nd "rule" --- don't eat anything with more than 5 ingredients or ingredients you can't pronounce. And his 3rd --- stay out of the middle of the grocery store, shop the perimeter... and definitely his 4th --- don't eat anything that won't eventually rot!

On the 4th I do bend it a bit. Only because in a tiny, tiny way I am a mini-prepper. I want to have enough food to eat if we lose electricity for a few weeks (which happened to us a few years back during a winter snowstorm). I like frozen foods much, much better than canned or freeze-dried, but if you don't have a freezer ya gotta have somethin' to eat.

The rest of his rules are good also. 5 - don't eat so much, leave the table a little hungry, 6 - eat around the table with family, not the TV and 7 - don't buy food where you buy gas (or I gather if you read the rest, at fast food joints).

Of course, I paraphrased his rules. I would add a few others --- eat organic whenever possible (but especially the Dirty Dozen) and go Non-GMO to avoid all the extra pesticides if you can't find organic.

He is correct when he notes that our food "rules" have changed over the years. One day something is bad, the next it is good. Villains change to heroes overnight. We find that studies promoting certain lifestyles were done by the food industries that would benefit. We find that studies done that changed our way of eating were flawed. New science decides that salt isn't all bad, that cholesterol isn't the bad-guy they thought it was, that it's good to eat fats...and so on.

I'm going to check a few of his books out of the library. I'll let you know what I think. I may just go see if he is on YouTube first. I'll add some links below if I find anything interesting or new.

Ha --- just took a look at the videos and it seems that in addition to talking diet and food Pollan talks a lot about psychedelics. (Here's a first-pass search result: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=michael+pollan&qpvt=Michael+Pollan&FORM=VDRE)

https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20090323/7-rules-for-eating#1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Pollan

Cooking...not one of my fave things to do!

I used to cook. I used to enjoy finding a recipe and making something new. Exploring foods from different cultures.

I still enjoy trying something new and trying foods from different cultures.

I don't have time to cook. I don't really enjoy it --- it's a time suck. You cook, you have a mess and then it's gone.

I suppose if there were more than two of us I might feel differently. Well, probably not. But cooking for just two, especially two who eat so differently, is a waste. Unless I'm making something often, cooking a lot, the ingredients I buy are going to go to waste.

I travel with my job (art shows), I travel for family things (often), so it's hit or miss when I'm home. My microwave gets a good workout.

Today is the exception. I have been eating a lot of oven-roasted veggies at my parents. They are good, but I like them cooked a bit more. I like crunchy. I like spices.

So, yesterday on the way home from my parents I stopped to pick up a bag of mixed broccoli and cauliflower with the idea I would roast them. Turns out that everyone else in the world must have decided they wanted to do the same as every single bag, all sizes, had vanished.

Being the focused person I am I went back over to the loose stuff...and found that I could buy a whole organic head of cauliflower, a bag of organic baby mixed color carrots, an onion, and broccoli heads for roughly the same price as the bag of broccoli and cauliflower.

Today I am roasting veggies. I ended up with four full cookie sheets of them. But they are soooo good! I am stuffed as I have to try each batch. Of course.

My "recipe":

1 large sweet onion, sliced into thin wedges that separate when mixed.
1 large head of cauliflower, cut up into small florets and pieces
About the same amount of broccoli heads, cut up into small florets and pieces
1 bag of mixed baby carrots cut up

I mixed them all with olive oil (just dumped a bunch so no measurements, although some of the recipes I saw said about 1/3 cup). I added salt and tossed.

Half of them simply had salt and olive oil.

I cooked that batch at 425 degrees for 20 minutes, turning once halfway through.

For the second half I added a zesty spice blend from Kroger and minced garlic. I also bumped the oven temp to 450 degrees so they'd get crispier faster. I like those brown edges. I still turned them over halfway through.

I like them both ways. I like them hot and I like them cold. I also like adding some balsamic vinegar over them in small batches. Now you know how I managed to write three blog posts today! I had plenty of writing time. Cooking is a time-suck.

On the hunt for sugar-free frozen potatoes...(Healthy Eating Post) - updated

I am a lazy cook. I used to do gourmet meals, spend time in the kitchen, but there's just way too much to do in life these days. I'd rather be in the studio!

Given there's only two of us, buying fresh often results in a lot of waste. I toss half of what we buy sometimes simply because we like variety and we can't eat a whole bunch or bag before it goes bad.

I'm not into buying real potatoes, cleaning and cooking them either. Yep, lazy cook. I will at times but when I want hash browns for breakfast or fries for dinner I want them now.

If you've read any of my past posts you know I don't eat any form of added sugar. It works for me...maybe not for you. I have found so many benefits from cutting it completely out of my diet over the years! Plus I've learned it's easier to ditch it all rather than try to eat just a little. I always want more and the craving cycle starts.

I've looked for frozen potatoes without added sugar over the past few years without success. Now that I'm moving to a much higher plant-based diet I wanted, needed, some potatoes. I got serious about finding some.

Who would have thought that finding hash browns, home fries or other frozen potato products without added sugar would be a problem? Did you know that your Ore-Ida, Alexia, etc. have sugar on them? It's getting harder and harder to find things that don't have some form of added sugar.

I know many of you are saying something along the lines of "who cares?". If you're diabetic they tell you not to eat potatoes anyway, sugar or no added sugar. Most of you already think I'm over the top with my 'no sugar' life-style! Give up cookies? cake? candy?

If you're eating sugar and you know it, that's one thing. But if you are eating sugar in your blue cheese salad dressings, mayonnaise, and other items that don't need or call for sugar, it seems kind of sneaky. According to some statistics over 80% of what you buy these days has added sugar. I dare you to go to the store and fill your cart up with things that have no added sugar...and try to go just five days without sugar. Bet you spend those five days craving the stuff, talking yourself out of giving it up. You will go through withdrawals.

I recently watched a fairly short documentary narrated by Katie Couric titled "Fed Up". If you have kids, or you struggle with your weight, I'd highly recommend that you watch it.

Here's the trailer:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCUbvOwwfWM)

I looked at every single bag in the grocery store's regular frozen food section. No luck. Every single bag had added sugar, plus many had things I couldn't pronounce. I went on-line looking at ingredients. No luck until...I finally found ONE company that doesn't add sugar to their potatoes: Cascadian Farms.  (http://www.cascadianfarm.com/products/frozen-potatoes). Guess where I'll be heading later today??? They sell them at Kroger in their healthy section. They probably sell them at Publix and other stores, too. They are organic, too! Big plus.

Here's another documentary, from Canada that's well worth watching.




 And one more (I keep finding them and adding):




I found some interesting sites while on my search:
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=48 - interesting take on the much-maligned potato
http://www.potatopro.com/ - loads of information
http://www.potatoesusa.com/index.php - United States Potato Board

People think I'm crazy...

Yep, they do. Well, I probably am in many ways that seem normal to me...but the one that most of my "normal" friends and family think I'm over the top about is what I eat.

I'm usually the lone one who asks for a veggie plate at a banquet. I'm the one my Mom calls before I go visit to find out if I'll eat this or that...and no matter how many times I tell her I'll find something to eat she still wants to try. I love her all the more because she does try, even though she thinks I'm crazy! I'm the one who gets the call asking if I'll bring my own food at Board meetings or other day-long events because they can't figure out what to order for me.

Now I'm kind of inching toward going vegan. I'm already a self-titled vegetarian. I will drink milk, eat some cheeses and eggs and haven't cared if my gluten-free, sugar-free waffles were made with dairy (I just discovered they aren't!). Going vegan means I'd give up all by-products with dairy, cheese, eggs and other food items made with animal products.

I'll tell you up-front that I think animals are on this earth so we can eat them and / or wear them. I've been a vegetarian since my teen years. I've probably bought and cooked meat three times in the past 20 years --- to feed someone else. Grass fed, hormone and antibiotic meat raised the way they used to be raised, of course.

I've known that it was kind of hypocritical to not eat meat because of the way they're processed, fed, treated, but give a pass to the milk, eggs, and other products produced from those same animals. I buy organic, cage free, but haven't been as stringent when it comes to the mixes, frozen waffles, etc. that I buy for convenience.

As I wrote in a previous blog I have been watching all kinds of food and health related documentaries while I'm walking on the treadmill. They have finally convinced me to give it a shot.

I'm going to move slowly, not go hog wild (pun intended).

I am going to majorly increase my veggie and legume consumption. I am going to only buy vegan processed foods (like my waffles). I pulled the cheese out of the fridge and tossed it in the freezer so I can give it to someone in the family who eats cheese. I left some things in the fridge because my husband is not on the same page and so we'll have dual eating habits.

I'm doing this for two main reasons that have a lot of subsets.

1- the health benefits. I watched, and then read, enough to see clearly that meat, dairy, etc. eaters had much higher incidents of a wide, wide assortment of illnesses. I won't bore you with all the details but it was enough to make me dig further and ultimately decide that our food and diets have changed over the past 50 or more years and it just ain't healthy to eat them pigs...

2 - the way we raise and process our meats is disgusting, criminal, horrific. Castrating animals without any anesthesia? cramming them into pens? cutting off beaks? grinding up live chicks? Not to mention the deplorable working conditions for those who work in the meat processing plants.

This isn't a "new years resolution", it's something I've been moving toward for a while and yesterday watching one of the movies again things crystallized in my mind.

Here's my plan:

• No cheese.
• No eggs.
• No butter.

Just doing those three is going to be a major adjustment but I'm not stopping there...
I will:

• Use organic, non-GMO, farm raised cow milk in my morning tea for a while until I've cleansed my palette and adjust to the other changes. That's the only time I use milk and I that tea is a vice I enjoy too much to ditch. Gosh, I am already doing enough crazy without depriving myself of my early-morning enjoyment!
• Substitute vegan foods (waffles, mayo, butter, etc.) for some of my current choices.
• Include a daily veggie smoothy with some fruit (decided the juicing was for the devout)
• Eat more legumes, seeds and nuts.
• Make my plate 70+% veggies.
• Take a B12 supplement off and on. 

Those are some major changes for yours truly. I'll keep you posted. I had a vegan waffle with half a banana, natural peanut butter and organic raisins for breakfast. Wonder what I'll do for lunch?

My friends and family thought I was crazy before. Now they are going to think I'm certifiable.

What would you miss the most?

I just finished re-reading One Second After by William Forstchen. It's an interesting book, thought provoking and scary. It's a story about what happens after an EMP attack is unleashed on America.

I see that they're in production at Warner Bros. to make a movie with the book as the basis. I'll go see it.

The scary part of the book is that it's a true possibility. Many of the apocalyptic movies and books are so far removed from the realm of possibility that I would classify them as entertainment. The things that happen in One Second After could happen. I doubt it would happen on the scale that's depicted in the book, but even an EMP over our major cities would create devastating havoc for many, many years.

An EMP is an Electro Magnetic Pulse. I won't go into details, it's easy to look it up (and I'm definitely not an expert!). On a very-simplistic level --- it would wipe out, shut down, kill computers, cars with electronic components, airplanes, your electric can opener,  trains...anything that has a computer circuit or is run by any form of electricity. Here's a quote from the "About EMP" section on Forstchen's website: "In far less than a milli second the entire power grid of the United States, and all that it supports will be destroyed." (http://onesecondafter.com/pb/wp_d10e87d9/wp_d10e87d9.html)

Destroyed.

How do you repair things without electronics? Dams would shut down. Trains wouldn't run. Freezers wouldn't work. Electric power tools would be useless. Tractors, dead. Processing machines, kaput. Circuit board fried.

Most grocery stores have maybe three days of food. They rely on heaters, coolers, freezers and transportation.

How far are you from a grocery store? Right now you hop in your car and drive the five or ten miles. Unless you have a clunker from the 60s or earlier you vehicle isn't going to work. So... think about walking. Think about carrying the food home. Think about how fast those who got their first would clean out the shelves.

If you do have a clunker that works how are you going to fill the tank with gas? The gas station pumps aren't going to work.


No communication either. No radio or TV no Internet to tell us what's going on. No cell phones. No telephones, either. You wouldn't know what was going on with your son in college, your daughter who's visiting a friend across town or your parents living in another state.

Hospital equipment unable to function, elevators stopped or crashed... People in the inner cities would start to move outward hoping for food to live on. How long before the animals on the farms are butchered without thought to the future?

We gradually acquired skills and knowledge to bring us to our current wonderful lifestyles. What happens when all at once everyone loses everything? Most of us don't have even basic survival skills. Do you know what's edible in the forest? How to butcher a deer (assuming you could figure out how to kill it in the first place)? Know where the nearest stream is with fish? Could you grow a garden with edible food before you starved? Could you protect it from those who are out to survive any way possible?

Since reading the book for the first time I sometimes look at some of the things I take for granted and wonder what I'd miss most. Some of the big things are easy --- connection with family, communication, heat, air conditioning, FOOD. Transportation. Refills on medicines.

But, assuming I was one who managed to somehow survive for a period of time, I sometimes wonder what little things I'd miss the most?

I always think about toilet paper. Once whatever I have in the house is gone it's gone.
Toothpaste.

Bandaids.
Aspirin.

Shampoo.
Hot tea.
Napkins.
Contact lenses / replacement glasses.
Tape.
Music.

What about you? 

Here are a few links to get you started if you'd like to know more about EMPs:
http://onesecondafter.com/pb/wp_d10e87d9/wp_d10e87d9.html
http://www.futurescience.com/emp/emp-protection.html
http://unitedstatesaction.com/emp-terror.htm

Battling Inflammation Through Food An Emerging Field

/24-7/ -- Scientists have identified the inflammatory process as the common soil in a diverse range of chronic degenerative diseases. The news, recently reported in the LA Times article, discusses how foods like cherries may help rheumatoid arthritis or avoidance of gluten may fight off psoriasis.

"Chronic inflammation is an emerging field," says Dr. David Heber, a UCLA professor of medicine and director of the university's Center for Human Nutrition. "It's a new concept for medicine."

According to the article by Shara Yurkiewicz, "The activated immune cells and hormones then turn on the body itself, damaging tissues. The process continues indefinitely, occurring at low enough levels that a person doesn't feel pain or realize anything is wrong. Years later, proponents say, the damage contributes to illnesses such as heart disease, neurological disorders like Alzheimer's disease or cancer."

In addition to eating foods that may reduce inflammation, foods that actually cause the inflammation should be avoided. Individual biochemistry and genetic makeup differences may render even normally healthy foods as instigators of chronic activation of the immune system in some people and not others.

Cell Science Systems, maker of the ALCAT Test for food and chemical sensitivity, offers a way to pinpoint which foods may be causing inflammation and recommends an individualized dietary regimen to avoid those specific foods.

"The ALCAT Test provides customized feedback as to which foods and chemicals are activating your immune system," said Roger Deutsch, founder of Cell Science Systems and co-author of "Your Hidden Food Allergies Are Making You Fat". "We believe in eating anti-inflammatory foods; but we also believe in avoiding specific foods that may not be compatible with your own biochemistry. It's all about customization."

According to a study released by the National Institutes of Health, treating Alzheimer's disease with DHA and EPA, found in fish oil and many plant sources, slowed its progression in a subgroup of the study population. While the ultimate goal of consuming anti-inflammatory foods and supplements is to prevent chronic illness, this study lends credence to the value of this emerging field.

-----
www.fayettefrontpage.com
Fayette Front Page
www.georgiafrontpage.com
Georgia Front Page