Monday Moaning

Here we go again!

Sugar, the big enemy.

Headlines today:

Cut back amount of sugar children consume, parents told

Health officials believe children are consuming more sugar than they should

Parents are being encouraged to cut back on the amount of sugar they feed children in a new health campaign.

The Public Health England (PHE) Change4Life campaign offers “sugar swap” tips, including swapping ice cream for yogurt and sugary drinks for sugar-free alternatives.

Health guidelines advise that 10% of a person’s energy or calorie intake should be made up of sugar.

But officials fear children between four and 10 are consuming far more.

‘Health impact’

Source: BBCNews Read more

Opinion:

While it may be true, sugar is not the BIG enemy. They’re barking up the wrong tree… again. Because the real tree has gremlins.

The real enemies are twofold, sweeteners and HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup); i.e. sugar-free alternatives.

Sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose are far more damaging to the body than sugar.

HFCS, which has replaced natural sugar in nearly all sodas and prepared foods in supermarkets, is a plague.

Natural sugar has 50/50 sucrose/fructose. HFCS has an imbalance, as much as 40/60. The excess fructose cannot be processed by the body and my understanding goes straight to the liver and gets converted to fat.

HFCS is the hidden beast that is responsible for the current explosion of obesity. Check this…

Now look at this…

Check out these figures…

Click the image to enbiggenate if your eyes are like mine

Nearly every drink and preprepared food product in the supermarkets have HFCS…

The governments won’t do anything about HFCS, because they’d be fighting giant corporations who pay millions for the ‘right’ politicians to be elected.

Politicians are basically cowards, they won’t protect your rights over their chances of being reelected.

You and your health simply don’t matter!

Your only guarantee for health is to totally eliminate HFCS from your diet. Forget the sugar problem, compared to HFCS it’s not a problem.

Monday Moaning

I must admit that I was stuck for something to moan about this morning, so I had a nap.

I often do this in the vain hope that inspiration will up and slap me silly.

It doesn’t always work, and it didn’t this morning. So I got up and made bacon and eggs for a late breakfast.

It was when I switched on the TV to watch as I ate, I heard a doctor talking

absolute unadulterated bullshit!

That was the inspiration I needed.

The programme was a popular live talk show shown throughout Brazil daily and the subject today was fat overweight  women and their self-esteem.

The doctor stated that “over weight was caused by people’s addiction to carbohydrates.”

Man has been using high carbohydrate food since he stopped being a hunter-gatherer and discovered agriculture; corn being the principle crop.

But prehistoric man never had a weight problem!

The weight problem didn’t start until man became addicted to junk food. Not only junk/fast/processed food, but still more recently than that.

All these and more have HFCS

The real overweight problem began when we began to meddle with GMOs, and further with the replacement of sugar in soft drinks (sodas) and other sweetened foods with HFCS.

These are the real culprits, particularly the latter.

To make it worse companies have produced diet and Zero soft drinks using artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose, 200x sweeter than sugar. These sweeteners affect every organ in your body from the brain down. They disrupt thinking and learning, they play havoc with hormones and much more.

You have to look at why HFCS is a danger. Sugar (cane and beet) is almost pure sucrose, whereas HFCS is, roughly, 45% glucose and 55% fructose. YOUR BODY CANNOT PROCESS THE FRUCTOSE!

Therein lies the problem.

Once again we have the manufactures claiming HFCS is similar to table sugar, but independents say otherwise.

To hear a doctor spouting that carbohydrates are the problem, and ignoring the glaring fact that HFCS is by far the greater threat, makes me wonder where the medical profession has its head today; I believe well lodged in its nether regions.

There is another culprit, and that is we spend too much time on our fat acres and not enough time walking, working and exercising. Cars are the biggest problem there, but that’s another moan for another day.

 

Update

I have updated the Make you Fink on Friday post with a warning published in The Guardian.

New words to learn…

The “diabesity” epidemic

Monday Moaning

I’m not doing the moaning this morning… you are!

You’ll be moaning, wailing and gnashing your teeth, when you see the facts about sugar consumption.

Is Your Sweet Natural?

I have given up on common white sugar. I have it in the house for guests should they not want to try my sugars.

I prefer ‘Natural’ sugar, what we in the western world would refer to as raw or demerara sugar.

The other sugar I use is organic sugar being similar in appearance, but. according to the company blurb is made from sugarcane that meets international standards of ‘organic’ cultivation and displays the stamps on the pack.

Images: União Cia

Now, I don’t know if this is healthier, or not. There is a lot of conflicting evidence, good and bad, about these sugars as opposed to white refined sugar.

Sugars; clockwise from top left: White refined, unrefined, brown, unprocessed cane – Wikipedia

There is also conflicting evidence about which stage of the sugar refining process produces these sugars.

Some say these sugars are before the white stage, others say they are after the white stage with molasses added again.

The image on the right shows, white sugar, unrefined (raw or demerara), brown sugar, and unprocessed (which I suspect is Muscovado or Barbados sugar).

I do know that the flavour of these brown sugars is much better than white sugar. Natural sugar has a definite hint of molasses, while organic is more honeyed, therefore lighter.

Have you experimented? Or even thought of experimenting?

Or are you of the opinion, we’ve always had white sugar and never considered the possible health benefits.

Look for it, try it, who knows, you may like it!

Reducing your Carbon Footprint

There are many products available to help the consumer reduce their carbon footprint.

Try using this to sweeten your morning coffee…

Carbon Free Sugar

If my high school chemistry serves me right…

C₆H₁₂O₆ is the chemical formula for sugar; you take away the carbon, and all you’ve got is a bag of water…