Sugar please! Why should you break up with sugar?
“Sugar, ah honey honey
You are my candy girl
And you got me wanting you”
– song lyrics, The Archies
How often have you been thinking: “Give me some sugar please”?
Do you remember how it felt when you fell in love for the first time? You had that gentle cuddly feeling in your stomach, you felt like you are almost flying and all the world was smiling at you. You had your pink glasses on and everything was just right.
People do compare the feeling and emotions like love, joy and happiness, gratitude and inspiration with something sweet, soft, pleasant. It’s not without a reason why at St. Valentine’s day the stores are full of all kind of sweets and chocolates with the form of a heart. People don’t paint egg’s for Easter any more. They just buy chocolate eggs. And all this just because processed sugar increases endorphins that boost mood and provide a temporary chemical “high”. So, sugar pleases you and you feel “happy” and everything feels just right. It has been conditioned to us and when some holiday comes you are being tempted by all kinds and forms of processed sugar you can ever imagine. Sugar please! Could you resist all this?
Give me some sugar please! Or Marketing Almighty
Right now if you decide to reduce the sugar you consume it will be very difficult because it is everywhere and in everything. But, do you really need all of it? Because in the end you will also have to have insulline control.
Well, believe me, I love chocolate. But, there is a thing called marketing and profits, huge profits. Have you ever heard that food industry is one of the biggest industries in the world? People all have got to eat and drink after all, right?
So what are the food and the sugar manufacturers doing? Ever better advertising with manipulation to get us to feel good about their product. Just like this 42 Slide 45 Coke Security Cameras Coca Cola ad.
Give me more sugar please! It triggers hunger
The next thing that they have figured out is that it triggers hunger. And food manufacturers include it in almost every food you consume. So, you want more and more of it. There are 60.000 packaged foods and 70% of them have added sugar in one or another form. Just check out the label of the pasta sauce or ketchup in the grocery store. Why would the “savory” ketchup need 24% of added sugar?
“Sugar please” for the sugar junkies
What’s next? Next is that people are getting addicted. You don’t have to believe me. Just try to stay away for a week from ALL added sugar you are usually consuming. It won’t be an easy task to do.
Problem solved!
It came out recently that back in the 1960’s there were studies pointing out that there is a relation of sugar to heart disease. And that would definitely harm the business. So, through their lobby, the sugar industry hired two Harvard researchers to conduct a study that would connect fat with hard disease instead of sugar.
The problem is fat and not sugar! Problem solved. The outcome of the study was published in New England Journal of Medicine and made it official industry knowledge.
In the 1970’s there was almost nobody under the age of 40 who had type 2 diabetes. Back then it was called Adult onset diabetes, because young people didn’t get it. According to World Health Organisation presently there are about 60 million people with diabetes in the European Region or about 10.3% of men and 9.6% of women aged 25 years and over.
The risk factors are physical inactivity, diet and age. However, type 2 diabetes is increasing in all age groups and is now also reported among children and adolescents. Worldwide, high blood glucose kills about 3.4 million people annually.
Isn’t this scary? To me it sounds like I will reconsider my next chocolate crush.
Why the Food Industry doesn’t care and gives you more sugar please?
But the food industry seems to care only about their profits. They are trying to make you feel good about their product before you even buy it.
Cereal manufacturers are going even further. They pay grocery stores to keep their colourful plastic toy filled cereals at child height view. And you know why? There is a term in marketing called “pester power”. That is the ability of children to nag and to influence their parents to purchase certain goods. There is a price the parents are willing to pay to end the nagging of their kids. And marketing companies know that. That is why they put their brightly coloured cereals right at the height the children can see it.
Do you know what number 2 ingredient in just about every breakfast cereal as Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes is: sugar! It doesn’t matter that the packaging says in bold print: It is fortified with this vitamin, fortified with these essential nutrients.
What if give it up?
The world we are living in is facing a healthcare crisis right now. And one of the main reasons is refined sugar.
Sure, I am not telling you that to live happily and healthy ever after you have to quit all small guilty pleasures like chocolate and sweet treats once in a while. After all, we are designed to eat fruit in the summer what stimulates storing water and nutrition in our bodies. Sugar from fruit stimulates us to store fat and energy for the coming winter season.
All I am trying to say is that people have become junkies with all the consequences for the health and the happily ever afterlife. And moreover, the “smarty industry pants” are making money on this, a lot of money.
So, the intake of sugar has to be conscious and with knowledge.
No more sugar please 🙂
Or maybe give it up entirely?
Are you curious how you would feel if you abandon it? Just for a while, let’s say for one week.
I am and that’s why I have decided to go for the “7 Days breaking up with sugar quest” of Mindvalley. So far it’s not an easy task. And it seems it’s really a thing that has to do with how I feel and my daily habits. But the way Eric Edmeades guides you through the process makes this quest a fun way to give up added sugar.
So, why not just to give it a try for one week.
I will be happy to hear if you made it to the end.
How did you feel about it?
