Refined Sugar & Diet

Refined Sugar

Sugar is a sweet, crystalline carbohydrate typically extracted from sugar cane and sugar beets. It is a non-nutritive empty calorie that robs the body of vitamins and minerals. Refined sugars have many different names, such as granulated (table) sugar, powdered sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, dextrose, raw sugar, turbinado sugar, and malt. Even much commercial fructose is really pure refined sugar.

Many people believe that sugar is only bad for your diet when ingested in enormous amounts, when actually “normal” amounts are damaging to the body. Sugar is addicting. The more you get, the more you want! Some would say it is more addicting than heroin.

Now, the sugar industries have the largest advertising in the world. Less than 10 years ago the average American diet contained something like 153 pounds of sugar a year, with a whopping 24% of diet-calories coming from sugar.

Removing sugar from your diet, like quitting most drugs, leads to withdrawal symptoms. The most common are headaches, chills, and body aches. Sugar, like alcohol, is intoxicating. It creates an imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain. Mental and emotional disorders are often linked to sugar in the diet.

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