Do you have ADD or ADHD? Have you ever tried getting off the drug in everything, sugar, and seeing if you still exhibit the same symptoms? It does not matter if the source is “natural,” organic, or artificial; too much sugar in the form of sucrose or fructose is not good for you, even when it comes from a natural source like fruit.
“But I don’t eat foods containing fructose or sucrose,” I hear you say. Really? Check the list below and then check the labels of your favorite snack, protein bar, soup, bread, pasta, drink, dressing, frozen food, instant food, or health food. Chances are you will see one or more of those ingredients listed. It is hard not to eat sugar in the modern food landscape, even when eating “healthy.”
Why? It’s simple. Sugar is addictive, and food companies want you to be addicted to their food. It’s good for business, and it’s not illegal. After all, it’s just sugar, and we all know sugar is harmless, right?
Sugar used to be rare in the human diet and very expensive. It was a luxury item. If you were good, grandma might take you to a candy store and let you pick something out, thus the expression “like a kid in a candy store.”
But times change. And since the 1970s, sugar has been cheap and easily readily available. That’s when high fructose corn syrup was invented, and simultaneously the medical industry was incorectly recommending a low-fat diet as the healthy choice. HFCS is cheap and Iowa’s corn industry which has an outsized role in America’s presidential primaries loved what it meant for business.
I once had a conversation with a chef at a premiere fine dining establishment, and he said there are really only three ways to make food taste “good;” fat, salt, and sugar. Since fat and salt were incorrectly identified as the ‘bad guys,’ sugar was the only option left, and the food industry ran with it.
This is not new information to me, nor did I learn this from the video I am sharing above. In book after book, article after article, video after video I have learned the same thing, modern people like you and I must make an effort to reduce sugar consumption if we stand a chance of being healthy and happy.
Basic Simple Sugars (monosaccharides and disaccharides):
- Dextrose
- Fructose
- Galactose
- Glucose
- Lactose
- Maltose
- Sucrose
Solid or Granulated Sugars:
- Beet sugar
- Brown sugar
- Cane juice crystals
- Cane sugar
- Castor sugar
- Coconut sugar
- Confectioner’s sugar (aka, powdered sugar)
- Corn syrup solids
- Crystalline fructose
- Date sugar
- Demerara sugar
- Dextrin
- Diastatic malt
- Ethyl maltol
- Florida crystals
- Golden sugar
- Glucose syrup solids
- Grape sugar
- Icing sugar
- Maltodextrin
- Muscovado sugar
- Panela sugar
- Raw sugar
- Sugar (granulated or table)
- Sucanat
- Turbinado sugar
- Yellow sugar
Liquid or Syrup Sugars:
- Agave Nectar/Syrup
- Barley malt
- Blackstrap molasses
- Brown rice syrup
- Buttered sugar/buttercream
- Caramel
- Carob syrup
- Corn syrup
- Evaporated cane juice
- Fruit juice
- Fruit juice concentrate
- Golden syrup
- High-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)
- Honey
- Invert sugar
- Malt syrup
- Maple syrup
- Molasses
- Rice syrup
- Refiner’s syrup
- Sorghum syrup
- Treacle
