A popular adage prompts my title and focus in this blog – “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” from Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. Juliet is arguing that it does not matter that Romeo is from her family’s rival – the house of Montague. Whatever his name, she loves him. So today, this reference is used to say that the names of things do not affect what they really are.
Well….my subject today is sugar. So that adage has to be looked at a little more deeply before we see the truth of it. How many names do you recognize as another name for a sweet substance we all know and love – sugar?
If you are like me, and a majority of people in this country, on the topic of sugars, we can become confused and overwhelmed.
In my simplified exam of it all, I learned that fructose, glucose and sucrose are known as “simple sugars”. And they are all important forms of carbohydrates. Are your hackles getting raised yet?
Sugars are found in whole foods and often added to processed foods to make them sweeter. Here’s the problem: our tongues cannot tell the difference between the different “sugars” but it’s important to understand that our bodies use and process them all very differently.
And therein lies the issue I raise.
Glucose – another term for blood sugar. It is our body’s preferred source of energy. Most of the carbohydrates we consume convert into glucose for use immediately or stored for later use. When glucose gets too high in our blood stream, insulin is secreted in response to help get all of that energy into our cells.
Sucrose – commonly known as table sugar and comes from sugar cane or sugar beets. Fruits and vegetables also naturally contain sucrose. When we eat sucrose, a special enzyme is dispatched to break sucrose into individual sugar units: glucose and fructose. Again, our body uses it immediately for energy and the excess will be placed into fat synthesis (stimulated by the insulin).
I am trying to speak English here — promise – simplifying is just not easy.
Fructose is a sugar found naturally in many fruits and vegetables. It’s also added to processed foods like fruit juices and sodas. Different name and it is very different from other sugars because it has a completely different metabolic pathway – it is NOT the preferred source of energy for our brain or muscles.
The bottom line? There is cause for concern about consuming chronically high levels of fructose because it acts more like fat in the body than a carbohydrate. Today, we are consuming larger and larger amounts of fructose which is toxic to our bodies.
In what I found, there were listed “10 Reasons to Decrease Your Fructose Consumption” and you will just have to check those out in more detail if you like. It was deterrent enough for me when I found on that list some major “I-don’t-want-those” items:
- Damage to the liver, leading to insulin resistance and fatty liver disease
- No good for energy for our body but gets converted by liver into fat cells (no thanks, I have enough of those)
- Increases levels of uric acid in the blood –results? Gout, kidney stones, worsened hypertension
- Can cause diabetes (and complications that go with that disease)
- Cancer cells feed off of fructose and use it as energy
- Has been shown to cause excess impaired memory in rats (if rats can’t take it, I can’t either)
However, the good news is that I learned that fruit was not the enemy – it is fructose from added sugars that is harmful to our health, not fruit. WooHoo! Evidently fruits are whole foods with the necessary fiber and essential vitamins and minerals (aka “good stuff”) so you would have to eat a crazy amount of fruits to reach the harmful levels of fructose discussed in the articles I read.
Added sugars? This is getting to my point – my reason for alerting you. Unless we are diligent about reading labels, we are most likely unaware that many sauces and toppings contain high levels of fructose. Like what?
- Processed drinks (sodas and fruit juices) and drink mixes
- Sweet wines like port, sherry and other dessert wines
- Some sports drinks which appear healthy BUT have added fructose
- Much of the prepared foods on the market
- Condiments like ketchup, sweet pickles, peanut butters, frozen foods, breakfast cereals, canned foods, bread and crackers can also have high levels
- The obvious prepared foods like pastries and chocolate
Okay, I did not set out to spoil your day! But remember, a rose by any other name….? In this case, the other name should be treated as a clue to what is different! It is a different Romeo, not your regular sugar (cane or beet).
A Naturopath said she takes new patients completely off all products with white flour, puffed grains or refined sugars – including corn syrup and fructose, and off all artificial sweeteners – including Splenda.
She then checks their reactions to various unrefined whole grains and fruits – especially in-season berries and fruits. She allows all natural sweeteners if the patient can tolerate them – like local raw honey, organic molasses, organic maple syrup, rice syrup, barley malt, Rapadura sugar, date sugar, Mystic Lake Fruit sweetener (refrigerated), stevia (honey leaf) and organic unrefined cane sugar. (See—I didn’t want to leave you without any sweet solutions!)
Her clinical experience was that all the refined sugars and all the artificial sweeteners increase body pain, increase dysfunction such as irritable bowel syndrome, arthritis and all types of headaches, and cause hormonal drops, moodiness and allergy flare-ups. Pain and other symptoms often increase over the following 4 days from consumption, and may not taper off again until about a week has gone by, depending on the toxin clearing ability of the patient’s body. (OK, I will wait until another blog to go into beefing up your immune system.)
Am I leading up to something? Yep – I have a special guest coming to this blog area soon who will address some of these health concerns I just raised with you. Stay tuned!
Meanwhile, I encourage you to make sure you eat foods low in fructose – read the labels and eat as many whole, unprocessed foods as possible.
Food and dietary supplement products sold by Youngevity are intended to contribute to the daily diet and overall health and are not intended for use in the prevention, treatment, mitigation, or cure of any disease or health-related condition. Individuals who have or suspect they have an illness or who wish to commence a diet or exercise program should consult an appropriately licensed health care practitioner for a medical history evaluation, diagnosis, treatment, and health recommendations.
