The following is a listing of some of sugar’s metabolic consequences from a variety of medical journals and other scientific publications.

1. Sugar also comes in other names such as glucose, fructose, maltose, sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, and more.
2. Sugar can suppress the immune system.
3. Sugar can upset the body’s mineral balance
75 more reasons on the site below.

I am convinced that the sooner we all give up sugar the healthier we will be.

What do you think?

Well, considering that sugar is the dominant calorie source in fruits, even the non-sweet ones that we can eat raw, and even in most vegetables, these things can't possibly be true in general.

But you can look more closely at why these claims might be made.

What *is* true is that refined sugar is not as good as the whole food, i.e. eating an apple is much better than eating the sugars that it contains minus the fiber, the vitamins, the minerals, the phytochemicals, the protein and the fat.

What is also true is that you can eat an enormous quantity of refined sugar in a very short period of time. This is not true of fruits and vegetables, which contain a lot of fiber and water and are much more filling.

It's this potentially enormous quantity of refined sugar that you can eat in a short period of time that has damaging effects in the long run, if you keep doing it day after day, year after year, decade after decade. And a lot of people do eat this way for a long time and get sick and fat.

Edited to add, it's a similar case for refined grains, only there isn't as much of a difference between the refined one and the unrefined one. You can verify this by comparing the nutrient content of white rice and brown rice--they are not as different as what you might expect, but basically it's why so many of us choose against grains and pick f+v instead.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/2008 12:45AM by arugula.