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Sugar addiction.  You may not have thought of yourself as an addict.  Think again.  It may be that you became an addict unwittingly, but you still may be one.  Most of us are.  And overcoming this addition is just as difficult – if not more so than tobacco or alcohol. 

Interested in reducing your reliance on sugar through the substituting of good, wholesome foods?  It is possible.  While it may take some discipline and time, you’ll find it’s worth the both the time and effort you put in to it.  Not only will you be decreasing your chances of developing some of the most devastating degenerative diseases, you’ll also be increasing your energy level and your quality of life!  Now, isn’t that worth it?

Eat sweet vegetables.  You have probably already guessed that the best way to beat the sugar craves is through a sensible diet.  But to help your taste buds – and your brain – transition, try eating sweet veggies.  Root vegetables are especially valuable.  Try increasing your intake of yams, sweet potatoes, carrots, beets and – believe it or not – even onions.  These provide you with a sweet flavor while at the same time helping to reduce that nagging craving for a sweet dessert.

While you’re munching down on those vegetables, include some green leafy vegetables as well.  This will help replenish those essential nutrients that sugar has been stripping from your system.

Add some high-fiber foods to your diet as well.  Apples are especially valuable here.   They not only keep those sugar cravings at bay, but since they require more "chewing time" they give your body the valuable time it needs to realize that it’s not hungry any more.  And that means you’re less likely to overeat!  And that helps if you’re trying to lose weight as well.  A Brazilian study recently discovered that just by eating three small apples throughout the day – while eating a well-rounded diet – can help you lose significantly more weight than those individuals who didn’t eat apples.  Not a bad bonus!

Don’t limit your fruits though to just apples.  Look at what you could be eating instead of those two chocolate sandwich cookies.  Those cookies have the same amount of calories as 1 ½ cups of melon or 2 cups of strawberries. 

Those types of servings will not only make you feel full, but they also provide your body with the vitamins and minerals it needs.  But the greatest aspect of fresh fruit is that it’s energy food.  You’ll feel a little more energized after eating fruit.  After you finish the cookies, your body feels more drained and lifeless.

If you think you can’t live without ice cream, then replace it with a puree of frozen fruit with just a dash of fruit juice concentrate.  You might also want to make a smoothie with frozen sliced bananas and diluted peanut butter or even almond or cashew butter.  Put all this in a food processor or a blender.  You’ll want about one tablespoon of the nut butter.  Add a tablespoon of water and one-quarter teaspoon of vanilla extract.  And here again, it’s an energy-giving food instead of an energy-depleting one.

There are plenty of ways to kick the sugar habit.  You just need a little determination and some imagination.  In no time at all you’ll feel healthier and more energetic.  And decrease your chances of developing a whole host of health problems in the process!

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There are two more natural sweeteners that deserve your attention as well as an herb that can help reduce your cravings for sweets.  The first is Rapadura.  This is the commercial name for a whole organic sugar and is an unbleached and unrefined sweetener.  It is native to South America, the Caribbean as well as India where it has been used this for thousands of years. 

Rapadura is the only sugar in which the sugar stream is not separated from the molasses.  This means that Rapadura retains most of its essential nutrients.  It has a mild, caramel-like flavor making it a perfect sweetener for baking as well as for sweetening foods and drinks.

It’s laden with minerals – especially silica and iron.  If you plan to replace unrefined white sugar with Rapadura you would use the same amount.  One cup of Rapadura equals on cup of white sugar.

Another natural sweetener you might want to look for is stevia.  This, too, comes from South America, where it has been used for more than 1,500 years.  It’s difficult for us to imagine, but it contains no calories.  On top of that it’s 300 times sweeter than sugar.  With all of this, you might think that it’s as bad for your system as refined sugar, if not worse.  But, research has shown that stevia can actually regulate your blood sugar.  Across the continent of South America, this natural sweetener is sold to those individuals with diabetes and hypoglycemia to help normalize their conditions. 

You can find it in liquid, tablet and even powered form. But, who won’t find it labeled as a sweetener. Instead, you’ll find it called a "dietary supplement" thanks to the maneuverings of the Food and Drug Administration.  Many people use stevia as a coffee sweetener instead of table sugar.

You may also want to consider using the little known herb gymnema sylvestre.  This herb’s active ingredient, legendary in India and parts of Asia as a natural treatment for diabetes, is culled from the leaves and the roots of the plant.  It helps to balance blood sugar levels.

Scientifically speaking, the unique contour of the gymnemic acid molecules is similar to those of the glucose molecule.  This allows it to fill cell receptors in the lining of the body’s intestines.  And this prevents the uptake of sugar molecules.

Gymnema sylvestre is an extremely useful herb even if you don’t have diabetes, but you just want to stop those uncontrollable sugar cravings that come over you.  Some experts say you should take this herb with a high-carbohydrate meal – or even a meal that contains plenty of sugar.  In this way it can help the body by passing through the sugars. This makes the carbohydrates in your body burn more quickly.  Otherwise they would be stored and would quickly turn to fat.  The other advantage is that it helps your body build lean muscle mass.

[Source: www.wisegeek.com]

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So what’s a savvy consumer like you to do?  It’s hard enough to fight an enemy you can see.  It’s harder yet to combat an enemy that you can’t detect.  But you can still do your part to lower your sugar consumption.  And we’ll give you some simple tricks:

Start by eliminating all sugary drinks from your diet.  Not only do sodas and powered drinks contain sugar, but so do those supposedly health sports drinks and even those fruit juices. Replace those sugar-laden drinks with water. Focus, instead, on drinking more water. Remember that health experts recommend you drink a minimum of 8 eight-ounce glasses of water daily.  You can easily replace any of these with water. Bored with plain water?  Treat yourself and put a slice of lemon in it.  This adds to the flavor without the dangers of the sugar.

If you know that a food contains sugar, limit your consumption to three times a week.  This is, without a doubt, one of the very best techniques to beat the craving for sweets.  Other effective methods to reducing your sweets craving is to eat healthy, balanced meals.  You need to start your meal off with a protein, preferably a complete protein.  A complete protein is any food that comes from an animal. 

Then, add a natural source of carbohydrate to it.  This could be a vegetable, a legume, or even a properly prepared whole grain or a fruit.  But wait, you’re not done yet.  Next you need to include some good fats to your diet.  These include butter, coconut oil, canola oil or olive oil.  These fats are much more important than you think.  They slow down the entry of sugar into the blood stream, preventing those miserable mid-morning and afternoon crashes.

Your next step in reducing your sugar consumption is to replace refined sugars with natural ones.  There is, indeed, a difference.  Refined sugar products include white sugar – like you may put in your coffee or you put in your cereal.  Refined sugar also comes in many other forms, though, so you have to read food labels carefully.  Other names refined sugar goes by include corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, fructose, and sucrose.  You also want to eliminate as much as possible all artificial sweeteners. 

Instead, you want to become familiar with products such as maple syrup, molasses and raw unfiltered honey.  Many health food stores offer products made with these natural sweeteners.  You can even find cookies and ice cream made with these.  This is a great introduction to the natural alternative that replaces refined sugars.  When you begin to switch from refined sugar to natural, go slowly and be patient with yourself.  Sugar is a powerful addiction!

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Today’s average American consumer ingests 2 to 3 pounds of sugar a week!  We say "ingest" because in many of the cases, we’re not even aware we’re "eating" sugar.  This is a dramatic increase even in the last two decades.  In the 1980s,  we, as a nation consumed some 26 pounds to 135 pounds per person in a year!  Now compare this to the late nineteenth century – specifically the years from 1887 to 1890 – when the average American ate only five pounds of sugar in an entire year! It comes as no surprise then that cancer and heart disease were virtually unknown back then!

Additionally, too much sugar increases our risk of developing diabetes as well as a host of other health problems not normally associated with sugar consumption.  Eating too much sugar suppresses your immune system, which then makes you more susceptible to colds and other illnesses. An excess of sugar consumption has also been associated with an increase in the development of cancer.

But its hazards don’t end there.  Excess consumption of sugar has also been linked with making existing asthma conditions worse, increasing the severity of arthritic conditions, as well as exacerbating mood swings, even prompting personality changes.

And if those aren’t enough reasons to make you stop in your tracks when you see any form of sugar, here are a few more.  Sugar has been associated with an increased cholesterol level and that can lead to a heart attack.

Then there are the "hidden" problems you’ll discover when you eat too much sugar, like finding it hard to sleep at night.  When you eat much sugar –even inadvertently – your heart rate increases and your body finds it extremely difficult to relax.  Even your mind refuses to slow down.  Think about the last time you had trouble sleeping, finding it hard to turn your mind off. Could an over consumption of sugar have been the cause?

Perhaps you’ve noticed that you’ve been retaining a bit more water than usual.  It could very well be because of your sugar consumption.  Those last five or ten pounds you can’t lose on your diet may be due to the ubiquitous sugar in our society.

Ever get into one of those mental funks when you just can’t think clearly?  Recent research has confirmed that sugar actually interferes with brain wave function, making it more difficult to concentrate at long stretches at a time. The consumption of sugar also makes it harder to learn as well.  Many times, sugary snacks and soda drinks are the reasons why some children struggle in school.

As a nation, our sugar consumption is growing by leaps and bounds.  The sad – and frightening – aspect is that for the most part we are not aware of all the ways that sugar "creeps" into our diets.  Even when we make an honest attempt at limiting the amount of sugar we consume, we’re receiving this potential poison from the most unlikely of foods.  Our lifestyle and the level of processed foods we eat make it difficult for us to completely drop the sugar habit.

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If you don’t believe that sugar creeps into just about every food we eat, let’s visit the neighborhood grocery store. 

You’re trying hard to eat healthy.  You’re determined your family will too!  So you’re cruising the grocery aisles shopping with the glint of resolve in your eye.  You toss a sugar-free pudding mix into your cart.  Then you see those granola bars in your grocery cart, because they have to be healthier than those candy bars your kids eat.

You check out and take the food home – feeling pretty smug that you’re doing your part to change your eating habits.  But, even with this healthy diligence, you and your children are still big consumers of sugar – in far greater quantities than you might think. What to see exactly what we mean?

Let’s first look at the sugar-free pudding.  With only 90 calories for a half-cup serving compared with the 150 for the type with sugar, it’s looking pretty good so far.  But let’s dig a little deeper here.  No matter what the label may tell you, there is still a type of sugar in this product.  It’s called lactose.  It’s a natural sugar found in milk products.

Now let’s get technical.  Lactose is really a large molecule which is made of two smaller sugar molecules – glucose and galactose – linked together. Hmm.  Perhaps it’s not "as sugar free" as you thought.

Our next step is to look at those granola bars you bought.  Go ahead and read the label.  Does it sound anything like this?  Sugar, rolled oats, dextrose, wheat flakes, rice dried lemon, soybeans, fructose, corn syrup, partially hydrogenated peanut and soybean oil, non-fat milk, almonds, malt, sorbital and flavoring.

Whew!  What a mouth full.  But more than that, let’s really examine some of these ingredients.  Food manufacturers are getting ever cleverer, because as consumers we’re growing increasingly savvy.  This is just one more example of this.

First, the closer the ingredient is listed at the top of the list, the greater the amount of the ingredient is in the product.  Sugar is the first ingredient.  So there is more sugar than anything else.  Not boding too well for healthy, is it? 

But wait, because that’s not the only sugar in the granola bar.  How many types can you find?  Here’s what we see:  Sugar (of course) dextrose, fructose, corn syrup and sorbitol. 

Yes, fully one-third of the 15 ingredients in this granola bar – five individual types in all – is sugar in some form or other.  Now does it sound like a good snack?

Sugar.  We all know that it’s a major contributing factor to the growing worldwide obesity epidemic.  It’s also plays a large role in the development of diabetes.  With even so-called healthy foods containing labels like this, it’s no wonder that sugar in this county is skyrocketing.  You literally can consume sugar with nearly every meal and not even touch a sugar bowl!  It’s already in the processed foods and snacks we eat – even in those foods marked sugar free and so-called healthy!

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