Integrative Health Blog

Limiting the Power of Sugar and Carbohydrate Addiction

Posted by on Mon, Dec 23, 2019

Just about everyone knows that sugar is bad for our health, but during the holidays, it appears with more frequency and is difficult to avoid. 

In case there are readers who have missed out on this fact, I will provide you with the crash course to start off this article.  The Atkins website   sums up 10 reasons why sugar is bad (listed below) and other websites go on to list 146 reasons why sugar is not a sweet thing for our health. 

10 Reasons Why Sugar Is Bad for Your Health

  1. Sugar causes glucose levels to spike and plummet, which cause mood swings, fatigue, cravings and headaches.

  2. Sugar increases the risk of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

  3. Your immune function can be affected by sugar. As if being sick wasn’t bad enough, studies have shown that sugar can interfere with the way your body fights disease. Bacteria and yeast feed on sugar, so excess glucose in the body causes these organisms to build up and cause infections.

  4. A high-sugar diet can lead to chromium deficiency. Chromium, a trace mineral, helps regulate blood sugar in the body. While it can be found in meats, seafood, and plant foods, 90% of Americans still don’t get enough chromium because of refined starches.

  5. Sugar accelerates aging. After sugar hits your bloodstream, it attaches to proteins. The mix of these proteins with sugar causes the skin to lose elasticity and leads to premature aging.

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Tags: addiction, sugar

Sugar: Hidden Ingredient and Healthy Alternatives

Posted by on Wed, Dec 28, 2016

Most of us know that eating too much sugar is bad for us. Sugar promotes acidity in the body which provides a breeding ground for illness and disease.

Rising rates of sugar consumption over decades has contributed to increasing rates of candida, obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes, adrenal fatigue, metabolic imbalances, liver toxicity, cancer, vitamin and mineral deficiencies and a range of health conditions.

When your body craves sugar, it may signal a high level of candida, which provides an internal acidic, environment in which bacteria and fungus, and ultimately disease, grows.

Unfortunately, most people don’t know how to combat sugar cravings and don’t realize that many of the processed foods they consume every day disguise sugar on labels with names such as high fructose corn syrup, sucrose, maltose and dextrose. When you constantly feed your body sugar, which is acid-forming, your taste buds can become addicted to the taste and crave more sugar! On the other hand, as you feed your body alkaline-forming foods and beverages, your taste buds will crave less sugar and you will feel better.

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Tags: insulin resistance, diabetes, sugar

Sugar, Carbs and the New Dietary Guidelines

Posted by on Mon, Feb 23, 2015

Every 5 years the U.S. government revises our national dietary guidelines. This past week the nutrition advisory panel that helps to formulate those guidelines came out with new recommendations.

Among them was their new sugar consumption guideline. They now advocate consuming no more than 12 added teaspoons of sugar/day, or roughly 10% of the diet due to the link between sugar, obesity and chronic disease like heart disease. While this recommendation is certainly a step in the right direction, the American Heart Association has a tighter restriction, and advises no more than 6 teaspoons of sugar/day for women and no more than 9 added teaspoons of sugar/day for men.

Read the full article here:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/nutrition-panel-calls-for-less-sugar-and-eases-cholesterol-and-fat-restrictions/

How Much Sugar Are You Consuming? 

Processed foods generally contain high levels of sugar and it’s estimated that Americans, due to high consumption of processed foods, consume in excess of 22 teaspoons of sugar per day!

Real food is always the winner over processed food when it comes to nutrient value and density. 

Among all the “real” food choices though, there are things to consider when planning your next breakfast, lunch or dinner fare such as:

-   Which foods will give me the most energy?

-   Will I be hungry in an hour if I choose to eat this now?

-   Is this really enough food for lunch? (always the culprit when dieting!)

-   Do I see carbohydrates, protein AND good fats on my plate?

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Tags: carbohydrates, sugar

Holistic Nutrition: When Fruit is Not a Healthy Choice

Posted by on Mon, Jun 17, 2013

Anita's Healthy Tips                       

 

Summer officially starts this week, on Friday, June 21. Most of us have air conditioning these days, but many of us can remember sleeping on sticky sheets with the fan in the window during the summer! Which never worked, by the way!! When it gets hot, who wants to be in the kitchen using the oven or the stove? Now is the time to try all those recipes that don’t require cooking!!

 

Salads of all types - green salads, fruit salads, raw kale salads, gazpacho soups, cold cucumber or melon soups, and caprese salad - taste wonderful and don't heat up the kitchen.

Know Your Fruits and Veggies: The "Dirty Dozen" and The "Clean 15"

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Tags: holistic nutrition, diabetes, pre-diabetes, integrative nutrition, sugar, pesticides

Love Sugar? Learn What is Does to Your Body

Posted by on Wed, Feb 20, 2013

 

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Tags: holistic nutrition, holistic health, integrative health, sugar

Are You Suffering from Sugar Addiction?

Posted by on Thu, Apr 12, 2012

Eve Colantoni CHC

If you’ve tried to kick the sugar habit and failed, you could be facing a larger problem than you may have realized; you may be facing an actual addiction.  Sadly, sugar addiction is greatly misunderstood by most people; parents, teachers, even doctors and the medical community at large. In this article, you’ll learn why sugar is so addictive, how to tell if you’ve become addicted, and what steps you can take to break away from the grips of sugar addiction.

“Sugar and spice and everything nice!” The old saying takes us back to happy memories from childhood, but not all that we remember nostalgically is necessarily good for us.  In fact, one of the problems with sugar is that since it’s always been a part of our lives, from birthday parties, to holidays like Valentine’s day or Halloween, we think consuming it is all very normal.  A little in moderation never hurt anyone, right?  Well, when you see the history of sugar, and how it’s become woven into the fabric of our lives, and what it’s actually doing to your body, you may think differently.

Long before you or I were ever born, the first sugar refinery in the United Sates was constructed in 1689.  Many historians have now documented that much of the slave trade was initiated to find free labor to grow and harvest the plants from which sugar is derived; sugar cane or sugar beets.  In my opinion, it makes the scar that slavery left on humanity even deeper knowing that much of the atrocity was committed in the name of producing a drug that would further enslave us--sugar.

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Tags: addiction, holistic nutrition, integrative health, candida/yeast, sugar

Is Your Brain Addicted to Sugar?

Posted by on Wed, Apr 04, 2012

Eve Colantoni CHC

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Tags: addiction, holistic nutrition, integrative health, integrative nutrition, sugar, integrated health

Are You Making One of These 3 Health Mistakes?

Posted by on Mon, Jan 09, 2012

Healthy Tips

Life certainly doesn’t come with a guide book and we all do the best we can with the tools we have.

That said, when we see a better way or when we gather more information we are inspired to make changes.

Today I want to share with you 3 common mistakes that could be sabotaging your best efforts at maximizing your health:

  1. Too much sugar

  2. Too much white flour

  3. Not enough “real” food

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Tags: integrative nutrition, sugar, anita's healthy tips, integrated health

Could You be Suffering from Yeast Overgrowth?

Posted by on Wed, May 18, 2011

  

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Tags: holistic nutrition, candida/yeast, sugar

Holistic Nutrition: How to Break Free of Sugar Addiction

Posted by on Wed, Apr 20, 2011

Nowadays it seems everyone has a “sweet tooth” but for some the desire to consume sugar is anything but an innocent or occasional craving. 

For some, the need for sugar morphs into an unwavering compulsion and could be considered an actually biological addiction.  Before you continue to read any further, check and see if this sounds like you:

•  Have tried over and over again to cut out sugar from your diet, or at least decrease it, and no matter how hard you have tried, you end up giving in to your cravings and wind up feeling like you are a failure? 

•  Does it ever feel like there’s absolutely nothing you can do to overcome the cravings and you know you’ll ‘give in’ no matter how much you’ve told yourself you wouldn’t?

•  Would it feel like a million-ton weight was lifted from your shoulders if you learned it’s not your fault that your craving sugar and it’s not a lack of willpower that’s driving you to eat anything sugary you can get your hands on? 

In cases like these, it’s important to understand that a biological addiction to sugar/or carbohydrates CAN exist.  More importantly, recognizing that your inability to refrain from eating it is likely not your fault.  If you’ve been simply trying to employ good old-fashioned “willpower” to overcome your addiction, please know that this strategy simply will not work in almost all cases.  The biological needs of your body will ‘win-out’ over willpower each time.

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Tags: holistic nutrition, sugar