More Sugar...Less Health

Recently the New York Times reported that food companies have doubled the amount of sugar they add to many of their products. Soups, cereals, and other foods have been heavily sweetened to attract more customers. Breakfast cereals have seen some of the biggest increases, but even whole grain bread now routinely contains almost a teaspoon of sugar in every three slices. In 1978, Kellogg's Special K contained about 10 grams of sugar for every 100 grams of cereal, but that amount has now increased to 17 grams, very close to the sugar level of vanilla ice cream. Over the same period, the sugar per 100 grams in tomato soup has increased from less than 3 grams to more than 6 grams. Processed foods contain some of the highest sugar content, often with levels close to or higher than 20 grams of sugar per 100 grams of food. Sugar consumption has been implicated in rising levels of tooth decay, diabetes, and obesity. On the other side of the sugar coin, people have been led to believe that if they want to eliminate sugar, they can use an artificial sweetner. Sadly, we are not told that artificial sweetners can be dangerous to our health. Many studies show that artificial sweetners like Nutrasweet, Sucrolose and splenda are neuro-toxins that disrupt brain function and overuse can lead to conditions that mimic many other diseases, even Multiple Sclerosis. My advice is this; Avoid all artificial sweetners. The true toxic effects won't be known for years and there is no way to know the damage to your health or that of future generations of you. Secondly, sugar is okay. In moderation. Sugar in its natural form, organic and unrefined (which you can get at the health food store), has vitamins and minerals and is relatively low in calories, 16 calories per teaspoon. The trick in life is avoiding added sugar in processed foods. As mentioned above, some foods may add 4-5 teaspoons per serving size and you won't even realize it. The way around this is to read labels. Always purchase the foods with the lowest amount of sugar listed in the nutrition labels. If sugar or Corn syrup is the second or third ingrediant in a product, the odds are that the food has too much sugar and should be avoided.

Thought for the Week: "Lord, deliver me from the man who never makes a mistake, and also from the man who makes the same mistake twice." ------- Dr. William Mayo

Chiropractic Thought for the Week: " We chiropractors work with the subtle substance of the soul. We release the prisoned impulse, the tiny rivulet of force that emanates from the mind and flows over the nerves to the cells and stirs them into life. We deal with the magic power that transforms common food into living, loving, thinking clay; that robes the earth with beauty and scents the flowers with the glory of the air."

------- BJ Palmer, DC, excerpt from his poem, "The Truth"