My wife and I spend a pretty penny buying and eating organic food each month. I was under the impression its automatically healthy because its organic. We recent watched That Sugar Film (it’s like Supersize Me, but for sugar) and learned three key things:
- Fructose, especially added fructose, does your body no good. It screws with your body’s insulin and fat absorption, and as a kicker, it doesn’t switch off the “hungry” lever in your brain.
- Even organic foods are pumped full of sugars to their “bliss point”–sweet enough to make us want more, but not too sweet so that we abstain.
- The American Heart Association recommends women have 25 grams (6 tsp) of sugar daily, while men are allotted 37.5 grams (9 tsp) per day.
As a point of reference, 1 can of Pepsi has 39 grams of sugar–more than enough for anyone. But how about my Horizon organic, lactose free milk that I used with my cereal? 12 g of sugar per cup, and I probably used a cup and a half. That bowl of cereal cost me half the day’s sugar allowance! Organic spaghetti sauce? 7 g for each half cup. Wow! And you got to eat more than sauce for dinner.
I’ve started to focus more on the Sugar line of food labels to try to limit my intake. In the last week of this lowered sugar, I’ve definitely had feelings of withdrawal, but I’ve also had a couple pounds have come off with no effort. It seems to be a good move. Now I just need practice Zen-and-the-art-of-thinking-apples-are-good-substitutes-for-ice-cream.
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