At this time of year, nature brings us one of our favourite delights. Sugar, in the form of fruit which for millennia was the way we had most of our sweetness.
Less than 100 years ago, refined sugar was consumed primarily by the wealthy while everyone else rationed portions to sweeten tea. As it became cheaper to produce, sugar made it’s way into everything. It was deemed the darling of the food world once people realized how useful it is in food processing and preservation. Add the capacity to make food last longer to its addictive properties, and it’s no wonder we keep coming back for more.
Many types are found in nature but by the time these are turned into white sugar, the result is essentially a drug; and in fact, it’s created using similar processes as those used to turn opium sap into heroin and coca leaves into cocaine; by applying heat to denature the plant and toxic chemicals to help remove macro and micronutrients (the most nourishing parts). Brain scans reveal that refined sugar lights up drug receptor sites eight times more than cocaine.
The body has a strong physiological desire for sugar. In nature, it’s no big deal because nature makes sugar less available and harder to work to obtain (ie. fruit growing up high in trees). The opposite is true in the supermarket.
Getting off of sugar for some is harder than giving up recreational and prescription drugs. I’ve had alcoholic clients who found it tougher to give up sugar than the fermented demon drink, and I ain’t talking about Kombucha.
The average teenager consumes 150 lbs of refined sugars each year, and it’s not just soft drinks, as Damon Gameau discovered in his documentary, ‘That Sugar Film’. Sugar is found in 80 to 90% of food in your typical supermarket, which means even savvy shoppers struggle to avoid it.
Sugar is the cheapest, most socially acceptable drug on the market – no prescription required, legal dealers on every corner. I even found a local bank raising money for the pink ribbon campaign by selling candy – chock full of the stuff – now conclusively linked to all types of cancer, including breast cancer.
Add to this, the social pressure to partake; shunning of parents or guests who choose not to indulge and you have what I refer to in Return to Food, as the ‘Lethal Recipe’. Lethal may seem like a strong word but you only have to look at the increased deaths from lifestyle diseases in countries that consume large amounts of sugar.
This was first highlighted by Canadian dentist Weston A. Price over 100 years ago when he connected poor dental health with diet and found that cavities were more about nutritional deficiencies than dental hygiene because refined sugar strips nutrients from the body.
As William Duffy points out in his book Sugar Blues, Sir Frederick Banting, co-discoverer of insulin, noted in 1929 that plantation owners who ate refined sugar were rife with diabetes meanwhile, native cane cutters who chewed on raw cane had none.
Of course, all refined foods contribute to this but sugar is the gang leader. Knock sugar out of your diet and you’ll also find yourself eating a lot less refined oils, salts, grains, and chemicals. They tend to travel together.
David Gillespie says on the addictive nature of the white stuff, “Sugar is not like cigarettes. You can’t accidentally shove a ciggy in your mouth and light it. But you can accidentally consume 40 teaspoons of sugar a day without touching a can of soft drink.”
A dentist who practiced in a rural area in Queensland approached me after one of my talks almost 10 years ago. He told me, he had over 300 children under the age of 6 on a wait list to have all their teeth pulled as they’d actually rotted before breaking through their gums. This was the result of their mothers’ addiction to sugar which impacted them in the womb.
It isn’t just the poor and uneducated affected by sugar. At a nutrition professionals conference in Vancouver recently, a woman in the audience got up and confessed, ‘I’m a nutritionist and I’m addicted to sugar’ and then asked the speaker for help. As a practicing nutritionist, she was not only well informed but she had the means to buy good food. Information alone is not enough to beat this kind of addiction.
Addiction is not just physiological.
The latest research is showing that lack of connection is a bigger predictor than physiology for addiction. That is why I’ve been training my food coaches for the last 5 years, to treat their client’s whole life, not just what they are eating. Help them look for opportunities to bring sweetness into their life that isn’t in the form of food and drink.
We live in a world where it is much easier to rip open a packet that gives our bodies what it wants and neglects what it needs, to create junk food connections through social platforms that leave us feeling unsatisfied and oddly disconnected. We are open to so many forms of toxic material mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically, that we are seeking out a little bite of this, or drink of that which alters your state and blisses you out to forget the stressors of life if not just for a moment.
To lick our global sugar habit, we need to be looking at the deeper human drivers that entice people to self-medicate with sugar. I know this intimately from working with hundreds of clients over the years and more intimately as at one time in my life, I started the day with half a litre of Sara Lee Ultra Chocolate ice cream and went from one sugar fix to another until my head hit the pillow in a drug-like haze. What I found is that if I didn’t have rules around sugar, sugar ended up ruling my life. The solution starts at the table, with food choices and conversations that build us up, strengthening us to make more and more nourishing choices.
Tips for Getting Off and Giving Up Sugar
As the article started, you have to admit you have a problem and in my experience, there are less than 1% of the population who aren’t addicted to sugar.
• Do a kitchen audit and pull everything out of your cupboards and fridge that contains sugar. Get rid of it if you’re brave enough, and at the very least replace it.
• Start to replace all refined sugar with natural sugars; unsweetened fruits and honey are my go to sweeteners.
• Supplements like Chromium and Magnesium are helpful in curbing sugar cravings.
• ‘Get thee to a farmers market’ and start to bring more vegetables into your home. Learn how to prepare them simply and deliciously.
• Considering where you can get sweet nothings, sweet caresses, sweet connections, sweet caring over sugary treats that take the place for the deeper things we are seeking in life.
• Take time each day to listen to what your soul is trying to tell you.
• Seek out meaningful connections, honest conversations over cups of herbal tea over alcohol and stimulants.
Why this Recipe?
Consuming this recipe several times a week will satisfy and help put an end to your sugar cravings.
Chia Seeds are the miracle seeds lauded in the book Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, who wrote of the Tarahumara, a Mexican tribe described as “the running people”—ultra-athletes who run 50 or 100 miles at a time effortlessly and seemingly for pure enjoyment.
They are a great source of Omega 3’s, good calcium, soluble digestible protein, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals, and require no processing, no cooking… it’s all good.
You can have this recipe as both a breakfast and a dessert. I’ve served it as both with rave reviews. Because it is so jam-packed with nutrients you will feel satisfied and a sense of well-being after eating it.
Chia Pudding
Ingredients:
4 tbsp Chia seeds
2 cups spring or filtered water
Mix seeds and water, making sure the seeds are not clumping and are covered by water.
Soak overnight. Soaking overnight allows the enzymes to activate, which will mean you will get more nourishment from the seeds.
To serve, simply add toppings as desired: chopped raw nuts, sultanas, fresh fruit and nut milk. You can buy almond milk or other nut milks, keeping in mind to buy the ones with ingredients you recognize and understand what they are; once they start to list ingredients you couldn’t buy off the supermarket or health food shop shelves, you pretty much know it is highly processed.
