The Sweet Season

By Marilyn Zink

"Mmmm, that looks good."
I was eyeballing a stack of holiday goodies in the grocery store, cakes, cookies and what-not.
This time of year you don't have to look far to find all sorts of tasty treats. Many of them are made with copious amounts of sugar. Without trying too hard, you could find all those tasty treats ending up on your hips and then gasp in amazement at what the scale says in January.
Our society has been told to eat a low fat diet, but the real culprit is sugar. We think it's okay to eat huge amounts of sugar. The North American consumption of sugar has increased to a whopping 135 pounds a year from 26 pounds a year 20 years ago.
"People think sugar is okay, that they need sugar for energy, says Victoria naturopathic doctor Neil Mckinney. "They're sold a bill of goods."
The average North American diet is loaded with high-glycemic foods, simple carbohydrates that convert easily to sugar in the body.
"What's available in the stores, so much of it is high glycemic, it seems normal," says Mckinney. "It's not a natural way of eating."
The "glycemic index" is a measure of how a given food affects blood-glucose levels, with each food being assigned a numbered rating. The lower the rating, the slower the absorption and digestion process, which provides a more gradual, healthier infusion of sugars into the bloodstream. A high rating means blood-glucose levels increase quickly, which stimulates the pancreas to secrete insulin to drop blood-sugar levels. These rapid fluctuations of blood-sugar levels are unhealthy because of the stress they place on the body.
Foods with a high glycemic indix of 70 or more include white bread or bagels, corn flakes, short-grain rice and rice cakes, baking potatoes and French fries.
Foods with a low glycemic index of 55 or less include pumpernickel or heavy mixed grain breads, bran or oat bran cereals, barley, bulgar or pasta, sweet potatoes and yams and most legumes.
One of sugar's major drawbacks is that it raises the insulin level, which inhibits the release of growth hormones, which in turn depresses the immune system. An influx of sugar into the bloodstream upsets the body's blood-sugar balance, triggering the release of insulin, which the body uses to keep blood-sugar at a constant and safe level. Insulin also promotes the storage of fat, so that when you eat sweets high in sugar, you're making way for rapid weight gain and elevated triglyceride levels, both of which have been linked to cardiovascular disease. Complex carbohydrates tend to be absorbed more slowly, lessening the impact on blood-sugar levels.

If you need a good reason to cut back your sweet tooth, Mckinney says people who consume a lot of sugar are more likely to get diseases such as cancer, as sugar feeds cancer cells. (see separate article). Over-consumption of sugar also leads to diabetes, colitis and other health conditions (see sidebar).
"Its no wonder people have these diseases," says Mckinney. "Over the years, you can see the trends, especially the pop drinkers and candy eaters. It's not a small issue."
There are several kinds of sugar and sometimes a processed food can have several types.
Sucrose (table sugar), dextrose (corn sugar) and high-fructose corn syrup are processed into so many foods - breads, cereals, mayonnaise, peanut butter, ketchup, spaghetti sauce, microwavable meals and much more.

If you wanted to cut sugar out of your diet completely, you would have to avoid most of the processed food in the grocery store. But that's a good thing.
Mckinney says he tries to get his patients to follow the low glycemic diet based on protein and complex carbohydrates and they see results.
"People have more energy right away, they lose weight, the skin clears."
For many people, the desire to satisfy the sweet tooth and avoid sugar leads to the consumption of artificial sweetners.

"The sugar rush is a toxic event in the body," says Mckinney. "You pay too high a price for that burst of energy. Pure sugar is a drug we have created. It doesn't exist in nature."

Artificial sweeteners don't exist in nature either, but they're consumed by the truckload. One of the most common is aspartame. Aspartame is found in diet soda pops, gum and much more. The controversial ingredient has been linked to several ailments such as headaches, seizures, behaviour, cognition and mood.

The only artificial sweeteners Mckinney is comfortable with are sucarlose (Splenda) and Stevia, a herb that can be manufactured into a liquid or dried powder.
"Stevia's okay, though some people have trouble with the aftertaste. Those are the two I recommend to people, other than being moderate," says Mckinney.

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