Does sugar rule your life?
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
“’Tis too much prov’d - that with devotion’s visage
And pious action, we do sugar o’er
The devil himself.“
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
I went shopping the other day, reading labels as I went, and hit a wall of frustration in the cereal section of the supermarket.
I couldn’t find any brand of muesli that did not have added sugar. Even the brand I had stuck to for years had been overtaken by a giant food conglomerate and had succumbed to the sugar avalanche that engulfs our lives.
I have since found a single brand that has no sugar but it’s too late for my allegiance. I have fallen off the commercial muesli wagon and now make my own. (See my recipe at the end.)
Why get one’s knickers in a twist about sugar? Isn’t most of what we eat broken down into sugar eventually?
Yes, it’s true that glucose fuels our cells after digestion and metabolism have converted much of our food into this ready supply of energy. However sugar is meant to be fed to our cells at the end of this process, not at the beginning. Especially not in the quantities a typical industrialised diet provides.
Next time you shop, go on the sugar alert. Read the labels of every processed food you buy and identify sugar in the ingredients list. It may be called fructose, glucose, dextrose, sucrose, or maltose. You’ll be surprised to find that every thing from peanut butter to the bread you spread it on has sugar added. The food industry is as hooked on it as we are.
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