AWARENESS, ACTION, REFLECTION
Nathan Crane, a Health Researcher, and Dr. Joel Fuhrman are the lead facilitators of the Five-Day Sugar Challenge. The challenge is designed to help you become more aware of processed sugars' influence on your life and our society. Each day, they provide doable actions and ask you to reflect on your awareness and actions supporting your health.
AWARENESS: Day one of the challenges supports you in understanding how processed sugar is at the root of many of our present-day diseases: cancer, diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and chronic inflammation. It also teaches you how to develop a solid foundation to increase your life expectancy, disease prevention, disease reversal, and optimal health.
It's alarming that the American Heart Association notes that the average American consumes 17 teaspoons of processed sugar daily. This sugar is often hidden in drinks, fast foods, snacks, baking and cooking ingredients, and more. What's even more concerning is that the Food Industry, fully aware of sugar's addictive nature, has strategically used this knowledge to create a crisis of sugar addiction within our society.
Not all sugars are harmful. Sugars in whole foods, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and beans are needed for optimal health. These sugars slowly enter our bloodstream alongside water, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and vital nutrients. Therefore, they have a low glycemic index. Sugar does not go directly to the brain, unlike processed sugars.
Processed sugars are similar to addictive drugs. Sugar enters the bloodstream at unnatural rates, which cannot be duplicated in nature. The sugar goes to the brain and stimulates the dopamine centres, just like drugs. The brain cannot distinguish between drugs and sugar. We keep eating sweets to get the bliss factor. This is one of the reasons the Food Industry adds sugar to everything.
What happens when we continue to eat unhealthy foods laden with sugar? Over time, our taste buds die, we cannot take in the natural flavours of whole foods, and our appetite control systems get turned off. This leads to cravings for these foods, and we open ourselves to the diseases listed above.
When we reduce these foods in our diet, we initially experience fatigue, lack of clarity, agitation, and impulsive behaviour, as we consume food for short-term gain rather than long-term health.
ACTION: We were asked to keep track of the grams of sugar in the non-whole foods we eat for 24 hours. This is to help us know how many grams of processed sugar we consume daily. This action is not to guilt us into feeling bad but to make us aware of our sugar consumption.
So, if you want to begin the Sugar Challenge, track your sugar intake by recording the grams of sugar added to the food and drinks you consume in one day.
I hope you will join me in supporting our efforts to become aware of how processed sugar impacts us and our health. Day 2 will help you introduce good sugars into your diet. Stay tuned!
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