Kids & Sugar
In order to achieve optimal health, we must optimize our nutrition. One of the most difficult tasks is reducing our intake of foods / substances that do not serve our bodies. The first, and one of the most common culprits, is sugar. Sugar is something that we all love. We love that sweet taste that always has us coming back for more. Unfortunately, sugar has no vitamins or minerals and can be very taxing for the body to digest! As a culture, we have been consuming sugar at alarming rates as compared to past years. Check out the rising numbers of our collective consumption. This can be an even bigger issue for our children in their rapid development.
What is recommended for our children ? It is recommended that we do not exceed 25g per day. This can be tricky, as many foods we may view as healthy could be filled with sugar! Often times, one snack pack could have all 25g of sugar in that one sitting. I always do my best to read labels on all the foods I am putting into my body. If that sounds like a pain, it definitely takes some getting used to, but it is well worth giving our bodies the proper fuel it needs.
Why bother avoiding sugar? Sugar is considered to be as addictive as many drugs to the human body / brain. Ever wonder why we crave more and more sweets and can rarely just eat one and be satisfied? This is why people have sweet cravings, the body goes into a withdrawal from the sugar and creates adverse effects in the body to signal you to consume more and fuel the craving. It's always funny to me when people talk about the "Sugar rush" of energy that kids are so prone to. But very few talk about the crash on the other end. Excess sugar spikes our blood sugar to abnormally high levels only to result in an abnormal dip after.
This is what I consider to be the number one reason for avoiding sugar: Sugar causes excessive inflammation in the body Inflammation is the root of most diseases in the body (along with stress)
Excess inflammation also causes stress in the body. Anything that ends in “-itis” means inflammation of.
I'm sure you can think of many.. arthritis, bronchitis, gastritis etc..
What we can do: Now I'm sure that much of this may have come as a shock to you. I know it did to me when I first heard it. Here are some steps that we can take to help reduce our sugar intake and improve the nutritional quality of the food for ourselves and kids. 1) Read labels - look for similar foods that you are buying which have less sugar
2) Aim to avoid processed foods when possible. Buying whole foods are usually a safe way to gain the best nutritional value foods and avoid the added sugars that many packaged foods contain.
3) Try new foods. It's easy to get caught up in a routine of eating the same foods all the time. Try mixing it up with some low-sugar options!
4) Learn the many disguised names of sugar. To name a few (there are many, many more):
*Sugar
*Sucrose
*High-fructose corn syrup
*Corn syrup
*Dextrose
*Fructose
*Galactose
Remember: everything in moderation! There is no reason you can't have a piece of birthday cake at a party or a fresh baked cookie at a friend's house every once in a while. Just try not to eat the whole cake :)
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