Please Keep Trying!

I have a long and sordid past with sugar. It’s the first substance I ever became addicted too. I became a sugar junkie around the age of four, and have been an addict, to varying degrees ever since. I’m trying to get off the white stuff, but I’m really only substituting one sweetener for another. Quitting tobacco was by far easier than quitting sugar.

You don’t think sugar is addictive? Do you scoff at the claim? Really? Try quitting sugar cold turkey, without any artificial sweeteners to soften the blow, and tell me it’s not addictive. I go on whole body cleanses once a year for about two weeks to rid myself of the goop accumulated therein, and when I stop sugar, look out! No bread, no crackers, no cereal, nothing but fruits and vegetables, and even the fruit is limited due its sugar content. I went without any sugar and very little fruit for three weeks one year at Christmas. I almost killed someone.

Looking for adventure? Cut out sugar for one whole week. Check the ingredients on all your breads, your salad dressings, your croûtons, your supposed health foods. Don’t eat anything which lists sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, sucrose, fructose, sucralose, aspertame, or any other sweetener know to man. Might as well drop all the fruit and juice along with the sugar if you’re really serious about proving sugar isn’t addictive. Fruit and fruit juice have a lot of sugar in the way of fructose. “Fructose is the sweetest naturally occurring sugar, estimated to be twice as sweet as sucrose“-Wikipedia.

Tell me how you feel after only three days of absolutely no sugar. It’s in everything; salad dressing, crackers, bread, cereal, fruit drinks, gatorade and in pre-packaged meals. You can’t turn around without bumping into sugar in either it’s sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, or cane sugar form. You can’t.

Go to a “health food” store. Sugar’s there too. Lurking on the shelves, drawing you in with its green “low calorie”, “organic”, “natural” packaging. Read the label. Read it every single time you buy instant or packaged foods. You’ll find you’re secret addiction waiting for you, in the first six ingredients.

I’m not through with sugar. I eat it often, daily in fact. It’s a struggle every single day to make better choices about how I use it. Do I put it on my oatmeal (one measured tablespoon) or do I have a homemade treat? Do I have a handful of rice crackers or do I use sugar in the meal I’m cooking? The way I use sugar is a balancing act of where to best use it. How will I get maximum satisfaction from this? If it’s hidden, in the form of high fructose corn syrup in bread, I won’t even taste it, but my ass will feel it. And so will my immune system.

Yes, immune system. Try this. Next time you’re sick or think you’re getting sick, cut out all the sugar. Don’t let a grain of it pass your lips. Notice how you feel, besides having a wicked sugar craving . Eat raw veggies and homemade vegetable soups instead of chicken soup. I guarantee you’ll feel better and heal faster. I do, every time. But you know what? I want that sugar so bad it hurts. I want it more than anything when I’m sick because it soothes me.

What I’m working on now is avoiding the really bad sugars, such as refined or high fructose corn syrup. Processed anything loses most of its health benefits, no matter how small, when it’s made into what it is. If you have the choice, buy something that’s sweetened with honey, cane juice, agave syrup or palm, maple or date sugar.

It’s still sugar, it’s still sixty calories per tablespoon, but your body will thank you for making a better choice, especially if it’s agave syrup. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking natural “raw” sugars are good for you and then eat them like you were eating the “bad” sugars. A calorie is a calorie is a calorie. And sugar is sugar is sugar. If you want a sugar high, eat an orange or an apple or a cup of honeydew (there’s honey right in the name!) The high will be actual energy and not some quick fix.

It’s amazing the quite thrall sugar has on all of us. You don’t think it’s in much, but it’s where you least expect it, really. In the future, perhaps refined sugar will become a controlled substance, along with tobacco and heroine. Indeed, sugar is addictive. The obesity epidemic can attest to that. We should have meetings and support groups just for sugar addiction: My name is Rachel Bigler and I’m a recovering suga-holic.