In other words, sugar makes you want to eat more food. (Why you don’t feel full.)
So the food industry only provides what people want. Right? And people want, time after time, what they crave. So sugar is sinking America’s health.
To be sure, there are many culprits — more sedentary lifestyles (read: gaming), for example. Also of surety, sugar is a huge villain.
That two of three adults are chubby? Um, yes.
Are we surprised that 30% of boys and girls under 20 are overweight in 2019 — up from 19% in 1980?
Is it any wonder that 160 million Americans are obese?
Sugary foods represent a double whammy for health. First the calories add on the fat. Then the overeating, induced by sugar, brings on the fat.
Consider a college grad student named Anthony Sclafani who was only being nice to lab rats under his care: As a treat, he’d give them Fruit Loops.
But then Sclanfani noticed they really loved the sugary cereals. So he started conducting experiments in the 1960s: Would rats abandon their wall-hugging rambles to venture into the dangerous center of the room for Fruit Loops? They did.
(And so do our teenagers.)
When he needed to fatten up mice for another experiment, he found the critters stayed slender no matter how much chow he gave them. They ate to satiety — feeling full — and no more. He remembered the Fruit Loops and quickly got fat rats.
Still more experiments. They loved sugar — even when they couldn’t taste it — and never stopped scarfing it. Sclafani has made a lifetime of studying sugar-indulging rodents and his findings are frightening: sugar suppresses satiety.
The implications? The food industry has made lab rats out of us all.
What now?
Excess body fat leads hypertension, high LDL cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, cancer, mental illness and depression, and body pain.
It’s easy to slam the food producers. They fill up the supermarket with sugary items — up to 73% of grocery store items contain added sugar. Because we reward them for it.
So what is to be done?
Awareness precedes action.
If you’re concerned like I am, then this becomes a matter of personal health. (Of course, it is a matter of public health, but U.S. regulatory agencies remain toothless and food producers ruthless. So in the meantime, you can only watch out for you.)
I recommend: Wean yourself off sugar. You can override the biological impulses that lead you to pack on the pounds. Brain power and conscious thought can be a potent circuit breaker in the unthinking impulse to keep eating. It may not be easy, but it is possible.
I don’t recommend: Detox diets, which fail for two reasons. For one, they are a temporary solution that pacifies a guilty conscience but doesn’t cure the underlying problem. Second, they are miserable and only fosters the idea that healthfulness is painful.
First they delude you that you are making up for previous bad eating — and get your psyched for future poor food choices. Second, they create the illusion that healthful eating is unbearable.
Sclafani’s rats shriek with voices of alarm: Rats eat without thinking. You need to let your thinking impose upon your eating. Start today by making small steps toward a permanent diet overhaul.
Ditch those potato chips. Pour the soda down the drain. Relegate dessert to weekends only. Choose oatmeal instead of a donut for breakfast.
Think of it like emigrating to the United States from the Third World. You’re going to a better place. And you’ll get there eventually — one step at a time.
How to cut sugar without stress.
Michael Ashcraft is the CEO of Cuisine Natural healthy home and kitchen products.