Just How Bad is Sugar For You Really

This is a hard article to write. I love sweets. Especially cookies. My wife can make a double batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and I can eat at least 20 of them. Once I start, I can’t stop. I think I inherited that “eat till I’m sick” gene from my Dad.

So why is sugar so bad? First off, sugar is the universal inflammatory. Even though you might not get sick or feel allergic, leading doctors of nutrition say that everyone is sugar intolerant.

For this article, I’m referring to “added sugars”, not sugars that are found naturally in whole food like fruit.

The real killer, and when I say killer, I mean the deaths caused by too much sugar makes COVID seem totally insignificant. Which makes it surprising that we rarely hear how harmful it really is.

Added sugar is the sugar that is put in food to make it sweeter or make it taste better.

The average American consumes about 94 grams of added sugar per day. The maximum the average American should be eating is about 25 grams. And kids should have less than 12. To give you some idea of why there are so many overweight and more importantly, unhealthy people in America and why heart disease is our leading cause of death, there are 39 grams of added sugar in one can of Coke!

Eating a diet high in sugar is so bad for your heart, that I know people that look totally fit and exercise all the time and still suffered heart attacks because of the damage done to their heart by sugar!

Even if you go to the gym regularly and eat your vegetables, eating a high sugar diet will lead to disease. Researchers recently found that even highly active men who seemed otherwise healthy, had high levels of fat in their blood and liver. This is a huge contributor to heart disease.

Another study found that men who ate a high-sugar diet were more likely to develop depression or anxiety than those who ate a diet lower in sugar.

Giving up sugar is no joke! Sugar is hiding everywhere. It’s in things like salad dressings, sauces, condiments and even whole grain bread.

Giving up or even reducing our sugar intake is hard! Our brains are wired to feast on sugar. The brain actually releases euphoric compounds when we eat sugar and especially when combined with fat. Sadly, this combination is what makes up a huge part of the American diet. Most of these people are actually chemically addicted to their food, almost as much as a crack head is to crack!

Even MacDonald’s fries are addictive in the same way. Their ingredients include dextrose (an added sugar) and oil. Then you dip them in ketchup, which is also full of sugar and you just can’t stop eating those suckers. You even search the bag for some crumbs that may still be hiding.

We all know sugar is bad for us, but it is such a part of American culture that it is super hard to avoid. We talk about the dangers of drugs, smoking, alcohol, cancer and numerous other things. It’s time we recognized sugar for what it really is. The effects of too much added sugar is killing more Americans than any other thing. Start by slowly reducing it and eventually just have it once in a while as a treat and I promise you will be doing yourself a huge favor!