The Sugar Smart Diet: Stop Cravings and Lose Weight While Still Enjoying the Sweets You Love by Anne Alexander, Julia VanTine Read Free Book Online
Authors: Anne Alexander, Julia VanTine
sugar per serving. I’d never heard of erythritol, so I decided to investigate.
What I found: erythritol (pronounced ih-RITH-ri-tawl) is a sugar alcohol, one of several (such as xylitol and sorbitol) that are used to sweeten beverages, candies, gum, jams, and yogurt with few or no calories.
Sugar alcohols as well as the natural sweetener stevia and artificial sweeteners such as sucralose (marketed as Splenda) are all safe, according to the FDA. But after some research and discussions with
Prevention
advisory board members, the nutritionists who developed this plan and I decided not to include
any
sugar substitutes in the Sugar Smart Diet. Not even zero-calorie stevia, derived from an herb, which is as natural as it gets.
Why? Because they deliver hundreds of times the sweetness of white table sugar, with few or no calories. And evidence suggests that exposing your taste buds to these high-intensity sweeteners makes them less receptive to natural sources of sweetness such as fruit. For example, sucralose is 600 times sweeter than sucrose; stevia, 200 to 300 times as sweet. Neotame, a relatively new zero-calorie sweetener, is more than
7,000 times
sweeter than white table sugar! Remember the name. While not yet widely used, neotame is expected to find its way into beverages, dairy products, frozen desserts, baked goods, and gums. High-intensity sweeteners undermine sugar freedom because they reduce your appreciation for the true taste of sweet—the kind that comes from actual food rather than from vats in industrial parks.
More worrisome: the link between the use of artificial sweeteners and an increased risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes. The theory is that exposing our bodies to sweetness without calories can lead to an outpouring of insulin, thereby leading to insulin resistance. For example, a study published in
Diabetes Care
found that diet soda drinkers had an increased risk for type 2 diabetes, and several large studies have associated the use of artificial sweeteners with weight gain.
On the Sugar Smart Diet, you’ll stick to natural sweeteners like honey, maple syrup, and dried fruit most of the time, indulging in decadent sugar splurges when you choose to. Once you eliminate diet drinks, artificially sweetened yogurt, or those pink, blue, or yellow packets that you stir into your morning coffee, you likely won’t miss them. After Phase 2, the flavor of whole foods and natural sweeteners will seem incredibly intense. Skeptical? One of our test panelists, Nora, described the taste of broccoli as “sweet as candy” and Pellegrino with a slice of lemon as “an explosion of flavor.” She rightsized her “sweet buds,” and so can you.
----
The FDA has a strict definition of whole grains: cereal grains that consist of the intact, ground, cracked, or flaked kernel, which includes the bran (where most of the fiber is), the germ (chock-full of protein and healthy fats), and the starchy innermost portion (the endosperm). (In contrast, refined grains contain only the endosperm.)
Whole grains themselves—brown rice, steel-cut and rolled oats, wheat berries—meet that criteria, and brim with fiber and nutrients. It takes longer for digestive enzymes in the stomach to reach the starch inside whole grains or grains cracked into large pieces, which slows down the conversion of starch to sugar.
For products such as bread or pasta to be labeled whole grain, the FDA says, the grain can be ground, cracked, or flaked, but must retain the same proportions of bran, germ, and endosperm as the intact grain. So far so good.
However, in the process of making whole wheat or whole grain flour, the kernels are pulverized practically to dust, so they’re digested about as quickly as white flour, table sugar, or HFCS. This means that they can spike blood sugar and insulin levels, leading to hunger and prompting you to reach for more of these foods. You’re caught in an unending cycle of cravings and consumption.
But that cycle
What I found: erythritol (pronounced ih-RITH-ri-tawl) is a sugar alcohol, one of several (such as xylitol and sorbitol) that are used to sweeten beverages, candies, gum, jams, and yogurt with few or no calories.
Sugar alcohols as well as the natural sweetener stevia and artificial sweeteners such as sucralose (marketed as Splenda) are all safe, according to the FDA. But after some research and discussions with
Prevention
advisory board members, the nutritionists who developed this plan and I decided not to include
any
sugar substitutes in the Sugar Smart Diet. Not even zero-calorie stevia, derived from an herb, which is as natural as it gets.
Why? Because they deliver hundreds of times the sweetness of white table sugar, with few or no calories. And evidence suggests that exposing your taste buds to these high-intensity sweeteners makes them less receptive to natural sources of sweetness such as fruit. For example, sucralose is 600 times sweeter than sucrose; stevia, 200 to 300 times as sweet. Neotame, a relatively new zero-calorie sweetener, is more than
7,000 times
sweeter than white table sugar! Remember the name. While not yet widely used, neotame is expected to find its way into beverages, dairy products, frozen desserts, baked goods, and gums. High-intensity sweeteners undermine sugar freedom because they reduce your appreciation for the true taste of sweet—the kind that comes from actual food rather than from vats in industrial parks.
More worrisome: the link between the use of artificial sweeteners and an increased risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes. The theory is that exposing our bodies to sweetness without calories can lead to an outpouring of insulin, thereby leading to insulin resistance. For example, a study published in
Diabetes Care
found that diet soda drinkers had an increased risk for type 2 diabetes, and several large studies have associated the use of artificial sweeteners with weight gain.
On the Sugar Smart Diet, you’ll stick to natural sweeteners like honey, maple syrup, and dried fruit most of the time, indulging in decadent sugar splurges when you choose to. Once you eliminate diet drinks, artificially sweetened yogurt, or those pink, blue, or yellow packets that you stir into your morning coffee, you likely won’t miss them. After Phase 2, the flavor of whole foods and natural sweeteners will seem incredibly intense. Skeptical? One of our test panelists, Nora, described the taste of broccoli as “sweet as candy” and Pellegrino with a slice of lemon as “an explosion of flavor.” She rightsized her “sweet buds,” and so can you.
----
The FDA has a strict definition of whole grains: cereal grains that consist of the intact, ground, cracked, or flaked kernel, which includes the bran (where most of the fiber is), the germ (chock-full of protein and healthy fats), and the starchy innermost portion (the endosperm). (In contrast, refined grains contain only the endosperm.)
Whole grains themselves—brown rice, steel-cut and rolled oats, wheat berries—meet that criteria, and brim with fiber and nutrients. It takes longer for digestive enzymes in the stomach to reach the starch inside whole grains or grains cracked into large pieces, which slows down the conversion of starch to sugar.
For products such as bread or pasta to be labeled whole grain, the FDA says, the grain can be ground, cracked, or flaked, but must retain the same proportions of bran, germ, and endosperm as the intact grain. So far so good.
However, in the process of making whole wheat or whole grain flour, the kernels are pulverized practically to dust, so they’re digested about as quickly as white flour, table sugar, or HFCS. This means that they can spike blood sugar and insulin levels, leading to hunger and prompting you to reach for more of these foods. You’re caught in an unending cycle of cravings and consumption.
But that cycle
Similar Books
Epic: Book 02 - Outlaw Trigger
Lee Stephen
The Jew's Wife & Other Stories
Thomas J. Hubschman
Unlucky 13
James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
The Forty Column Castle
Marjorie Thelen
A Map of Tulsa
Benjamin Lytal
Shadowkiller
Wendy Corsi Staub
Paupers Graveyard
Gemma Mawdsley
