Sugar is Good For You

It is an unchallenged maxim of mainstream dietary thought that sugar is ‘bad.’  This convention, like the aversion to fats, is terribly misguided and ill-conceived.  The very word ’sweet’ is often used to describe those things which are best in life, so strong is its appeal.  Yet guidelines set down by a multitude of well educated and intelligent individuals routinely exclude foods that satisfy one of the human body’s most essential cravings.  Once again Puritanical thought dominates:  if humans crave it, it must be temptation.  It is self evident, however, by means of basic reasoning that the human body has its cravings for a purpose related to survival.  Surely sweet substances ought to be good.

Indeed, this is true, but as with fats, the proliferation of highly processed products in the industrialized world has resulted in the problems that are blamed on all sweets.

Refined sugar for instance, has been stripped of the nutrients that would have been present in the original cane juice.  This common table sugar is sucrose.  The body must break it down into fructose and glucose to be able to process it.  Thus, the body must spend energy processing food that returns no nutrients.  Eaten in quantity it actually depletes nutrients from the body.

Corn syrup, contains fructose, one of the basic fuels of the human body.  The problem lies in the fact that corn syrup consists of 90% or more fructose, a ratio far beyond the 40-50% that the body is able to handle.  Eaten in quantity, it quickly outstrips the ability of the body to process it and causes insulin resistance.  High fructose corn syrup is used ubiquitously in the United States and its long term excess consumption naturally results in increased occurrence of diabetes.

Glucose and fructose are basic sources of energy for the human body, but what form they are consumed in and in what ratios is of critical importance.

People are attracted to sweet foods because, in nature, such sources of energy are especially close to already being in a usable form.  They require minimal processing for maximum gain.

Fruits are often the typical answer to this primal desire, but human beings are still left with a craving for sweetness in its purest form.  Honey, dates, figs, maple syrup, sugar cane juice very are sweet, gooey, extremely energy dense foods.  They are the epitome of what highly processed sweeteners have been designed to imitate.

To give some idea of their importance, glycogen is derived from the glucose we eat.  It is the short term reserve of quickly accessible energy as fat can only be tapped into slowly and steadily by comparison.  In endurance sports there is the term ‘hitting the wall.’  This is when an athlete reaches a point where they can literally no longer move.  Their glycogen stores have been depleted.  Such an extreme case illustrates the important of glycogen: it is the instantly available energy that allows to move about at will.  The sweetest non-industrial foods provide the components for glycogen formation not only in abundance but in a readily usable form.  It is therefore no surprise that human body tells one that sweet foods are particularly desirable.

The universal vilification of sweet foods is an immense misunderstanding.  These dense foods are among the most valuable of all because they replenish the body’s stores and they do it quickly.  Like the best fats, they have a way of putting the body’s appetites quickly to rest and thereby actually reducing the amount of calories one feels the need to consume.

Part of the travesty of industrial sweeteners, especially those without calories, is that they deceive the body into expecting an infusion of quick easily processible energy.  When the body’s expectations are not satisfied, one’s cravings go through the roof, impelling one to consume even more of these sweeteners.

Drinking heavily sweetend soft drinks along with sweet snacks is a frequent phenomenon in the USA, yet a similar binge on dates and honey would be unthinkable.  The stomach would quickly feel full to bursting and the body’s desires be satisfied in a way that is altogether foreign to regular consumers of junk food.

There is a great distinction that is not being made: tastes can be imitated, but when it comes to food, one should put even greater value on how such foods make them feel and how they affect the body.