Daily Archives: July 13, 2011

We have been told that diabetes has doubled worldwide since 1980, we know the sales of high sugar, starch, and artificial sweeteners have so impacted our national palate that even little children, once practically immune from over weight, are now obese in great numbers and Type 2 diabetes is being found in children not yet teens. Boys and girls who once left high school lean as they ever would be, now often are obese, and if lean have the tell-tale pot belly that comes with over consumption of refined carbohydrates.

Just recently read the following, and checked out at the government’s website:

Annual refined sugar consumption in the United States: 1750: 4 pounds per person, per year 1850: 20 pounds per person, per year 1994: 120 pounds per person, per year 1996: 160 pounds per person, per year According to the USDA’s Economic Research Service (www.ers.usda.gov/Data/FoodConsumption), global sugar consumption continues to increase by about 2 percent per annum, and in 2006 and 2007 was expected to reach almost 154 million tons. Note: This does not include the use of other industrial sweeteners such as high fructose corn syrup! High fructose corn syrup is now estimated to be the number-one source of calories in the American diet! Increases in obesity, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes correlate almost perfectly with the introduction of HFCS nearly thirty years ago. The average person is consuming 1/3 of a pound of sugar each and every day, which is 5 ounces or 150 grams— half of which is fructose (sucrose is made up half and half of glucose and fructose). This is roughly 300 percent more than the amount that can trigger biochemical chaos.

Gedgaudas, Nora T. (2011). Primal Body, Primal Mind: Beyond the Paleo Diet for Total Health and a Longer Life (p. 122). Healing Arts Press. Kindle Edition.

Now that we are in the more sociable summer season many of us tend to be eating outdoors, eating out  at restaurants, more often, and in general sharing food with friends and family or on vacations when and where we are not in our regular control of food.  This does not have to become an excuse for giving in to eating foods that we know will set us off on a binge for several days–or even weeks.

Strategy and planning can keep us on track while enjoying all the non-food benefits of gatherings and vacations where we feel more vulnerable. If it is a sharing event, then take your reliable tasty dishes that everyone will probably praise to the rooftops.

Before going to a restaurant you can help to steer the choice of where, like a good steakhouse or seafood place; most restaurants now posts their menus on line, and you can find a few safe choices. My daughter always enjoys at trip to PFChang’s since there isn’t one near where she lives, and I combed their menu and found around ten tasty options I can enjoy there. I take advantage of those hot sauces to get more out of my dishes like steamed Buddha’s Delight.  But planning makes a difference!  If you decide that this occasion you will enjoy a rare treat, decide how you will do this; I opt to share with my spouse or ask for a bowl of plain berries. Most restaurants can provide berries at the cost of a regular dessert.

We are hosting some family members to stay at our house, and I have asked them in advance if they like the kind of protein diet we eat, which means I don’t have an excuse for buying junk that would unduly tempt me, like cold cereals.

A very minor amount of thinking and you will be proud of being in control. Staying sugar sober is more important than any food we might eat. A minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips is a well-known saying, but may a sugaraholic would add, and days or  weeks out of control on a sugar binge.

Working the plan,

Nan aka Sugarbaby