Is Sugar Toxic?

A year ago, I watched a 60 Minutes special by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent for CNN. It was entitled “Is Sugar Toxic?” In this 15 minute segment, he shows how sugar consumption is directly linked to obesity, diabetes, cancer, metabolic disorders, and heart disease. You can watch is at: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7403942n. It is well worth your time to watch this!

Artificial sweetener (aspartame, sucralose (Splenda), saccharine, etc.) have their dangers as well. However, stevia is a natural sweetener made from the leaves of the stevia plant. The leaves are sweet and contain no calories, sugar, or carbohydrates.  It may possibly lower blood sugar, has antibacterial properties, and aids in calcium formation according to studies. Thankfully, stevia is readily available at grocery stores, and companies are beginning to make products (even soft drinks and ice cream!) sweetened with stevia instead of sugar.

If you need to use sugar for baking, consider honey or pure maple syrup. I use sucanat in my baking, which is unprocessed sugar. It retains all the molasses (which is removed to make white sugar). The molasses holds all the vitamins and minerals. Sucanat contains far less calories than white sugar. It is to whole grain flours, as white sugar is to white, refined flours.

Completely avoiding sugar is no small task, but we can all take steps to reduce our consumption and hopefully realize health benefits in the process and in the future!