“So fruit makes you fat? Tell me again about all the obese people at McDonalds eating bananas?” – Unknown
But, does this relate to all forms of sugar out there? Sugar in general has become the nutritional baddie of late, and rightly so. White refined sugar rots our teeth, causes obesity, bad skin and promotes disease growth in the body. When eaten it has a drug like effect on the brain. It can be just as addictive as some elicit drugs, holding just as much nutrients (zip, none).
The only problem here is that it seems that now when we refer to sugar it is not only the nasty white substance I used to sprinkle on my weeties and stir through my tea, the kind that hides in an enormous amount of packaged goods and is so far removed from its natural state it may as well be in the same family as glad-wrap. We are referring to sugar in general. Including the naturally occurring sugars in fresh whole fruits and sweet vegetables. These beautiful naturally occurring delights are WHOLE complete foods offering water, vitamins, minerals, and loads of macro nutrients the body is able to assimilate and actually utilise to nourish, replenish and restore.
While white sugar and refined grains such as white pasta, white bread and white rice is best avoided, real foods as close to their natural state as you can get should not. The only circumstance in which they should be moderated is in the case of juicing fruits and removing their fibre. By removing the fibre you do not get the benefit of slowed absorption and levelled blood sugar. While it is no where near as bad as the fake stuff you will still experience some mighty highs and lows in blood sugar levels if you guzzle fruit juice.
The good news is if you have a sweet tooth for the fake variety of sugar it is easy fixed.
Here are my two easy steps to follow to cut out the crack (refined sugar and refined starchy grains) and introduce more of the sweet nourishing delicious healthy stuff.:
- Introduce more sweet whole fruits and sweet veggies into your day. This is the ultimate key. Basically the more you eat throughout the day the less you will crave unhealthy processed stuff. For example: Fruit with breakfast, as a snack, in a smoothie, before lunch, pumpkin and/or sweet potato with lunch or dinner. And the list goes on.
- Don’t buy it. If refined sugar and refined sugar laden drinks and snacks are around you will eat them. Just don’t buy them. If you are having enough of the natural stuff you will not crave the importer variety.
Want some simple inspiration to add more sweet to your day in a healthy way? Here is my personal favourite sweet tasty addition to a yummy warming autumn dinner:
Sweet potato chips + vegan aoli:
Ingredients:
Aoli: