Addicted to Sugar?
Are you really addicted to sugar?
Are you? Is sugar something you can’t stop thinking about?
It’s funny because people will often claim they’re addicted to sugar or carbs without any sort of actual explanation of how that’s even possible or what type of carbs/sugar. Is it all carbs? Just some? Does that mean you’re craving apples, bananas and pounds of broccoli right now?
How does your brain discriminate between these things.
It’s a good question. As we talked about yesterday, your body craves things that are, for the most part, high in calories. One of those things is, yes, sugar.
But as you look at the nutrition labels here, there’s actually more calories from each food coming from fat rather than carbs/sugar. So….doesn’t that mean we’re addicted to fat? Why haven’t we demonized that then?
Well it’s not that simple. Again, remember that your body is looking for sugar, starch, fat, protein, salt and glutimate. The higher combinations of these ingredients into the foods we eat, the stronger we can potentially crave these food items.
So is it the fat we crave or the carbs? Which one are we supposed to reasonably blame?
Both. The reality is that our body is wired to remember options that gave us a substantial amount of calories because for the bulk of civilization, we’ve had a food shortage. Unfortunately, that evolutionary trait is now betraying us into overeating but it’s no macronutrients’ fault other than the over-consumption of highly palatable, highly processed foods in today’s grocery stores.
How we avoid the “addiction,” is simple. Eat meats and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruits, little starch and avoid sugar. Eat processed things as the exception of your daily routine, not the rule of your daily habits.