Sugar Addiction is a real thing!
This post focuses on sugar addiction (and why you should be concerned about it) which is getting more and more common amongst all ages and genders in the western world. You can find links to my sources at the end of the post :)
So let's start with answering the most important questions about sugar addiction!
What even is sugar addiction:
Sugar addiction is, just like any other addiction, a physical dependency on the substance sugar.
What are the Symptoms:
The ones addicted might get into a bad mood as soon as they consume to little sugar. They might also dislike the taste of any food that doesn't contain lots of sugar. They also may feel out of energy if they cut down on their sugar consumption.
If you want to find out if you are dependent on sugar, literally just stop consuming any products with added sugar for just a day, if any of these symptoms accure to you, chances are that you as well are addicted.
How does sugar addiction work:
Some rather new studies show that sugar may have very simular effects on the human brain like drugs such as cocaine.
Sugar activates the reward center in the brain releasing dopamines and endorphines. This causes the consumer to feel good and to be happy. And that's were things can get problematic. If the brain gets stimulated by sugar it connects it to a pleasant feeling, which will make it crave for more sugar. Just like with any other drug the effect of sugar on the brain will eventually weaken. Or in other words the brain will get more immune to it. So in order to have the same effect the consumer will have to eat even more sugar to have the same effect. You can see where this is going.
A study, that was conducted on mice even suggested, that sugar may be more addictive than Cocaine. The mice were given access to free sugar as well as free cocaine. The mice ended up binge eating the sugar ignoring the cocaine after having tried both.
Why is sugar addiction so dangerous:
For one part excess sugar consume is unfortunately socially accepted. Or to be more precise, most companies actually promote it in order to make more money with their sugar loaded products.
On the other hand sugar has devastating effects on the human body. Sugar does not only cause illnesses such as diabetes and and many more, it also gets converted into bodyfat. This fat also blocks arteries and can therefore cause illnesses like Cardio Vascular Disease. Increased sugar consume is therefore also linked to impotence. This list of bad effects on the human body goes on and on and on.
Why are so many western people addicted to sugar:
Nowadays you can find added sugar in nearly all products. Sugar is added to foods like cereal, microwaveable meals, drinks, snacks, sauces and even spices. Companies have to do this in order to be able to compete with other companies. Most consumers obviously don't even consider looking at the macro nutrients of their meals, the only thing they really care about is the taste. So if you produce a great tasting sweet product you are obviously more likely to sell it.
This has caused sugar addiction and obesity to spread through the western world.
What you can and should do:
Well, now that we have discussed why sugar addiction is bad, let's talk about what you can do to get "clean".
For the first part I would hardly suggest you to take a look at the macro tables that every food has to be labled with. This will show you how much fat, sugar and other stuff like protein is contained in your meals. The suggested amount of added sugar per day for a grown up man lays at below 35 grams. This is crazy if you keep in mind, that a single half litre bottle of coke contains a total of 50 GRAMS!
Additionally I would advise you to cook as many of your meals as possible yourself. Well, you might think that cooking is so complicated and that it sucks and to be honest, that's what I would have said a year ago as well. However, I got started with cooking my own food a year ago and so far it has been absurdly easy and actually a lot of fun.
Thirdly I will suggest you to eat more fresh and natural foods like fruits and veggies instead of processed foods. This will help you stay away from both added sugar, added fat and a lot of chemicals.
Finally I can suggest you to eat fruits when you are craving for sugar. A lot of fruits are very sweet, whilst being way less harmful than artificially sugared or sweetened products.
Well, I hope you found this article quite informative and hope that it will help you cut down on your sugar consumption, if you want any more information I strongly encourage you to just ask me in the comments :)
Anyways, this has been it for today, I hope you are having a great day,
Greetings from Austria,
Alex :)
Sources:
http://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/experts-is-sugar-addictive-drug
https://authoritynutrition.com/how-sugar-makes-you-addicted/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/connie-bennett/the-rats-who-preferred-su_b_712254.html
http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/65/7/1797?etoc=&utm_source=TrendMD&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Diabetes_TrendMD_0