WHY SUGAR IS BAD FOR YOU

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It’s really easy to get into a long and lengthy discussion about why sugar is bad for your body. There have been numerous reports about the negative impact that sugar can have, though some of these are highly controversial. For the purpose of this article, we’re going to focus on some facts, and explain why we don’t include many forms of sugar as part of our Bible diet.

SOME SCARY NUMBERS

As detailed in a recent Forbes article, 70% of American adults consume 10% or more of daily calories from sugar. The positive news, as detailed in the same article, is that the number of calories the average American gets from sugar decreased from 16.8% in 1999-2004 to 14.9% during the years 2005-2010. So, there is some improvement where sugar is concerned, and this might be because Americans are starting to understand why sugar is so bad for us.

But, why is sugar bad? Sugar can lead to the following illnesses:

• Type II Diabetes
• Obesity
• High blood pressure
• Dementia
• Liver Damage
• Heart disease

As you can see, sugar isn’t a friend to your health, but more than that, the body has a really hard time processing white sugar. Is any kind of sugar okay to eat? After all, there are so many types of sugar on the market that it’s really tough to even name all of them here, so some of those must be okay, right? Maybe not.

ALMOST ALL SUGAR IS BAD

If you’re going to pick a sugar to eat, skip the white stuff, brown stuff, and most other types (even coconut sugar and other sweeteners tend to be on the bad side). The one sweetener that we aren’t against using in some of our Bible diet recipes is date sugar. Why? Because date sugar is the purest form of sugar that you can get.

Date sugar is really just dates that have been ground into fine powder. Other than the grinding part, there’s really no processing of date sugar, and nothing has been added to the sugar to give it that fine taste or powder-like substance. If you wanted to, you could even add some dates to a food processor and grind them into a pulp – it would be sticky, granted, but that’s basically what date sugar is.

THE LESS PROCESSED THE BETTER

We’re strong believers that processed food is bad for your body. We do use some date sugar in some of the recipes that you’ll find in our vegetarian cookbook, but even that sweetener is used in moderation. The other sweetener that we sometimes list as an optional ingredient in our vegetarian cookbook is agave syrup, and that’s also because this syrup is less processed than most other sugars. While it’s true that there’s some controversy surrounding agave syrup too, it’s still a better option (in our opinion) that most other sweeteners available.

Clearly, white sugar (and most other sugars) is bad for your body, and kicking the white sugar habit will really make a difference to your overall health. But if you need to have something sweet, pick date sugar – the less refined and processed option. Let us know if you have questions about our vegetarian cookbook or about the information you read here.

We also post a lot of our raw food options on Facebook and on this blog, so make sure to check both for updates. We want to know: what’s your favorite type of sugar?