🍫Sugar 🍫
I can already feel people being triggered by this post as I type the caption that they won't read. I had an interaction on a post I made last week about sugar. My post referenced chocolate spread on toast instead of avocado and they took offence because chocolate spread is unhealthy. Why? Because it "has sugar" and "sugar causes diabetes". What made this funny was when asking for a better alternative for breakfast they posted recipes for smoothie bowls that contained twice as much sugar.
So lets look at the facts. Is sugar refined? Yes, but it's processed from sugar cane (a plant). Are these "natural" sugars, such as agave syrup, refined? Yes, they are processed from natural sources (albeit somewhat less). So, all sugar is a "natural sugar"? Yep. Do the "natural" sugars have some trace elements of vitamins/minerals? Yes. Are they enough to have any impact on your health? No. So what happens when you eat "refined" sugar -
well ultimately it gets broken down into glucose and fructose in your body. The exact same happens the "natural" sugar.
Now, because I mentioned the smoothie bowl above - people will inevitably bring up the fruit comparison. So let's be clear - fruit has a tonne of nutritional value. It also has sugar. Is it better to eat an apple instead of a spoon of sugar? Of course. No one is saying that fruit is less nutritious. Will your body treat the sugar in the apple differently? No - it's still sugar. Finally - for those wondering, sugar doesn't directly lead to weight gain or diabetes.
Foods with a high sugar content tend to be calorie dense and hyper-palatable making them easy to over eat.
Overeating any food can lead to weight gain and being overweight can increase your risk of type 2 diabetes. But can you have sugar in your diet as part of an overall healthy and balanced diet - yes.
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