Do You Like Sugar?

[rob86 2]

I used to eat/drink a lot of sugar, not an abnormal amount, but an average person's amount. Lots of sugary drinks, like fruit juice (there's a lot of sugar in most of it!), pop/soda, lots of chocolate, cookies, candy. I used to eat the sweetest cereals I could find, and then keep a bowlful of sugar with me to sprinkle on after every spoonful. When I baked cookies or something, I never skimped on the sugar the recipe called for. I used to think you'd have to be a masochist to enjoy strong coffee without spoonfuls of sugar in it. Then one day, I thought, "You know, maybe all this sugar isn't good for me? What would happen if I cut back?". I stopped putting sugar on my cereal, I stopped putting sugar in my coffee, I cut back on the sugar in my recipes, I gave up sugary drinks completely. It wasn't a very difficult transition, in fact, I hardly even remember the change in diet happening. Now I cannot stand the taste of sugar in most things. I got a coffee with sugar in it a while ago and I could have vomited, it was so overpowering. I couldn't eat cereal with sugar on it, and I find even the sweeter cereals (like frosted ones etc) hard to eat. I eat even the most plain cereals with no sugar, bran flakes, whatever. I wouldn't be caught drinking pop/soda any more either. I used to like fruit juice, but it's all too sweet for me now. If I was at a fast food place, and had to get pop/soda (if it was part of some deal or something), it would be diet and I'd load it with ice to water it down. I don't know what the moral of my story is, but I found it interesting how I had such a dramatic change in my tastes once I stopped eating sugar. It's almost as if you eat a lot of sugar, your body craves more, like a drug. Seeing as too much sugar is supposedly bad for you, I'm kind of glad that my tastes did change. I don't think it really made me feel any healthier, but whatever. I also began to notice that there is a LOT of sugar in stuff we eat here in the western world (I don't know about anywhere else). Things like bread. You wouldn't think of bread as candy, but it's pretty darn close to tasting like candy to me now. That WonderBread brand _IS_ candy, I think! It's so sweet (and gross, to me). So, do you like to eat a lot of sugary foods?

[anwiii 17]

love sugars as much as fried foods. you live once and i like enjoying what i eat or drink. when i find myself feeling my habits are getting too unhealthy, i might cut down a little but i will never let my cravings go unanswered....that can be just as unhealthy to me when i'm craving something and forcing myself not to give in. that's just cruel :)i don't believe in anything that goes to the extremes on either side of the spectrum though. that's where it becomes VERY unhealthy. there needs to be balance to anything you eat,drink, or do.but, you live once, you are supposed to enjoy the pleaasures of life while your here, and sometimes it's just a give and take thing. if you eat the tasty foods, you are sacrificing health by choice. if you just eat healthy foods, then you sacrifice some of the pleasures we get out of eating or drinking certain foods that contain sugars.i will NEVER illiminate sugars out of my diet. i don't care how unhealthy it is or if i can live 3 years longer eating healthier.....but that's just me. it's worth the sacrifice.

[contactskn 2]

Dear friend I love sugar a lot, You will belive but daily I have breakfast of sugar filled dishes like "Jalebi" etc. I know this habit of mine is very wrong when concerned to health but not able to get rid of this daily sugar consumption habits.?

[FouGilang 0]

I don't really like sugar, but i like sweets like chocolate, ice cream, juice.... Okay, those are same as what you mentioned Well, but i'm not consuming the sweets much. In fact, i don't like them that much, especially the chocolates. After a while of eating or drinking, it would taste awful in my mouth, so i stop and give it to someone or save it for later. Anyway, i think as long as you're not over consuming it, it won't affect you much, isn't it? And how about those called 'healthy sugar' (what was it again... Forgotten what it called)? Are they really worth their name?

[-Sky- 0]

@ TDH: That's a good thing. It means you become more hyper then what you are when your not. I love sugar, though I don't eat that muc unfortunately.

[TheDarkHacker 0]

I don't like to it sugar without nothing but i eat it with something for example like strawberries.I love sweets and i eat 1 chocolate/day .Everyone eats chocolate,drinks juice,or some candies.You see them every where,and why not to try them? Yesterday i ate a little cake with fruit,yuuuum! Anyway all we should care about our kilos,shouldn't we? Caries is another thing,too.So i want to stop eating a sugar some days,then i continue again,and sometimes i eat very much,sometimes nothing at all.If we make a list of everything we ate and drank,we will see that we consumed lots of sugar Sugar is good for brain,or i am wrong?If you eat so much sugar you will become addicted to it.

[Ash-Bash 0]

Yes I do totally love sugar pretty much in any food you name, I have a very sweet tooth and love anything with Sugar. You will never meat anyone with such a sweeter tooth than me.

[inverse_bloom 0]

I don't go much for sugar unless its in a drink. For some reason i love soda's or flavored milk, ever since VERY young. My mum used to put flavored banana milk in my baby bottle when i wouldn't drink anything else.

[rob86 2]

contactskn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jalebi, Jalebi is an interesting food. Never saw or heard of it before. I prefer the spicy foods of India however, they are more for my tastes. I love spicy foods!

FouGilang: You mean Aspartame? The healthy sugar-type-stuff? I think it has a brand name here called NutriSweet. I find it doesn't taste really like sugar. Sometimes I do use a little sugar in certain coffees or teas, and Aspartame has a strange taste when I try it. I would never use it in baking or anything.

Chocolate and candy can be very addictive. I don't have much of a craving for candy anymore, but sometimes I do eat it during a holiday or something, and once I start to eat it, I can't keep myself away from the box.

[FouGilang 0]

Yeah, that healthy sugar stuffs - whatever it named in your nation - are on their way to advertise around here. Don't know if they really have no bad side compared to normal sugar, or even they aren't sweet compared to sugar at allNever tried it yet, my father did though. I don't know what's going on there, but it seems he kind of precaution on the bad effect of sugar and use healthy sugar instead.

[webishqiptar 0]

I don't like sugar based, products except of some of them. But I like sugar fruits. I prefer eating or taking it with fruits because it is healthier and gives lesser complications.

[Parubilla 0]

I love sugar, it really gives you energy, (sad but true). When I?m having a bad day or I just need something quick to make me happy, I eat somehting that has a lot of sugar, milkshake, smoothie, fruit salad with lots of icecream, frozen yogurt with candy anything. But I have found some more healthy combinations to stop eating that much sugar, threats that are sweet without being that harmful, like strawberries with a little bit of yogurt and lots of oatmeal, it is really sweet I think is healthy gives you energy, more of a natural energy I believe, and taste delicious.

[anwiii 17]

if only other people can find alternatives to satisfy their cravings and still stay healthy at the same time. good post

I love sugar, it really gives you energy, (sad but true). When I´m having a bad day or I just need something quick to make me happy, I eat somehting that has a lot of sugar, milkshake, smoothie, fruit salad with lots of icecream, frozen yogurt with candy anything. But I have found some more healthy combinations to stop eating that much sugar, threats that are sweet without being that harmful, like strawberries with a little bit of yogurt and lots of oatmeal, it is really sweet I think is healthy gives you energy, more of a natural energy I believe, and taste delicious.

[k_nitin_r 8]

Hi@anwiiI like the way you put it - you only get to live once, so might as well enjoy everything that nature has given us (be it processed or right out of the package). Besides, food hasn't killed anybody yet - it is the lack of physical activity that did it for them so as long as the inputs and outputs balance out, it should be all okay (I say that, but I haven't balanced mine yet!).

[truefusion 3]

I used to not care what i eat. I used to eat and drink whatever tasted good to me, whenever i was hungry. I've learned my lesson from such foolish eating. Sugar isn't the only thing i'm amazed to find in a product on a shelf in a supermarket. If it is on a shelf in one of the aisle, unless advertised otherwise, then i would recommend against it. I refrain from foods that have high fructose corn syrup (which is a lot of food by the way!); i try to avoid foods that use MSG for sodium and not sea salt (normally the organic products use sea salt); and i try to avoid eating white products: like white bread, white rice, et cetera. I go with whole wheat or whole grain products, normally the ones that advertise 100% whole wheat/grain.

 

Does this mean i do not enjoy my food or i don't eat things that taste good? No; in fact it is more enjoyable now. From my experience i have learned how to avoid deceiving advertisements, those that use special wordings to try and make it sound like their product has improved (as if you could improve food from its natural state—why would a product need improving if it was good to begin with?), using keywords and other things, normally from what you had previously heard on the news, to try and sway the viewers. It is no wonder why these foods are cheaper than their healthy(-ier) competition. And price is enough to sway many people.

 

What does eating a lot of sugar do? Have you ever counted how many grams a day you eat in sugar? If so, have you ever grabbed a bag of sugar and poured out the amount of sugar you eat on average per day? I would not be surprised if you filled over three 8-oz. cups worth of sugar. This is with the assumption that you know how to properly read the nutrition labels that come with every product you buy. Many people tend to assume that the information in the middle is for the entire container. However, you have to read how many servings per container in order to get an accurate amount.

 

Too much sugar and you end up being more tired by the end of the day than what you used to be. Too much sugar and you might get numbed body parts. Too much sugar and you will find yourself gaining fatigue faster than what you normally had (if any)—guess what this may be the cause of: your body not responding to the amount of insulin it is pouring out (which is what happens for those diagnosed with type 2 diabetes). Sugar also deals with weight; eating a lot of sugar can cause you to gain weight, even to the point of obesity.

 

So how can you maintain good sugar levels and without cutting back on sweet treats? Since when did we ever need to go any further than fruits for something sweet? You don't even need to eat fruits to get some sugar (i.e. glucose) into your blood (although sugar from fruits is called fructose). Try to always go for complex sugar products. Complex sugar is just a string of simple sugars. Most cheap products out there are merely simple-sugar products, so why go with the more complex ones since complex sugar is made up of simple sugars?

 

Due to the fact that the body can only make use of sugar in its simplest form, this requires the body to convert the complex sugar into simple sugar. This takes the body a little bit longer to make use of the entire sugar, and it will continually convert the complex sugar until it runs out of it. In the mean time, the body will only make use of whatever it has turned into simple sugar, therefore complex sugars will provide you with longer lasting energy than simple sugar. When you eat simple sugars, it is already in its simplest form, therefore the body will make use of it almost immediately after entering your digestive system.

 

Mind you, not all natural products ("natural" as what is normally understood as natural, not as defined by USDA or government food organizations) bear complex sugars. However, if they contain some fiber or fat, then that helps make it similar to complex sugar in the sense of how long it takes to put it to use. It should also be noted that not all natural products contain sugar levels as the products we normally see on store shelves. Indeed, if you are looking for something sweet, it is wiser to go for natural products over the convenient products. You might even find yourself feeling fuller than you would have with convenient products if you go with the better, natural products.

 

In moderation means nothing if you eat nothing but junk. "In moderation" is really a phrase that is used loosely. It may really be more of an attempt to try and make something that isn't good for you appear like something that can be good for you, under certain conditions. While i don't necessarily mean to say that "in moderation" isn't something that people should keep in mind, if you're going to try and attempt "in moderation," you might as well just change your entire diet, right?

 

Do i like sugar? Yes, but even i know what not to eat.

 

FouGilang: You mean Aspartame? The healthy sugar-type-stuff? I think it has a brand name here called NutriSweet. I find it doesn't taste really like sugar. Sometimes I do use a little sugar in certain coffees or teas, and Aspartame has a strange taste when I try it. I would never use it in baking or anything.

Factory-made sugar is not better than natural sugar, and i'm willing to say it will never be.