
Balanced meals contain a variety of food groups and provide much more than just sugar. Our bodies are more stable and experience fewer sugar cravings when our blood glucose levels look like the first line.Īs mentioned, a great way to get our blood glucose levels to look like the first line is simply to eat fewer concentrated sweet foods (soda, candy, cookies, ice cream) and eat more balanced meals and snacks. This is why sugar is described as addictive. When our blood glucose level plunges abruptly (as in the second line), our bodies tend to crave more sugar to get those glucose levels back to where they just were. We feel better if our blood glucose level is more like this: In this case, the blood doesn’t become as high in glucose as quickly, so it is easier for insulin to provide our cells with glucose more steadily. Our bodies prefer this more consistent supply of glucose. However, when we eat balanced meals and snacks that aren’t too high in simple sugars, the switch from high to low glucose is not as abrupt. When we eat foods high in simple sugars, our bodies go from a very high glucose level to a low glucose level, and this quick switch can surprise our bodies. Insulin’s removal of glucose leaves our blood with a much lower level of glucose-all within only an hour’s time. Whenever glucose rises to a certain level in the blood, our bodies (or more specifically, our pancreases) release a hormone called insulin. Insulin removes a lot of this glucose from our blood and provides it to the cells of our body that need the energy from glucose. Therefore, these foods increase our blood glucose rapidly making blood glucose levels very high. Sweet foods and drinks that are high in simple sugar are digested more easily in our bodies. However, these foods take much longer to turn into glucose than simple sugars. Oatmeal, broccoli, salmon, chicken, black beans-all eventually break down into glucose. All foods we eat, even the ones that don’t taste sweet, turn into glucose in our bodies at some point. Glucose is the simplest form of sugar and the one we use to fuel our bodies. But what these sugars break down into- glucose-is required for our survival. are simple sugars, and they are NOT required for human survival. Pure sugar, such as: granulated sugar, brown sugar, maple syrup, honey, corn syrup, dextrose, etc. Many people have not tried (which is good!)ĭifficult to access and expensive (since it’s illegal) This doctor makes it seem like regularly consuming sugar is as bad or worse than being a cocaine addict.īut first, let’s look at some major differences between sugar and cocaine: Sugar You can watch this excerpt from the film. He says “studies show that your brain lights up with sugar just like it does with cocaine or heroin.” He then goes on to say that sugar is 8 times more addictive than cocaine.

In a recent documentary about the American diet (titled Fed Up), a featured doctor claims that food addiction is not a myth, but instead is very real. Well, don’t sign up for rehab just yet! In this post, we will explore what the research says about the power of sugar and what we can do to reverse it-so we have the power over sugar.

Maybe you have heard that sugar is as addictive as cocaine.
