Why is there So Much Refined Sugar in our Processed Foods?

Have you ever looked around at a public swimming pool and noticed how many fat kids there are - fat, flabby little roly-polies who's legs rub together when they walk. Have you ever looked around a restaurant and noticed how many overweight people are stuffing their face with foods that clearly say they have no regard at all for their condition?

North America is a culture hooked on taste with everything desirable to supply that taste, readily available. Endless brands of pop and candy, slurpees, milk shakes, pizza,fried foods and so on. All this now compounded by the computer age which,with the introduction of its video games has seen so many of our kids evolve into sedentary couch potatoes.

The industrial age brought with it not only increased manufacturing power but also the advent of processed foods and with the introduction of processed foods came the necessity to produce those foods at a profit. The manufacturers soon learned that the general population was far more interested in taste than nutritional value.

Check the ingredient tables on your grocery items and notice how many contain sugar. Breakfast cereals, soups,bread, crackers, baby foods, in fact you'll find most anything manufactured contains some amount of refined sugar. Why, because the manufacturers know that we become accustomed to the sugar taste in the processed foods and become hooked on it.

For many years before I knew about it,I had a problem with hypoglycemia, and therefore had to cut sugar out of my diet as much as possible.The first thing I noticed after the first two weeks of going sugar-free was the way my head cleared up.I couldn't believe how fresh my mind felt.

My wife began to eliminate all sugar out of her baking so we had sugarless cookies, sugarless muffins, and pretty well sugarless anything she baked.

It's interesting how, after a while you get so used to the sugarless taste you actually begin to prefer it. I can't eat store bought muffins or doughnuts. One clear observation we had was that when we offered her sugarless baking to visiting kids, they would take one bite and reject the rest. They had to have that sugar taste.

Let's keep in mind how pervasive refined sugar is in our North American diet.It's even in baby foods. Apparently people like chubby babies because this appears healthy. But meanwhile the baby is developing a taste for sugar that will continue into adulthood.

Once the kids start going to school they'll most likely find in the lobby, a vending machine that coughs out pop and chocolate bars. (And they wonder why kids can't pay attention.) Fortunately now, some schools are waking up to the consequences and are having their vending machines hauled away.

I've heard reports from schools that say Halloween and the Christmas season are the times when teachers experience most problems in class control? Could there possibly be a candy connection?

Up until my kids were about nine years old they never drank pop. We simply never bought it. If they did drink any, it was certainly never at home. They were both raised on the sugarless baking too and never complained. Now they're both grown up and neither has a problem with junk foods. By the way, both became good athletes and gold medal long distance runners.

I coached kids soccer for six years and was surprised at how little importance most parents placed on what their kids ate or drank. I banned drinking of pop within an hour of game time for team members and now and then would offer unsolicited comments regarding my views on what the kids were eating around game time. Call it coincidence if you like but I did coach a couple of bottom-of-the-barrel loser teams to season-ending gold medals.

Kids have no diet sense of their own. It has to be taught and encouraged. I saw a church buffet run out of desserts even though they had planned the event and allowed enough for everyone there. The problem was, unsupervised kids were helping themselves to two and three desserts.

I once had a summer job in a Coca Cola bottling plant. The regular full-time workers there never drank it. They would use it for anything but drinking, in fact it was a great all purpose cleaner. They would use it to clean the machinery and to loosen up dirt compacted hard onto the factory floor.

So keep an eye on what your kids eat and drink. They won't choose the healthy stuff on their own, but if you can coach them on it up to an age of sensibility, you'll be doing them a real favor. By keeping their sugar intake low you'll find them better focused, less inclined to get fat, and - best of all more energetic.

Here's how it works. Your pancreas regulates your blood sugar balance by producing the amount of insulin required to burn up excess sugar in your bloodstream.

When confronted with a sudden high intake of refined sugar such as from drinking pop, the pancreas kicks into high gear to control it. But this jolt to the pancreas makes it continue on burning up the sugar beyond the level of normal balance, thus creating a low blood sugar condition. This is why pop and candy create energy only temporarily, as soon as the sugar shot has worn off, the artificial energy dissipates.

If you want your kids to have good energy for their next soccer game, try a bowl of natural whole grain cereal such as millet or porridge oats about an hour before the game. These will digest slowly, stabilizing the blood sugar and giving sustained energy.

No chocolate bars or pop at half time! They'll be a lot better off with a banana or an orange.

Want some good guidelines: Read Tiger Woods book on how he plays golf. He's got a real good section in there about what he used to eat during a tournament and what he eats now.

And for us adults. Cut down on your sugar intake and watch your head clear like you're coming out of a fog. As much as possible buy sugarless or at least low sugar content items at your grocery store. Opt for better options than pop, such as natural fruit juices and of course - water.

Reject the culture of sugar-related problems and obesity and live a longer, healthier life.

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Comments

Wed, 7 Oct 2009 at 5:44 PM, by Carol Sue Muravez
I was searching the web for reasons why there is so much refined sugar in a majority of things we eat, when I ran across this article. I totally agree with the auther, Bruce Goodsir. I doubt many parents ever thought their failing high school student could greatly improve grades and attitude by just being on a low sugar diet. I am so tired of refined sugar in items I buy, that I wanted to find a better way to cook with less sugar. Almost all store bought bakery has way too much sugar in it. If the sugar was just cut by 1/2 of the amount, it would still be sweet enough. For years, when I bake muffins, or oatmeal cookies, I would only use 1/3 of the brown sugar called for in the recipe, and none of the "white" sugar. The raisins called for are plenty sweet without adding hardly any sugar. Lately, I have opted not to use even brown sugar. Now, I use apple juice or apple sauce (the kind with no added sugar), for all of my baking in place of brown or refined sugar. It tastes great and I do not miss the regular sugar at all. Parents, try it with your kids. If you set the example of good eating habits with yourself, they will soon catch on.

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