Today I want to write a quick post about ‘healthy’ food and how we can be led off the path unwittingly.
The first thing to say is that the food industry does not care about our health, it cares about making a profit and what better way to do it than to keep serving up sugary, addictive food and processed carbohydrates; and in my opinion the health food industry is no different.
Take a look at the meme, many people would consider they are having a healthy breakfast, orange juice counting as one of their 5-a-day plus whole grain granola with some extra dried fruit in it to give you extra energy.
Well nothing could be further from the truth, let’s pick it apart from a sugar-free-dom perspective…
– Orange juice, fresh or from concentrate will have a high level of fructose in it. Without the benefit of the fibre from the whole fruit and the freshness when it is packed with nutrients, this will hit the liver hard and spike the blood sugar within minutes of you drinking it.
– Granola, this is toasted grains usually in a fat and with added sweetener. The ‘healthy’ options usually have maple syrup, honey or agave added as the sweetener. These sweeteners are all sugar to the body in terms of how it responds physiologically. If you are following a sugar-free way of eating because you crave sugar and/or processed carbohydrates this type of healthy cereal will ‘throw you under the bus’ and you may well spend the rest of the day on a sugar craving roller coaster, I know I would be.
– Dried fruit, the mere act of drying fruit means that the fructose sugars within the fruit are concentrated and are so even more likely to get you hooked. I’m not saying they are bad but if you are wanting to beat a sugar addiction then dried fruit is not the way to go, stick to whole fresh fruit.
…and of course there are many sugar laden products masquerading as ‘healthy’ from fruit yogurts, to oat bars, to raw desserts and smoothies. Beware of anything that has processed fruit in it or any type of sweetener because this will spike your blood sugar and begin a cascade of hormonal changes that will likely lead to cravings.
So what to have instead, there is plenty…
– whole fruit
– whole grains
– make your own granola by toasting oats with seeds and nuts in coconut oil
– make a soaked overnight grain breakfast cereal which includes nuts, seeds and full fat yogurt and then top with fresh fruit
– enjoy fresh vegetable juices in a ratio of 4-5 veg to 1 fruit
– add bulk to smoothies by adding flax seeds or chia seeds and then some fat like avocado or coconut oil. This will help balance the quickly absorbed energy of the fruit and veggies
Lots of love Carol xx
