Okay, so I’m continuing the rant about the criticism of some on companies that provide local, fresh food to school systems. I went off on fat in this person’s quote on my previous post, so now for sugar. Here’s the quote again, from this article:
“Margo Wootan, nutrition policy director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, says she’s slightly concerned with Revolution’s insistence on natural, local ingredients.
“You can have full-fat cheese from a local farmer, and it’s still going to clog your arteries and give you heart disease,” she says. “Having the food be natural is nice, but a bigger threat to children’s health is making sure that there’s not too much salt and not too much saturated fat.”
Banishing high-fructose corn syrup, Wootan says, is “a waste of time and money” – better to limit children’s total sugar intake. As for hormone-free milk, she says, most milk is hormone-free. “And if it isn’t, it’s not a health problem.”
About the sugar comment. Come on, people!!
When are we going to finally get it that different sugars are metabolized by the body differently? So what if cane sugar, honey, and high fructose corn syrup have similar calories– the BS that the corn industry wants us to believe.
It’s not about calories, its about how the substance affects our bodies and is metabolized by our bodies.
Eating fruit is NOT eating sugar in the same way that refined cane sugar and HFCS is. One time a mom told me her kid had just ate an orange and she needed to feed her something that wasn’t “just sugar”.
Fruit is not” just” sugar. It is fiber, vitamins, minerals. When fruit is eaten whole, the sugar is balanced out by the fiber. Juice is another story– I seriously don’t think juice should be included as a serving of fruit for that reason. Whole foods are in the forms that our bodies were created to digest. ANY sugar, when extracted and concentrated and stripped of the other stuff it came with, affects our blood sugar and thus many other systems of our body negatively.
So people feed their kids some packaged snack or a yogurt drink with a refined sugar, and somehow believe that it is better than a piece of whole fruit. Or, worse, they give them juice drinks with artificial colors and such, and then forgo the fresh fruit. I read some article once, and I have no link for you, about how artificial colors show up on like, some huge, 40 percent or something, of people’s allergy tests. This means they provoke the immune system in a large percentage of us. That can’t be a good sign.
Or a cracker— grains and carbs are nothing but sugar to our bodies. I think, and it is only my opinion for what it’s worth, that a piece of fruit is better than a refined carb too. We don’t eat many grains compared to most people anymore, but what we do eat is mostly whole brown rice or whole teff.
I guess that’s about it for that rant. I just really wish people would get it that sugar and refined carbs, especially wheat, is probably actually worse for our health, in the forms we commonly eat in this country, than fat or too many calories or all the other things we blame for our poor health.
And I’m not on a high horse here, either. Don’t feel judged. I just made trail mix for breakfast toasted in maple syrup– essentially sugar. And I make muffins with honey and maple syrup all the time. I just try to let my sugars have nutrients too and I hope we will be better for it.
I just have to roll my eyes (mentally at least) when people say they don’t eat a lot of sugar. I’ve learned from Ada’s allergies and extensive package and restaurant nutrition reading, that everyone eats, ALOT of sugar. There is dextrose, corn sugar, in Morton salt, fercryinoutloud! People think they don’t eat a lot of sugar, but that’s probably rarely the case.
One last link about this issue from a blog I really like:
I’ve also enjoyed Dr. Mercola’s book Sweet Deception about about alternative sweeteners too. He’s a little commercial, but certainly good to balance his non-mainstream health thoughts with all the other media out there. eye-opening book.
Dont forget. table sugar doesnt even come from a fruit the cane plant is a form of grass. Most people dont sit and chew on large amounts of cane in there daily diet. High fructose cornsyrup well what makes it bad? Well not only the fact that our bodies metabilize it differently and its stored as pure fat. but it comes from the worst form of geneticaly engineered corn you can find.
You know I struggle with this as my body shows. I love chocolate and I love my sodas. I know it’s terrible for me and it’s an addiction. Me and my husband have decided to have a completly healthy pregnancy. If I go a week without chocolate/soda, I get headaches and other withdrawl symptoms. It is going be so hard for me when we do get pregnant because I don’t want to do any harm. I will more than likely be in my 30’s, it will be our first child so I will already be in higher risk pregnancy. I don’t want to add complications by eating caffeine, being around smoke, etc. So I have quit smoking nearly 5 years ago. We are about to start weight watchers. We’ve done it before. While it may not be exactly healthy, it gets us in the habit of looking at the food labels. Before we didn’t. And that’s why we have gained so much weight. I am going to eventually stop the candy and sodas so I will not be tempted when we are ready to have children. It’s going to be hard. Really hard. What I would like to know is other than fruit, what are some other healthier alternatives for a major sweet tooth? And I mean a MAJOR sweet tooth lol!
Great rant. I agree there are differences in the sugar we get from different food and how the body responds. If people are so concerned about the sugar in fruits, then avoid the fruits with more sugar content.
I never knew how much sugar I get daily until I got a nutrition app on my iphone. It’s shocking how I go over my limit almost every day, and I don’t eat candy or sugary food. One iced tea (sweetened in Canada) and I’m done for the day.
Are you going to talk about the hormones in milk. I can’t believe that person said most milk is hormone free.