It’s a sunny morning in the city. Radha, an IT employee, munches on her slices of toasted bread & Jam, while packing Maggi for lunch. She reminds herself that she would need more calories for her busy schedule so decides to grab a bite at the cafeteria with a frosted cake or a doughnut with an iced caramel coffee to keep her energized.

All these foods, packed with refined flours and sugars- people believe to be modern and nutritious. But those calories are nutritious or just ‘Empty’ calories that give us just a ‘sugar-rush’?

The ubiquitous ready-made food, which is tagged with the idea of modernity, convenience and sophistication, is a BIG TRAP and is the source of most health problems faced by mankind in every part of the world. But how many of us realize this?

Majority of the food that we take, being carbohydrates with least fiber and probably refined/ polished,  gets digested in stomach and turns into glucose in no time. 10 minutes is what it takes for refined flours and 30-40 minutes is what it takes for Rice and Wheat.All these foods lack Dietary fiber that is both soluble and insoluble. Result? Huge quantities of Glucose (which is the end product of Digestion) get pumped in to blood all at once.

One would be surprised to know that 70 grams of Glucose comes from an intake of 100 grams of Rice, Wheat& Refined flours.. What does our body do with all that Glucose? Store it as Glycogen, Lipids, Triglycerides and cholesterol and when the levels are high, create Diabetes, which is the mother of many diseases affecting eyes, brain, reproductive system, kidneys and circulatory system.

Simple sugars are glucose, fructose, maltose, lactose etc.These sugars are consumed in large quantities, especially in the western world where carbonated soft drinks replace potable water. In U.S., 1.7 billion servings of Coke products are consumed everyday. What’s incredible is that the average American is drinking about 45 gallons of coke every year, each coke loaded with 12 teaspoons of sugar.

We need to understand that the food that we eat: pizza’s, fastfood, bakery items, parathas, rice, biscuits, chips etc., turn into Glucose (sugar)that is released into to the blood very quickly which is very harmful in the long run.

Apart from these high glycemic foods (which release glucose faster) that we consume everyday, the next harmful substance is: TABLE SUGAR OR WHITE SUGAR.

Table sugar is made up of equal amounts of the glucose and fructose, joined by chemical bonds. White sugar is made out of sugarcaneor beets, formed into molasses and fermenting them, makingconcentrated syrup. The crystals are separated from the liquor and dissolved in water and impurities are removed by using filters &making the crystals white, as humans find it attractive. But, there is a hidden truth behind the pristine appearance of the sugar. ANIMAL BONE-CHAR FILTERS.

Sugar companies use bone-char, a cheap replacement for activated charcoal, derived from cows for filtering and bleaching process. To make bone char, animal bones are heated at incredibly high temperatures and are reduced to bone-char before being used in a refinery to absorb color from raw sugar to make it pretty &white.

According to WHO, limit for daily sugar is only about 6-9 teaspoons (25 grams). Yet an average person consumes 17 teaspoons (71 grams) per day. That translates to 57 pounds of added sugar consumed each year, per person (excluding the sugar released from ready made food and high glycemic staple foods).Just imagine the amount of glucose that we consume through food and drinks!

Eating sugar gives your brain a huge surge of a feel-good chemical called dopamine, which explains why you’re more likely to crave a candy bar at 3 p.m. than an apple or a carrot. Because whole foods like fruits and vegetables don’t cause the brain to release as much dopamine, your brain starts to need more and more sugar to get that same feeling of pleasure which are so hard to tone down.

Such vast amounts of sugar always lead toconsequences. The most common consequence that we notice among the youngsters is SUGAR RUSH or SUGAR CRASH.

All the youngsters who are addicted to soft drinks (coke, pepsi), Starbucks drinks, coffee etc., which if not taken,they are as good as dysfunctional humans. The symptoms are extreme fatigue, headaches, blurred vision, increased thirst, mood swings, irritability etc.

It is also associated with many diseases like Atherosclerosis, Cardiovascular disease, Diabetes, Hypertension, Alzheimer’s, Liver Disease, Cancer, Overweight and obesity.

The food processing industries have found a cheaper and easier solution to replace sugar with cheaper alternative, leading tomore health hazards.

It is called HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP.

‘High-fructose corn syrup’ is a sweetener is made from genetically modified,processed cornstarch. Starches are made of long chains of linked sugars, and HFCS is produced by breaking down the starch into a syrup made of sugar glucose. This substance tastes sweeter than white sugar. When digested, it releases end products worse than Alcohol.

It’s also been linked with many chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, Arteriosclerosis and many cancers but yet this is found in many of our foods like soft drinks, candy, chocolates, juices, Sweetened yoghurt, bread, canned fruit, sauces, ketchup, breakfast cereal etc.

But the wickedness ofthe manufactures is such that,they don’t want to tell us that the product has HFCS, so they create fake names for HFCS so that we don’t notice. Some of the names:

• Maize syrup
• Dextrin
• Glucose/fructose syrup
• Barley Malt
• Fruit Juice/Fructose
• Rice Syrup
• Crystalline fructose
• Invert Sugar

So, next time you pick up any chocolate/ breakfast cereal/ bread/juice/ ketchup/drinks/bakery items, CHECK THE LABELS.

Coming to ‘Artificial Sweetners’, they have nothing sweet to offer us.

They are chemical compounds and not real food.  Sucralose is a sugar molecule mixed with chlorine molecules. Maltodextrin, which is a corn product and can be genetically modified, is then added as a bulking agent. Aspartame is on the EPA’s list of potential carcinogens. In animal models, it’s linked to leukemia in very high doses.

The better alternative of white sugar in our diet canbe honey, agave honey, and maple syrup.

But the best alternative is PALM JAGGERY. Not sugarcane, but PALM jaggery. The Palm jaggery has natural fructose, doesn’t produce any sugar highs/crashes. It is made with sap from toddy palm tree. The sap is collected and is the syrup is made by boiling raw palm sap in large, shallow, round vessels, without adding any chemicals. The resulting thick liquid is about one-third of the original volume and available in blocks.

Knowing all these facts and figures, let’s make wise decisions while choosing foods and keep the diseases away with better choices of sweetness and carbs.

By:-
APOORVA S.V.N.
BHMS- III
JIMSHMC