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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I appreciate posters mentioning that it’s still possible to enjoy the occasional sweet treat.

I have eaten far too much sugar for far too long, but I would like to be able to enjoy a really great slice of cake or a homemade cookie now and then.[/quote]

I'm 53 and struggling with sugar addiction that began in early childhood - my mother let us have pretty much anything in whatever quantities and she stocked our pantry with endless Little Debbie snacks, but did not keep fruit or other healthy stuff in the house.

I spent my summers with my grandmother, who would not buy any of that stuff except occasionally choc chip ice cream, and she only let me have limited quantity. She did, however, keep the fridge stocked with watermelon which I loved and ate in mass quantities - because I wasn't eating any other sugary stuff all summer, the watermelon tasted very sweet and the small portion of ice cream was more than enough.

My grandmother was born in 1913 and grew up on a farm, poor and then poorer during the Depression. They just didn't have sugar much, because in those days it was very expensive and a very occasional treat. They would get some and save it for birthday cakes, holiday treats, and once a week they made a treat for the Sunday meal after church - sugar to celebrate the Lord, I guess.

Occasional sugar is okay, but occasional probably shouldn't mean daily in smaller portions. I just rewatched the Lustig video that someone poster further up, I watch it a couple of times a year along with other science sources which remind me that sugar is actually a poison in our bodies just like alcohol, it does the very same thing to the liver that alcohol does and it destroys metabolic health in regular and large quantities - which is sadly how most Americans are consuming it now, because it was subsidized and is now cheap and is put into all the UPFs that make up 60% of the average American's calorie intake.

If you cut all added sugars and refined sugar from your daily diet, you can make a lovely homemade cake or cookies or brownies for your special weekend family meal and have a slice and that won't destroy your health. It's the slow steady daily consumption that lays the groundwork for diabetes, heart disease (it's actually sugar that damages the arteries, not cholesterol, they have now worked out), NAFLD, obesity and dementia. [/quote]

PS - If you watch the Lustig video, which is very very good and well worth taking the time to see at least once, in the early minutes he puts up a chart which shows American sugar consumption over time - it tracks exactly with my grandmother's, mother's and my experience, and he explains how the food industry and government worked together to cheapen sugar and make it ubiquitous in our food system.

It's maddening, really. If we could get back to the way things were when my grandmother was growing up, we could reverse the obesity epidemic and T2 diabetes and likely also the skyrocketing rates of Alzheimer's and related dementias. But Big Food is deeply invested in poisoning us with sugar - sugar makes so many shelf stable foods palatable, and the food manufacturers are counting on the addiction factor.

Anyone who has quit sugar knows that it changes so much in the way you taste and experience food and when you grab your old standards they taste like crap - all that sugar laden food does not taste good except/unless you are addicted and your palate has adapted to the awfulness of it.

Yes, it is possible to successfully quit sugar and then find yourself one day back in the pattern of eating it daily and feeling like crap. It's an addictive substance and works in the brain and body very much the same as other addictive substances like alcohol and even heroin. Because of that, some people will do better if they permanently abstain - but others can tolerate it in moderation. Each of us has to find what works for us, and sometimes that involves quitting and relapsing, rinse and repeat.

If you like honey, it can be a good thing to have a little every day - good quality unfiltered raw honey, preferably from a local beekeeper. Honey is sugar no different molecularly than sugar from cane or beets or corn, but it has phytonutrients that refined sugar doesn't have so it has some healthful benefits. If you are the kind of person who needs just a little bit every day to tame the beast, raw unfiltered honey can be a good choice.[/quote]

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