Fructose, glucose and our ever increasing waistlines
Happy Monday everyone! I hope you had a restful weekend and were able to enjoy the nice break in the heat. I’m currently taking a course called Nutrition: The Forgot Pillar of Chinese medicine and wanted share a tidbit of very important and possibly not widely known information with you all. It occured to me yesterday evening, while watching Shark Tank (one of my most favorite TV shows btw) that some people still may not know how harmful agave nectar can be. The young man was promoting his sea moss gel, which in and of itself is chockfull of minerals, but this particular product was sweetened with agave nectar, an unfortunate choice. Regardless, the judges loved it and the young man got a deal, which is great but seeing the lack of awareness around this was a little upsetting for me (yes, I had words with our tv, don’t judge me). The fact of the matter is, Americans eat too much sugar. Our consumption of sugar over the last 100 years has skyrocketed and we are seeing huge jumps in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, cancers, and all sort of inflammatory related diseases.
WE CAN DO BETTER!
To explain a little more about sugars, let’s focus on fructose, which converts the fastest to fat in our system because it goes straight to the liver. In turn, this fast spike of blood sugar causes a release of insulin and repeating this offense over time can wreak havoc on our metabolism and hormones. Whether you are trying to regulate your cycles, working on getting pregnant, or menopausal, having healthy insulin regulation is key to healthy cycles, healthy hormones, and stability in our weight because when insulin is circulating in the bloodstream we can not burn fat. Elevated insulin can also affect the ovulatory phase especially in women with PCOS.
MODERATION IS KEY!
Now that we understand a little more about fructose and its effects on our system, let’s move into the numbers to see just how much of it and glucose are in some of our pantry items. Sugar (white, brown, cane, organic, etc) contains 50% fructose and 50% glucose High fructose corn syrup (the most “evil” of them all, right?) contains 55% fructose and 50% glucose Agave nectar contains 90% fructose and 10% glucose! This ratio was shocking to me. I knew agave nectar was not an ideal alternative but I didn’t realized just how bad it really is. #soundthealarm
For context, honey is about 35% fructose, 30% glucose, and has other sugars in it too. Interesting right?! I hope this was helpful to some of you, especially those struggling to lose weight, dealing with ovulation issues and/or hormonal imbalances. Take a deeper look into the ingredients of your packaged foods to better understand how much you are getting on a daily and if you may need to find a better alternative.
After all, health is the new wealth! Emily Photo by Myriam Zilles on Unsplash