We Americans love our sucrose (aka sugar). The average man woman and child consuming around 17 tea spoons a day of the sweet stuff, a hundred and fifty two pounds a year.
Aside from its well know effects on the teeth, it feeds acid producing bacteria, that can dissolve dental enamel and cause gum and bone disease. Excess sugar ingestion can induce obesity, suppress immunity, effect mood and accelerate aging.
Sugar reacts with a protein in the body in a process called glycation, that is linked to vascular diseases, poor kidney function and wrinkles. It’s also highly addicting. For millennia, the precious resource was hard to find and the human brain evolved as a sugar seeking machine.
While there are synthetic alternatives, if you are trying to cut back, chemicals like NutraSweet and Splenda are pharmaceuticals. High intake may result in negative metabolic consequences, including diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, neurological disorders and even cancer.
The best way to kick the habit is to replace your sugar with natural, non-sucrose alternatives. Stevia is good. It tastes a little different than ordinary sugar and too much creates a bitter, definitely not sweet taste.
My favorite non-sucrose sweetener is Xylitol, a naturally occurring molecule found throughout the plant kingdom. Slightly less sweet than sugar, but it has got fewer calories and it is actually good for you. Xylitol has been shown to actually reduce cavities and strengthen teeth as well as bone. As a wound healing anti-bacterial, you can even spray Xylitol directly into your nose to kill the germs that cause chronic sinusitis and nasal infections.
