Written by John Immel, Asheville, NC

Before ice-cream and other heavy sweets were invented, sweet foods were a natural energy boost between meals. The pick-me-up was a necessary complement to your diet between meals. So, people craved sweets when they were feeling tired. In modern times, the body still responds to depression and fatigue with hunger. However, modern sweets are much more concentrated and overwhelming than their natural counterparts. These foods create an initial sugar high, only to leave you with a crash several moments later. Meanwhile, these sweets cause rapid weight gain, fungal infections, mucus congestion, and other problems.

The modern diet heaves 150 times the amount of sugar into your diet than your ancestors ate only 100 years ago. Your body can handle about a teaspoon of sugar a day, as much as you would find in a piece of fruit. A single 12oz can of Coke TM boasts 13 teaspoons of sugar.

How to Reduce Sugar Consumption

• Whenever you buy food in a box, check the ingredient list. Make sure sweeteners are not listed in the top three ingredients.
• Avoid high fructose corn syrup, agave syrup and other manufactured sweeteners. These sweeteners bypass your appestat, leading to overconsumption.
• Get your sweets from whole foods, like raisins, dates & bananas. Once you get used to whole food sweeteners in your baked goods, you'll never go back. Refined sugar has a bland taste that can't compete with the rich flavor of a whole food sweetener.
• Avoid drinking your sweets, such as soda, fruit juice, etc. The fiber in whole foods slows down sugar absorption and smoothes out blood sugar instability. Whole foods will satisfy your appetite more than a drink.

What happens to me when I eat too much sugar?

Have you ever noticed how refined sugar has an almost tingly, spicy feel on the tongue? This sharpness, an effect that increases one minute after consumption, is your proof that refined sugar has an intense effect on your body. The sharp, pungent feeling is an inflammatory reaction provoked by the sugar.

Have you ever noticed you get bad breath after eating sweets? Refined sugar makes it very difficult for your body to fight off infection. Remember the old adage, "Starve a fever?" Bacteria live off the sugar in your blood. When you fast, you starve the bacteria in your body. When you eat sugar, you feed bacteria and yeast infections attacking your body. The bacteria produce foul odors that leave you reaching for a breath mint.

You might notice you have more mucus after eating sweets, and that your mucus is thicker, especially during allergy season. Sweets make your bodily fluids gooey, thick, and rich, including your blood, your saliva, and your mucus. The thick, sweet blood congests your circulatory and lymphatic system, causing high blood pressure and buildup of toxins.

Overconsumption of sweets leads to many other complications, like weight gain and diabetes, that we won't discuss here.

Which Sweeteners are Safe?

It it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, it's a duck. Sweeteners are no exception. Exercise moderation with all sweeteners, especially if you are addicted. However, some sweeteners are better than others.

Better Sweeteners		Bad Sweeteners
	Honey A whole food that improves metabolism, especially fat metabolism. Honey is the only sweetener recommend for Kapha.		Refined Sugar White sugar is on the top ten list of foods to avoid for every dosha, but is especially damaging to Kapha.
	Maple syrup Has a full bodied flavor and rich nutritional profile. Maple syrup has more complex carbohydrates that digest slowly, without as dramatic a spike in blood sugar levels.		Corn Syrup Corn syrup seems ideal for Vata individuals trying to gain weight. However, corn syrup bypasses your appetite suppression mechanisms, which can lead to overconsumption. It is a highly processed food that confuses your body on many levels and is best avoided at all costs.
	Molasses / Turbinado Like maple syrup, a richer nutritional profile. Like honey, it is hot and warms up your metabolism.		Artifical Sweeteners Studies have shown use of artificial sweeteners has no effect on weight loss, baffling scientists. Perhaps the brain does not like to be deceived, or that use of artificial sweeteners doesn't address the underlying addiction to sugars.
	Raw cane sugar Better than refined sugar, but still cooling and congestive. Unrefined sugar cane, often sold as a pressed juice in tropical countries, contains a rich mineral profile and superior taste to refined sugar, albeit with a shorter shelf life.		Pretend healthy sweetener: Agave Same manufacturing process as corn syrup. Processed in the liver just like corn syrup.

See the complete list of sweeteners here.

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