I saw a blurb recently, featuring one of the two most famous television doctors–Dr. Oz was the speaker in this case (Dr. Phil is the other one whom we see quite a bit)–who mentioned that the liver takes sugar and just converts it into fat. I stopped to think about the amount of sugar in the average daily diet, and I realized that I’m a big offender. It also validated something I’ve suspected for a long time.
Maybe you are a reader old enough to remember a time before artificial sweeteners hit the market. I seem to remember when a sample pink packet arrived in the mail inviting my family to try saccharin. Eventually we moved on to Nutrasweet (R). Now there is sucralose and stevia and enough other types of sweetener to stock a new store chain. Sodas started using artificial sweeteners in sodas, cereals, and even our ketchup. Didn’t the obesity epidemic start just about the time we began consuming these products?
Not only do we use one type of fake yummy stuff at home: we likely use two or more versions in various foods daily. HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) in ketchup, Splenda(R) (sucralose) in the fruit drinks, and aspartame (marketed under Equal(R) and other names) in the diet something else. Boy are we confusing our livers.
This morning at breakfast, I tried putting just one Equal(R) into my tea. I didn’t taste any sweetness at all. That can’t be good. If it takes two or three servings to taste it, the taster has to be kind of numb, don’t you think?
I managed to cut out my salt intake a long time ago by going cold turkey; it took a day or two before food started tasting salty without my breaking out the salt shaker. I wonder how hard it might be to curtail sugar consumption? We’ll see. I’ll follow-up as I find out.
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