Thank you, American Bald Eagle Foundation and Haines Tourism Department for hosting a whole food, no-sugar-added “spread” during the recent eagle festival. I ask that other community groups consider turning the corner and junking the unhealthy food offerings at events and fundraisers. Certainty is rare in science, but eating excessive sugar and refined carbohydrate foods are now known to be harmful to the human body. When consumed excessively, they contribute to chronic disease and earlier death. Celebrate holidays and every day with safe, healthy food.
Statistically, chronic disease gobbles up about three-fourths of U.S. health care spending. Around 45% of our population now has one or more chronic conditions. Total, direct yearly spending on chronic disease care and maintenance is approaching $2 trillion. It’s true: “You are what you eat.” What you eat also affects how you think and feel. Our political mess is propagated in part by the elevated anxiety and depression caused by chronic illness; food is an important factor.
How’d we get here? At the end of the 1970’s, America went “low-fat” in the mistaken belief that lowering dietary fat and increasing carbohydrate consumption would lessen heart disease and stroke. We decreased our consumption of animal-source saturated fat, switched to cheap and inflammatory, “vegetable” (seed) oils, and began eating more refined carbohydrate and sugar—and then we began to get sicker. Food processors and agri-business went crazy making money. The body-count from the erroneous, early USDA “guidelines” must already number in the millions. In 2015, the federal guidelines markedly improved, but we’re still digging out from the trainwreck.
A mix of whole foods won’t damage your body or cause food craving. Rather, it helps to prevent both. For more health and longevity, the body needs less sugar and ample fiber: vegetables and whole fruit, nuts, legumes, whole grains, healthy fats, and health fish and meat, if that’s your thing. Limiting sugar is a huge step forward, but by no means does it solve the entire problem. To clarify, “refined carbohydrate” generally means corn, wheat, or rice: a) finely milled, b) stripped of fiber (essential for gut health), and c) stripped of other bio-dynamic nutrients (the germ). What’s left is shelf-stable and 99% digestible starch. The body quickly converts high-carb, refined flour into glucose, which immediately requires lots of the insulin hormone to manage. We lower insulin by increasing fiber and reducing our intake of refined carbs: the white bread and deli wraps, cookies, box cereals, bakery treats, chips, pizza, pasta. When food is “whole” you become the processor, not some distant factory.
The organic label is important for products made with flour, because many contain traces of the herbicide glyphosate. This active ingredient in Roundup is widely used across America’s heartland. It doesn’t belong in our food.
Americans eat an average of 17-teaspoons of sugar daily. That’s about twice the CDC’s maximum daily recommendation for men and triple the maximum recommended for women. The CDC also says children age two and under should eat ZERO sugar, items such as fruit juice, honey, candy, and sweetened breakfast cereals. Many parents are unaware; others are simply overwhelmed, and sugar is omnipresent—the cookies, crackers, sweetened drinks, on and on. About half of Alaskans drink at least one sugary beverage daily, which includes fruit juice. That means more “weight gain, obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, kidney diseases, non-alcoholic liver disease, tooth decay and cavities, gout”* , etc.
After an honest meal we need the “I’m full” feeling, not food craving from hacked hormones. The habitual combination of added sugar and refined carbs generally means a diet very low in fiber, a metabolic Triple Threat. By persistently elevating insulin, we gradually reduce the body’s sensitivity to this critical hormone (insulin resistance). Over time, this mismatch damages our ability to metabolize food energy, suppresses food satisfaction (satiety), and produces new fat in the liver and belly like all get-out. Insulin resistance is involved in about 80% of expanded waistlines.
Today, over 60% of the edible products sold in grocery stores contain added sugar. Many more contain refined carbs. I now call these vendors, only half-jokingly, Hazardous Terrain. When you dive in, stay focused and reach for “whole.” For folks with habitually elevated insulin and unregulated hunger, the grocery store is indeed a hazard; a place of craving and irrational behavior. Sadly, no one takes to task the responsible agri-businesses and vendors who profit from our historic food sickness. We’re hooked on legal products that we now know generate disease and we’re doing next to nothing about it. When we stop buying crap, they’ll stop selling crap.
Dating from the early 1600’s, sugar’s allure combined with greed to help shape the story of the New World and the legacy of American slavery: African slaves, Indigenous slaves, and pillaged watersheds. Today, add consumers with food craving and addiction to the list.
Stay safe and help someone break the chains. Show your love and celebrate with healthy food.
Burl Sheldon
* https://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/data-statistics/sugar-sweetened-beverages-intake.html