Sugar, my dear, I'm anti-you.

Usually, I find it far more fun to be "for" something than to be "against" something.  But in this case, I couldn't help myself.


I'm anti-white sugar.


I know, I know.  How can I be anti-white sugar, right?  It's so tasty!  So sweet.  So simple.  So delicious.  So sinful.  And if white sugar is wrong, I don't wanna be right, bay-bee... 


Unfortunately, white sugar has left me no choice.  It's its own fault, really.  You see, white sugar has brought a bunch of baggage into our relationship, and it's baggage I am not quite fond of.  After receiveing an email from a friend the other day asking about the difference between Sugar In The Raw, turbinado sugar, and organic sugar, I felt it best to re-examine our NATURAL SWEETENERS to help clarify a few points.

"Table sugar has been condemned by dentists, nutritionists, and physicians for scores of years.  It is the greatest scourge that has ever been visited on man in the name of food.  Endocrinologists agree that the endocrine system of glands and the nervous system cooperate to regulate the appetite so that the right amount of the right kind of food is taken in.  Sugar spoils this fine balance.  Being almost 100 percent "pure", this high-calorie dynamite bombs the pancreas and pituitary gland into gushing forth a hyper secretion of hormones comparable in intensity to that artificially produced in laboratory animals with drugs and hormones.  Sugar is the culprit the endocrinologists have been looking for that has been throwing the finely regulated endocrine balance completely out of kilter." - Edward Howell, DDS Enzyme Nutrition


First, let's start with the regular 'ol white sugar.


And even though my husband will objective to my "scientific" list I'm about to share (because, let's face it, research can say just about anything we want it to), there are a few points I felt important to share.

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1.  White sugar is high refined, processed, bleached, chlorinated.  In the process, almost all of the nutrients & minerals are removed from the sugar; thus, making it a nutritional black-hole of horror.
2.  White sugar drastically & quickly increases your blood glucose levels, which can "deterioriate blood vessels and lead to heart disease"
3.  White sugar has been linked to cancer & diabetes
4.  White sugar contributes to candida (yeast overgrowth in the body)
5.  When sucrose is remove from the rest of the sugar cane (as in white table sugar), it acts like a drug to our bodies, creating high highs and low lows; creating a state of imbalance 

"Refined white sugar carries only negligible traces of bodybuilding and repairing material.  It satisfies hunger by providing heat and energy besides having a pleasant flavor.  The heat and energy producting factors in our food that are not burned up are usually stored as fat...we have seen that approximately half of the foods provided in our modern dietaries furnish little or no bodybuilding or repairing material and supply no vitamins.  Approximately 25 percent of the heat and energy of the American people is supplied by sugar alone, which goes far in twarting nature's orderly processes of life." - Weston Price, DDS Nutrition and Physical Degeneration 

These are but a few of the reasons we've worked white sugar out of our diets completely (other than the occasional treat out, of course).  And as noted before, we've replaced it with what all white sugar began it's life as: dehydrated cane sugar.


You can read more about that HERE, but the bottom line is this: Rapadura (aka: dehydrated cane sugar) is the juice of the sugar cane - dehydrated.   By keeping the sugar cane juice intact, we are able to reap the benefits of vitamins & minerals that are present in the sugar cane.  Rapadura is ideal for baking too, since it adds bulk and acts very similar to white sugar in recipes.


That being said...


It's very, very important to moderate the amount of sweets we enjoy.  Because sugar has become such a widely-available and commercialized product, it's easy to over indulge in this once-sacred commodity.  No sugar, even natural sweeteners, are good in large amounts.  Moderation, moderation, moderation.  

Oh, and I almost forgot.  What about those "raw", "natural", "organic sugar", and "turbinado" sugars?  Well, unfortunately, although they have not been chlorinated and bleached like the average 'ol white sugar, they have still been stripped of their nutrients (present in the form of molasses).  Though a few of these sugars add a small amount of molasses back to get that nice golden brown color, they are still void of many of the wonderful minerals that are present in rapadura (or my other favorite natural sweetener, raw honey!).  And commercially available brown sugar?  Well, that's just plain 'ol white sugar with a hint of molasses added back in after all the processing.  Bummer, dude.


Forgive me for being anti-white sugar.  But surely you can see, my relationship with this ever-addicting, nutritional-void, high-caloric treat has been strained beyond repair.  Lucky for me, it takes almost zero extra effort to replace white sugar with rapadura or raw honey.  HERE's where I order mine (but I'd check around your local area to find a bulk food supplier near you!)


Oh sugar, dear sugar.


Goodbye forever.

This post part of Real Food Wednesdays!