Kitchen is the heart of your home. It’s not only a place to store and cook food but also a place where nourishment and expectance of delicious meals come together. A well-stocked kitchen and freshly prepared, wholesome homemade and balanced meals are essential for the well being of the entire family.
The simplest way to improve your health is to eat proper home-cooked meals. Cooking at home is healthy, rewarding and cost-effective. The foods you eat the most are the foods you enjoy the most, thus taste is an important priority while preparing nutritious satisfying food. Thus, you need to stock up your kitchen with all your favorite ingredients.
But did you know that your kitchen contains a deadliest addition, and probably either you are neglecting it or not aware of it!
When it comes to stocking up food in the kitchen, a well-stocked kitchen has grab-and-go breakfast varieties such are cereals, doughnuts, scones, bagels, muffins, pancakes; counters stocked up with jars of cookies, jams, syrups, candy packs and sugar etc. Refrigerator is filled with smoothies and flavored yogurt, colas canned juices and what not!
You may consider them as healthy as brands are good in marketing them as the healthiest on the go meal available. For example, breakfast cereals. But have you wondered why gaining weight has become so common these days? If you closely observe the ingredient section of most readymade foods, you would find sugar as the most common ingredient. And scientifically, simple carbohydrate like sugar is the primary reason for increasing obesity around the world. And wait, weight gain is not the sole health hazard caused by sugar consumption, but there are other major health concerns that you should consider if you crave for sugar quite often! In fact, it can be considered as the deadliest addiction that lies comfortably in your kitchen. And if you are someone who often likes to indulge in sugary food then the below explanation would give you good reasons to change your food habit. Let’s explore.
It’s not as ‘sweet’ as you think!
All forms of sugar are simple carbohydrates that are
converted into glucose which is used for energy by the body. Sugar has a
bittersweet influence on health and it depends on the type of sugar you’re
consuming, be it natural or refined.
Sugars are extracted sugar beet or sugar cane plants. Many different types of sugars are produced during the extraction stage such as white sugars, brown sugars, and liquid sugars and these categories are further categorized into various forms such as:
White sugars : Regular or white granulated sugar, confectioners or powdered sugar, fruit sugar, baked special sugar, superfine sugar, coarse sugar and sanding sugar.
Brown sugar: Light and dark brown sugar, turbinado sugar, muscovado sugar and free-flowing brown sugar.
Liquid sugar: Liquid sugar and invert sugar
Simple sugars: Simple sugars are also called monosaccharides and include glucose (also known as dextrose), fructose, and galactose. A simple sugar molecule called glucose, initiates the metabolism and gets converted for energy. Because it is of a single molecule it doesn’t need to be broken down like more complex sugars, it quickly enters the bloodstream and is used up for energy. The body does not store glucose; it gets converted to glycogen and is stored in the liver or muscle tissue. If there is a sudden need then the glycogen gets converted back to glucose for immediate fuel.
Simple sugars naturally occur in some foods and drinks such as fruits, dairy products, and vegetables. Including these foods in your diet is good, the nutrients present in them have valuable health benefits such as, dairy foods contain protein and calcium, vegetables and fruits have high amounts of fiber, essential minerals, and antioxidants.
Refined sugars: Refined sugars are also called table sugars or added sugars and come in granulated forms; it contains sucrose, a disaccharide of glucose and fructose. The body breaks down table sugar rapidly, increasing insulin and blood sugar. Refined sugar is digested quickly and does not make you feel full after you’re done eating, regardless of the number of calories you’ve consumed.
Refined sugars are stripped of its bran, fiber, and nutrients. These are added in foods such as pastries, sweet desserts, breakfast cereals, jams, white bread, pizza dough, pasta, white flour, white rice, drinks, and beverages. Including this in your diet can mess up your body in many ways.
A justification on why sugar is bad for health
- Excess sugar causes weight gain
- Increases your risk to heart diseases
- Linked to Acne
- Increases risks of Type 2 diabetes
- Increases risks of cancer
- Increases risk in depression
- Accelerates skin aging
- Drains out your energy
- Increases risks of fatty liver
- Harms your teeth
How do you reduce the intake of sugar?
It’s very simple just switch to the best sugar substitute either an artificial sweetener or a natural sweetener because sweeteners trick the body by providing mixed hormonal signals.
Your choice, a natural sweetener
Natural sweeteners are a better choice than artificial sweeteners because they are non-nutritive, low in calories and sweet to taste.
For example, Stevia is a natural zero-calorie sweetener, extracted from Stevia leaves and is 100 to 300 times sweeter than sugar and has no after taste. It could be a great choice because it has no carbohydrates and does not raise the blood sugar levels, inhibits cancer cells, controls weight gain and diabetes.
Summary:
Eliminate this deadliest addiction and rehabilitate in the right direction.
Having an insane sweet tooth and not using it is pointless, all we have to do is have a moral judgment on what we eat and this will have a great impact on our health.