Sugar, you're already addicted

Last time on Fuel for the WODs I wrote that you are what you eat and the importance of reading food labels. Today I'll expand on the most addictive and dangerous ingredient found in the vast majority of foods with labels: sugar.

Let's first ask ourselves how we got to this point, why do all these foods have sugar in them? There's one answer, sugar makes food taste nicer. Years ago when low-fat/no-fat diets were all the rage, food companies started stripping out all the fat from their foods. But this made the food tasteless and no one would buy them. So they replaced the fat with sugar, people loved it, and food companies never looked back. We as a society of consumers never thought twice about it, until now.

You see our brains are hardwired to love sugar, when we eat sugar it stimulates the “feel-good” chemical dopamine and who doesn't want to feel good right. Not only are we hardwired to chase this feeling, sugar itself like any other drug is addictive and just as deadly.

Sugar is now in almost every packaged food we buy. For instance, a bag of chips: Red Rock Deli, Sea Salt flavoured. Turn the packet over, read the ingredients... there's sugar in it! You wouldn't think would you, a bag of salted chips has sugar in it! Sugar and salt are flavour opposites, but here they are both in a bag of chips.

This is not the only example, go to your kitchen cupboard take out anything there, in fact take out the item you think would not have sugar in it. Read the label, there's sugar in it. That is why it is so important to read the labels and understand what you are actually eating. Don't eat blindly and go for all those fat-free, low-fat options. They've just replaced fat with sugar, which is actually worse for you.

The result of this is that we are all addicted to sugar and we don't even know it. A bit of sugar here and there isn't going to kill you, but too much of it sure will. Ultimately too much sugar leads to weight gain which leads to obesity which further leads to type 2 diabetes - a chronic disease. Chronic diseases are the biggest killers in today's modern society.

I'll leave you with these points of advice:

1. Read the labels, specifically the sugar content.
2. Avoid foods with a high sugar percentage.
3. Eat wholesome natural foods