Rasita My Family, My Animals, My Food

At the moment I am currently reading (skimming through) ‘The sweet poison Quit Plan’. This then lead me to think about the various other, get your life in control and loose weight, eating plans that i have read about or heard about.  It did bring up a valid point (in what I have read so far) about moderation. Quite often I hear the phrase, and have used it myself, ‘everything in moderation’. What the book had to say about moderation was that one person’s view of moderation might not be another person’s idea of moderation. How true is this and then, what is the right ‘moderation’.

I don’t believe we should eliminate everything from our diet. The book talks about fructose being the biggest cause of obesity, and yes, i can see where they are coming from with this.

{Fructose = a simple sugar found in honey and many ripe fruits}

When you eat a ripe apple, this will have fructose in it, but it will also have fibre, a variety of minerals and vitamins. It isn’t just the juice you are getting but all the good stuff that comes with it. The book doesn’t say not to eat fruit, but it is more the fruit juice, the concentrated version you buy in the shops, that is the baddy for you.  So, fruit on it’s own, unjuiced and still full of nature’s goodness, and should be fine for you to eat.

What about dried fruit, dried without any additives? The book goes on to say that dried fruit is just as bad as juiced fruit, in that the sugars are concentrated even with the fibre being present but since the water is taken out of it, it has no bulk so doesn’t fill you up as fresh fruit would. This won’t stop me drying fruit, after all I do have a dehydrator to make the most of.

What I don’t like about ‘diets’ and ‘eating plans’ is how they usually single out a food group and eliminate that from your diet in order to get the desired result, or they replace it with a ‘meal shake’ or ‘diet jello’. The sugar in those things being replaced with artificial sweeteners, preservatives and additives. It is these things which I think are the worst part of any diet, as they try to put back what is being replaced so your body doesn’t know the difference, and really, you aren’t changing anything but how much you spend (usually more). The book I am currently reading, does face this fact and focuses on curbing your addiction to sugar so you can then move away from the sweets.

What is sugar in? Most processed foods will have some sugar in them, there are very few cereals without sugar, there is a huge amount of sugars (both natural and artificial) for sale and addition to your favourite cereal, cake, or even meal, even good old baked beans have sugar in them!

Yes, I agree that we need to reduce our sugar consumption, not our fresh fruit consumption but we also need to reduce our processed food consumption while still enjoying life. Any ‘diets’ or ‘eating plans’ that I read, I will read for the sake of gaining some new knowledge in healthy eating, and how to incorporate it into our diet. I won’t be eliminating sugar but I will reduce it and incorporate more healthy eating options for the kids into our life. As it is, my sugar cravings, junk food cravings, are reduced when i exercise and I don’t feel like that chocolate bar in the lolly aisle, or that packet of crisps in the chip aisle. Usually it is something juicy like an apple.

I was fortunate enough to have had this conversation with a few different friends, and get their opinions on this idea/book itself.