Wellcure
Wellcure
08:20 AM | 30-01-2019
Everyone takes sugar in their tea, milk, biscuits, dessert, sweets, chocolates, nimboo paani, etc. There are very few who don’t relish sweet taste. But is sugar a natural food? What is it about sugar that makes it a culprit for so many health conditions? Find the answer by understanding what exactly sugar is and how it impacts our body. We also explore the variants of sugar and healthier alternatives of it.
1. Does our body need sugar?
Our body needs energy to perform all its functions and sugar is one of the sources of energy. Having said so, the sugar our body needs is not the white-refined sugar that we commonly presume! Any food item that we eat, irrespective of whether it tastes sweet or not, is turned into glucose in our body. Glucose is a form of sugar and it is this sugar that our body needs.
2. If body needs sugar, shouldn’t refined white sugar be a good way to get it?
Refined sugar is a highly processed food item, nutrients keep reducing as a food moves from its natural whole state to a processed state. Also, it is loaded with chemicals and these interfere in the normal body functions, leading to health issues. It is easy for the body to break-down and use the sugar from natural foods vis-a-vis sugar from refined sugar and processed foods. Natural foods include plant-based whole foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts & seeds, grains, pulses & legumes.
3. How is white sugar made? Isn’t it a natural food?
Sugar comes from a plant source such as sugarcane, palm or coconut. Let’s take the example of sugar made from sugarcane. First, the cane is washed and shredded and is crushed to extract juice. The juice is then clarified, concentrated and crystallized. This crystallized syrup is then spun at high speeds or centrifuged to separate the liquid to get raw sugar. To further purify the raw sugar, it is subjected to high temperature and filtered to remove molasses, the thick brown syrup left after sugar has been removed from cane juice. Molasses are rich in antioxidants and nutrients. As they are removed to refine sugar, it reduces the nutritive value of sugar.
Although sugar is made using a plant source i.e. sugarcane, which is a whole and natural food, it gets depleted of its natural nutrients in the refining process. All the fibre of sugarcane is completely filtered out and heating the cane juice at high temperatures destroys the natural enzymes present in it. Therefore, what we get from sugar is only empty calories, without any vitamins or minerals!
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Also, the process of clarification or getting rid of impurities at various stages requires the use of various chemicals that are toxic to the human body. Some commonly used chemicals & their likely impact on our body is as follows:
4. What happens in our body if we consume white sugar?
5. What about other kinds of sugars such as raw sugar or brown sugar?
These alternatives to white sugar are its less-processed or processed-differently versions!
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Due to presence of molasses, both these varieties may contain more nutrients than white sugar. However, like white sugar, they are also processed and treated with chemicals and are not the natural whole foods that are most appropriate for the human body.
Another variety of sugar that has caught people’s fancy these days is sulphurless sugar. It’s emergence is a result of the increasing concerns about the presence of chemicals in sugar. High levels of sulphur are linked to mild to severe problems of the respiratory tract. One might think that the sulphurless sugar variant does score over white sugar, for avoiding sulphur. But does it avoid use of other chemicals or does it retain nutrients present in the whole plant based source (sugarcane in our example)?
Once you view sugar or any of its variant from the lens of natural whole foods vs refined & processed foods, you would know which way to lean.
6. What are the healthier alternatives to sugar?
It is best to consume sugar as it exists naturally, like in fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts and seeds. It may not be practically feasible to cut down on white sugar completely. However, what we can do is try to minimize our sugar intake and consider shifting to natural or less processed sweeteners such as jaggery, honey and dates.
Image credit: Monfocus via Pixabay
In these too, one should try to know more about the vendor & processing techniques used. This helps is assessing where the product stands in the whole vs processed value chain.
And do remember that moderation is the key. Just because these are healthier versions of sugar doesn’t mean one can over indulge!!
Would you like to know more about jaggery? Please read our blog on Jaggery – A quick roundup through FAQs.
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Image credit for title pic: Pexel
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Disclaimer: The health journeys, blogs, videos and all other content on Wellcure is for educational purposes only and is not to be considered a ‘medical advice’ ‘prescription’ or a ‘cure’ for diseases. Any specific changes by users, in medication, food & lifestyle, must be done under the guidance of licensed health practitioners. The views expressed by the users are their personal views and Wellcure claims no responsibility for them.
03:48 PM | 23-12-2018
Very comprehensive article and good read!
Changing habits is difficult but one can try doing slowly from shifting to jaggery/ honey and dates! If I feel like having or adding some sweet taste, I try substituting sugar honey in salads, dates in smoothies and jaggery in curd or tea as much as possible!
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