The sugar monster comes in late October and lurks around corners through December…BEWARE!
You have heard me on many occasions at 9 Kid Fitness talk about sugar. I guess it is a sort of love-hate relationship that I have developed over a long period of years. I love sugar because it tastes good and often satisfies in ways other foods just don’t. I hate it because no matter how temporarily satisfying it is, it is usually regretted later. I’m not talking about the occasional sugary treat. I am talking about the sugar monster lurking around the corner…only so happy to be indulged in and to “satisfy” an unsuspecting victim.
I realize that the word victim is not entirely appropriate. A victim usually doesn’t have any culpability. In the case of sugar, most of us have enough knowledge and experience to know better than to be a true victim. However, as with many other vices, we can be caught off guard and we can experience a type of amnesia about past consequences. Although I am not a nutritionist, I believe that I have a vast resume of experience on this topic and therefore feel that I can speak with a sort of authority on the subject. So consider this your fair warning. Don’t be caught off-guard! [Read more…]
If you are like me, sugar cravings lurk even when you least expect them. I have always been a lover of sweets. Over the years, though, I have tamed the sugar beast…at least a few times. It usually comes back though…sometimes out of nowhere, sometimes slowly and slyly. Recently the beast snuck up on me…just when I was feeling confidently in control. 
I recently caught the end of a radio show and heard an interview with a bio-chemist who was speaking about some of the ills of eating too much sugar. I wasn’t able to catch his name, but what he said about sugar really got me thinking. Labels on food packages reveal a lot more than just calories. If we look to see how many grams of sugar are in a serving, we can do some quick math to decide whether the count is high or low. According to the bio-chemist, we can divide the sugar content (grams per serving) by the number four and that will indicate the number in spoonfuls (tsp.) of sugar we are actually eating. Since I was almost home when I heard the interview, I decided to look in my own cabinets to test this out. I grabbed a box of granola bars and saw they have 12 grams of sugar per serving. If what he said is true, there are about three spoonfuls of sugar in one granola bar! 
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