The two sides of sugar



Nowadays we can find a lot of sugary products in any of our supermarkets, and most of them come from the food industry in the form of highly processed products.

Cola drinks, pastries, sweets, concentrate fruit juices or fruit nectars, and even most puffed breakfast cereals contain high amounts of refined sugars.

Sugars or carbohydrates are longer or shorter chains of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. They act as fuel for our body. They nourish the nervous system, the muscles and the brain.

Depending on their structural complexity we can talk about simple or complex sugars.
Simple sugars are soluble in water, and since they don’t have a very complex chemical structure, they rapidly reach our blood as glucose. These sugars are found in refined sugar or cane sugar, candy, sugary drinks, colas, or even milk.
When we consume them quickly we reach high levels of sugar in our blood, causing hyperactivity throughout our body, and soon we see how these blood sugar levels drop dramatically, causing hypoglycemia and lack of energy which we will try to make up by consuming some more sweet stuff or stimulants, thus entering an energy rollercoaster throughout the day. Also, if we consume more sugars than necessary or our body just can’t use them instantly, they become flabby, superfluous fat or cholesterol that clogs our arteries.

However, there are also complex sugars that are absorbed more slowly. Due to their chemical structure with more links, they take longer to enter the blood as glucose, avoiding blood sugar spikes.
These sugars are found in high proportion in whole grains and vegetables, and provide us with blood sugar over a longer period of time without any sudden drops or rises, producing longer and more stable energy, with no abrupt highs and lows and giving us clarity and vitality.

The consumption of whole grains with every meal will provide us with high quality blood sugar. Besides, eating root and round vegetables like onion, carrot, parsnip or pumpkin cooked for longer periods, for instance in the form of soup, will offer sweetness and creaminess, preventing us from our temptation to eat less healthy sugars.