Sugar Focus 'Doesn't Let Fat off the Hook'!

From an article in the NZ Herald today http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11335891  “Consumers shouldn't think they can eat fatty foods now the obesity debate has sugar in its sights,” an Auckland academic says.

University of Auckland professor of epidemiology, Rod Jackson, is warning people not to get complacent about foods that are high in fat after recent diet reports saying sugar is to blame for the rise in global obesity.

"We've never been healthier. Heart disease rates are plummeting. The rate of death from heart disease is 90 per cent lower than in 1967," Dr Jackson said, adding that life expectancy had increased.

However, our population is getting steadily fatter. "There's no doubt we're getting fatter but we're getting fatter quite slowly," he said.

"The message that should be out there is - replace saturated fats¹ with vegetable fats² and also eat less free sugar [table sugar] and refined carbohydrates."

I Have Three Comments To Make About This:

One:  While there has been a big focus around the detrimental effects of sugar on our health, which is now recognised medically, I have a concern that there will be a big shift to synthetic replacement sweeteners that in general people know nothing about except that they don’t want to put on weight but still want sweetness.  I’m thinking of Aspartame based sweeteners, Saccharin, Neotame, various fruit alcohol sweeteners.³  As a healthy alternative how about using Stevia or Coconut Sugar (very low GI), or Honey.

Two: Totally replacing saturated fats with unsaturated vegetable fats is not the complete answer either.  Both types of fats are required by the body - more about that in another newsletter.

Three:  ‘Yes’ to less table sugar (sucrose) and other refined carbohydrates (processed foods).  ‘Yes’ to whole foods that aren’t processed.  ‘Yes’ to eating more, healthy, green vegetables.

In answer to the obesity issue, this cannot just be addressed by eating less.  It’s actually what we eat and how we eat it. I’ve found from experimenting with myself (having put on about 8 extra kilos during menopause - yikes) that it was relatively easy to remove that extra weight simply by separating fats & oils from my consumption of carbohydrates and adding more, low carb, green-leafy veges to my meals (I’m just about down to my pre-menopause weight - YIPPEE).

For more detail on how to take the pain out of weight loss go to my article on our blog
“How Do We Say NO to the Cravings and Addictions that Can Make Us Fat?”

As always, not being fanatical, just learning to be wise.

Best regards,
Penelope