Demystifying Fats and the Truth about Sugars (Series) 4 of 6
Feb 04, 2019Demystifying Fats Series - Day 4
We created this series called ‘Demystifying Fats’ because we grew up thinking that fats are fat. Fats makes us fat, and fat gives us high cholesterol, which leads to heart attacks.
But that’s not entirely true.
In this series, we’ll go deeper into the history of how this ‘belief’ about fats came from, and what is the real truth. We talk about how fats can heal our bodies and what we should eat that will not only improve our health, but eating the right kinds of fats can actually makes us leaner, gives us more energy and vitality, and keep us feeling younger and stronger.
In our first video, we talked about the history of how we came to believe that fats causes heart disease. And it was an eye opener for many of us.
In our second video, we’ve talked about the different types of fats. Some are good for you and but some of the most commonly used oils are slowly hurting our bodies from the inside our.
In our third video, we talked about how low fat diets are slowly destroying our health.
If you’ve missed these episodes, we have included their links here and we strongly encourage you to go back and watch them.
In this episode, we're switching over to sugars.
As a kid, I had to visit my family doctor a lot, because of my eczema and my anemia. And I remember that on my doctor’s desk, there was always a bowl of candies and I would reach out and eat those candies while I’m seeing my doctor.
The problem, was that I didn’t know that candies will give us more health problems, which lead to more visits to the doctor. Hey, that’s good business for my doctor, but not for me.
Sure, we’re all told that candies would rot our teeth. Which is probably true. But when my mom took me to the dentist and removed those rotten baby’s tooth, what did she gave me afterwards? A giant scope of ice cream in a sugar cone. Yeah. During the time it felt like consolation. But now, 40 years later, I know better.
These gestures, by the doctors, by our parents, that are supposed to be an act of kindness and love, are actually hurting us. Candies don’t just rot our teeth, it rots our bodies inside out. Ice cream, well, same thing. Anything that are made from refined, white sugar, is hurting us. Desserts makes us feel good. It lifts our mood and helps us feel happy and satisfied. But that comes with a huge cost. Our brains are fooling ourselves by telling us that we’re happy, but quietly, without us noticing it, our bodies are rotting inside.
Hi. We are the Foolish Couple. My name is Minna, and this is my husband Andy. Welcome back to our video series ‘Demystifying Fats and the Truth about Sugars’. Today we are going to talk about the truth about sugars.
Growing up, most of us assume that our mothers know best, so when they gave us ice cream, we’d assume that it is good for us. But that’s really quite far from the truth isn’t it?
Not all sugars are created equal. And sometimes, sugars are hidden in our so called ‘Healthy foods’ that are actually not at all healthy.
We have been introduced to sugars at an early age. Growing up, what did you eat Minna?
(Minna) I grew up on baby formula because during the 70’s, breast milk was considered not good for babies. And that was probably one of the biggest fallacies during the time and one of the worst thing a mother could’ve done for their children. But that’s another topic for another day.
All the years until I left home for college, my diet consisted of cereal or toast for breakfast. For lunch, depending on whether I ate at home or at school, it varied from sandwiches, rice, noodles, spaghetti to my favorite which was Chef boy r Dee and Campbell’s soup. For dinner, since I grew up in Hong Kong, most families would follow a standard Chinese diet which consists of a bowl of white rice every night.
That was considered a normal diet for a standard Chinese family. I am sure that many of you can relate because most of you probably ate something similar. Next to dinner, depending on your ethnicity you most likely ate some form of rice, pasta or breads. We grew up according to the lifestyles designed by our parents, and that includes what we eat. We learned to adapt to the taste and feel of the foods we ate. And that lifestyle became ingrained into us. Even after we left home and started our own families, we tend to follow mostly the same diet and same lifestyle. Does that sound like your experience as well?
Yeah that sounds very similar to what I ate growing up except, of course, that I also love eating potato chips and Pringles, and I also had spaghetti o’s and Alphabet soup after school.
Explain to us why this typical diet was not good for us?
The problem is that our parents did not know best, even though we assumed they do. They did the best they could, with the knowledge they had. And it’s not really their fault because they didn’t know better. But what they thought were sugars, the sugar that rot our teeth, was not only in the candies and Ice cream. Sugars are hidden in almost all the foods that they fed us.
Remember that we talked about how Ansel Keys demonized fats in the early 1950’s and made the first processed food K-Ration? If you didn’t, definitely go watch our 3-video series called “Demystifying fats”.
Since the introduction of K-ration, all processed foods used sugar to make them taste better because they cannot use saturated fats. Saturated fats have a nice taste and flavor to it, while man-made, polyunsaturated fats were odorless and tasteless.
So there were hidden sugars in everything that we ate. There are 56 different names for the sugar that can hide in our foods.
Sugar is in our cereals, our Chef Boy-ya-dee’s, our Campbell’s soups, our ice cream and in our chips. Sugar is also in everyday condiments such as ketchup, soy sauce and hoisin sauce which Chinese cooking uses a lot.
But you may not know that sugar is also found in any white foods that are heavily processed. That includes white bread, pasta, and white rice. These heavily processed foods are devoid of fiber, water, vitamins, mineral, antioxidants and phytochemicals that our bodies need for optimal health.
After all the processing, they will try to put some of these nutrients back in. You may notice that cereals, breads and rice may say enriched with vitamins or calcium or something else. That is because all the processing has taken away the natural nutrients that the food naturally should have. So they are putting back in something synthetic.
All these sugars that we are ingesting throughout the day spike our insulin and raise our blood sugar. Every time we eat sugar, our insulin spikes up. And slowly they come back down. And then we eat again and it spikes again. This constant peaks and troughs of our blood sugars causes inflammation in our bodies over time, especially in our joints, connective tissues, and our brain. It also lowers our immune system and therefore people nowadays tends to get sick easier.
So are all sugars bad for you?
Should we need to cut all carbohydrates out of our diet?
Of course not, our bodies do need carbohydrates or sugars to survive. We need carbohydrates for instant energy and other processes inside our bodies. You just need to choose how you get your carbohydrates or sugars into your diet. You have to choose whole foods vs processed foods.
What are considered “whole foods” and why are they better than processed foods. Once carbohydrates are broken down, doesn’t the body just see them as sugars?
Yes and no. When the carbohydrates are broken down by amylase into glucose or sugars, your body sees glucose as all the same. However, whole foods will break down at different rates than processed foods. Processed foods break down to glucose very quickly and the glucose is released into your blood stream and spikes your blood sugar. While whole foods take longer to break down and will not spike your blood sugar.
So whole foods still break down to glucose but it doesn’t break down as quickly. Why is that?
Processed foods are milled down so it is easily digestible. It has no fiber and thats why you tend to overeat processed foods because it lacks fiber and fiber is what makes you feel full and satiated. Fiber is also prebiotics that feed your gut bacteria which is usually called your probiotics. Not only that, processed foods doesn’t have the natural vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients that your body needs. Whole foods, on the other hand, has natural fibers, they are loaded with essential vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients which is exactly what our body needs.
Then what are good sources of carbohydrates?
I suggest you avoid anything that does not come in natural form such as fruit juices, sodas, anything white that is processed like white bread, white pasta and white rice, pastries, cookies, French fries and chips. You can get your good carbohydrates from fruits, starchy vegetables, legumes, seeds and whole grains such as brown rice, far and quinoa.
Seeds for carbohydrates?
Yes we love seeds not just because they are a great source of energy as carbohydrates but because they are loaded with good Omega-3 Fatty acids. The good fat that your body uses to fight inflammation and feed your brain.
Alright. I hope you enjoyed this episode. In our next video, we are going to talk about body shape. If you think that someone who is skinny is healthy, well, you’d better watch our next episode.
And, of course, please share this video series with the people you love, your family, your friends. There are millions of people that are suffering from diabetes and other chronic diseases because they didn’t know what’s hurting their bodies. And our goal is to educate as many people as we can which is why we created these videos and put them out for free online. So use the links on this page to share these videos on Facebook or Twitter.
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Until Next Time, Love what you Live and Live What you Love
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