fit for breakfast...

The following is taken from David Gillespie’s best-seller ‘Sweet Poison – Why Sugar Makes Us Fat.’

“In the space of 150 years, we have gone from eating no added sugar to more than 1kg a week. Two decades ago 1 in 14 adult Australians were obese; that figure is now 1 in 5.”

Food manufacturers are masters at labeling foods according to what we’ve been programmed to think we want and need…

‘99% Fat Free’. Beware the ‘fat-free’ promise. Processing removes the fat but also the flavour. To improve its taste, ‘fat-free’ food is often filled with sugar.

‘No Added Sugar’, ‘Only Natural Sugars’. Many cereals contain up to 40% sugar, with mueslis often the worst offenders. If your muesli has dried fruit or honey, it has sugar. Unfortunately, particularly if you’re watching your weight, there’s no such thing as ‘good sugar’.

Even the booming juice market, with its widely perceived health benefits, is contributing enormously to weight gain in our society. Fruit juice is full of sugar. It might be ‘natural fruit sugar’ or fructose but without the fibre of the fruit itself, fructose is the worst. When you think of it, you’d never eat 8 oranges in a sitting.

Fat is an important part of a healthy diet.

‘Good fats’ are a source of essential fatty acids (EFAs) – essential nutrients we need for good health that our bodies can’t generate from other food components.

EFAs are key to certain processes in the body, as well as an important source of fuel.

There are actually only two EFAs: alpha-linolenic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid; and linoleic acid, an omega-6 fatty acid. Processes in our body can create the other fats we rely on.

Vitamins A, D, E and K are fat-soluble meaning they can only be properly used by the body in conjunction with fats.

The oil in coconut is a good fat. Known as a Medium Chain Triglyceride (MCT), it contains smaller molecules than most other fats and is more readily used by the body.

Researchers at McGill University, Quebec, Canada investigated the use of MCT-rich fat to treat and prevent obesity. Their research showed diets containing MCTs can increase energy, boost metabolism, increase burning of calories, decrease food consumption, lower body fat mass, and reduce body weight. They found that MCT-rich oil, like coconut oil, can assist in losing and controlling weight, and even help treat obesity.

the muesli has less than 0.1g/100g trans fats – ‘bad fat’. Trans fat is a type of unsaturated fat with a chemical structure that causes it to behave like a saturated fat. Foods with high levels of trans fats increase the risk of coronary heart disease by raising levels of ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol and lowering levels of ‘good’ HDL cholesterol.

‘Good’ HDL Cholesterol

Up to a third of blood cholesterol is carried by high-density lipoprotein (HDL). HDL cholesterol is known as ‘good’ cholesterol because high levels of HDL seem to protect against heart attack. Low levels of HDL (less than 40 mg/dL) increase our risk of heart disease. Medical experts believe HDL tends to carry cholesterol away from the arteries and back to the liver where it's passed from the body.

'Bad’ LDL Cholesterol

When too much LDL cholesterol circulates in the blood, it can slowly build up inside the arteries that feed the heart and brain.  Together with other substances, it can form a thick 'plaque' that can narrow the arteries and make them less flexible. This condition is known as atherosclerosis. If a clot forms and blocks a narrowed artery, heart attack or stroke can result.

Throughout evolution, fructose was such a rare resource nature decided we didn’t need an off-switch. So we can keep eating it without feeling full. Chemical processes in our bodies usually regulate the amount of fat, protein and glucose we eat – telling us when we’re full. With no off-switch, fructose simply bypasses these processes. Then, because our system doesn’t have the ability to utilise it as energy, it’s converted directly into fat circulating in our bloodstream.

As David Gillespie explains, ‘Eating fat still puts fat in our arteries, but we have a built-in control to stop us eating too much fat.  No such control exists for fructose.’ (p79, ‘Sweet Poison – Why Sugar Makes Us Fat’)

the muesli is proudly 97% sugar-free because sugar is the real enemy, not fat.