Sugar & Good Fats

Sugar is the enemy not fat…

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 labelling foods according to what they’ve programmed us to think we want and need…

‘99% Fat Free’. ‘Fat-Free’ is why we’re fat. Processing removes the fat but also the flavour. To improve its taste, ‘fat-free’ food is more often than not, filled with sugar.

‘No Added Sugar’, ‘Only Natural Sugars’. Many cereals contain up to and over 40% sugar, mueslis often the worst. 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 a major contributor 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. You’d never eat 8 oranges in a sitting, but supersize for an extra 40c, and you’re having the sugar from at least 8!

What’s wrong with fructose?

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. Hormones 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 and blocks these processes – allowing us to keep eating, everything! Also, because our system doesn’t have the ability to utilise it as energy, it’s converted directly into fat circulating in our bloodstream and sitting around our liver.

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 Fructose Free & proudly 97% sugar free because sugar is the real enemy, not fat.

What is good fat?

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’ (ie. None.) Trans fat is a type of unsaturated fat with a chemical structure that has been found to be very dangerous. The damaging trans fats in our diet, result from manufacturing processes such as hydrogenation of seed oils.

Cholesterol – LDL & HDL

Our bodies produce enormous amounts of cholesterol to serve critical functions within – the structure of cell membranes, hormone production and transportation of fats in the blood stream. Interestingly the amount of cholesterol consumed is dwarfed by that produced by our bodies. The role of cholesterol in taking fats from the intestine to where they are used as the actual walls (membrane) of virtually every cell in our body, is hugely important. LDL particles carry the fats bound with the cholesterol to the cells and HDL particles and cholesterol collect and return those fats not needed, to the liver.

There are two ‘patterns’ of LDL particles – A & B – and people carry one or the other. The science shows that the Pattern B particles carry less cholesterol meaning that they are less equipped to manage the fat they carry, potentially resulting in oxidisation – which is very bad. It has been shown that a diet low in fat and cholesterol or high in fructose can be found to be the cause of pattern B particles. As a carrier of Pattern B LDL you are at three times the risk of heart disease than a carrier of Pattern A LDL.

Despite dietary guidelines and the information that we’ve been fed for many years – ‘it’s been abundantly clear since the 1950s and certain since the 1970s, that the amount of cholesterol and saturated fat we eat has absolutely nothing to do with our risk of heart disease.’ David Gillespie (p40) – “Toxic Oil – Why vegetable oil will kill you and how to save yourself”. David expands enormously in – “Toxic Oil” – about the grave situation concerning the misinformation that we’ve been fed for many years – he quotes numerous studies and documentation and it is a great read for changing the way you think (have been made to think) about fat!