Allergy-Proof Your Life. Michelle Schoffro Cook

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СКАЧАТЬ Disorders and Cancer—HFCS is largely made up of genetically modified corn because it is inexpensive to grow and has a high crop yield. But genetically modified foods have been linked in research to reproductive disorders4 and cancer.5

       Obesity—HFCS requires little to no digestion, so it is quickly absorbed into the bloodstream. As a result, the sugar causes rapid spikes in insulin production, which is the body’s fat-storage hormone. Not only does your appetite increase, but your weight does as well. It’s no surprise that high consumption of HFCS is linked to obesity.6

       Energy Depletion—Sugar found in HFCS requires greater amounts of energy to be absorbed by the gut than other types of sugar. Each molecule requires two molecules of phosphorus, which it takes from our body’s ATP. ATP is the body’s energy currency, so you can probably imagine what happens over time when there are constant withdrawals and few deposits. Just like a bank account, you will become overdrawn. When this happens you experience energy depletion.7

       Learning Impairment—Research also shows that the daily consumption of beverages sweetened with HFCS such as soda impaired learning and the ability to remember information, particularly when consumption occurs during adolescence.

       Increased Blood Pressure and Heart Disease Risk—A study published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology found that even people who eat an otherwise healthy diet but consume HFCS are at risk of an increase in blood pressure by up to 32 percent. The study, conducted at the University of Colorado, found that the inflammation caused by HFCS leads to inflammation in the bloodstream, which causes the blood vessel walls to tighten, resulting in blood pressure increases.8

      THE GOOD AND BAD OF SUGAR SUBSTITUTES

      Before you panic thinking that you have to swear off all sweets, you’ll be happy to know that there is an herb that works marvelously to replace sugar in many foods such as coffee, tea, and soda. Stevia, or Stevia rebaudiana, is a natural herb that tastes sweet but doesn’t actually contain sugar molecules. As a result, it doesn’t affect blood sugar levels or inflammation in the body and is therefore a healthy option for a healthy body. It is naturally between three hundred and one thousand times sweeter than sugar, depending whether you’re using the whole herb or the liquid extract. I personally find that liquid stevia has the best taste and least aftertaste, but I have found powdered ones that are excellent as well.

      Make the switch from sugar to the naturally sweet herb stevia, which is available in many forms, including liquid extract, powdered extract, or powdered herb. Be aware that some manufacturers of the powdered extract of stevia include other sweeteners alongside the herb, so these products are best avoided.

      Because stevia is naturally sweet, you won’t need much to sweeten your tea, coffee, or other foods and beverages. Just a few drops sweetens coffee or tea. The powder usually comes with what looks like a doll-sized spoon because that’s all you’ll need for most beverages.

      Baking with stevia poses some challenges because, other than sweetening, it doesn’t have the same chemical properties of sugar, such as caramelizing when heated or becoming chewy in cookies. Also, because you use so little stevia, it may throw off the traditional dry to wet ingredient ratio if you try to substitute stevia. So you may need to experiment a bit with your recipes, or you can try some of the delicious options that I created in the last chapter of this book.

      If you have a sweet tooth, opt for a piece of fruit or sweeten your beverages or foods with natural stevia (avoid products with maltodextrin or other added sweeteners).

      If you’re thinking that aspartame or another artificial sweetener is a better option than sugar, think again. Artificial sweeteners may have fewer calories than the real thing, but they are anything but healthy and have no place in a health-supporting diet. They’re not just bad for you; they’re linked to many serious illnesses and should never have been allowed in our food supply.

      Only one year after aspartame was approved by the FDA, its own task force learned that some of the original data showcasing aspartame’s safety had been falsified to hide results showing that animals fed aspartame had developed seizures and brain tumors.9 The artificial sweetener was never recalled. Aspartame has also been linked to the formation of various types of cancer, including brain cancer. There is also a 43 percent increased risk of experiencing a stroke or heart attack when a person drinks more than one diet soda daily.

      According to the authors of the book The Hundred-Year Lie, when a diet drink containing aspartame is stored at 85 degrees Fahrenheit for a week or longer, “There is no aspartame left in the soft drinks, just the components it breaks down into, like formaldehyde, formic acid, and diketopiperazine, a chemical which can cause brain tumors. All of these substances are known to be toxic to humans.”10 Combine these ingredients with a leaky gut, which you’ll learn more about later in this book, and you have a recipe for inflammation in the body. That’s because these chemicals can hijack the body’s normal process for absorbing nutrients through the lining of the gut, but when the gut lining is damaged, as is often the case in allergy sufferers, then these toxic chemicals can gain direct access to the bloodstream, where they can cause further damage and inflammation—another underlying factor for allergies.

      Allergies are just the start of how aspartame is damaging to the body. Ironically, considering its name and reputation as a “diet” drink, drinking diet soda is more likely to make a person overweight or obese. It is linked to a 34 percent increase of metabolic syndrome, along with its telling symptoms of high cholesterol and abdominal obesity.11 Just two cans of diet soda daily have been linked to a 500 percent increase in waist size.12 By skipping aspartame, you’re likely to lose weight if you’re overweight. And because a Harvard University study found that drinking diet soda daily doubles a person’s risk of kidney disease, by eliminating this beverage you’ll have a reduced incidence of kidney disease as well.13 You’ll even maintain stronger teeth, as diet soda is extremely acidic and has been linked to dental enamel erosion.14

      Aspartame isn’t the only artificial sweetener that poses a threat to health. Saccharin and sucralose should be avoided as well.

      Saccharin, also known as Sweet’N Low, Sweet Twin, and Necta Sweet, is touted as a safe sugar substitute, but it is actually a coal tar derivative. When it was first researched to cause bladder tumors in rats, it was still allowed to stay in the marketplace due to consumer demand as long as it carried a warning label that it may be harmful to health. Experts still consider saccharin a “probable carcinogen”15 that also causes breathing difficulties, headaches, skin conditions, and diarrhea in some people.

      Sucralose, or Splenda, is not a good option either. Although it is widely touted as a natural sweetener, it was created in a laboratory by altering sugar molecules in a way that could not appear in nature. It was barely tested before being launched with massive marketing campaigns as a supposedly healthy alternative to sugar. According to research by Dr. Joseph Mercola, the FDA only conducted two human studies on sucralose prior to its approval for use in food. The longest study lasted a mere four days and exclusively examined sucralose for its effects on tooth decay, not any other health effects. Additionally, when sucralose was tested to determine СКАЧАТЬ