Today, I want to talk about and take aim at one of my absolutely favorite things: SUGAR.

Anyway you choose to say it, I love sugar. I heart sugar. Sugar makes me smile. Sugar lifts my spirit. Sugar tastes good.

But, I’ve been noticing a “war on sugar” brewing lately and I’ve started hearing more and more about just how bad this stuff is for you. And just how much I love it actually seems to back up exactly what I’ve been hearing about it, unfortunately. 😦

I mean, I understand completely how it can make you fat if eaten in excess – I mean, duh, right? But what I’m talking about is more than that. This is stuff about sugar actually being toxic, addicting in a manner similar to drugs and contributing to many diseases.

The weekend before I decided to research, and then purchase, The Metabolism Miracle, I saw a commercial for that weekend’s upcoming 60 Minutes episode and how they were going to talk about sugar. Something stirred and I immediately told the DVR to record it.

It sat on the recording for a good week before I actually watched it, but this weekend, I finally did. Not only did it back up everything I read about sugar in The Metabolism Miracle, it took it even further.

Instead of trying (and probably failing!) to explain the information from the program, I figured I would just share it with you. The video is the entire clip about sugar that ran on 60 Minutes and is about 14 minutes long. If you’re interested in being healthier (and I fully believe we should all be intentional and conscious about how we’re taking care of our bodies that are temples for the Holy Spirit), I suggest taking a short 15 minutes out of your day to watch this. Even if everything isn’t completely true or you don’t agree with everything presented (I actually don’t), we still all know that sugar isn’t GOOD for you and it’s not going to make you healthier or skinnier if you eat it. 😉

Now, whether or not you believe sugar is nearly as bad for you as these sources (and they’re far from the only two sources that claim massive health issues arising from sugar), and whether you believe I am anywhere near qualified to personally vouch for any of these things, one thing that I do personally know to be true: when I’m not eating sugar, food tastes better.

Another blog that I follow recently said something like this, and I completely agree: “it’s easy to miss the natural sweetness of a strawberry when you’re eating Oreos“.

I remember when I was doing SlimGenics, a diet very low in sugar, I found myself telling my hubby (and others) that I believed my tastes had actually changed, as I was finding foods that were previously only “ok” to be just fabulous and taste much better than I remembered. I was actually enjoying healthy food. Then I went back to eating foods that were high in sugar and all of a sudden, those healthy foods were no longer all that appetizing. Now, only about a week into The Metabolism Miracle diet (almost completely devoid of sugar at all), I am again enjoying food more, in general, and as promised in the book, I am not craving sugar.

Should you remove sugar from your diet completely? Well, that’s up to you. I know that I don’t plan to never eat sugar again, but I can promise you this: in conjunction with trying to maintain a far healthier lifestyle, long-term, combined with my new-found knowledge on sugar (and I plan to continue researching), I will be reserving high-sugar foods for infrequent special occasions. I will also be much more cognizant of the amount of sugars (and hidden sugars) that I put into my body (and feed my son)!

What about you? Do you have any thoughts or experiences directly related to sugar? I’d love to hear about it!