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Sweeteners

In a world full of a sugar consuming population, we really don't get much help from society to cut down on the sugars we are eating and drinking which is causing serious long term damage to our health. If we do decided that is time to change ourselves then we even get trick into thinking that we have cut out added sugars from our diets when we stopped drinking the fizzy drinks and eating them muffins. We did at a certain point but what still remains are hidden sugars in foods that were made somewhere in a factory. Sugars were added in to make it tasty and to keep you wanting more of it, but we don't get told this, we can only learn by looking for ourselves at the back of the packets and how much sugar 100g contains.

It really is a manipulative move by the food company#s to trick us into thinking that we are eating healthy when actually we are still consume those hidden added sugars. Many people say "I cut out cakes and biscuits and started to buy better foods" when in reality the packaging was just nicer and the price a bit higher, but still it contains a lot of added sugars. Food is a huge topic and so in this post I'll just concentrate on drinks.

Hot Drinks.

Its very common that we take sugar with our hot beverages such as tea and coffee. In some cultures tea is drank often throughout the day which would be healthy, but usually it is mixed with such a high ratio of white sugar that is quite shocking.

Below is a picture of a man from West=Africa making traditional tea

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Most times the tea pot would be smaller and you can see the bag of white sugar? This would have been full up at the beginning and slowly added to the pot on the fire. Its so sweet and drank hot straight from the fire that it burns the mouth and teeth for foreigners!

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We do the same say traditionally in England with black tea, adding what used to be the "standard milk and two sugars"(proberbly still is - I'm not sure now) to it, which leads to people taking so much added sugars when we drink 5 cups a day.

I do remember the "sweetener" craze which was aimed mainly to combating weight gain and become common place in the supermarkets. Sweeteners can be found naturally or they can be made by man which makes them suddenly completely different things when we say "sweeteners". I have never seen the point why company's bother to create something that can be used from natural sources already found in the nature, as they sacrifice cost over our health any day.

It would cost more money to mass produce something sweet found in nature, like a real leaf from a once living plant, and so factory's can produce something made from chemicals instead to save time and cost.

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There is much controversy over sweeteners found in foods and drinks with a huge sticker advertising No Added Sugars! regarding the long term effects of them. It seems that healthier variations of common thing we eat and drink daily like CocaCola never made it into popularity such as CocaCola Life and instead we are getting the healthier option to have Aspertame used and commonly advertised in all fizzy drinks.

My personal opinion is this.. If there is controversial news on something where there's two groups of people saying two different things, one says its ok, and the others say its poison - then why even bother to risk it if there's no real need to?
Its very rare that I would drink CocaCola, but at least if I had to, I would take the original version (Not the one where it had actual cocaine in it) - I mean the one with just the 27% added sugar because at least we know already the effects of this. When I was living in society, I did drink a lot of fizzy drinks and did try Pepsi max when it was new but didn't like the taste and luckily I avoided any sweeteners.

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It seems just like hidden added sugars - which do harm us - we are now getting hidden very questionable artificial sweeteners such as aspartame which are being added in and are being sold off as "ok" for our health when in fact if you look at independent study's to the mainstream media, then you certainly wouldn't think that its "OK".

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A Diagram from someone telling straight it how it is, and the safer choice's..

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So the good variety's of sweeteners?

Don't worry they do exist! nature provides everything really, but we just don't get told about it. I believe the most common natural sweetener that's known to many is called Stevia. This has already possible been erased from the super market shelves because it isn't bad for us in anyway, all I see in products people are buying are with added aspertame.

Here's a picture of Stevia above a picture of Aspertame..

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What one would you prefer if you got the choice?!

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Apart from the well known Stevia, there are also 2 other truly natural sweeteners to replace refined white sugars they are called sugar alcohols.

• Erythritol - This is a sugar found in certain fruits. It can be found in health food shops and has no effect on the blood sugar level and its roughly 70% the sweetness of white sugar.

• Xylitol - This is derived from wood. After a process it can create a sugar alcohol that is the same sweetness as sugar itself. Its been used since century's by civilizations and has even been proven to help in maintaining the teeth.

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The Obvious Alternatives

Some will say that alternative sugars such as Honey are good for us to use instead of sugar, but we overlook the fact that honey is still sugar that will be added to our diet and then we would still consume a lot of sugar, and maybe even more so as we believe it not to be also harming us.

It is a better Alternative but you should watch how much honey you take in a day. It contains high amounts of Fructose which is much better than white refined sugar, but its still very much a sugar, which is also found in the white sugar that you think your avoiding!

You can take a trip to the local organic shop and even just to see whats available these days, its quite a shock as to the huge array of natural and organic sweeteners there are available.

Molasses
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Coconut Sugar
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Maple Syrup

Image stolen from Amazon.com

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These Organic alternatives are very expensive which stops people from even thinking to buy them unless they are rich. Its a sad fact of society but its true, and so really the commoner has two real choices, and they are either to carry on eating lots of added sugar and take the blow later in life (if not already!) or just to quit sugars all together. One is easy the other is hard, but they are the only two choices for the average human.

I really hoped these posts gave an insight into the real dangers and effects that added sugars are having on you and YOUR life. If you consider yourself an activist, that's "changing the world" then you should also be cutting out that sugar consumption!

I'm not an Expert but I am Aware! Anarchy starts peacefully and ends peacefully and begins inside of yourself first!

Here are the links to the previous part of this series:

• Part 1 - Sugar and Our Mood
• Part 2 - Sugar and Our Hunger
• Part 3 - Sugar, Slavery and You
• Part 4 - Sugar, The Browner The Better
• Part 5 - The Sugar Series Continues - Healthy Daily Amounts and Examples
• Part 6- Teeth & Sickness
• Part 7 - Depression

As usually Big love & Abundance..

@movingman