Low-fat diets and low-fat foods have been very popular over the last couple of decades. A high percentage of customers have been misled. Few check the food label. Check it out for yourself. A low-fat food product is more than likely to be loaded with sugar! Choosing one of these products as a diet solution is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. You have not solved your problem in fact you may have made the worst choice. If you have to enjoy the low-fat product do so as a food choice, do not regard such foods as part of your overall diet solutions. However as you read further you may be ready to steer clear of all such products.

Exposing the Hidden Enemy

But are these low-fat products the only food item in which sugar is the hidden enemy? Imagine watching a person with a sugar bowl sprinkling 22 teaspoons of sugar over their breakfast cereal. The reality is that today the average person consumes 22 teaspoons of sugar which means that a lot of people are consuming a lot more than 22 teaspoons. It may well be that the major problem with the average diet is not fat but sugar. Food companies know that generally people like sweet foods and they pander to this taste to increase sales. They use fructose as their major food sweetener and they are using this in massive amounts. Do you want to know where the 22 teaspoons of sugar or more are coming from – it is from the fructose that is being added to just about every food and drink being made and sold to today. No wonder people all over the world are trying out so many diet solutions.

Sugar in Our Bodies

Normal sugar as we generally know it is made up of 50% glucose and 50% of another form of sugar called fructose. Glucose is the primary energy source of the body. Glucose can be used by every cell in the body. Pure sterilized glucose can be injected directly into the body when a medical emergency demands it. Every cell in the body from our brains to our muscles will burn glucose. But what about fructose? Fructose is a slightly more complex form of sugar. It cannot be used by the body cells directly. Before fructose is available to the body cells it has to be broken down into glucose and this is done by the liver. So far all this is perfectly normal and healthy.

Fructose is found in foods such as honey, sweet potato and most other fruits and vegetables. These natural forms of fructose can be processed by the liver without detriment to our health. The levels of fructose as found in these foods do not pose a problem to a normally functioning liver. However a major problem arises when we consume food and drinks that contain massive amounts of fructose. Our bodies were simply not made to process massive amounts of fructose and at the same time maintain a normal liver function. Fructose throws a big spanner in the works of our body chemistry. Our fructose loaded “low-fat” diet products are not the diet solutions that they are advertised to be.

Fructose and our Livers

How is fructose converted to glucose? This is the job of the liver. But our livers today are called on to process a whole mass of other junk food additives which are simply chemicals. These are the food preservatives, flavour enhancers and colourings found in most packaged foods. On top of this now add the caffeine from our coffee and all the medications we take for every aliment. Now on top of all that add the amount of alcohol the average person drinks. Is it any wonder that detox programs are popular to cleanse out the liver and are often sold as part of some diet solutions.

Problems in the Liver

This is all a complex process but we can summarise by saying that our livers are having a hard job coping with this onslaught of non-food substances that have become part the modern world’s toxic lifestyle. On top of this we are now looking at the massive amounts of fructose added to most prepared food and drink. Before the liver can process the fructose it has to deal with getting rid of these toxic substances which it will always address first. While the liver is doing this the high levels of fructose interferes with receptors in the body that monitor for our hormone insulin levels. As a result the body thinks we need more insulin and far greater amounts of insulin are pumped into our blood stream. So now we are looking at a situation that has produced high levels of fructose from what we have eaten and drunk. These high levels of fructose have adversely affected our insulin levels leaving us with higher insulin levels than we require. High levels of fructose have the adverse effect of increasing our blood pressure. Our body chemistry is now out of balance thanks to our hidden enemy, fructose.

Insulin Levels

But we have not finished. Insulin tells body cells to burn glucose. But now thanks to the excess of fructose our bodies think we need more insulin when in fact there is an overabundance of the hormone in our blood stream. What happens when we have too much insulin? If allowed to continue it leads to type 2 diabetes, which can go on to lead to kidney failure, blindness and in even amputation.

But even that is not the end of the story. Insulin is now surging around the body looking for glucose. Remember glucose is still being produced by the liver as it struggles to cope with the overload of fructose. Any excess of glucose and insulin converts this to glycogen which it stores in our muscles and liver. But the body is only designed to store glycogen up to a level of what we need for about one active day. Anything more and the excess glucose is stored around the body as saturated fat. And what is to blame for all this adverse body chemistry? Too much Fructose!

Who is Being Conned?

I will admit these pages have been a simplification of a very complex process that is constantly taking place in our bodies. Our liver is an amazing organ and it can take a fair bit of abuse. But if we are looking to lose weight we need to give the liver a fair go. Unfortunately we have come to trust the food companies from which we buy our food and drink. In a sense they have let us down since the vast majority of these foods are loaded with corn syrup which is a cheap form of fructose. Our health has been compromised on their need for sales and we have been taken advantage of because we all like sweet foods. We put on weight and then they sell us “low-fat” foods that are loaded with fructose which end up as fat in our bodies. Who is being conned?

The only diet solutions that really work are lifestyle changes that take us back to more natural foods prepared in our own kitchens. To learn more visit my website below.

Author Bio: Frank Rogers writes on diet, weight loss and lifestyle. He prefers to see the positive aspects and rewards of lifestyle change and is not afraid to embrace new and radical ideas if they if they produce positive results. Two very different programs challenge much of contemporary thinking and he feels they are worth a closer evaluation. To learn more of these positive lifestyle changes visit www.burnfathowto.com

Category: Wellness, Fitness and Diet
Keywords: diet solutions, low-fat, fructose.