Cutting Out the Sugar Cravings in Your Diet

by | Mar 28, 2013 | Artificial Sweeteners, Cravings, Diabetes, Food Choices, Obesity, Sugars, Weight Loss | 0 comments

1324382170k8jPw3

Some food manufacturers engineer products to contain (from their point of view) the optimal balance of sugar and high fructose corn syrup. Then when you eat them you feel maximum crave and keep eating, drinking and buying more of their products. Its what they call your bliss point!

They aim for that sweet spot that keeps you coming back for more. Its why you’ll find sugar in spaghetti sauce, peanut butter, ketchup, yogurt and (watch out for this!) low-fat, processed, frozen foods that say healthy or lean on the package.

But what can you do about it? see here

Few little question (Coke/LC meal replacement)

by | Mar 4, 2013 | Artificial Sweeteners, Questions about low carb, Weight Loss | 0 comments

I think we can lump Coke Zero and eating other artificial sweeteners into one. Rather than go into it at length here I would suggest you head over to aspartamesafety.com and find out why for instance airline pilots have been advised not to consume anything with aspartame in it.

My next question is would you consider drinking antifreeze? Well I’m guessing the answer is probably going to be no. Well the formula for some sugar alcohols so closely resembles that of antifreeze but you can actually use some of them as an antifreeze and seeing that antifreeze is unknown to be poisonous well that just speaks for itself.

The other thing about artificial sweeteners is that they are obviously produced by quite a complex chemical process and unfortunately the chemicals used in making them are themselves poisonous.

Whilst the manufacturers do obviously endeavor to remove as much of the poisonous chemicals that are used in their production as possible this is not a process which is a hundred percent and many of them are tainted.

Now whilst for an occasional consumption this may produce no detrimental effect, continual consumption over a number of years will mean that these chemicals can build up in the body and cause a whole range of problems.

As for low carb meal replacements my question is what’s wrong with real food?

Lastly the moot question of exercise, should it be aerobics or more strength? That depends on whose advice you want to follow. Unfortunately the professionals in the health and fitness industry have tended to go down the aerobics’ partway simply because it’s a great way of making money.

We all seemed to have been pushed into the position of thinking that the more effort and time we spend doing something the better it must be and exercise is no exception to this.

However more recent studies have shown that aerobic exercise does not do the heart nor virtually any other muscle as much good as was originally thought.

I would suggest you have a look at the work of Dr. Al Sears and a quick squint at Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Body book as they not only provide a wealth of information about what exercise does. They’re also extremely well researched and referenced and you’ll find many of the reports listed which both Tim and Dr. Sears have based their work upon. 

Obviously these are all just my opinions. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether they’re right or wrong.

Hope that helps,

Mark

This is the comment I made on a forum post about artificial sweeteners

Whipping Cream with Stevia?

by | Feb 8, 2013 | Artificial Sweeteners, Low carb diet | 0 comments

Here is a copy a recent comment I made on a forum post about artificial sweeteners

 

This is something that might interest all you sweetener-using addicts.

Most of us of course are far too young to remember rationing during and after the war but one housewife’s trick was to add a pinch of salt to any recipe that required using sugar because that meant the sweetness was enhanced which for the cook having to prepare food under rationing meant they could use less sugar and for the sweet tooth addicts amongst us means that we can use less sweetener. Of course you’ll have to adjust the amount of salt you use because just as each one of us has a different level of sensitivity to sweetness so too we have a different level of sensitivity to salty taste.

One of the most effective ways I’ve found for finding it is each time you make something add just a tiny bit more salt until you get to the time where you can just taste it and then go back to the quantity you previously put in for that particular recipe. On the other hand some people actually prefer the slightly salty-sweet taste that you get when you can just taste the salt.

Cheers,

Mark

Protein shakes??

by | Feb 5, 2013 | Artificial Sweeteners, Low carb diet | 0 comments

This is a copy of a recent comment I made on a post about protein shakes

 

Hi Jez,

There are of course a huge range of protein powders available on the market and all of them do have quite high protein content and there are some that only use whey as the source of protein which is obviously good and I would totally agree with Janet, don’t take anything with soy protein. It interferes with the way our body works on so many levels. It really should carry a health warning.

The only problem with commercially made whey protein mixes is that they do contain a lot of artificial sweeteners. When I say a lot I mean a lot, things like dextrose, maltodextrin, sucralose, sucrose and so on. So while you might be getting your protein you’ll be getting lots of other things that you don’t really want.

You can of course make your own protein shakes which you can base on nice full fat raw milk. If you want something thicker you can use yogurt or green yogurt, add to that some cottage cheese mainly because that contains the protein casein and some lauric. You can add to that something like some sort of nut butter, peanut butter for instance or even almond butter. Now with those ingredients you could literally put everything in the jar and shake it up but if you want to add some low carb fruit or something like that, I would suggest you use a blender to make the mix. Now as it is like that it won’t be very sweet so if you’re looking for something sweet add some Stevia or a good quality stevia extract and voila… you have your home made, ever so tasty, guaranteed natural protein shake!

Hope that helps,

Mark

sugar alcohols

by | Jan 24, 2013 | Artificial Sweeteners, Weight Loss | 0 comments

Another comment on a post at forum.lowcarber.org about sugar alcohol

 

bbmedic413 posted:

What are your opinions towards sugar alcohols? Do you count them towards net carbs or not?

 

My opinion:

Hi bbmedic413,

My opinion of sugar alcohols is I wouldn’t touch them with a barge-pole. Anything that close to antifreeze is not something I’d really want to eat for pleasure which does of course have the advantage that I don’t have to count if there’s any type of carb.

If I do want something to sweeten a dish, I tend to use Stevia either as the fresh leaf or dried although to my taste the fresh leaf does taste better.

As hanfordian says, do be careful snacking on anything with sugar alcohols in. They are very easy to overdo and overdoing sugar alcohols can cause all sorts of unpleasantness digestion wise.

Cheers,

Mark

 

2 questions

by | Jan 23, 2013 | Artificial Sweeteners, Low carb diet | 0 comments

Here is a comment that I made on a post about low carb diet at fattoskinny.net

 

maidmarian asked:

Do nuts or seeds play a role in a low carb diet?  Also, I chew a lot of Spry (xylitol) gum all day, is this ok?

 

My response:

Hi maidmarian,

Yes I have to admit nuts and seeds are one of my little passions as far as treats go and at certain times of the day I can often be seen rifling around the cupboard looking for a handful of nuts just to amuse my taste buds for a little while.

But like Andrea has said it’s good to be choosy about what types of nuts you eat, pecans and walnuts are indeed nuts that contain some of the lowest amount of carbohydrates but top of the list of those to stay away from particularly this time of the year are roasted chestnuts, they contain anything up to 20 times as many carbs as pecans and walnuts do.

As fro xylitol, well out of all the synthetic sweeteners, that is probably the one that gives us the least problem particularly in its purest form but if you have pets do remember to keep it away from them as it can be extremely harmful if not deadly for many pets but more so to dogs.

Hope that’s useful,

Mark