The Practical Nutritionist, LLC

Audrey J Pellegrino, M. Ed, M.HN,CNW®

Nationally board Certified Nutritional Wellness

Holistic Nutritionist/Educator

603-768-3214

practicalnutrition@gmail.com

www.pnutritionist.com

MY SWEETEST VALENTINE!

Again, it is the time of the year when our thoughts turn to love, romance, chocolate and sugar.

While love and romance are wonderful things, and raw chocolate can be, sugar is on the top of the do not eat list. Yet, we crave it and most of us were conditioned to through our mother’s milk or formula. For centuries one form or another of sugar has been used. Molasses, honey, sugar cane, sorghum syrup, maple syrup, carrots, beets, corn and agave nectar have been used as sweeteners. During the slave trade industry the battles among countries were called the wars of blood and sugar. Everyone wanted to control the sugar routes and plantations because they knew that is where the money was; sugar was and is still a coveted item.

Today most of our sugar is hidden in our foods as high fructose corn syrup or on our tables as white, granulated sugar. High Fructose Corn syrup is in 80% of our foods, from ketchup to bread to chicken. It is a sugar and sugars are high in calories and take a lot of your vitamins and minerals to digest them. During the winter we need as many vitamins and minerals as we can to keep our immune system at an optimal level (other sweeteners such as maple syrup or molasses may have trace minerals). Now, I try to be practical, hence my name the Practical Nutritionist, so I will not expect you to give up all sugars, and I know that you probably will not be able to give up high fructose corn syrup completely, but if it is listed as one of the first five ingredients on a food label, do not eat that food and try to limit it in any other foods, where it is listed past the first five ingredients.

There is a series of wonderful advertisements now on television and in the media telling you that high fructose corn syrup is natural and good for you. First of all please notice that the advertisements are made by the corn association and they wouldn’t tell you anything different.

Remember that if something is created in a laboratory it is no longer natural. Natural is what can be picked, plucked, fished, hunted, grown or gathered.

Our liver and adrenal glands are so busy dealing with the stressors of our foods, pollution and lives that it needs all of the vitamins and minerals we get out of our foods. When you eat something that is high in sugars your liver has to use your vitamins and minerals to process it. As well the extra sugar causes an increase in insulin which causes a cycle of storing the extra sugar as fat and causing you to crave more later on.

So during the month of February try reducing your sugar intake and you may find you have more energy and a smaller waist, which just may lead to more of that February love and romance.