Sugar consumption is at an all time high. Refined sugar in the form of sucrose and high fructose corn syrup is found in nearly all processed foods ranging from ketchup to coffee creamers. Excessive amounts can result in chronic illness such as Type-2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke.

Here are several ways you can quit your sugar craving without sacrificing taste.

 

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Sugar: Don’t Be Fooled By “Health” Claims

If you think your oatmeal and yogurt are health foods, time to turn the package over. Flavored instant oatmeal often contain large amounts of sugar with about three teaspoons of in each little packet.

Yogurt is another sneaky food. It does have naturally occurring dairy sugar and, if sweetened with fruit, the fruit has sugar too, but these aren’t the problem. The added stuff comes in the form of sucrose or high-fructose corn syrup.

 

Sugar: Try Prebiotic Foods

Honey is a good prebiotic food and reduces hunger pangs. Other foods with probiotics include asparagus, bananas, eggplant, garlic, kefir, sugar maple.

 

Sugar: Eat Dark Chocolate

Chocolate is a great tool for taming your sweet tooth. In neuroscience, this is called ‘gustatory habituation.’

Chocolate is a great way to train your brain to prefer less-sweet foods because there’s a wide variety of chocolate sold, from milk chocolate to upwards of 85 percent dark. As your preference moves toward darker chocolate, your tastes will be change so that you won’t even want your former sugar favorites.

 

Sugar: Eat More Fat

Indulging your cravings will only set you up for more failure later. High-corn syrup, high fructose foods cause blood spikes, leading to insulin imbalances. Follow this nasty downward cycle of cravings, spikes, and more sugar.

Instead, satisfy your cravings with healthy fats. Fat doesn’t raise your insulin levels, and insulin doesn’t acknowledge fat. Eat either avocado, ghee, or olive oil, at every meal.

 

Sugar: Learn To Understand Food Labels

Nutrition labels can be misleading. Educate yourself. Remember this quick tip: “ose” is gross. For example, high-fructose corn syrup,  on the label, say goodbye. Anything with sugar, rice syrup, corn syrup, or an “ose” (fructose, sucrose) as one of the first three ingredients, walk away.

Moreover, there are 56 names for sugar, and the food industry uses all of them. What they often do is use different kinds of sugar specifically to lower the amount of any given one so that it goes further down the ingredient list. It’s a sneaky trick that manufacturers use so that “sugar” isn’t the first thing people see. You can have different sugars for ingredient number five, six, seven, eight and nine; but if you add them up, it’s number one.

The FDA recently changed the rule and now manufacturers must list added sugars on ingredient labels.

 

Sugar: Boost Your Serotonin

A hormonal imbalance in serotonin may be to blame for your cravings. Serotonin exerts powerful influence over mood, emotions, memory, and cravings, especially for carbohydrates. When we’re feeling down or depressed, we naturally crave more sugars to stimulate the production of serotonin. Chronic stress and multitasking overload are the main causes of serotonin depletion.

Add chia seeds to your diet. This grain contains high amounts of tryptophan, the amino acid precursor of serotonin and melatonin.

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