Sugar: Stay Away From NutraSweet and Discover Splenda

Sugar and Capitalism: An Unhealthy Combination

If you are an average American-and by the way, did you know that half the people you'll meet in your life will be below average-then by the time you go to sleep tonight you will have taken in twenty teaspoons worth of refined sugar, or roughly 20% more than the average American took in ten years ago.

In case you were wondering, this is not healthy. And by the way, this is being written by a guy who takes in about a liter of Mountain Dew Code Red a day, so I know whereof I speak. It's not just a question of rotting your teeth out. (Believe me, I know all about that, too!) If you check the nutrition label on soft drinks or candy, most often you'll find it contains little or no fat at all. So, you probably go on ahead and consume it, thinking you're safe from gaining weight. But guess what? You aren't.

Read those labels carefully. They contain some important figures. For instance, did you know that a normal healthy person is capable of metabolizing two teaspoons (8g) of sugar at the same time? Therefore, if you see on the label that what you're eating contains more than 8g of sugar, don't eat it. Unfortunately for me, this means giving up my precious red gold. So I don't do it. But I'm trying.

In addition, the weight problems, sugar can be doubly problematic because people get addicted to it. There are actually people so addicted to the white stuff-sugar-that they must have it in their systems all the time. These people actually experience withdrawal if they don't have a constant intake, so they schedule their meals and snacks around the consumption of sugar. Wondering what the symptoms of sugar addiction withdrawal are? Headaches, tiredness, shakiness, even depression. It can get pretty bad. Sometimes these people confuse their sugar addiction with caffeine addiction.