The fear of fructose (sugar) has seen us move away from whole foods like honey and fruit. Beautiful, nutrient filled foods which happen to have fructose components as part of their whole.
Human beings have always and can continue to process fructose efficiently in these forms. The issue lies with isolated fructose and in our load of fructose. Our ancestors ate seasonal fruit, in reasonable amounts. We love sugar and have always been attracted to it as a species because it gives us quick energy and essentially keeps us alive.
BUT if you eat an enormous fruit salad for lunch each day this isn’t the best choice you could make plus we could probably add to it so it serves you better in terms of energy and blood sugar levels.
If you add to that fruit salad with skim milk and cereal for breakfast, sweetened yoghurt and a soft drink or two throughout the day, we can see how the load of fructose on our body starts to easily rise.
Processed fructose such as high fructose corn syrup is also to blame for the negative side of sugar, which seems to be in MOST pacakaged foods these days and can be disguised under a number of names.
However, I have not seen any harm come from nature's sweetener, honey. Honey naturally contains chromium so it balances our blood sugar levels when we eat it. Brown rice syrup, a popular "healthy" alternative however has a GI of around 98 so it spikes your blood sugar. Plus, I have to ask, how did they get rice to become that?
My advice is to look for real whole foods always and avoid highly processed alternatives to what nature has given us. Eat a range of foods in moderation and stick to seasonal fruits and vegetables as this is when our body can best utilise those sugars and nutrients.
You really can’t go wrong if you follow these simple principles. We are smarter than ever with so much knowledge and information at our fingertips, but this can be a dangerous thing when we try to put that information into our everyday lives. We must search for balance amongst all of the information and fight to maintain it every day.