It Starts With Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways (13 page)

We bet you answered every one of these questions with a resounding, “Of course not!”

So do us a favor, please?

At some point, you will have to weigh the fleeting pleasure of a slice of pizza, pint of beer, or frozen yogurt against one or more of these scenarios.

Let’s start with some of the easy ones, just to get the ball rolling.

We’re going to start with at least one thing we should all agree on: Sugar does not make you healthier.

Do you want to argue with that? Can
anyone
make a case that added sugar contributes positively to our health?
^*

What may surprise you is that both sugar and artificial sweeteners fail all four of our Good Food standards.

We think of the sweet stuff first when describing foods that provoke an unhealthy psychological response. Because the sweetness of
sugar is addictive
, eating an excess amount is easy. The more sugar we eat, the more we get acclimated to high levels, and the more we want.

Artificial sweeteners may be even
more
problematic because they are designed to deliver a sweetness hit that is far beyond what you could ever find in nature.

Aspartame
(Equal) and stevia are 200 to 300 times sweeter than table sugar.

Sucralose (Splenda) is 600 times sweeter than table sugar.

Saccharin (Sweet’N Low) is up to 700 times sweeter than table sugar.

Remember the Vegas Strip analogy? Artificial sweeteners are the very definition of “supernormally stimulating.”

These artificial sweeteners provide taste and reward sensations the likes of which we (biologically) have never before experienced, burning our taste buds (and pleasure centers) out on stimuli that are simply otherworldly. It thus becomes harder and harder for us to experience the same level of pleasure and reward that we did the last time we ate them—and makes it darn near impossible to appreciate the natural flavors found in fresh foods.

Wait—we’ll tell you a story.

At one of our nutrition workshops, after the section on artificial sweeteners, a lovely woman shyly raised her hand and asked, “But if I can’t sweeten my strawberries with Splenda, how do I make them taste sweet?”

Bless her heart.

This phenomenon is all too common in artificial sweetener users.

Added sugar is one of the quickest and easiest foods to provoke an unhealthy hormonal response. Overconsumption of sugar-sweetened, nutrient-poor processed foods means blood sugar levels rise too high, too often, which promotes a reliance on carbohydrate for fuel. Excess carbohydrate is turned into triglycerides, which, along with chronically elevated blood sugar, contributes to leptin resistance. It also means fat isn’t burned for fuel, which may lead to an accumulation of body fat. Leptin resistance promotes further overconsumption, which means fat accumulates inside cells, leading to insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, and chronically elevated insulin levels. Elevated cortisol levels promote stress-related cravings, which generally means you reach for more sweet foods with lots of added sugar.

It’s a vicious cycle.

Sugar also messes with the healthy environment of our guts, specifically altering the delicate balance of “good” and “bad” bacteria. Unfriendly gut bacteria love refined sugars, which means your added sugar intake serves only to promote the existence of the bad guys—and can reduce the population of good guys. This condition (called dysbiosis) can lead to gas, bloating, cramps, diarrhea, constipation, and inflammatory symptoms like fatigue, body aches, headaches, and joint problems. Artificial sweeteners like Splenda may also kill off your beneficial flora, even when consumed in “normal” amounts.

Finally, sugar promotes inflammation in the body two different ways. First, concentrated sugars added to processed foods promote overconsumption, which in turn promotes inflammation via leptin and insulin resistance. In addition, sugar’s effect on gut bacteria and promotion of gut dysbiosis (like when “bad” bacteria are wreaking havoc) is by definition an inflammatory condition in the gut.

Now that we’ve got
that
out of the way, let’s talk about what we mean by “added” sugars.

First, we’re
not
talking about the natural sugars found in whole foods, like fruit. Remember, we don’t practice food reductionism—fruit is not sugar, fruit is
food
! There is sugar in fruit, but as we’ll soon discuss, that sugar comes in a micronutrient-dense package of vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, fiber, and water. That kind of sugar is
not
the stuff we’re cautioning you against.

Added sugar is any form of sugar or sugar alternative added to foods or beverages when they are processed or prepared. It’s the raw sugar you put in your coffee, the honey you add to your tea or the agave syrup that sweetens your ice cream. We don’t discriminate between the source or the form, and we don’t care whether it’s “all natural” or “unrefined.” As you’ll learn in this chapter:

There are some metabolic differences between specific forms of sugar (glucose, fructose, lactose, etc.), but they all have one thing in common: a sweet taste that promotes overconsumption, and no significant nutritive value. Empty calories. Which means there is nothing special or “better” about honey, or maple syrup, or agave, or blackstrap molasses.

So in summary, sugar and artificial sweeteners fail all four of our Good Food standards and do not make you healthier. And yes, we know you’re dying to ask a question right now. “But if I
am
going to eat sugar, what form of sugar is the least bad?”

Let’s save the answer for after the next section.

This section is going to be short, because alcohol has no redeeming health qualities. We don’t care what you’ve heard about red wine or agave tequila or gluten-free beer—the common denominator of all these beverages is the
alcohol
, and the
alcohol
is the primary problem. (We’ll address some of the marketing claims to make booze appear to be a less-guilty pleasure later.)

Alcohol fails all four of our Good Food standards. First, in terms of a healthy psychological response, alcohol is addictive. Not just the colloquial definition of “addiction”—it’s
actually
addictive in the clinical definition: promoting desire even in the face of negative consequences, tolerance to the effect of the substance, and withdrawal symptoms when use is reduced or stopped.

Regularly consuming things that are known to be clinically addictive doesn’t sound super healthy to us.

But for those of us who are merely social drinkers (and not worried about addiction), alcohol still promotes an unhealthy psychological effect.

Alcohol inhibits our inhibitory mechanisms. Which means that when you are under the influence, you are more likely to make bad decisions.
^*

Consuming something that is going to blunt your judgment—leading to late-night splurges on pizza, ice cream, or an entire tube of cookie dough—does not facilitate your success in making good food choices. Furthermore, it takes only a small amount of alcohol to impair inhibitions and decision making—and the effects on the brain carry over until the next day. Which means that a drink or three on a Friday night may lead to a weekend’s worth of poor food choices.

You may know what we’re talking about.

From a hormonal perspective, alcohol consumption interferes with glucose function in the body and with the actions of regulatory hormones like insulin and glucagon. Even in well-nourished people, alcohol can disturb blood sugar levels. Especially when combined with sugar (Jack and Coke, anyone?), alcohol increases insulin secretion, which pulls too much blood sugar out of the bloodstream, causing
temporary hypoglycemia.
Furthermore, alcohol can impair glucagon’s normal function, leaving your blood sugar levels too low for too long—a very stressful situation for the body.

Finally, as a special bonus hormonal effect, acute
and
chronic alcohol consumption have been known to inhibit testosterone production.

Ouch.

Numerous studies also show—rather conclusively, in fact—that alcohol directly promotes intestinal permeability and overgrowth of gut bacteria, contributing to a leaky gut and all of the downstream inflammatory effects. But that’s not the only way alcohol affects your immune system: both acute and chronic alcohol use impair cellular immunity, leaving your immune system even less prepared to deal with inflammatory consequences. Alcohol is also pro-oxidative, meaning that it contributes to oxidation in the body: it reduces antioxidant levels by increasing free radicals, which (as we’ll detail soon enough) contributes to chronic systemic inflammation.

Let’s discuss the arguments
in favor of
certain types of alcohol—like “heart healthy” red wine. First caveat: