Halloween is upon us and that means candy! Uhm, uhm, good. Here’s a list of my 10 favorite Halloween candies. Apparently, I have a wicked bad sweet tooth.
Peanut M&Ms
Mounds Bar
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
Snickers
100 Grand Bar
Milky Way
Mr. Goodbar
Butterfinger
Twix
KitKat
Sugar is so prevalent in our society that a song (“Sugar, Sugar”) was even written about it in the 1960s and was originally recorded by the cartoon band the Archies. The single was released in 1969, and quickly rose to the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, where it remained for 4 weeks, giving The Archies their first gold record and becoming the #1 song for 1969 according to Billboard magazine. Seriously? In 1969 the #1 song was “Sugar, Sugar” by the Archies?
Sugar, ah honey honey
You are my candy girl
And you got me wanting you
Honey, ah sugar sugar
You are my candy girl
And you’ve got me wanting you . . .
In addition to sugary sweets, sugar in its various forms is also found in many different types of foods we consume and this has led to an epidemic of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver, and variety of other adverse health-related issues. Sugar is even considered to be as addictive as certain drugs. Really?
Scientists have found that sugar is addictive and stimulates the same pleasure centers of the brain as cocaine or heroin. Just like those hard-core drugs, getting off sugar leads to withdrawal and cravings, requiring an actual detox process to wean off. (Are you addicted to sugar?)
According to the Addiction Center,
“The clearest signs of sugar addiction involve consumption of large amounts of food or drinks laden with sugar. The individual may eat constantly, eat to combat boredom, and become hyper and crash. They may even talk about craving sugar after stressful or irritating life experiences.”
Yes, exactly! What’s their point? What’s a sugar craving fiend supposed to do?
Why is it that some types of food are considered to be “good” foods and other foods are considered to be “bad” foods? For example, fat is “bad”, carbohydrates (i.e., bread, potatoes, sugar) are “bad”, red meat is “bad”, and gluten is “bad”, but fruits, vegetables and whole grains are “good”. Isn’t food in general good since we need it to live? When did we decide to wage campaigns against certain types of food?
For much of modern human history, the most ominous calories in our food were said to come from fat. It seemed obvious. Fat makes you fat, right? . . . Carbs, we were led to believe, skipped the digestive tract and went straight to your ass, and not in a good way . . . And now it’s sugar that’s [f word] up everything about your life. Whether it’s cancer, obesity, acne, . . . there’s someone out there saying its sugar’s fault . . . There’s a lot of misinformation swirling around out there about sugar. – Yvette d’Entremont (Who’s Afraid of Sugar?)
There is a New York Times bestselling book entitled “I Quit Sugar”. I haven’t read it, because I quit something too; I quit reading stuff written by fear mongering idiots. The anti-sugar movement is dietary zealotry gone meth-infused apesh%!. – James Fell (Anti-Sugar Cultists)
The more carbohydrates (i.e., sugar) you eat, the more energy (calories) you put into your body. The more energy you give your body, the more energy you have to burn to prevent fat storage. . . if you give your body a lot more energy than it needs every day, whether from excess amounts of protein, carbohydrate, or dietary fat, you’ll get fatter. . . Chemically speaking, sugar doesn’t cause physical addiction like drugs do. Yes, it can make you feel good, but so can eating many other types of food or sailing a boat or winning a prize or kissing a girl. Our pursuit of pleasure is not equal to physical addiction. – Michael Matthews (Stop Worrying About Sugar)
If sugar is so bad for us then why is there a college football tournament called the Sugar Bowl? More importantly, why is the Sugar Bowl sponsored by Allstate Insurance and not by Domino Sugar?
Or, what about the song “Pour Some Sugar on Me” by Def Leppard. What could be wrong about pouring sugar on someone? For years every time I heard this Def Leppard song, I really thought pouring some sugar on someone was just that! Apparently when I researched it “pouring some sugar on someone” is not literally pouring some sugar on someone. (Please Google it since this is supposed to be a respectable blog post.)
Anyway, I’m “pro-sugar”. Happy Halloween!!
Regards,
Matt
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