I was in the grocery store recently. A little girl picked up a 16 ounce bag of candy and said to her mother, “Look, Mommy! It’s half the size of the big bag which means I’ll get half the sugar. Can I have it?”

The mother smiled, as if delighted in her daughter’s reasoning skills, and put the candy in her buggy.

People! People! People! When are you going to do something about your love affair with sugar? It’s killing you! I’m serious.

I know you think it’s hard to kick the sugar habit, but try spending a day on a dialysis machine and see how hard that is. Or, maybe hop around on one leg for a whole day as if you had a below knee amputation. Or, you could always blind fold yourself and see how many days you can go pretending to be blind.

All of these, and more, are very real outcomes of diabetes.

Pretty scary sounding, don’t you think? Good. I’m going for the “scared straight” approach. You really need to know what’s going to happen when you eat processed sugar.

The information’s out there. Why don’t people act on it? Why do they keep doing the same old things expecting different results?

I see parents constantly giving candy and sweets to children. Last night at my grandkids dance recital,  a mother was passing out chocolate candy to help the kids “keep their energy levels up.” She said it was from the health food store – as if that somehow made it better for you. I was appalled!

You’d think she would know better. OK, maybe she doesn’t. She’s probably not professionally trained in health and nutrition.

As if being professionally trained matters – in this matter? Well, it doesn’t. A lot of professionals are just as bad as this mother when it comes to sugar.

And this really annoys me! There are hundreds of professionals (who, in my opinion, should know better) – doctors, dieticians, nutritionists, diet coaches, exercise gurus – who preach it’s alright to eat sugar in moderation.

(Not all professionals experience a lapse in sweet judgment. There are plenty who stand with me about sugar. I’m only calling out the ones who erroneously promote moderate sugar consumption.)

I’m sure you’ve seen it in their books, blogs, magazine articles, syndicated columns, infomercials, talk show appearances and on and on.

They’ll tell you things like it won’t hurt you to eat some sugar once in a while. You work hard so you have to reward yourself every now and then. Eating a strictly healthy diet is too difficult – go ahead and cheat. You deserve it.

And my personal favorite, “Depriving yourself of sweets isn’t good for you.” Well, neither is a diabetic coma!

Where’s the sense in all of this professionally poor advice. Look at the stats people! According to the CDC, 25.8 million Americans have diabetes while 79 million adult Americans over 20 are estimated to have prediabetes.

Yikes! That’s a lot of people.

That’s a lot of sugar! How much sugar you might ask? (Glad you asked.)

A researcher, Stephan Guyenet, over at Whole Health Source  dug through old government statistics and found out that in 1822 Americans ate an average of 6.3 pounds of sugar PER YEAR. Did you get that “PER YEAR” part?

Here’s his chart.

Source: Whole Health Source

You can see the steady growth in sugar consumption as time passes. Today, Americans are eating OVER 100 pounds of sugar PER YEAR (some sources put it as high as 158 pounds/person/year).

Does it sound to you like Americans are able to control their sugar intake?

The “don’t deprive yourself of sweets” advice peddled by professionals in magazines, blogs and TV appearances is down right negligent.

Don’t listen to them people!

Think about it for a moment. It’s self-serving for them to recommend sweets – even if it is once in a while. These professionals should know you can’t control yourselves – the evidence is clear. Increasing rates of diabetes, obesity and heart disease are hard to miss (unless you’re suffering from professional cognitive dissonance OR you have a financial stake in promoting sugar).

ALL the professionals telling us it’s OK to eat sugary foods every now and then make money from the illnesses caused by sugary foods. It’s true people!

Doctors, dieticians, nutritionists, diet coaches, exercise gurus all have a vested interest in your poor health. After all, you only visit these people when you’re sick, diabetic or overweight.

If you were healthy, fit and trim you wouldn’t need any of these professionals, would you?

Sugar, and I’m talking about added sugar – not natural fruit sugar – has NO nutritional value whatsoever. There’s NO healthy reason to eat added sugar. No one has ever died of a deficiency of added sugars. However, people die every day from too much sugar.

It’s time to change the “deprivation” mind set about sugar. You’re not depriving yourself by not eating sugar. Quite the contrary! When you eat sugar you’re actually depriving yourself of a healthy, full life.

Ask anyone who’s lost their leg to diabetes if they feel deprived now.

Related Articles:

Low Glycemic Fruits for Normal Blood Sugar Levels
List of Sugar Names and Sugar Facts
Sugar Addicts Guide to Overcoming Sugar Addiction