Holistic nutrition experts insist that our diets be balanced and that we remove any ingredients that are known to be counter-productive or even harmful. Government nutrition experts however do little to point out the significant problems caused by our over reliance on sugar and how this rather simple and unassuming product can cause an addiction as bad as some of the items listed within restricted schedules.

Like any addictive substance, refined sugar has little or no value for your body. Quite the contrary, ingestion tends to draw on vitamins and minerals present within your bloodstream for processing. We can see quite an analogy between some of the most addictive and dangerous banned substances and our innocent act of eating or drinking sugar. Each has the consequence of creating an unnatural “high” and each can cause long-term organ damage over time.

When we add sugar to foods or drinks or rely on processed items that are heavily infused with simple sugars, then we are choosing that initial boost of energy and reward because of our “sweet tooth” with a subsequent crash and a conversion of the ingredients into stored fat. While some of the protected, scheduled drugs may be known to create problems for our major organs, an overreliance on simple sugar intake can lead to an excess of insulin production and the onset of diabetes. All that stored fat will invariably lead to obesity and all the problems that condition brings with it.

When sugar was first introduced to our diet it was touted as the purest form of food and one which required very little in the way of preparation. It is this very simplicity that has undoubtedly caused simple and refined sugars to become one of the scourges of our modern diet. Drugs often represent the easy way out within any situation and sugar represents an easy, every day, “acceptable” fix.

Holistic health solutions focus our attention on eating a balanced, natural diet, leading a healthy lifestyle, exercising and avoiding any kind of excess. Moderating our sugar intake ranks very highly on a list of concerns and requires us to realize that our sugar addiction can be very damaging indeed.

When people turn to sugar, they may well be anticipating that additional burst of energy and the ability to “get it together” and face the tasks ahead. What they do not understand is that the ingestion of sugar triggers a complex level of activity within us. The bloodstream becomes flooded with glucose from the sugars, which our body then realizes it must regulate. Insulin is released from your pancreas which in turn aims to convert this extra energy into fat reserves. This is in no doubt a fall back to the days when our bodies could not necessarily rely on regular forms of energy and fats would be reserved for those lean times.

You do not have to be a medical doctor to know that an illness such as diabetes must be avoided at all costs. Experts tell us that hypoglycemia is a precursor to diabetes and is caused in part due to constant flows of sugar intake and insulin release, causing your body to become resistant to insulin, which is essential for such balancing.

As part of a holistic health solution it is important for every one of us to regulate the amount of simple sugars that we absorb. We might think that we are eating a balanced diet, but we should be reading those labels to make sure that sugars are not masquerading within what might otherwise be seen as a “healthy” approach. It is recommended that you only absorb a maximum of 40g of simple sugar per day. This can be found within one can of soda!

Few seem to follow a holistic nutrition approach to their diets, constrained as we are by our hectic lifestyles, schedules and what appears to be an inability to prepare wholesome meals creatively. We are constantly opting for the easy solution and loading our bodies up with excess fats, too many calories and those ever so sweet sugars. We know that the sugar rush will be followed by a sugar crash, but we do it anyway.

Many of us are proud of the fact that we do not resort to alcohol, drug abuse or cigarettes to get us through life and consider that our diets are sensible and realistic. However, while we may not have any of the more traditional addictions or vices, we may well have a sugar addiction without really realizing it.