2Refined sugar

Refined Sugar

It’s a well-studied fact that sugar is one of the main foods to avoid if you have cancer. Consider this – for PET scanning which is one method used to diagnose cancer, patients are injected with radioactively marked sugar. This reaches those organs and tissues that consume a lot of sugar. Cancerous tumor cells ingest almost 30 times more sugar than normal tissue, allowing doctors to easily pinpoint the location of the cancerous cells.

You don’t need a more convincing reason to drop processed sugars from your diet. Unlike naturally occurring sugars in fruits and dairy that come along with vitamins, minerals, essential enzymes, protein and/or fiber, refined sugar is a nutrient-poor source of sweetness found lurking in a lot of packaged foods; even in stuff that doesn’t taste sweet such as sauces, mayo and burger buns.

The sheer number of ways manufacturers hide sugar in their products is mind-boggling. There are over 50 names for it – sucrose, refiner’s syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), buttered syrup, invert sugar, diastatic malt, maltodextrin, rice syrup, ethyl maltol, barley malt, maltose and crystalline fructose among others.

Alternative: Grab a sweet and fiber-rich treat like an apple or grapes for dessert. Also eat more protein-filled, unprocessed food with healthy fats such as nuts, fish, sprouted beans, goat’s cheese, and homemade nut butters. Consuming nutrient-rich foods are excellent for staving off sugar cravings completely.