Balanced Sugar intake (is there such a thing?)

Welcome to the Balanced Body Podcast, where Sherri Griggs, owner of Balanced Body Health and Wellness in Omaha, talks to us about health, wellness, and balancing hormones. Sherri, hello! Welcome to the Balanced Body Health and Wellness Podcast with Sherri Griggs, owner-operator of Balanced Body Medical here in Omaha. How are you doing today, Sherri?

I'm tired today, John. It seems like it's been a really long week. How about you?

Oh my gosh, it has been a crazy long week. I think we're leading into kids going back to school, so all the stresses that come along with that, right?

Right. Hard to believe some— when you're thinking back to school, like the summer's over for the kids almost. Wow.

Okay, now here's the thing that drove me a little crazy. I went to the— I went to a store and their display changed already from back-to-school supplies, which they're not back in school yet, right? Halloween things. Have you noticed that?

3 months?

I know, they're trying to get a jump on it.

You know, that's funny you say that because what did I see? We were someplace and you're right, I saw Halloween stuff.

Yeah, isn't it crazy? It's still summer.

Yeah, the next thing you know, next month we'll be seeing Christmas already, right?

And they always jump right over Thanksgiving, which is the one that I like the most. Yeah, you know, we'll see if I still like it this year, but—

Oh, that's true. You can—

I know that I will enjoy it. It's one of my favorites.

Yeah. Definitely.

So talking about holidays and all, you know, it actually works as a good little segue. Today we were talking about sugar, how wonderful it is and how great it is for your body. Yeah. And how much we can eat. Right.

Because it's a really wonderful molecule that is so not good for your body.

I was trying to sneak it in, sneak it in.

I know you were. I know you were. So, you know, sugar, I mean, it is, it's interesting because sugar is a term that covers so many different things because our body needs, our cells need sugar for energy. Well, that's glucose, but sugar, right? And That's why when you're tired, you'll crave sweet foods or you'll crave carbohydrates because your body— you're tired and your body's thinking, I need energy because sugar is energy for your body. But it can be bad too.

It can?

Yes.

Like all bad or just a little bad?

Like pretty darn bad. Oh man, it does so many evil things.

I know, it's— look, I know that I, I'm, I'm being facetious because I know that sugar is horrible for you. It's addictive. And there's a whole bunch that I think that we could talk about sugar in a more political way, but we probably won't. Um, but in general, it being so addicting, I know exactly what that's all about because I'm completely addicted to sugar. So, right, it's gonna be one that's like close to the heart for me. And I've also been excited and dreading this conversation.

Yeah.

Well, because, you know, before I could be like, I could, I could have like plausible deniability, or, you know, maybe I just— maybe I knew that, but I didn't know that. After this, it'll all be final. It's like the nail in the coffin for why sugar is bad.

So I'm assuming you're not doing your eating sugar podcast anymore with your kids, right?

Um, well, we— it's not really a— it's Yes and no. They are outgrowing it, so we're not doing it so often, but it is something that every once in a while, you know, kids want to do. So we'll, we'll buy candy and then throw it up on YouTube, but that's a whole other thing.

Ah, the YouTube thing. Yes. Okay. Well, and you know, the thing is, because it is addictive, it's addictive, as addictive as heroin, and your body will crave it, you know, once you start eating it. It's funny because I, my friend and I would go on, we call our warm trip every year. We'd go on a cruise and I wouldn't eat dessert. And then I'd go on the cruise and I'm like, well, I'm on a cruise and I'd eat dessert, right?

Yeah.

And then I have dessert every day and then I get home and I crave dessert. I craved sugar. So, you know, because of the addiction and, you know, and we're really talking not about natural stuff, we're talking about our refined sugars, our white sugar, our brown sugar. All of these sugars that are refined and changed. Natural sugars like honey, maple syrup, molasses. That's why a lot of healthy foods that are sweetened will be sweetened with sugars like that. There's still sugars that affect your blood sugar if you're a diabetic.

Hmm.

But they're better for your body. And that they're not as inflammatory. So, for instance, let's think of something. Here's a good example of why processed or refined sugar is bad. So red beets actually contain— so sugar beets contain hemoglobin, right? That's a protein. And hemoglobin, if you've ever heard like, oh, hemoglobin level, you go to the doctor's office, that's a protein that's known for carrying oxygen.

Okay.

Um, but when sugar beets go through the multi-stage processing that they go through, that's removed.

Interesting.

So something that might be good is taken out.

Because it doesn't help the addictive nature of sugar.

Probably. I don't know, probably wouldn't look very pretty, right? You know, people like their white sugar, sugar, sugarcane. You know, even the sugarcane itself, and they talk about, um, people that would eat the sugarcane, um, but, but they still— the whole cane still had fiber. Right. It was still a natural at that point. It wasn't processed. So even a lot of— and you have to be careful because even you'll see labels with sugar in the raw or something. Sometimes they've just added a brown color to it or they've added molasses to it.

Huh.

So it's still a refined sugar. But they've added stuff to it so that— because in our mind we think, you know, oh, brown rice is better than white rice, so brown sugar, right? If it's— so we have to think about what process has happened to it. And, you know, it, it raises— without getting into too much details about glycemic index, that'll be another— we could— that'd be another conversation. But, um, it's just so inflammatory.

Oh my gosh.

When we eat a lot of sugar, it causes a lot of inflammation in our body.

So I guess my question is, are sugar substitutes worth— like, is it a baby step to just eliminating sugar altogether, or are sugar substitutes something that are okay?

Depending on what it is, right? So you remember our first diet was in it like, um, Phenol something. What was it? Um, aspartame. Aspartame.

Yeah.

Aspartame.

Aspartame.

Aspartame.

Yeah, I used to call it aspartame.

Yeah. Then there was saccharin, right? And then sucralose. So, so aspartame or aspartame is NutraSweet and Equal. Saccharin is Sweet'N Low and sucralose is Splenda. And sucralose is what they put in a lot of drinks for sweeteners. They all raise the blood sugar even higher than real sugar.

Because aren't they like more extreme? Like it's much sweeter. Like when my mom was on a health kick one time, And so she was putting aspartame in everything. And I made the big mistake of putting like half of a teaspoon in something. And like, I made that like sour face, you know, that you get when it's just too much of something.

Yeah.

Because it was just wicked sweet. I was like, what is this? Because I was used to just putting sugar on stuff.

Um, the way it tastes on your taste buds isn't necessarily why it affects the blood sugar. But think about this. I just said that artificial sweeteners that aren't real sugar raise the blood sugar more than real sugar does.

Yeah.

People would— that should be shocking.

Well, it is.

Because we thought that we could have all these things, but the problem is, is that it messes with the gut microbiome.

Back to the old second brain.

That's right. And that second brain is not fooled.

So you can't lie to your gut.

That's right. You should— oh, and you should always listen to your gut.

That's what they say. Feel those gut feelings.

Great book, Gift of Fear. Gavin de Becker wrote that book, and it talks all about listening to your gut. But not about food. But yes.

Yeah. So, okay. So, so just to get sort of a final answer on it, sweeteners in general, are they good for baby stepping into no sugar or should you just go somewhat like lessening your amounts of sugar?

Well, there are some things we didn't talk about. Now those were all artificial.

Oh, okay.

Okay, there is hope. We do still have sweeteners like monk fruit.

Oh, and that's good.

Stevia. Yeah, and make sure it is the stevia leaf, not, you know, when something says stevia and you read it and it's got 5 ingredients, how do they— it's been changed, right? It's not the natural Interesting.

I did not know that.

Stevia leaf. That's it.

I bought a thing of stevia, like a little container, you know, like put on stuff. I didn't really like it. So I switched to monk fruit and monk fruit is totally amazing. That being said, though, I didn't check the label on the stevia because I just assumed It's one thing, stevia.

Supposed to be, but they can call it stevia. I'm sure it's like, and I don't know this for a fact, but I'm sure, you know, you have to have a certain percentage. And once it's that percentage, then you can call it that. That's usually how it works. You have to have a certain percentage. For instance, like, um, a Cabernet can be called a Cabernet, but it's not all Cabernet grape. It just has a different percentage.

It's kind of like— it's so dumb. It's kind of like, do you know those— I can't even think of the name. There's like a spray oil, and the recommended amount of spray oil is so low that they're able to say 0% fat, but it's— you're spraying oil on stuff. And of course nobody uses the like It's supposed to be like a 1/10 of a second press is the like recommended amount or whatever they have like for the ingredients on there. And, you know, people like spray an entire pan of stuff. So it's just putting oil on something. How can that be 0% fat?

Well, and you go back to the serving size stuff, right? Like you're saying it's a certain amount. Like somebody will look at that and go, oh, look, there's only like 2 grams of sugar in this serving. Or there's only 2 grams of serving— 2 grams of sugar in this food, when you realize it's like 4 crackers.

Yeah, right.

Who just eats 4 crackers?

Yeah.

You might think you're eating 8 or 12, but now you've just doubled or tripled the amount of sugar. So that's why it's so important when you are reading labels that looking at serving sizes. I know somebody that I'm like, okay, it didn't say you could eat the whole box.

Well, see, and stuff like that is deceptive, and I hate that part about how food in America is kind of like that because, you know, there's things like the whole box syndrome where I understand, right? Like if you grab an entire thing of Oreo cookies and eat the entire thing, I agree. you're obviously not eating the recommended amount. But did you happen to know that it's like 2 cookies That seems like not enough of a recommended amount for like the majority of people who are actually eating this stuff. But they know that if they put 10 Oreo cookies or whatever, then it'll be like 10,000 calories and nobody will want it. So it's kind of dumb. The thing that I don't like— this is just me ranting, by the way, Sherri.

Okay.

The thing I don't like is when it's something that seems to be obviously One single serving. So I had— well, before we did the thing on energy drinks, you know, the podcast for that, I had had one and I drank it. And then I looked at the ingredients afterwards. I should have done it before. And I was looking and I was like, oh, that's not too bad. And it was just a single can, you know, so I figured it was for the one can. And then I looked up and it was like 2.5 servings for the can. I was like, you can't split the serving of a can that cracks open, right? To be, you know, the serving size. Like, that seems, that seems crazy deceptive.

And it is. It really is. But that's why we just have to be smarter, because you're right, you can't open a can and probably have carbonation in it. So What are you gonna do? How do you get 2.5 servings out of that? Share it with somebody and it's like, what, you each get 2 swallows?

Yeah. And then who gets the half? Why the half? The thing that was bothering me was that it was 2.5. At least make it— like, if you're gonna be deceptive, make it a half of a can, right? Yeah. And I have to do math. Like, I drank half the can, so now I need to do 1.25 of everything in here. If I'm counting, in which case, you know, I'm not counting because I'm drinking a stupid Monster or whatever. Exactly.

Which you're like, oh, that's not bad. It's only got 100 calories in a serving, but there's 2.5 of them.

Right.

It's the lesser of the evils. You know, you're like, okay, so do I use the sucralose, which is total poison, which will raise my blood sugar more than drinking the sugar? But that doesn't make sense to me because I was told if I drink sugared soda, I could lose— if I stop drinking sugar soda, I lose weight. So I went to sugar-free, but then I'm not losing weight. And that's why, right? Because logically, we've been told sugar-free, sugar-free, stay away from sugar.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but yet there's all the bad stuff because it's cheap. I asked somebody in the food service industry one time, I'm like, Well, how come nobody uses monk fruit? It's too expensive.

Yeah, it is. Well, yeah, when you buy a bag of that, it's like $8 or something.

It is. Um, and then I have a friend— huh?

I was gonna say it's also something that again kind of dips into political because The sugar lobby has gotten a bunch of money from the government, so like they're able to go as low as they possibly can for how much you're buying sugar versus these other sweets. It's tough. They make it harder on you, you know.

And then you ask yourself, so here's a question, why, if we know that sugar is so bad Why is it in all of our food? It doesn't— so let's say if the whole food industry said, we're all in, every single one of us, we're all on the same playing field. We are not going to add more than— No more than 1 gram of added sugar for every food we make. If it's natural, that's fine, but no more than 1 added. Why don't we do that?

Well, I think there's two— there's two reasons that I would assume. Yeah, uh, one of them being money and the other being power. But, you know, somebody who can sell something that's addictive and then make all their money on it, they're going to continue to do that if they're allowed.

Right. So it becomes a win-win for the sugar industry and the food industry in the sense that it makes people want more of their food because they get addicted to it.

Mm-hmm.

But then this is gonna go kind of off, and I've not done any research on this, but who else wins if we're overweight and diabetic And have autoimmune disease and cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Big Pharma.

Yeah.

It's a one-two punch.

That's just— that's why in other countries, their people don't eat like that, right? They, they do all play on an equal playing field, and none of this is allowed in any of the foods that anybody makes. So it's not like, well, hey, that manufacturer made a chocolate chip cookie and theirs tastes better because they got to use more sugar than we did. Or, you know, they labeled theirs as, um, sugar-free and they got to use this poisonous aspartame and we didn't. But it's an equal playing field. Nobody can—

Yeah.

No one can use the poison. So it all becomes equal. And I know that nothing is perfect, and I don't want to get political because nothing is perfect. And I know this— I have a friend who lives in Canada, right? Social medicine, nothing is perfect.

Yep.

But if the focus where the money goes is out in a bad way, if your people are sick, then you do what you can to keep your people healthy. Mm-hmm. So, I don't know if I mentioned Dr. Mark Hyman is one of the biggest proponents out there for healing with food, eating properly. He started the Cleveland Clinic, which was one of the first functional medicine clinics. And I know he's— I don't believe he does— he's part of it anymore, but he started it. And he has Institute of Functional Medicine. And he has a country that literally hired him to test all of their people, to do this full blood work panel on every single citizen of this country, and to advise them on how to feed their people so that they're healthy.

And that's awesome.

He just got this contract, I believe it was like last September.

Wow.

So I'm not sure how it's going, but literally a country hired him.

See, and like, I feel like that's one of the problems with food in general, is that the way that we're set up, our country's set up, it's not only really hard to make change for food, like you're saying, But I think, I think that the addictive nature of sugar and a few other things that are allowed in our food make it to where it's— you're addicted immediately. So, um, when I had, when I had my kids, um, one, one's a boy and We got him circumcised, and when they did that at the hospital, they gave him a dose of sugar. And I was like, why would you do sugar rather than like some sort of painkiller or something if it hurts?

Mm-hmm.

And the nurse, while giving my son the sugar shot or whatever— it's like a little droplet, it's not even all that much— told us, she's like, it's such a shot of dopamine that this little bit of sugar is better than any kind of medicine for a baby because it's just immediate. It's like immediate euphoria or something. Yeah, it's salt on their system.

Yep.

And then my next question was like, why would we do that?

Right.

But it just goes to show how deep the talons of, you know, sugar are in our society. Like, The fact that they're using it as like a pain med for babies.

Probably safer for a baby than a pain med. But here's what it goes to show you is how addictive it is, what it does to our system. And we know it. We know what it does to our system. We know how it affects us and it affects people. That's why they're using it. But what happens when you're a child or you're an adult and you can make food choices? You're no longer a baby and somebody's feeding you, and you're addicted to this sugar because it makes you feel so good.

And it's in, like we said, every single food. So it's not like if you are a younger kid or an adult or whatever, you think you might be making some healthy choices and you're just dumping sugar in regardless. Yeah, who knows?

Because you don't know. You think you are. I mean, back in the day, and I think about, you know, back in the day, um, when fat was evil, and that was the '90s, fat was evil and everything was fat-free. It was all full of sugar. Yeah, it was fat-free, full of sugar, probably full of plastic at that time. Um, now it's— and, and sometimes it's interesting even trying to train Somebody that is a little older now, but was in the peak of their adulthood. Do not bring home fat-free stuff, right? Don't do it. The fat is actually better for you than the fat-free. So, and then what do they put in it to make it taste better, or to give it this creamy feeling, or to give it this? this better flavor because fat is flavor for many people. Think about the people that like their ribeyes, right? Marbled in fat. Fat is flavor.

Bone marrow.

Well, bone marrow is different. Bone marrow is not fat.

Oh, really?

Bone marrow is actually really high in protein. Huh.

Who knew? I just— it's so much like butter that I just assumed it was fat.

It is— that is a good question. I thought it was, or maybe I'm getting that confused, like bone broth, because bone broth is really going to be the marrow, right? Right.

It should be.

And that's protein. Because my protein powder is bone broth protein.

I did know that.

Huh?

I did know that. Yeah, the bone broth. Because it's— because the problem is you can't find any of this, uh, protein powder at the store that's not necessarily packed with, um, lactose, right?

Or whey. Now a lot of people, they'll say, you know, is Whey protein powder, as long as it's like an isolate or I don't know, my stomach doesn't like it. And I was wrong. I actually just looked. Bone marrow is not high in protein. It is composed mostly of fat.

I like that.

That's why it's so creamy.

That's why it's so good.

High in calories and fat, but it's not going to be the Good fat, I wouldn't think. Oh, it's rich in collagen. Conjugated linoleic acid. It's full of collagen. Okay. And rich in glucosamine. There you go.

There you go.

But not sugar. Doesn't have sugar.

Yeah, never sugar.

I brought that up, right? Yeah.

So, so if, if you're trying to deal with removing sugar from your diet, what would you recommend as sort of a good way to go about it? Because it is, it's truly in everything. I feel like even people who don't think that they're addicted to sugar, they just don't know that they are.

Right. And, and I think that it's one, you need, it needs to be baby steps. You need to give yourself grace. I actually had a patient come in one time that said, when I eliminate sugar, I get really sick. Now, for her, you know, remember, it messes with your small— your microbiome, your gut. She probably had an opportunistic bacteria in there that loved sugar, and when she quit eating sugar, it would start to die.

Right.

And the die-off would probably cause what's called Herxing syndrome, which is where it just makes you feel sick. Because this bacteria is all dying. So then she would eat sugar and feel better because she would feed it again. So baby steps, right? The, the thing to do would be to start with the things that are obvious— the desserts, the cookies, the candies, the obvious things that are pure sugar without any fiber or protein.

Alcohol.

Alcohol, your body turns that into pure sugar. Because everyone's gonna say, well, vodka's not alcohol, or not sugar, I mean, not sugary.

Yeah.

But it's still a carb, okay? It's still something that your body turns, breaks down into sugar in the end. But, um, it's, it's— so I would say the obvious things, to start slow. So if you were somebody that ate dessert every night, maybe try doing it every other night or switching up your desserts to be fruit, right? To be berries. Have some strawberries instead of having cake. Have blueberries. So there are fruits that are sweet and good for you that can still take that. I went and got some dark cherries so that when I'm like snacky, you know, I can eat these dark cherries.

Right.

It kind of satisfies that A little bit of sweet, but it's also got, you know, you still get all the fiber from the cherry. That's why we don't want to do juice, because juice is all just the sugar without any of the fiber that you get. So, and even that's a natural sugar. So that's why I say it's, it's about, it's about having too much, right? Having excessive amounts, because juice is terrible for the blood sugar. Because there's nothing to slow it down. It's just straight sugar into your system. So you're better with a whole fruit. So do some of those things, then look in, then start reading your labels, right? So anything that's processed, anything that comes in a box, processed bread, try finding bread without sugar in it. Good luck, right? The yeast has to eat something, but, uh, It's— but some of it has more than others. But, but try to avoid— if you can start avoiding processed foods because they will have lots of sugar in them. And obviously there are some things like, well, yeah, I'm not going to make my own tomato sauce. Okay, read how much sugar is in the label. You will be shocked when you start comparing again some of the things.

So true.

So that would be the way that I would recommend you do it is just a little bit at a time. Start to take it away a little bit at a time because it is addictive. And then once you get away from it, stay away from it. Because once you bring it back in, the cravings, you just crave it.

Yeah, it's very true.

Yep. So it does so many things. Autoimmunity, gut health, it can just— diabetes, insulin resistance. So many things. So I would say if, if you out there listening or watching this feel that some of this sounded like you, or you have some of these issues, to go to my website, balancedbodymedical.com, and sign up for a free discovery call, and let's talk about it, and potentially come in for a consultation, and we can really, you know, drill down into what you're doing and what your symptoms are.

And honestly, I think that knowledge is half of the power. Like, I, I think one of the best things about going in and talking to you and looking at what's affecting your body and why and how allows it to be less of— because I was afraid originally of it being something like, you have to change all this. Like, anytime I go to the doctor, right, the first thing they say Even if they don't mean to be mean about it, they'll just be like, you're overweight, fix that, like, eat better, you know. And it's, it's hard because it's like, well, if I knew that that's what I needed to do— I obviously knew that that's what I needed to do, but if I, if I had a way of doing it, I probably would have already done it. And when you are breaking down how this affects your body, what to look out for, Here's a process. Like, it becomes this, this blueprint that is step by step a little bit easier and manageable. And I think that that's important because it's, it is something that you can change. You are, you are changing your life, but it seems a little bit more manageable and less of a go-do no sugar, like just cut it off.

Right? Just eat better. Yeah, and exercise more. And you're like, ugh, I don't even know where to start.

Yeah, it's true. I think that's one of the biggest things is I just didn't know where was the best— where was the best place to start. And it did, it did take a couple steps of, you know, we did that elimination diet right away, which that was hard, but it becomes easier once you start putting stuff back in. Again, my sugars were corn. So that's okay. I take that. It's a win. Corn comes with other things. I love corn on the cob so much, but I haven't—

I can't tell you the last time I ate it. So I should, being here in Nebraska, I should be eating corn on the cob.

You know what's so surprising is there's— and I, I don't mean to say this in a bad way, derogatory towards Nebraska, but there's More easily accessible sweeter corn in Colorado than there is in Nebraska. And I wonder if it's because Nebraska exports all the good stuff.

I don't know. That's a good question. I know we do a lot of our corn is for, is for feeding.

It's just different type of corn.

It is a completely different corn. Field corn is a completely different corn than sweet corn, yes.

Um, this has kind of inspired me to ask a question. Maybe this is a future podcast.

Okay.

You know when people cut out everything from their diet and then they go into like one of those other diets? Like, uh, I can't think of the name, but it's like all fat.

Oh, a keto.

Like a keto diet.

Or like a, um, well, Atkins, and now they call it keto.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, I kind of want to know what the difference— how it balances out for somebody who that diet is good for. Like, it wasn't— like, we found through my DNA and through my testing that it was not. I got a big old red X on my sheet. No keto. Um, but like, how does that work? And is it a similar thing to sugar? Where like, because it's no good for me, right? Like I'm trying to cut fats as well. Um, is fat diet similar? Does your body change how it burns through things? I mean, I got a couple questions about it. Maybe it's something that we could talk about in the future.

Yeah, I think that'd be a good one to talk about. Um, different diets you're talking about, then your body goes into ketosis. Um, and people lose weight, but of course you're having no carbs, right? So your body is forced without any carbs, you know, proteins and fats, it's forced to start breaking down to get that fuel.

And I guess my question is, is the whole point of that to like eat this over here because fat's actually somewhat quote unquote better for you? Because it is. I mean, it is at some level.

Some fats, certain types.

Is the overwhelming amount of fat better than just sugar and bread? And so if you cut all this out here, you're okay to eat like 10 hamburgers? I don't know. I just think it would be an interesting conversation.

It's a little more complicated than that. It's a little bit out of my wheelhouse. I wish I had it. I maybe I will see if my nutritionist, my health coach Helen, would be available to join us sometime. And talk a little bit more about that because Helen would be able to tell you.

Okay, very good. It's just something I was thinking about when we're talking sugar.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much, Sherri. This has been an enlightening conversation, and now I am not allowed to feign, um, ignorance when it comes to any kind of sugar things.

No more sugar. All right, John, it's always fun talking to you.

See you next time.

Okay, bye.

This has been the Balanced Body Medical Podcast with Sherri Griggs, owner of Balanced Body Health and Wellness. If you're looking to find Sherri, go ahead and look for the website balancedbodymedical.com. If you're looking for the business and you want to find Sherri at her office, You can find her at—

10815 Elm Street in Rockbrook Plaza. Thank you.