I participate in a Daily Challenge by Me and You Health. It is fun and thought provoking. I think that I live a very healthy life-style. This makes me think about what I do on a daily bases. Today’s challenge was: Trade a sugar-sweetened beverage for water, no-sugar added juice or skim or low-fat milk. I am going to divide this into 2 blog posts.

Well my weakness is coffee. That was a habit that started back when I first worked the night shift as a new nurse.  I like cream and I like it a little sweet with honey or agave. It doesn’t serve me now and would be in my best interest to let this go.

That said, I have several comments on the above suggestion. They are right. We need to let go of the sugar influence in our diets. I think that sugar might be the big opiate of the people. That is another topic.

Sugar is one of the frequently ingested ingredients that is harming our health and well being. Sugar in any form makes the body’s pH acidic. Germs, bacteria, viruses thrive in an acid environment.  We have a narrow range of normal pH and many processes to keep the body in this range. Lets help the body and not feed it so much processed sugar, for heaven sakes!

Most processed foods contain a lot of sugar under many forms. They are sugar, malto-dextran, high fructose corn syrup to anme  few. The American Diet has been groomed to be very sweet.

So you want to cut back on sugars. What can you do?

Some good sugar substitutes include honey, real maple syrup, brown rice syrup and agave. The pluse is thaey are sweet and have all the nutrients they are supposed to have. They all have a lower glycemic index than sugar an much lower that high fructose corn syrup and other sweeteners they put into the processed foods.

Juice of any sort is not a very good choice. Juices are very high in fructose, a sugar. And believe it or not, the juice companies still but in more sugar. ??? What are they thinking? They are hoping with the high sweet taste you will buy and buy more producet.

Instead of juice, you are better off to just eat the fruit and then drink water. If you eat the fruit, you have lower calories, lower sugar, all the nutrients and a lot of fiber. Win-win to me.

Water. We need a lot of water do to the fact we eat a very highly processed diet. So, think about drinking 75-100 ounces of pure water every day. Yes, that is 9-12 glasses of water a day. I hear people say that they can’t, or won’t do that. Start out small. Add a glass of water before each cup of coffee you drink. That will help rehydrate you from the dehydrating effects of the coffee.

If you don’t care for the taste of water, add a squeeze of lemon.

Here is to your health… one healthy choice at a time.

Blessings, Mary Pat

Mary Pat FitzGibbons RN MS