Protect your brain from sugar damage by cutting the toxic white powder from your diet.
Author: Crystal Jo
High blood sugar levels may cause brain damage. When you eat a diet high in simple sugars and carbohydrates you are putting your brain at risk for damage.
Chronic high blood sugar levels have links to:
Diabetes
Poor memory
Inflammation
Obesity
Insulin resistance
Dementia
Eating foods with added sugar is bad for your brain and your body. It is recommended by the World Health Organization to limit your total sugar intake to 10% of your diet. If you are eating 1800 calories a day only 180 calories should be sugar.
Is the answer to just cut out sugar? It may sound like a simple solution but is not that easy. Reducing the amount of sugar you eat is a good place to start. But this can be a slow adjustment to make if you are hooked on sweet foods.
The ideal scenario would be to completely remove refined sugar from your diet. Refined sugar offers no nutritional value. You get a bit of sweetness in exchange for significant damage to your brain. Science has even shown that eating sugar can cause dementia. But removing sugar from your diet is one of the best ways to get more energy as you age and improve your overall health.
There are a few other key ideas to help lower your blood sugar levels and protect your brain from the effects of sugar.
1. Reduce Refined Carbohydrates and Your Glycemic Load
Sugar is not the only food that your body will turn into glucose.
Foods that are quickly absorbed into the bloodstream can cause:
Spikes in blood sugar
Increased insulin levels
Unless a food is in its natural whole state, it is a refined carbohydrate.
Refined carbohydrates often are made of:
Sugar
Syrup
Flour
Starch
The Glycemic index is a way to measure how quickly a carbohydrate will raise your blood glucose. A high glycemic index food will raise your blood sugar quickly.
Glycemic load is another measure that looks at how food affects your blood sugar. The glycemic load is based on the average portion size of the food you eat. This will give you a better idea of the effect food has on your blood sugar.
Glycemic load gives you an idea of which foods you can eat more of without spiking your blood sugar levels. To keep your blood sugars stable you want to avoid (or limit) refined carbohydrates.
These include:
Bread
Pasta
Cereal
Processed grains
Fruit Juice
Sweetened drinks
Desserts
2. Increase Whole Foods
When you reduce refined carbohydrates in your diet, you may not know what to eat. The best idea is to start by replacing a refined carbohydrate with a whole food.
If you usually have a bowl of cereal for breakfast, try replacing half of the cereal with blueberries. If you enjoy pasta for supper, replace half the pasta with thin slices of zucchini.
You will get more nutrition to your brain when you include healthier whole foods in your diet. Refined carbohydrates cause blood sugar spikes.
Whole foods will include:
Fiber
Protein
Fats
These slow down how quickly the glucose enters your bloodstream.
Think of one food that you eat that is high in sugar. Or a food that is a refined carbohydrate.
Plan to replace it with:
Meat
Seafood
Eggs
Nuts
Greens like spinach, kale, collards
Berries
Vegetables
It is important that you eat a protein and healthy fat with every meal to regulate your blood sugar levels.
3. Exercise Often
Your activities are just as important as what you eat. Exercise has been proven to lower blood sugar and insulin levels. Regular exercise will help your muscles to use the glucose in your blood.
Exercise also helps increase your blood flow to the brain. This helps your brain get the necessary oxygen and nutrients it needs to function. Aerobic activity helps your body to use insulin better. Strength training increases your cells sensitivity to insulin. Increased muscle mass also lowers your blood sugar.
The American Diabetes Association recommends regular exercise. That means 30 minutes of moderate exercise 5 times a week. Strength training should be done at least twice a week.
4. Discover Your Insulin Resistance Level
Insulin resistance affects up to half of North Americans. Insulin resistance can be a risk factor in dementia. You can change your insulin resistance level.
Talk to your health care provider about testing your blood levels for :
Glucose
Insulin
Triglyceride
HDL cholesterol
You can keep a food diary for a week to see how much sugar and refined carbohydrates you eat. Choice one or two things each day to cut back on. Remove one source of sugar and replace it with a whole food. An ideal goal would be to have 20 grams or less of sugar per meal.
If you have insulin resistance you can change that by what you eat. Insulin resistance levels can be changed within weeks simply by changing what you eat.
It is never too late to make a healthy choice. Your nutrition impacts brain health. Use these ideas to jumpstart your health. You can protect your brain from sugar damage.
A Low Sugar Recipe: Gluten and Grain Free Crepes with Strawberries, Orange and Greek Yogurt
If you’re craving something sweet, use this low-sugar and grain-free recipe for delicious crepes! Grain-free recipes are getting more and more popular as white flours are thought to be inflammatory, so what better a recipe to try substituting cassava flour for white flour than crepes? Nutrient-rich eggs and full-fat Greek yogurt contains healthy fats, which are great for brain health. Topped with calcium-rich strawberries, this is a perfect meal for breakfast or brunch.
Cassava contains significant amounts of calcium, phosphorus, manganese, iron, and potassium, and a moderate amount of protein. Not only is cassava anti-inflammatory and gluten-free, but also it actually aids in the digestive process. Recent research suggests that cassava is a gut-friendly probiotic.
Why eat full-fat yogurt? People who eat full-fat dairy tend to be leaner than those who opt for low-fat versions. Recently, a long-term study found that the consumption of high-fat dairy was associated with a reduced likelihood of becoming overweight. Fat provides a feeling of satiety, so one is less likely to snack when adding fat and protein to meals.
Difficulty Easy
Preparation Time 30 minutes
Yield 4 Crepes
Ingredients for Strawberries
1 pint of strawberries (hull removed and sliced thinly)
1 tsp orange zest
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp maple syrup
Ingredients for Crepes
½ cup hot water
2 tablespoons butter (preferably grass-fed)
2 eggs
½ cup whole milk
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup cassava flour
To Finish
1 cup full-fat Greek yogurt
Preparation
In a medium bowl, combine the strawberries, maple syrup, vanilla extract, and orange zest.
In a blender, combine the hot water and coconut oil and blend for 10 seconds to melt the coconut oil.
Add the eggs, milk, salt, and cassava flour.
Heat a non-stick pan or a lightly oiled, well-seasoned cast-iron skillet over medium-low heat (not too hot!)
Pour ¼ cup of batter onto the griddle and tilt the pan immediately with a circular motion so that the batter coats the surface evenly.
Cook the crepe for about 30 seconds -1 minute until the crepe loosens from the bottom of the pan. Once loosened, flip the crepe and cook the other side until opaque. Repeat 3 times.
Stack the crepes onto a plate as you make them.
When all of the crepes are made, divide them onto two plates. Spoon ¼ cup tablespoons of the yogurt into the 7:00 position. Fold each crepe into quarters and top each with ¼ of the strawberry mixture.
Author: Crystal Jo
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