“We must picture hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives with the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
I chose not to ingest added sugar.
I chose to avoid sugar even when it is obvious, as in dessert.
I basically don't eat sugar at all, avoiding even the high G fruits and vegetables.
Except when I don't. Or is it do? Except when I do, do sugar that is.
I identify as a dieter, but the truth is I may be confused. I may be bisugaral, or even transsugaral. I am sugar fluid ... .
Most of us eat too much sugar. On average, Americans consume 475 calories of added sugars every day (that’s 30 teaspoons), which is 3 or 4 times what’s recommended by the American Heart Association.
If you’re trying to cut back on added sugars in your diet, you’ve probably already tackled the obvious sources: sugar-sweetened beverages and desserts.
But what about the less-obvious sources of added sugars? It’s difficult to know how much added sugars are in most processed foods because food manufacturers aren’t required to disclose the amount in their products on the Nutrition Facts Panel.
Hidden in Plain Sight
Added sugar is hiding in 74% of packaged foods
We are being coerced in to thinking that added sugar = yummy. Our palate is being trained to expect a little sugar buzz in every bite.
Most Americans are not conflicted about their sugar preferences. Most Americans seem to embrace all that is sugar. 66 pounds, on average is a lot of sugar. Next time I am on the sugar aisle at the grocery store I am going to see what 66 pounds of sugar looks like.
One of the linked sites listed like 61 different names that sugar uses to disguise itself.
According to my FitnessPall app I average around 5 grams of sugar every day that I am not indulging my desire for sugar. I would guess that a day with dessert and maybe a dessert-y cocktail to top it off with would put me well over 100grams of sugar for that day. Incidentally, it weakens my resolve to stay on the sugar-free straight and narrow as well. I makes me want to look at pictures of desserts. It makes me want to bake. It reminds me that I own an underutilized ice-cream making machine.
The other day I noticed something that I have been over-looking. This: sugary treats are readily available through out my normal day. There are candy dishes at practically every counter ... at the bank, at the grocer, at the dry cleaners ... on the check from the waitress, wait, excuse me, the waitperson. Not one single one of those dishes has ever had a SF goody tucked among the assorted offerings. I think I should be ... offended. I think I am being overlooked. It is as if my preferences don't matter.
Why am I not receiving the sugar free candy that suits my lifestyle (on most days). Why are the sugar eaters being catered to?
“The claim to equality, outside of the strictly political field, is made only by those who feel themselves to be in some way inferior.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
And what should I do about that?
There is a sugar free option available. Yes, the taste is invariably subpar. It's pretty pricey and smaller ... the portions are meager, unsatisfying. The selection leaves a lot to be desired though the company with the green bag style of packaging does seem to be attempting to hit most of the high notes. Because of how it is "artificially" (that means fake) sweetened if I eat more than a piece and a half I will have pretty intense abdominal pain ... I may even have to spend extra time in the bathroom. That sugar free stuff tends to make me "indisposed". I am beginning to realize that my choice to be sugar free is not being properly attended to by "them". No one seems to care that sugar free candy is not in the candy dishes strewn about my life. Those candy dishes are for other people. People not like me. Those people don't care about the quantity or quality of candy being made available to me (at no charge).
“Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy’s (God’s) ground…He [God] made the pleasure: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy [God] has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He [God] has forbidden. ”
― C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters
― C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters
“The contemptuous way in which you spoke of gluttony as a means of catching souls, in your last letter, only shows your ignorance. One of the great achievements of the last hundred years has been to deaden the human conscience on that subject, so that by now you will hardly find a sermon preached or a conscience troubled about it in the whole length and breadth of Europe. This has largely been effected by concentrating all our efforts on gluttony of Delicacy, not gluttony of Excess. ― C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters
I think the main thing I am bothered by boils down to creating problems from the flimsy of personal whimsy, making things that really can't matter much ... big freaking deals. Like this ... it's nice that they put the candy dish out. It's nice that they do that or maybe it is manipulative too. I get to chose whether or not I reach my hand into the candy dish. It's not my job to monitor the flow of candy being provided or the intentions behind it. It would be just really bad manners to say - hey, I don't like that kind of candy ... get my kind in there or I'm gonna throw a hissyfit next time I stop in. When did life start being about the candy dish. It seems like all this "my_____" stuff isn't working for us.
If I'm paying for the candy ... if I'm stocking the dish ... I have a say ... the say. I shouldn't be forced to provide candy or clap as you eat yours. (via entitlement programs in their various mutations)
1 comment:
I couldn't bear to read every word of your post because it brings me too much into my own constant battles of the mind and appetite. But I wanted to say that just in the last week I've been trying to avoid ingesting carbs in any form in a grazing fashion; my goal is to eat whatever sugars and other carbohydrates I want at one meal in the day. This turns out to be very hard! I can't have iced tea that is sweetened, in the middle of a hot afternoon. I can't pop a few cherry tomatoes when I am wandering in the garden. And so on. This grazing habit is truly entrenched.
They say it takes 21 days -- do I remember the saying correctly? -- to break a habit. I think I broke this one once, going 21 days, about 20 years ago, but I have definitely re-established it. We will find out how resolute I care to be this time.
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