Sugar Cravings: Why They Happen & How to Control Them | Nutritionist Sangeetha Aiyer | GRASIQ

Sugar Cravings: Why They Happen & How to Control Them | Nutritionist Sangeetha Aiyer | GRASIQ

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Transcript:
(00:06) They say don't eat sugar. Fine, don't eat it, but what should you do if you want something sweet? Many are saying they've quit sugar and are using jaggery instead. Some others say, "I don't even use jaggery; I use monk fruit or stevia," and they talk about these sugar alternatives found in the market.
(00:27) Are these actually any good? How much of these alternative sweeteners can you use in place of sugar, and are they really good for our health? And a fundamental question: does our body need sugar? I will be talking about all these things today with nutritionist Sangeetha Iyer. Sangeetha, welcome. Hello, Prashanthi.
(00:45) Thank you for having me. Doctors are saying no, no, no to sugar, and on social media, it's even worse. From influencers to nutritionists to doctors, everyone is saying no to sugar , so in Telugu households, white sugar is being successfully thrown out. As an alternative, some are using brown sugar, others monk fruit, and some are turning to sweeteners and many other options. Yes, exactly.
(01:09) Before we talk about all these alternatives, I have a basic doubt: does our body actually need sugar? Do we need to give our body added sugar? So, if you take a look at biochemistry and biological requirements, or our nutritional requirements, what the body actually needs is glucose. Okay. So, for our red blood cells or even some brain functions, glucose is essential.
(01:39) Glucose is also a type of sugar. Okay. However, added sugar is different, because glucose comes from the normal food we eat; it is in everything. It's in rice, wheat, fruits, dairy, and even in nuts—wherever you find carbohydrates, you find glucose. Right. Okay, so. Added sugar is a luxury, an indulgence; it's just for taste.
(02:14) Okay. So biologically, is it an irrefutable necessity for the body? No. But it's not practical to live without sugar today. If you don't take any added sugar in anything, you would stay healthy—in fact, you'd be very healthy, if you ask me. But, practically, in our current food environment, it's impossible.
(02:42) You would almost become a social outcast. Right. If you don't participate, well, is it a requirement by the body? No. But is it practical? I don't think so. If we don't need sugar, then why do we have sweet taste buds? Why do we have salt taste buds? Why do we have bitter taste buds? Evolutionarily, if we ate something sweet, it was good for health and the body. That is part of human evolution.
(03:19) Suppose you found berries in a certain season. Those berries weren't just sugar, right ? They contained antioxidants, fiber, and some polyphenols—all of which were beneficial to you. Right. Even with honey, why did hunter-gatherers consume it? Not just for the sugar, but for the mineral compounds found in raw honey—not the processed honey we get in brands today.
(03:49) And coming across that was very rare. Okay. It's not like now, where it's available every day. Yes. So, we have definitely been overexposed to sugar. Not with the frequency and quantity available today, you know, sugar is in everything. Back then, there were no supermarkets. Correct. Plus, consider the effort needed for a honeycomb.
(04:16) If you want to get honey from a honeycomb, first, a human or a homosapien in hunter-gatherer communities had to walk, spot it, climb trees, risk getting stung by bees, and then bring it back to eat. Think of the effort involved; same goes for fruit. Correct. You couldn't just go to a market to buy it.
(04:37) You had to spot the fruit and find the tree. Easy access. So, you’ve already burned all those calories just to eat that fruit. That’s right, we always had to work hard to find food. So, since that scenario doesn't exist today... But because of this abundance... It is important to use added sugar in moderation and intelligently. There are four things now: carbs, fats, fiber, and sugars.
(05:07) The body doesn't get excited by these three. Why does it get excited by sugar? That is a misconception. Okay. I have done this experiment with my clients many times and I am convinced. People say, "I have a sweet tooth, I have sugar cravings." Right. Do you know what I tell them? Take table sugar, put it on a spoon, and eat as much as you want.
(05:32) After five grams, you won't be able to eat anymore. Okay. Okay, so is your body craving sugar? No. Then what is it that the body is craving? Humans crave a specific combination. Food becomes hyper-palatable. Meaning, to get that dopamine hit, those reward signals, this combination is a mix of sugar—or carbs, we use them interchangeably—fat, and salt.
(06:04) Okay, any junk food you crave, look at it, and it will have this combination. Salt, sugar, fat. Yes, take any Indian sweet, any chips, or any donut. Just look at it, everything is a combination. If there's a Rasmalai, what's in it? Sugar. Fat. And... To balance all that sweetness, they add salt. Correct.
(06:35) To balance it out, it's called the " sweet spot" where you keep eating again and again. So, the craving people have, we have understood it very wrongly. I'm telling you, I will give you unlimited jaggery, go ahead and eat it. You will eat five grams and stop. You will take a spoon, have two grains, and then stop.
(06:57) But if I give you Gajar ka Halwa...Yes. If I give you Kaju Katli, Motichoor Laddu, or Gulab Jamun...Everything that is hyper-palatable is this combination, and this combination exists in our traditional foods too. And in our ultra-processed food, take chips, for instance. Many people don't know that chips are a combination.
(07:26) Why do we have biscuits at home every morning and evening? Hmm. Any biscuit for that matter. Hmm. When people see a biscuit, they all think of sugar, but it contains 50%fat, mostly palm oil in cheap biscuits. Some sunflower, add some salt, check the ingredients on the back. So, anything that we as human beings create , this combination, is because we don't have satiety for this combination.
(07:56) What is satiety? It is a signal given by our body. You've eaten, now you don't want anymore. If you eat just paneer, or a little rice and chicken, your body says 'enough' after a limit. These foods don't have that limit. Unlimited. Plus, these foods are such that there is high calorie density in a small volume.
(08:22) Eating such foods increases our calories. So, it's not that you have a sweet addiction. You have an addiction to hyper-palatable food in this combination. Those chips, why are you not able to stop eating the chips? This combination . Okay. That is the reason. So, based on what you said, if you put sugar in front of someone and ask them to eat it, they can't, or jaggery, they can't eat it, you are saying.
(08:46) But as soon as I say I have a sweet craving, they immediately go into the kitchen and take some sweet they like. It is that combination. So, it is that same combination. Yes. Yes, many of my clients tell me, " Sangeeta, it's non-negotiable, I need something sweet after eating." I say, " One teaspoon is 5 grams, take 5g of sugar.
(09:10) " They say, "What's that? It doesn't taste good, I can't eat it, is there anything else? Can I eat dark chocolate?" So, the negotiation is needed. Yes, so that is what they crave. Okay, so this is actually eye-opening for me. So, how do we counter this, how to overcome it? So, first, your baseline nutrition needs to be correct.
(09:36) Okay, so cravings are two things, I always say. One is psychological, another is physiological . Okay. Okay, let's address the physiological one first; that is important. If your diet doesn't have food with adequate nutrient density—meaning nourishing food—your body will always keep sending hunger signals. Okay, and among all that we eat, two macro-nutrients have high nutrient density.
(10:09) One is protein, another is fiber. Okay. Okay, so first, your food needs to have , whether you are vegetarian or non-vegetarian, it's okay. You have to understand if your diet has protein and fiber. Fiber means nuts, seeds, fruits, vegetables, lentils, legumes, complex carbs, and fibers. If these are correct first, your hunger will be controlled and you won't get cravings unnecessarily.
(10:33) You won't feel like eating sugar. You won't feel like it, okay. This is one. Second is psychological. Psychological is largely a coping mechanism for us. Okay. People don't like it when I say this, but all coping mechanisms are the same. Okay. How some people use alcohol, how some get addicted to smoking, how some gamble, or how some eat ice cream when they have a breakup. So...
(11:09) Same. Same reward mechanism and reward pathways of temporary instant gratification numbing your brain. Okay, so this craving—second is psychological—so you are starting to use certain foods as a coping mechanism , and after a few days, that coping mechanism becomes a habit. What is a habit? It is like neuroplasticity.
(11:38) You are training your brain to say, "Every time I feel like this, if I get this craving, if I eat this..." I get temporary satisfaction, every addiction is ultimately that. I feel good. Temporarily only. For that moment. For that moment, because it gives you a dopamine hit. Okay, so first solve the physiological part, get a balanced diet , and second, whenever a craving comes, find an alternative or train your brain .
(12:12) The brain is also like a muscle that you have to train. Okay, if you feel like eating now, don't eat it; say no once, it will be hard; say no a second time. By the time you say no 20 times, you are retraining your brain to say, " Oh, this craving comes and goes." Do something else, take a distraction, drink water; if you have a sweet craving, go for fruit.
(12:37) So that is how you train. Craving is both psychological and physiological. First, get your nutrition in place, then train your mind not to be dependent. Okay. So, now on my plate, I have carb-rich food and also protein-rich food. So, let's say I am eating this in a balanced way. Will my glucose control, meaning sugar cravings, automatically and slowly decrease? Yes, yes.
(13:00) It will decrease for you. Okay. Because most cravings are the body's signal saying, "I'm not getting proper nutrition." We don't understand that. Okay, so the minute you consistently have protein and fiber on your plate with a little bit of complex carbs, those satiety signals kick in.
(13:24) I'm not saying this goes away overnight, but over a period of time, if you increase your awareness a little, you will see it decrease. Health is a very broad term. First, we need to understand that. Health is not dependent on just one thing, okay? There are five pillars to health. Okay, first is your nutrition. Okay, so how many whole foods are you eating? How balanced are you eating? Do you have protein sufficiency? Do you have carb sufficiency? Do you have fiber sufficiency? Are you eating with variety, are you eating seasonally?
(13:59) That is the first priority. Second important thing is how much you are eating. Quantity. Very, very important. So, "Oh, nuts are so healthy," and you sit and eat 100 grams of nuts, that's 600 calories, okay? Very healthy, okay. But likewise, "Oh, I'm going to the gym, I have to eat protein," and you sit and eat half a kilo of chicken at once, that causes stress.
(14:27) Okay, so for everything—for your lifestyle, your body, your activity, your age—there is a calorie budget. You must divide that calorie budget correctly among these nutrients and eat consistently. This is the second part of health: one is nutritional diversity , and one is eating within your calorie budget.
(14:50) The third thing is your hydration, meaning your fluid and water intake must be correct. The fourth thing is that there must be some movement in your body during your daily routine. Okay. If you are eating healthy but you sit for 10 hours, your health will not improve. The WHO suggests a minimum of 150 minutes of some kind of moderate to intense activity per week, which works out to a minimum of 30 minutes a day.
(15:19) I feel that is too little; I say 45 minutes to one hour a day. You have to do something, even if you are a couch potato. At least start walking. Okay, in this activity as well, there are certain beneficial ways to divide your activity. You should have at least two days of resistance training. Okay. For the muscles.
(15:44) The remaining days you should focus on, there could be low-impact cardio. Okay. Okay, even if you don't do anything else, no running, no swimming, no cycling, there should at least be walking. 8,000 steps, that 7 to 8,000 steps is the baseline. That covers activity. Hmm. Also, if you do all this but sleep poorly, nothing will happen. Balance.
(16:07) So, sleep. The final pillar is that you need to have a societal connection, a community . Hmm, so people who love you, who care for you—are you contributing? Loneliness is being called a pandemic; it’s causing depression and anxiety in individuals and in societies, among younger people. So, health is not just one thing.
(16:32) Health is all of these. But so, so, so if any one pillar slips sometimes it’s okay, but it needs to come back quickly. Okay. So first, this is what health is. Now within this health, just by doing one thing, you are not going to become —you won't magically become healthy. But coming back to the sugar conversation, the lower you keep added sugars, and while all of this is in slight balance, you will largely remain healthy.
(17:10) Wow. It doesn't mean you have to quit everything. Like now, Varalakshmi Vratam just happened. If you eat something on that day, it's fine, but we don't just eat for one day ; the specials made for that ritual stay with us for three days. I see it, right? The festivities start from Dasara, and they go on until the New Year.
(17:32) Year-ending. Ah. Then Sankranti catches up right there. Exactly, so, how frequently, and in what quantity? And it's not like you are doing it just on that festival day; then there's an office party, then biryani, then something else—that is the excess. So, added sugar, can you... is it avoidable? 100%, but if it’s moderate in your diet, and you are in control, and as I said with these pillars and activity, it will not harm you.
(18:02) Okay, many people at home have now reduced using white sugar. Correct. They’ve reduced it and as an alternative, they are bringing home jaggery, bringing home brown sugar, some are using monk fruit, some are using stevia. They are looking for many such alternatives. Yes. But there is no intention to reduce the sugar itself.
(18:21) That is difficult, right? So now, talking about these alternatives, the very first thing everyone takes as a substitute for sugar is jaggery—jaggery tea, jaggery coffee—so what are all these? Sugar with jaggery. Let's—so sugars, there are about six categories of sugars. Okay, one is what we call refined sugar, okay, or table sugar.
(18:51) So, in that, mainly we have white sugar and brown sugar. Okay, that’s caramelized to make brown sugar. Okay, the next category is what we call natural sugars, and here everyone thinks they are being very intelligent. In natural sugars, all these come under it—jaggery. Honey, coconut sugar, beet sugar, date sugar. Maple syrup, palm syrup, there are so many names, all of these are natural.
(19:23) Okay. But if you actually look at their molecular structures, they resemble normal table sugar. But with jaggery, there is some tiny bit of some mineral, and with coconut, there is some other ...some added value exists. But maximum , it is sugar and the calories are also the same.
(19:50) So, the problem with thinking something is natural and therefore healthy is that you eat more of it. Correct. Don't be under this misconception; for all purposes, these are natural sugars, so putting honey in your tea daily is the same as adding table sugar. Adding jaggery or brown sugar is the same; it's the same insulin spike and the same glucose spike.
(20:15) Okay, this is the second category. Okay. Now, the third category consists of what we call non-nutritive sweeteners; this is just a new name for artificial sweeteners. Okay. Okay, so non-nutritive means there is no nutrition in it, but it will perform and behave like sugar. Right. So, the third category includes plant-based sugars.
(20:40) Plant-based sugars are largely monk fruit and stevia. This has no calorie value, it does not spike insulin, it is diabetic-friendly, and it does not give a glucose spike. So, this is the third category. Hmm. The fourth category is our artificial sweeteners. Chemical sweeteners that are made in a factory, like aspartame, sucralose, and saccharin.
(21:07) Okay. This is the next category, okay, and another category, the fifth category, is called sugar alcohols. Okay, any sugar that ends in "ol" has a chemical name that is actually polyols; these are molecules of sugar and alcohol with a structure resembling alcohol. No. Right. If you look at its chemical composition , it resembles sugar plus a structure similar to alcohol.
(21:40) So anything that ends in "ol". Okay. Erythritol, maltitol, all of these, okay, so these are another kind of sugar. Which also fall under artificial or non-nutrient sweeteners. I already mentioned chemical sugars made in a factory like saccharin, sucralose, and aspartame; finally, there is rare sugar you might have heard of, but it is very expensive and not very accessible; one of the rare forms of sugar is allulose.
(22:11) Okay. Okay, allulose is also another compound that is very expensive and not yet easily available commercially. Okay. Now, so these are the sugars. Okay, excluding your table sugar and your, your...natural sugars. None of them have calories. Whether it's polyols, sugar alcohols, artificial sweeteners, or plant sweeteners.
(22:45) None of these have calories and none of them spike blood glucose or insulin. Okay. And they are largely... in small quantities, just as a replacement for maybe tea or coffee, and once in a while, they are all okay. Okay. You are healthy, you don't have diabetes, you don't have high sugar, you don't have BP, you have nothing; you are just a healthy person with normal blood work, then it is fine.
(23:13) Now in this tea... Let's say you are using six grams of sugar and you replaced it. Correct. But along with that tea, you are eating two biscuits. That is your morning habit. Or you are eating rusk, or you are eating an Osmania biscuit. Is there any benefit from replacing that sugar with stevia? Okay, meaning you're saying there are these added things, right? So, first, instead of replacing, if you are a healthy person, please understand what I am trying to say.
(23:46) If you are a healthy person and your daily consumption of added sugar... Is only via a spoonful of sugar in two cups of tea, and you are eating healthy the rest of the day, that replacement won't perform any magic for you. Okay. But if you are a diabetic and you are addicted to tea or coffee and you drink them multiple times, then replacing it will help control your glucose, but...
(24:17) Just by doing this one thing, your health won't improve 10x. It will come down to what you are eating for breakfast and all those other specifics . Okay, I have seen so many people who say, "I don't take sugar in my tea or coffee." Okay, and then they eat stevia-based ice cream every single day.
(24:41) They eat something erythritol-based daily to satisfy sugar cravings. There’s no sugar, but there are calories, and there is a limit for non-nutritive and artificial sweeteners. Correct. If we exceed that dose, everything has side effects. So the question is: is it better to replace added sugar with a little bit of stevia or any non-nutritive sweetener? Yes.
(25:08) Do you become automatically healthy by just doing that? No. Okay, now. Nuance is very important. Correct. So, what is stevia, actually? How is it made? Many people just take the leaf—I have had that leaf too— and put it in tea and mix it. It’s a bit of a cumbersome process. It comes in liquid form, it's an extract, it's a leaf.
(25:36) So, that's how it's prepared. Let's take the discussion of diet sodas. Okay, if you drink 300 ml of a normal Thums Up, Coke, Pepsi, or any cola, that's six to seven teaspoons of sugar. That's too many calories. But let's say you are craving a soda because it's hot. Okay, maybe it's summer and you want something, so you replace it with a diet soda that contains aspartame.
(26:07) You get that craving satisfied at that moment—everyone gets cravings—it satisfies that need, but it's not giving you any calories. So that is the benefit. People with diabetes, people watching their calories, or those who are obese and want to lose weight, wonder, "Do I have to give all this up, or can I have it occasionally?" Or, for example, Diwali comes around.
(26:30) There are diabetics in your home. Or there are people suffering from obesity who want to eat a sweet that day. Hmm. You don't want to leave your family members out of the celebration, so you can get sweets made with stevia or monk fruit ladoos nowadays. Eating one or two is fine; you have to understand the purpose of these sweeteners.
(26:54) That is the thing. So, we don't have enough awareness yet about how good stevia or monk fruit actually is for us. If you look at all of these from a body level perspective, There is one thing common between natural sugar, white sugar, and brown sugar. As I said, there are two categories of processed sugar, and what's common in all of these is that there is no insulin response or glucose response, and no calories; that is the biggest benefit.
(27:24) Going back to our culture, from our childhood, starting with the Annaprasana ceremony, we are introduced to eating sweets. And now, for children —all the kids growing up, since the mania to stop sugar has started—our palates are already very used to sugar. If you talk to a very good pediatrician , there are WHO rules.
(27:44) That I think up to two or three years, you should not be giving children added sugar. Okay, no sugar at all. You can give— we can give carbs in small quantities; in fact, some say not to give starch either, meaning rice is a starch, okay. They say you should give some complex carbs and some proteins, but we end up giving rice.
(28:06) So, for added sugar, there are rules by the WHO that it should not be given; that is why if you... If you look online, there is a lot of pushback from pediatricians against milk mixes, yes. There is a lot, because there are various kinds of sugars and different forms coming into them. Children should not be given added sugar at all.
(28:31) As much as you can protect them, you should protect them by giving them whole foods. If you give a banana, stew an apple, or give mango pulp, the necessary sugar is obtained, but that sugar is very beneficial because it always comes with fiber. So that is the thing, okay. In a daily routine, if you feel like eating sugar, what is the ideal time? When can you eat it? Many people say that after eating a meal, I can't stay without eating sugar or a sweet.
(29:00) So, is it okay to eat a sweet after a meal, or... So normally, whenever you feel like eating sugar—if you want to eat a cake—first and foremost, you decide on the quantity. Okay, that is the most important thing. Ideally, you should eat—and it is there in our tradition again—eat a sweet after the end of a meal, because in a meal, you eat vegetables, lentils, chicken, and eggs; after eating all that, if you have a calorie-dense, sugar-dense, and fat-dense food, the insulin and glucose levels will not spike as much. So, eat it post-meal;
(29:39) try not to eat it first thing in the morning. Not on an empty stomach, okay. There are those who start with tea or coffee. Yes, and another thing is to try and avoid late-night sugar binges. Because now, when I say late-night sugar, please understand that every sugar we eat follows the first definition I told you.
(30:00) It is hyper-palatable food, not just sugar. Okay, so why I mention late night is, first and foremost, your circadian rhythm—your body is getting ready in the evening to shut down and go to sleep. Okay. If you have calorie-dense, sugar-dense foods at night, you will wake up. You will experience sleep disturbances.
(30:23) You get insulin spikes and glucose spikes at night. If insulin and glucose spikes happen often at night, you will not be able to sleep. So, if you go to a party and eat once, that's not a problem. But if you make it a daily habit to eat after dinner, or you're watching movies after dinner and snacking on sugars or large bowls of ice cream, that is avoidable.
(30:51) So this is like, for anyone, just like addiction to alcohol or smoking, you are training your brain. That's all, because the pathway is the same. The hyper-palatable reward zones it hits are all the same. The only thing is, people don't like to hear this, but alcohol, smoking, and gambling have devastating effects almost immediately.
(31:17) Not just to you, but to your family. Correct. Social structures break down, family structures break down, interpersonal relationships turn toxic. You lose respect, you may lose your job, you may lose money. These are devastating effects because they are substance abuse. But this hyper-palatable food is slow, chronic abuse of the body.
(31:45) It doesn't happen in a year. It happens over 10 years, and then it doesn't stop ; it's a ripple effect. It starts with obesity, leads to diabetes, and if that diabetes isn't controlled, you get retinopathy, nephropathy, neuropathy—everything starts. So that is the difference. The difference is how quickly the damage happens; this is chronic.
(32:07) Right. You can't reverse it once that devastating effect happens after ten years. Actually, the body is very forgiving. Even if you have abused it for 10 years , if you take action at the right time —depending on the abuse you've done —once your beta cells collapse and your pancreatic function is completely compromised, and you bring on kidney damage, then no one can help.
(32:33) Okay, once you need dialysis, but if you see that you are gaining weight. If you are gaining 7 kg, 10 kg, 11 kg, 12 kg, and your HbA1c is slowly moving from 5.6 to 5.9, then 6, then 6.1—if you catch it there, the body is very forgiving. And then you have to continue that. But people won't do anything until a...
(32:59) Damage is done. Fear, but sometimes it's too late. And even with that fear, some people say, " This is the only life, I will eat." Fine, okay, it's your choice; we can't do anything. Like that. So, what is the first thing damaged in the body by consuming too much sugar? Where does the damage start? If you consume too many calories...
(33:26) Body damage starts. Okay, it could be fat calories; it's impossible to overeat protein calories. Similarly, eating unlimited vegetables, you aren't a cow; you won't be able to do it, your gut system will cause distress. So normally, there are two macronutrients that human beings tend to overeat. Both are fuel for the body, and both sources can be used as energy, whether it's fat or sugar. Huh.
(33:57) Okay, so when you consume excess fat or excess sugar, we get a domino effect. First, you gain weight. You develop central obesity. Okay, after developing that central obesity, you start developing what is very common in Indians, which is visceral central obesity, meaning getting a belly. Getting a belly is basically in your midriff, and I call it the great Indian potbelly, okay.
(34:23) 99%of people have it. Okay, so the minute you get a potbelly, another major risk for Indians—not just Indians, in fact for South Asians —is what? We always tend to hold visceral fat. Visceral fat means—there are two types of fat, really. Correct. One is behind the skin, which we call subcutaneous, and it is not metabolically active.
(34:49) That is fat you can jiggle if you pinch it like this. It’s the one under the skin. The one under the skin that you can pinch. The other type of fat is visceral, meaning it is around and on top of all your organs, like liver fat, pancreatic fat, heart fat, or intestinal fat. That is metabolically active, and it causes damage.
(35:11) So, South Asians, especially Indians, have a phenotype where our tendency to put on visceral fat is high, which is why we have the highest number of lean diabetics in the world. People who are lean but have diabetes. Okay, so with sugar, it starts with weight gain, then as I said, our potbelly, then from there visceral fat, and from visceral fat comes liver fat, fatty liver disease, then dyslipidemia, meaning your cholesterol profile gets messed up, then if you ignore it from there, cardiovascular risk, then gut
(35:44) disturbance, and your skin won't be good. You will have mood swings, so excess sugar, and then when you lose glucose regulation. After some time, you'll be on tablets. After tablets, insulin, so... One after... One after the other. And it's not just excess sugar that causes this; excess fat will also lead to insulin resistance; you get insulin resistance even if you eat excess fat.
(36:18) So hyperinsulinemia, meaning insulin resistance, having too much insulin in the body, is basically a symptom of energy excess; more than what you actually need. You are continuously eating in excess. That is what sugar and excess calories will damage, and mostly in India, unfortunately, it is very difficult to bifurcate what we are eating in excess because everything we eat is this combination, this sugar-fat combination ; take any example, so for Indians, reducing both.
(36:50) Hmm. We can't really cook without oil. Correct. Tempering before, tempering after, all sorts of tempering; if we make non-veg, a layer of oil must float on top; if we make stuffed brinjal curry, we can't eat it if we don't see the oil in it; and for biryani, a Thums Up is mandatory, then Double Ka Meetha or Apricot Delight.
(37:16) Such a beautiful thing, very tasty, but somewhere there is no moderation or activity level. Uh. IT jobs. 8 hours of screen time; I actually put out a tweet on Twitter just the other day. Eat a bit more protein and fiber in the morning; you know you aren't going to the fields to plow, you’re just sitting behind a screen, right? Exactly.
(37:42) Be a bit more intelligent. If it's a sedentary life, then 99%of the... I work from home, and I wear this only to track my steps because it's so easy when working from home. At least when I used to go to my workplace, there was some movement, like taking stairs or walking to catch a cab. If you work from home, most of our jobs are digitized now, right? Just look at what we've been doing for the last hour.
(38:14) Right, okay, so it's sedentary, so you have to find ways and means to move. That is very important. If I ask you, or anyone else, to give a challenge—a 14-day challenge or a 25-day challenge —to control sugar or sugar cravings, what program or plan would you suggest? I don't believe in these challenges.
(38:38) Okay. Because they do not reinforce behavioral change. Okay, behavioral change is much tougher than doing these challenges. In these challenges, what is it? Complete elimination for a few days, but what happens after that? Hmm. Life is not 14 days. I treat it differently; I suggest starting step-by-step to clean up what you are doing.
(39:10) Okay, so for example, let's say every day you have a samosa, or one day a bread pakoda, another day a bonda, or some chips. Okay, if you eat like this every day, then first you reduce that. While simultaneously, as I said, check if your nutrition is balanced or not. Just do it. Don't count calories, don't do any of that.
(39:38) Just have adequate protein, adequate fiber, vegetables, three balanced meals, and a fruit. Okay. A handful, about 20 grams of nuts—eat that first and stop the other stuff. First, do this for 10 days. Okay. Okay, have you done this? Okay, now after doing this for 10 days, start walking for 30 minutes every day. If you do this for 10 days, then let's come and examine the quantities you are eating.
(40:07) Okay, so you mean we should focus on how much we are eating. 100%. There is no unlimited free food in the world; even water isn't meant to be consumed in whatever amount you want. It will cause damage. So, step by step, you build your habits . This is called habit stacking. Adding one habit on top of another.
(40:29) You have to keep building it up. Because sudden elimination leads to relapses. And I wouldn't even touch that method; it doesn't work for us. Very few people are able to do it. So, for those who are ordering food outside every day, I tell them to order only on Sunday. On that Sunday, when you order, eat whatever you want.
(40:55) A cheat meal. I don't even call it that; call it an indulgent happy meal. Okay, why "cheat"? Who are you cheating? Okay, so if you start understanding and do just this much, I am telling you, in one month, you will start seeing a lot of changes in your body. Okay, if I stop sugar, what kind of changes will I see after one month? If you stop added sugar, first and foremost, your calories will be controlled. That is the first thing.
(41:28) So, let's say you reduce 300 to 400 calories of added sugar every day, because anything you eat, even a laddu or anything else, easily has 200 to 300 calories. Okay, if you are consistently in a 300-calorie deficit for a month, you will easily see at least 1.5 to 2.5 kg of weight loss first. Okay. Second, what happens is, about those mood swings you have, right? Yes.
(42:00) Like if your boss is being irritating, you eat something; if there’s trouble with your mother-in-law, you eat a biscuit; if you feel dull and want a " pick-me-up," you drink or eat something . You will see that your moods are slightly more stable. Okay. Okay. Hunger levels, provided you keep your nutrition in check.
(42:21) If you reduce sugar but start your day with idli, have biryani in the afternoon, and eat at night without protein or fiber, it won't work; you will get your cravings. So, if you keep your nutrition in check... You will see that those hunger pangs and irritability will not be there. Okay, in some people, if you avoid added sugar and junk food completely, skin health improves significantly.
(42:47) That's very important. Acne will stop appearing on your body. So, what happens to some people when they take a lot of sugar and their insulin is high... Pus-filled boils appear in random places. They don't heal quickly. Especially near the genital area or in areas with skin folds. Whenever you get a boil or wound and it doesn't heal easily...
(43:13) Okay. And it starts to fester, the first thing you should do is check your glucose levels. Okay. So, if you consistently have that tendency anywhere on your body, like back acne or in the groin area or in those private areas, it will decrease. Okay, if you have a tendency to get fungal infections like candida thrush ...
(43:38) Okay, some people get yeast infections and fungal infections repeatedly. Those will decrease. Okay, so these are all the benefits. Wow, so skin getting better is something many people... Really love. It’s interesting. So maybe that's why they might quit sugar. Ah. As you mentioned, weight loss. This is very interesting.
(43:58) That is the number one thing. When you lose weight, when you lose excess body fat, the healing of the body automatically begins because a balance, or homeostasis, is very important for your body. So, everyone is quitting sugar and using alternatives like Stevia, Monk fruit, Erythritol, etc.
(44:17) At the same time, there is a lot of fear surrounding them. Why are there these fears? What is making people fear? Research happens this way, Prasanthi garu; there are different scientists who keep doing research on various substances. In that research, something or other comes out, but the problem is that no one knows how to read research.
(44:47) Okay, second, they don't know how to interpret it. Huh. Third, they see a headline... Influencers, to some extent, and unfortunately, even doctors...Okay. They see that headline and represent it in a certain way, and that is where the , what do you say, the major scaremongering comes from. So let us break it down.
(45:16) There are three major non-nutritive sweeteners or alternatives in the news. Okay, the first one is erythritol. Okay. Erythritol came with the label of being a substance that promotes cardiovascular disease. That word came up. Okay. For heart diseases. For heart diseases. For those with cardiovascular risk and heart disease.
(45:42) But where did this start? In 2023, a research study was published in Nature Medicine, and that study found that in people who already have heart disease ... And for the people who were being evaluated for cardiovascular risk—it was a large cohort. A large group. In those who had high concentrations of erythritol in their blood...
(46:12) They found that there were outcomes of blood clots, worsening heart disease, and heart attacks. Okay. Okay, now how should we view this? How much erythritol and in which population ? Okay, and this is a causation study, a correlation study, an association study . So first and foremost, this cohort was already an unhealthy cohort.
(46:36) Right. Second, excessive use of erythritol— meaning the concentration limit was very high. Third, they were unhealthy and were being evaluated for this risk. Okay, so now there are two ways to look at this. If you are healthy, it is okay to have a little erythritol here and there. Okay. Okay, but if you have a family history of heart disease, or if you have already had surgeries, or are on statin medication and want to avoid that risk, there are many other options—just avoid it. Okay, but the fear is
(47:13) unnecessary. For example, I don't have any problems, so if a little erythritol comes in some sweet, I am fine with it. Right. Or occasionally, there are some whey proteins that sometimes use sugar alcohols, and if there is a little in there, I don't get worried. Okay, so even with artificial sweeteners and alternatives, studies are being done on what happens if you exceed a certain dose. So this is with erythritol.
(47:45) There is another problem; there is another research study that was done, and that research only lasted for two weeks. So we also have to understand that all studies are time-bound, okay, because it is very expensive to constantly do research. Okay, so in our sugar alcohols, especially even with erythritol and maltitol, another study found that if taken in excess...
(48:10) Due to erythritol and maltitol sugar alcohols, there is gut bloating. Our gut microbiome changes. Getting diarrhea, so gut distress; but that is also, I think, almost more than 60g a day. Correct. Sorry, 60mg a day. Milligrams. In non-nutritive sweeteners, that is a very large amount because their concentration is very high.
(48:37) So. That means how much are you consuming? If you are consuming that much, the problem is not erythritol; other problems will arise first, like your calories becoming excessive. Okay, so this was the problem with erythritol. Then came sucralose. Okay, sucralose is very commonly used. Most protein powders will have sucralose.
(49:05) Okay, now there is no problem at all with this, but if you use sucralose in items that need deep frying or high-temperature baking... It breaks down and generates some molecules which can be potentially harmful. So it is simple: if you are baking, if you are making Balushahi, please do not add sucralose to it. Okay . So that is with sucralose.
(49:31) Okay. Then the biggest discussion came again on diet sodas and diet cokes. Because in most countries, that is what is used. Aspartame, okay, aspartame was studied for its potential cancer risk. And the first study said that aspartame may cause cancer; this became the biggest headline because whenever cancer is involved, it becomes the biggest headline.
(50:02) I think they put it in the Group 2B category. Okay. That study was done again. And then the WHO issued a guideline that said it can potentially cause cancer only if you consume more than a certain amount, which basically translates to if you have more than 15 to 17 diet cokes or sodas made with artificial sweeteners or aspartame in a day.
(50:34) Now the risk will begin. Right. It doesn't mean it happens that same day. If someone consistently drinks 15 cokes , then you have another problem, as I always say. This won't cause the problem; you'll have other issues before that because a lot of diet coke is water. If you consume that much liquid, you will first get some other problem, like in kidney function or something.
(51:01) Okay, then finally came saccharin. Saccharin was misinterpreted because, in that too, it was given in excessive doses; it was a rat study. Okay. In that rat study, they saw that certain rats got colorectal cancer, okay. But it was a rat study and it was given [in high doses]. See, there is one keyword in everything: excess.
(51:27) Excess, you shouldn't do anything in excess, okay? So, a small drop of monk fruit, an erythritol sugar-free tablet, one coke, one diet coke or diet pepsi or diet sprite or whatever you drink, maybe once or twice a week, will not cause harm.