Sugar.

Highly addictive, horribly debilitating, unfortunately pervasive, and FREAKING DELICIOUS.

Eat less sugar if you want to live longer.

THE END!

Just kidding, there’s so much more to this story than that.

What is Sugar?

Sugar is a carbohydrate.

If it ends in a “ose,” it’s gonna be a sugar. If that’s all you’d like to know, feel free to move onto the next section, as I’m about to get all Mr. Wizard up in here.

There are different kinds of sugar, starting with simple sugars (called monosaccarides) like glucose, fructose, and galactose. Then there are also more complex forms (called disaccharides) like sucrose, maltose, and lactose.

What happens in our body when we eat sugar?

Hopefully you don’t need me to tell you that sugar can cause tooth decay and rot your teeth.

Sugar is the lifeblood of the cavity creeps!

Beyond that, your body processes sugar in a very specific way.

When you consume sugar, your body has two options on how to deal with it:

• Burn it for energy. WEEEEE!

• Convert to fat and store it in your fat cells. BOOOOO!

Depending on your genetic predisposition, your body might be better equipped to process sugar as energy, or you might be more likely to store it as fat. Think of this like you think of people with faster metabolisms vs. people with slower metabolisms.

What about fruit sugar?

Honestly, I believe the consumption of fruit can be beneficial.

When you consume fruit, you are not only consuming fructose (in its natural state), but also consuming fiber and lots of vitamins and minerals. Yes, fruit can have an effect on your blood sugar, it IS sugar. But generally fruit will cause less of a blood sugar spike compared to nutrient-void table sugar or high fructose corn syrup.

Along with that: Fiber is an important part of a balanced diet (ask your bowels), and fruit can contain a lot of it!

However this doesn't mean that you should STOP eating sugary things for the rest of your life.These are just some facts about sugar.Just remember

that the secret for a healthy lifestyle is to STOP restricting food!