Your brain on sugar

It's that time again....Just after the sugar shock of Halloween and the hyper anticipation of the "Christmas gimmies." If the thought of your kid(s) ingesting even more sugar makes you want to climb a tree, here's some ammunition for the case against sugar.
I'm not suggesting we all go cold turkey on sugar but if we just start by thinking about how much sugar we , and our kids really do consume, try eliminating one thing at a time , and make better choices, we can go into the new year a little healthier, and feelin' fine !
If you want to skip the science, scroll to the bottom for a few simple thoughts on sugar.

Some facts on sugar :

• Sugar can cause depression
• Sugar can suppress your immune system and impair your defenses against infectious disease.
• Sugar can cause can cause a rapid rise of adrenaline, hyperactivity, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and crankiness in children.
• Sugar feeds cancer cells and has been connected with the development of cancer of the breast, ovaries, prostate, rectum, pancreas, biliary tract, lung, gallbladder and stomach cancers.
• Sugar can cause autoimmune diseases such as: arthritis, asthma, multiple sclerosis.
• Sugar greatly assists the uncontrolled growth of Candida Albicans (yeast infections)
• Sugar can reduce the learning capacity, adversely affect school children's grades and cause learning disorders.
• Sugar is an addictive substance.
• Sugar can worsen the symptoms of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
• In juvenile rehabilitation camps, when children were put on a low sugar diet, there was a 44 percent drop in antisocial behavior

Sugar can do so much more than this so to see all the facts view my references at : http://www.mercola.com/article/sugar/dangers_of_sugar.htm
sweet ideas :

• increase your protein intake, especially at your first meal of the day, try eggs more often, or even adding some peanut butter, or cheese to your toast instead of jam.
• switch from white to brown. Try sprouted, whole grain breads, long grain brown rice, whole grain cereals instead of cornflakes .
• read those labels, some of the foods that have sugar in them may surprise you !
• Do not replace sugar with artificial sweeteners. Try to get used to eating less sweet foods instead- drink water instead of juice, for example !
• Bake your Christmas goodies with as little sugar as possible- replace some or all of it with applesauce, pureed raisins or a little honey instead and most recipes turn out great ! If a recipe calls for 1 cup sugar, I use 1/4 cup of honey. The exception is of course , shortbread. sigh... can't be good all the time.