I'm sick of being told what to eat. They keep saying that this is good for you, then another study shows it's bad. The general recommendation is to drink 8 glasses of water every day, and then some scientist turns round and says that doing that could kill you. Sugar is needed in the diet, as long as it's not in excess, same as fat, and protein, and carbohydrates. Anything in moderation.

Artificial sweeteners are poison just like processed sugars are.

Try stevia for a natural sweetner alternative.

Nice topic, Cambion. Mandy, most people are unaware exactly how dangerous processed sugars are. As far as I know diabetes is the fastest growing disease in the US because Americans consumes way too much sugar. Unlike carbs, fats and protein our bodies doesn’t need any processed sugar. Quite the contrary. It just messes with our blood sugar levels. (I’m not sure whether you referred to the fructose found in fruit – that is: eating the fruit whole)

Birch is right: stevia is a healthy, natural alternative. I was diagnosed with MS a couple of years ago and apparently I only had aspartame poisoning. After I detoxed my symptoms were gone.

I agree about the body not requiring sugar - sugars are carbs and the body can get them from other sources. If you look at the nutrition facts on anything, you will see that most things (fat, cholesterol, sodium, etc.) have a percent daily value allotted to them. This lets you know how much of your daily intake of that particular thing you are getting in a serving. Notice next to "Sugars" there is no percent value. Sugar is not needed.

I also hear that honey is another good way to sweeten things.

Honey is quite nutritious and has healing qualities, but it messes with your blood sugar levels as well. (But still I’d rather take honey than processed sugar or artificial sweeteners.)

It's just too hard to keep track of everything that goes into your body, especially when there's conflicting evidence. I don't ever look at the nutrition info on the box, except sometimes at the fat %. There's just so much hype about diet, I dunno how it is where you are but in the UK there's a lot of TV programs on what not to eat and they all say different things. According to them, I can survive on lettuce and glasses of water lol makes for an interesting diet, yes?

I eat what I like, and I like what I eat

Sugar is a drug and I'm addicted. I stress way too much over what my daughter eats, I don't know how I would handle it if I paid as much attention to my own diet. I know that everything I eat that comes in a package has things in it that are bad for me. But the fruit and veggies also have pesticides and who knows what and the meat has hormones etc. The food industry has made it nearly impossible to avoid these things unless you have a lot of money and time to devote to it and most people don't have those two things in abundance. SIGH!! It seems like life is such a rat race when you slow down enough to think about it. I would like some suggestions on how you feed a family in a really healthy way without going broke and without having to work on a farm or spend hours of every day in the kitchen. I'm not arguing with anyone here, I just feel overwhelmed when I think about it along with all of the other things I have to worry about. That high fructose corn syrup, or whatever other name they give it, is in practically everything you eat. I like eating food, but I don't want to have to dedicate my life to it in order to eat healthy, therein lies my dilemma I guess.

Oh yes, healthy food is so much more expensive. Especially the organic and free range varieties. Not many people have the money and the time to eat a completely healthy diet. Sometimes you can't avoid buying fast food or something on the go, and even things like sandwiches can be full of bad stuff, excess salt etc.

Killbill, what works for me is just grabbing a piece of fruit or two instead of making sandwiches for instance. It takes no time to prepare (unlike the sandwiches), it has a lot of vitamins and fiber and it contains no salt, hormones or cholesterol. If you can’t afford to live off fruit, or just don’t like it that much, you can try to just eat one fruit meal a day.
Lunch worked best for me when I made the transition. I didn’t have time in the mornings to prepare lunch for work anyway. I’m just useless!
And as far as meat is concerned: we don’t need nearly as much protein as we consume, so maybe smaller portions would be an option? (Unless you are anything like my carnivorous fiancé) It will help cut down the cholesterol and hormone intake.
But if your health is good, I wouldn’t be too bothered.

well iv done alot of research and i have to say sugar and fake sugar are both bad but fake sugar is alot worse it causes cancer if and actually makes u fatter then regular sugar. stevia is all natural and taste like suger and helps with yeast infections and other things concerning fungus and bacteria and viral and helps ur sugar levels so its an all over good thing and u can buy it in granulated form so u can use it just like u would use regular sugar but youd be doing somthing good for your body instead of bad

i was drinking a nice cold glass of water last night (from the tap) and i thought to myself, this is delicious and more refreshing than anything else i ever drink. why do I drink soft drinks instead of this all the time??? It is like an addiction. You know it's bad for you and you don't really get anything out of it but you can't seem to stop. Artificial sweeteners are like "light" cigarettes. A big crock. Every once in a while I swear off soft drinks but somehow they always pull me back in.

I thought I heard from somewhere that they discovered some artificial sweeteners such as sweel 'n low and ...the blue pack whatever that is can lead to cancer? My boyfriend when we go out to eat will say "will you hand me some cancer?" when he wants some sweetener...i tell him its not funny! Regardless of whether thats true or not I stay away from it, except splenda...oh man...if ten years from now they find out splenda has negative side effects my family will be the first to go...we use splenda allllllllll the time......i think honestly its just better to stick with regular sugar...in moderation of course...thats the problem with america...we cant keep things in moderation...such as the serving sizes you get when you go out to eat...you know...if they gave me half the food and charged me half the price I would be completely fine with that!

haha..lettuce and water yikes...and i'm the same i'll eat what I want to I just try to BALANCE..if I want a doughnut..i'll have half of it..im not going to deprive myself and then have a withdrawl and stuff down like ten of them a week later....its all about balance

its true...for a while I was drinking nothing but propel water and decaffenaited tea on occassion...didn't crave a single soda..but when I came home on a college break my mom had bought these things called "diet rite" sodas...and all of a sudden I started craving sodas again...i'd say...hmm maybe just one dr pepper...ha then it started to slowly turn into a habit again...i very rarely drink sodas now and I dont really drink those diet rites often anymore either

Please read the label on that Propel Fitness Water. It is no more than glorified soda pop. There is nothing in it that is beneficial to your body - other than the water part.

also----fitness waters like gatorade also contain propelyne glycol--and tree resin---so you are pretty much drinking antifreeze

really! I mean I knew things like gatorade aren't good for you to drink, unless you're extremely active and need the electrolytes and calories but I've never paid attention to propel and those are my absolute FAVORITE...great...so much for that...i guess i'll stick to my decaffenaited sweet tea

Even athletes drink a very different gatorade than whats in the bottle (kinda like if you were to dump out most of the bottle and fill it back up with water) and most people don't train hard enough to even need the extra electrolytes and calories. You need to be training HARD for at least an hour or a half hour if you're in the sun.

I drink gatorade when I'm trying to gain weight, I can't imagine why someone would be drinking it when they are trying to cut calories.

oh no way you're definitely not suppose to drink gatorade unless like you said you're really active...theres so many calories in it! i still bummed about propel! I always take those to the gym with me grrrrr