Sugar/Fat Seesaw or Sugar/Fat Toboggan? by Joan Kent, PhD

Sugar/Fat Seesaw or Sugar/Fat Toboggan?
By Joan Kent, PhD

In a previous post, I’ve written about the sugar/fat seesaw. That really is a thing. As one decreases in the diet, the other tends to increase.

But it’s obvious that the two can increase together. Also, sugar can increase fat in someone’s diet in several ways (and not always the best fats). This post covers a few of those ways.

First, Sugar Can Change Your Food Preferences

My nutrition clients who dislike vegetables almost always eat a lot of sugar. The connection here is pretty straightforward: people who are accustomed to the taste of sweet don’t enjoy foods that lack that taste. And vegetables certainly aren’t sweet, so people who eat lots of sugar often avoid vegetables.

Some clients will protest that they like vegetables even though they also like sugary foods. It’s definitely possible to like both.

But it’s also common for fans of vegetables to enjoy what they put on the vegetables – dressings, sauces, some vinegars – just as much as, or more than, they like vegetables. In some cases, the vegetables are simply a vehicle for the sauce or dressing – which may contain sugar.

What’s Fat Got To Do With It?

The sauces or dressings that contain sugar might also contain fat. Commercially prepared ones frequently have both. Using them will obviously increase the amount of sugar and fat in the diet.

Sugar also triggers a release of a brain chemical called beta-endorphin (most people say “endorphins”). Beta-endorphin in turn brings on a preference for other endorphin-triggering foods. That usually means sugar, fat, or a combination of the two.

Examples of sugar and fat combinations include ice cream, chocolate, chocolate cake, baklava and other desserts, or breakfast pastries. Many more examples are out there.

Sugar Tastes Sweeter With Fat In It

As explained in a previous post, research has shown that fat makes sugar taste sweeter.

In a study using mixtures that resembled cake frosting, participants were given different mixtures to rate, according to how sweet they tasted. When the mixtures had sugar alone, participants rated the ones with more sugar as sweeter.

When fat was added, mixtures with more fat were given a higher sweetness rating, even though the amount of sugar was the same as – or sometimes less than – the amount in the other sugar/fat frostings.

Sugar May Make Fatty Foods More Appealing

Clients have told me that, when they eliminate sugar from their diets, they can actually enjoy snacking on a brown rice cake topped with a slice of tomato or sprouts.

When they’ve been eating sugary foods, though, such a snack seems unappealing and unpalatable. At those sugar-laden times, they find themselves wanting different things: bologna or salami sandwiches, for example, or other heavy foods.

Those heavier foods have more fat in them than the first snack, so the clients are consuming extra fat – even though they weren’t necessarily seeking high-fat foods in the first place.

In my dissertation, I named this “secondary fat consumption.”

Secondary fat consumption can occur in several different ways:

• We eat more of a fatty food (like peanut butter) when we have sugar (jelly) to eat with it and make it taste better.

• We eat sugar, which triggers endorphins, as explained above. That shifts our preferences to other foods that trigger endorphins – to more sugar or to high-fat foods, or both.

• We crave something sweet and want the sweetest taste we can get – so we instinctively choose a sugar/fat combination, instead of, say, a hard candy with sugar only.

So Is That the Worst Of It?

Unfortunately, no. High-fat foods we eat trigger the hormone ghrelin. To me, it always seemed like a Monster Hormone.

For one thing, ghrelin slows metabolism. Who wants that?

At the same time, ghrelin stimulates the part of the brain that increases appetite (the lateral hypothalamus). That gives “secondary fat” a chance to increase calories – not only through the secondary fat calories themselves, but also through all the other foods we might suddenly want to eat simply because that secondary fat has triggered ghrelin and our appetite.

It’s obvious that there’s potential for a self-perpetuating cycle in this, and that it can toboggan its way down a slippery slope and pick up speed.

It also seems obvious that – bottom line – sugar is the culprit in this metabolic mess. Dare I advise, yet again, not to eat it?

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Avoiding sugar is only one important factor in transforming your health, increasing your energy, and feeling great. Heart disease, the #1 cause of death in the U.S., has been linked with inflammation. So have diabetes, cancer, stroke and hypertension. Inflammation is strongly affected by nutrition.

On October 3-4, I’m running a life-changing seminar that’s based on science and time-tested, proven strategies for transforming your health and changing your relationship with food and eating. Register now for the early bird discount: www.LastResortNutrition.com

Questions? Please send them to: drjoan@FoodAddictionSolutions.com