Booze and sugar?

[BrittanieShey]

There are lots of threads on this, but few have reached any conclusion. I would like to reintroduce alcohol for occasional consumption. Because I enjoy both beer and mixed drinks, I am totally confused on how to do this.

 

Both beer and booze contain alcohol AND sugars. Beer also contains gluten. So, how to reintroduce when there is more than one verboten food group in each item?

(Also, the reintro protocol says nothing about reintroducing sugar. Not that I want to eat mounds and mounds of sugar (I like fruit just fine as a treat) but I am worried about added sugar.

[CAK911]

I would probably hold on alcohol until you've done the full reintroduction of other things. Beer, as you mention, has gluten, but so do a lot of other spirits in the U.S. (including often vodka, because it's made with wheat often). It'd probably be better to know if gluten bothers you before you throw in alcohol, too. I know, for me, doing a round of Whole30s has convinced me that cider is a better choice (for me) than beer is. I'll have a very occasional beer, but generally I have cider or wine.

 

And, I believe sugar isn't a separate re-introduction item, but one of the mods can probably firm that up -- they're pros, and I'm a rank amateur.

[Physibeth]

I believe the official word on sugar is it doesn't need a separate introduction BUT I personally chose to wait until I completely my other reintroductions to put it back in my diet. 

 

Melissa Hartwig posted this in the comments section of this blog post: http://whole9life.com/2012/08/the-sugar-manifesto/

 

 

 

How you choose to reintroduce sugar (and in what format) after your Whole30 is entirely up to you. Sugar is one of those slippery slopes – is one teaspoon a day going to send you into metabolic derangement? Hardly. Will two? Three? Six? Twelve? At some point, it moves from “not so bad†to “pretty unhealthy†but I just don't know where that line is – and it's different for everyone. Since you asked, I really don't see how a teaspoon of sugar in your coffee every morning is doing you harm, especially since you've got your sugar demons under control. I'm sure I get that equivalent of added sugars a day just from things like ketchup, coconut water, and the occasional piece of 85% dark chocolate.

[BrittanieShey]

Thanks guys!

[MeadowLily]

Thanks for your sensible advice, Physibeth.  If I had reintroduced sugar and alcohol right off the bat, I know that I would've  literally passed out cold on the floor.

 

For those  fighting with insulin resistance,  I don't really know if the pancreas would appreciate a megaton blast of sugar after a W30.  That would be an TNT explosive force of sugary 

energy.

 

When blood sugar gets too high, it can negatively affect blood circulation. When this happens, cholesterol can build up within the blood vessels, leading to health issues like nerve damage, eye and kidney problems, gum disease, heart attack and stroke.

 

Eventually, the pancreas fails to keep up with the body's need for insulin. Excess glucose builds up in the bloodstream, setting the stage for diabetes. Many people with insulin resistance have high levels of both glucose and insulin circulating in their blood at the same time.

 

Having a blood sugar level that's even on the "high end" of normal could have damaging effects on the brain, a small new study suggests.

 

Researchers from the Australian National University found that people whose blood sugar was in the high end of a normal range (but not yet in the range for diabetes or prediabetes) were more likely to experience brain shrinkage in the hippocampus and amygdala -- an effect that normally occurs when a person ages, or experiences dementia.

 

"These findings suggest that even for people who do not have diabetes, blood sugar levels could have an impact on brain health," study researcher Nicolas Cherbuin, Ph.D., said in a statement.

 

The researchers took into account other  factors like smoking, drinking alcohol, age and high blood pressure, and found that having a normal-high blood sugar level was responsible for 6 to 10 percent of the loss of brain volume.

 

"If replicated, this finding may contribute to a reevaluation of the concept of normal blood glucose levels and the definition of diabetes," the researchers wrote in the study.

 

The study comes on the heels of newly published research in the journalPediatrics showing a link between metabolic syndrome (which includes insulin resistance seen in prediabetes) and obesity in teens with worsened brain functioning.

 

That study, conducted by New York University School of Medicine researchers, included 49 teens who had metabolic syndrome, and 62 teens who didn't have metabolic syndrome. They underwent tests to examine their learning and memory abilities. The researchers also found that the teens with metabolic syndrome also had decreased brain volume in the hippocampus.