Baking is not for everyone – and neither is the Banting lifestyle, according to Professor Tim Noakes.
If you are carbohydrate resistant, meaning that your body struggles to remove glucose from your bloodstream, which causes the pancreas to over-secrete insulin, thus directing the glucose into the fat cells, where it is stored as fat – resulting in increased weight gain, continual hunger, lethargy and irritability – then this diet is for you.
And is it for me, as a Candida sufferer, and a person that has struggled with stomach issues, weight problems and a myriad of other symptoms, for most of my life.
But, if your body can metabolise carbohydrates effectively and you do not put on any weight, despite eating a high carbohydrate diet, then you may not benefit in any way from this eating plan.
Although, in the same breath, when it comes to baking and eating dessert, the healthier the better, in my opinion, no matter your body type.
Sugar has been proven to be as addictive as cocaine and heroine and is the catalyst of many ailments including heart disease, liver disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer and of course obesity.
What’s even more shocking, as an avid food label reader for over 5 years (this comes with the territory when you have to eliminate certain foods from your diet), sugar is in practically every ready-made product imaginable; breads, sauces, ready-made meals, drinks, tinned foods, low-fat products, the list goes on and on… Is it any wonder that so many of us are suffering from poor health?
Our body is not designed to consume so much sugar, in fact, according to Professor Tim Noakes, our body can only accommodate 8 grams of glucose at a time.
Fructose, dubbed as the “healthy sugar” as it is said to be found in fruit – is not removed from our bloodstream like glucose, via insulin, but is rather left to the liver to remove and when the liver becomes overwhelmed with the amount of fructose it contains, it converts it into liver fat, which increases our chances of insulin resistance, hardened arteries and heart disease.
Fructose also suppresses the hormone leptin, which tells you when you are full. In other words, your brain lets you consume it without limit.
Knowing these facts about sugar should be enough to eliminate it from your life, or at the very least, your baking. But what would you substitute the sugar with as artificial sweeteners are known to be unhealthy for you?
There are a number of natural sweeteners on the market, such as stevia and erythritol, but my natural sweetener of choice is Xylitol and only the birch bark kind because it contains zero carbs. Xylitol has similar baking properties to sugar and can be substituted more or less 1 to 1.
As with every product, the quality varies. If you are unsure of what is in a product, I highly recommend finding out from the manufacturer because your health is at stake.
Some Xylitols are made from corn cobs, and hopefully not the corn itself, while other makes of Xylitol may spike Diabetics because the manufacturer has included extra ingredients in the Xylitol.
For this reason, I choose to use Sally-Ann Creed’s Xylitol as I can trust that I am getting the best product, which is extremely important to me, not just for my own health, but for my customers as well.
I pride myself on selecting my suppliers with care because I not only want to ensure a pleasurable eating experience for my clientele, but a beneficial one too.
I am a proud re-seller of Sally-Ann’s Xylitol, please contact me if you would like to make a purchase, or you can buy directly from her.
Sweet Like Candi(da) 