The Sugar-Disease Connection: How Sugar May Be Causing Chronic Illness

In this episode of Crunchy Stewardship, cousins Katie Fiola Jones and Chrissy Rombach dive into the topic of sugar and its significant impact on health. We discuss how sugar is the enemy to our health due to its addictive nature and its role in various chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and even cognitive diseases like Alzheimer's. They highlight how sugar is pervasive in modern diets and the importance of avoiding it at all costs, especially for children. This episode explores alternative natural sweeteners such as honey, monk fruit, and maple syrup, and coconut palm sugar which have a lower glycemic index, making them healthier options.

Chapters: 

00:00 Welcome to Crunchy Stewardship

01:05 Introduction to Today's Topic: Sugar

01:39 The Spiritual and Physical Dangers of Sugar

03:42 Sugar in Everyday Foods

09:14 Health Impacts of Sugar

36:13 Alternatives to Sugar

45:59 Final Thoughts and Sign Off

Links and Resources Mentioned:

Books:

• Nourishing Traditions (Katie's "crunchy bible"): https://amzn.to/3J6nuD2 
• The Home Reference to Holistic Health and Healing: https://amzn.to/3J5XrM2b

Natural Sweeteners:

• Honey
• Maple syrup
• Coconut palm sugar (the organic brand Katie uses): https://amzn.to/455yiK3 
• Monk fruit sweetener
• Lakanto powdered monk fruit sweetener

Other Food Products:

• Dutch processed cocoa powder: https://amzn.to/3HnXYZd

Recipes:

• Katie's favorite homemade ice cream recipe: https://blog.crunchystewardship.com/post/naturally-sweetened-homemade-ice-cream
• Max's high protein chocolate ice cream recipe (protein powder, raw cocoa powder, heavy whipping cream, honey)

Additional Resources 

• Bible Recap study plan: https://amzn.to/3HqcRu5

Connect With Us:

Join Our Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/crunchychristianmama

Follow us on Instagram @crunchystewardship

FREE How to Afford Non-Toxic Living Workbook: https://crunchystewardship.com/how-to-afford-non-toxic-living

Transcript

Katie: 0:00

Hey, and welcome to Crunchy Stewardship. My name is Katie Fiola Jones.

Chrissy: 0:04

And my name is Chrissy Rombach. We are two cousins who are passionate about learning and sharing knowledge to equip others to steward their spiritual, mental, emotional, financial, and physical health in order to honor God in every aspect of their lives.

Katie: 0:20

In our podcast, we take deep dives into what it means to steward our lives as God originally intended for us. With the resources that God has given us, we look at topics such as food, medicine, finances, mental health, and lots more through a natural lens and with a biblical foundation.

Chrissy: 0:39

Before we get started on today's episode, if you've been enjoying our podcast, make sure you go and subscribe to it and leave us a five star rating. This helps other people find our show in the future. And if you haven't already signed up for our weekly newsletter, take a moment and do that by clicking on the link in the show notes so you can stay updated on all things new and crunchy. So in today's episode, we are going to be talking about sugar. It's uh, one of those things that the crunchy world has identified as equivalent to the devil, and so we're just gonna be diving in today and figuring out what are the impacts of sugar? How does it impact our body? How does it change our body? And what can we do to improve our health and wellness without sugar?

Katie: 1:30

It is kind of funny actually, now that you say that, it's like the sugar is like the devil. And so if we're going at this from like a spiritual aspect, you're like, okay, as a Christian you wanna like fight against the enemy and, and you know, never give it a foothold in your life. And I feel like the same is so true with sugar that we have to be really careful because sugar can be so addictive. And so if we do let it kind of get this foothold in our lives, it can destroy us ultimately. And as we'll kind of dive into, and I'm sure Chrissy will share some of this because again, Chrissy is kind of our, uh, resident expert, medical person. She'll probably dive into it a lot

Chrissy: 2:13

Definitely not.

Katie: 2:14

Definitely not. Well, that's the title I give you.

Chrissy: 2:18

Definitely just the science nerd.

Katie: 2:20

Yes. So sugar is linked to a lot, a lot guys, and I mean, like you just, you really gotta hear me out a lot of diseases and I mean medical challenges, I guess like just so many chronic illnesses are linked back to sugar, and so it really is the enemy in kind of the health world and something that we can't let get a foothold into our lives, especially like mamas. If you have little kiddos, I mean, I am no expert yet at this point, but what I have learned in my process and my journey of raising a little one is that you want to try to avoid sugar for as long as possible for your little ones because again, it is so addictive that if you get them started so young, that addiction is just kind of setting into place. And yeah, so we've been doing our best to try to avoid sugar as much as possible for Malakai, but it is, it is hard. They put sugar in everything these days but what is interesting about sugar is that it helps preserve flavor and keeps food good for longer, but also it can be addictive. And so a lot of big food companies put sugar in their products because of these reasons. They, they want it to last longer. They want the food to taste good. They want you to be addicted to it so that you go and buy more. So sugar really has ended up in all of our food these days. In fact, you've probably heard me mention this book because I love this book and it is almost like my crunchy bible at this point because I keep referencing it, um, after everything that I've learned. But the book is Nourishing Traditions, and I wrote down this fact from it. It was actually early on in the book that they shared that in 1821, the average sugar intake in America was 10 pounds per person per year. Okay, 10 pounds. That still sounds like a lot, but you're like, eh, not too bad. Today, it is 170 pounds per person representing over one fourth of the average caloric intake. Now this book is actually a little bit old. I think when they actually say today, it might have been like 10 to 20 years ago. This book has been around a bit, but I wonder what that statistic actually is. Maybe 180 pounds per person per year because again, sugar is in so much that we eat these days that it's, I'm, I'm shocked hearing it, but I'm also not shocked because of the amount of sugar that I see in everything.

Chrissy: 5:25

That's another thing so I have recently started, when I go grocery shopping, I try my absolute darnedest to avoid buying food that has sugar added to it. And let me tell you, it is hard. Like sausage patties have sugar in them. Why? I don't know. What else is like, kind of a random thing I wanna say. Like some broths have some sugar in them. Condiments, all have sugar in them. And even like trying. Yes, some chips do, or even if you are looking online at like recipes or like trying to make your own barbecue sauce or trying to make your own this, that, or the other thing. A lot of these recipes have sugar added to them too. And so it is hard to find things that don't have sugar. Oh, lunch meat has sugar in it. Um, yeah, it just, it blows my mind. And another thing is like. When you think of a few years back, there was like the whole, well, it's kind of actually still going. The low fat craze, you know, of everyone trying to get healthy. And so they're eating low fat, this low fat cheese, low fat dairy. The thing is, so fat is a lot of what holds the flavor in our food. You know, if you're eating. A piece of steak. The most flavorful part of the steak is the fat that's on the outside of it. And so when they create these low fat cheeses and low fat dairy and low fat this, that, or the other thing. And they take out that fat. They're essentially taking out all of the flavor from the food. And so the food then tastes like cardboard. And what better way to replace the flavor than to add sugar to it? And so even though you have a low fat item, you still have that extra sugar, which if you break it down to like body mechanics and how the body processes sugar, there's a process called lipogenesis, which it essentially quite literally means fat creation. And fat creation in the body starts with glucose. And so if the body doesn't have extra glucose, then it's not going to create fat. Whereas if the body is given lots of extra glucose, it has to store it somewhere because your body goes into this mode of, okay, I have extra right now. I'm going to store it for when I am not having all this extra. And so it turns it into fat for future energy to be used when we go into a famine sort of thing. That's like the body's natural response to extra sugar, which is good if we lived in a time when famines were a reality. But here in America, in the 21st century, famines are, if they do happen, it's with one food group, for instance, like the bird flu last year, you know? And all the chickens and the price of eggs went through the roof, and so that's the kind of famine that we experience nowadays, as opposed to like the entire land being wiped out of all food. That's just not a reality for us. And so we don't need our bodies to be storing all of that extra energy at this point because. We're just not gonna use it. And so, that's one of the reasons, you want to keep your sugar intake low in order to prevent that extra fat from being stored because extra fat being stored in your body is, it just leads to a cascade of issues. Heart disease, lung disease, digestive problems, low recovery, like workout recovery, things like that. So, um. Yeah, that's my, my quick little tidbit.

Katie: 9:29

I am going through the Bible recap, which is just like a study plan to go through the whole Bible. And today my reading was on Joseph interpreting the dreams of Pharaoh about the whole famine and, and everything. And so as you're talking about famines, I'm kind of thinking about how, yeah, we don't experience things like intense famines where the whole land is going to be devoid of food. No, that's, that's not the case. But what is interesting, I think, is that we are almost, this is just kind of more of the conspiracy side of me, and it's like we're almost creating our own famine because we are quote, unquote producing foods that aren't necessarily actually food. There are a lot of chemicals and preservatives and things like that, and there's this whole movement of bringing back real food into our lives and into our diets. And if we don't focus on that, then yeah, we will create this shortage of good nutrient dense food if we kind of keep going down the route of making everything chemical based, so, and sugar is one of those terrible culprits that Yeah, makes it so hard to have good foods because maybe we can dive into a little bit of the. Negatives of sugar. We're, we're kind of talking about, yeah, sugar's so bad, but let's, let's talk about what makes sugar so bad. Like what does it cause, because I know in general, like sugar is linked to things like ADHD or tooth decay, and I've even just heard like shortened lifespans and things along those lines. But Chrissy, do you have some more examples of why sugar is so bad for us and and what it could be leading towards?

Chrissy: 11:34

Yeah. Yes. So recent studies have come out on the link between sugar and Alzheimer's, actually. Some doctors are referring to Alzheimer's and dementia now as type three diabetes, so essentially what happens is when you have increased amounts of sugar in your body, that also increases the amount of insulin in your body. And for those of you who don't necessarily know what insulin is, insulin is released from the pancreas. So when you eat sugar, it naturally increases your blood sugar levels because the sugar gets absorbed into your bloodstream. Well, in order to then decrease those blood sugar levels and actually use the sugar or the glucose as energy because. Our bodies do function off of glucose. We do need some of it in our diet. So in order to use that glucose in the bloodstream, the pancreas releases insulin, which then binds to the glucose molecules in the blood and opens the gate into the cells for the glucose to enter the cells and be used for Essentially life like you need the mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell functions off of glucose. That's just the reality of it. Our brains function off of glucose, and so we do need it, but when there's an excess of glucose, then that forces the pancreas to release more and more insulin in order to maintain a safe level of glucose in our blood. So if the sugar in our blood, if those levels get too high, people who have diabetes, they know exactly what this feels like. You get like foggy in the head. You feel like your heart is racing. You can get dizzy, lightheaded. You feel really thirsty all of a sudden.'cause your body is like, okay, well I need to dilute this blood sugar somehow. And so we need that insulin in order to get the sugar into our cells and our cells need the sugar. To function, but when there's so much, the pancreas releases a ton of insulin, which then increases our fasting insulin levels. And so that is the piece that is mostly linked to this, dementia and Alzheimer's, is how much insulin is hanging out in your bloodstream ready to attack that glucose when you are not eating? And those high levels of insulin just always in your body. Can start to degrade and damage your brain cells. And so that is what leads to the slow thought processing forgetfulness, and ultimately Alzheimer's and dementia of like your brain, quite literally cannot function with these super high levels of insulin because it blocks, I don't actually know how it works, but it damages your brain. Okay. Um,

Katie: 14:34

Yeah, take that.

Chrissy: 14:35

take that. But yeah, that is one thing that honestly, like recently I've been really concerned about. So, there are some methods of like, okay, so how do I you know, everything in moderation, right? So the goal is to decrease those blood sugar spikes to therefore then decrease insulin spikes in the body. And all your diabetics out there listening, you totally understand what is a blood sugar spike and what is a insulin spike? So a blood sugar spike essentially is when you eat something with a lot of sugar, your blood sugar level peaks, and then after about an hour, it kind of levels back out because your body releases that insulin and it fixes itself. Now, if you eat something like pizza, your blood sugar spike is going to be a lot higher for a lot longer. And then you crash. I don't know if you've ever experienced that with eating pizza. You feel great for like 30 minutes and then you crash so one of the methods that I have actually learned that you can use to decrease those blood sugar spikes and therefore decrease insulin spikes in your body is to eat something with a lot of fiber before eating something with a lot of sugar in it. So if you want ice cream, so to say, but you want to avoid that blood sugar spike because blood sugar spikes are linked to insulin spikes, which is linked to a lot of health issues. They have found that if you eat something with a lot of fiber, such as a leafy green like spinach or kale, literally just a handful of it. If you eat that first, your body starts processing that first, and then if you eat the ice cream or the high sugar, whatever, the cake, your body is going to be also focused on that fiber. And so the fiber is going to slow down the intake of that sugar, which then decreases your sugar spike in your blood, which is very beneficial for longevity purposes and long-term health.

Katie: 16:45

I've actually heard similar things that you're saying about coffee. Now, I, I don't know the specifics, but what I do remember from the podcast that I listened to was that if you're going to drink something like coffee, it's really good to do two things. First, have like a full glass of water and eat something because of the way that the caffeine hits your bloodstream. It doesn't make all of your levels in your blood crazy. And this is me not being all scientificy. All I remember was the application was, all I need to do is have a cup of water and something to eat before I have my morning coffee. Because on an empty stomach it makes all of your hormone levels or your blood sugars or something all crazy. Maybe you could speak to that too. I dunno.

Chrissy: 17:33

Yeah. Yeah. So essentially the ideal is to eat a balanced amount of all of the macronutrients every time you eat. So each time you eat, you want to have a balanced amount of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. And ideally, you'd want the protein in the fat to be higher than the carbs. Um, because those are gonna be your long-term energy stores. You know, your protein is gonna mend your muscles. The fat is also going to give your body long-term energy. The carbohydrates are just there for short-term energy and then you crash. And so you need the protein and the fat in order to keep those energy levels high. And also when you eat all three of those macronutrients together, then it decreases the speed that your body absorbs those carbohydrates and so therefore decreases the spike in your blood sugar. Your blood sugar will rise at a slower level so your body can slowly but surely manage it and keep it low, and it prevents that spike. So yeah, I think that podcasts that you heard, Katie is totally spot on of like with caffeine, with alcohol. People say like, oh, if you drink alcohol in an empty stomach, it hits you so much harder than if you drink alcohol after having a burger or something like that. Well, yeah, a burger has carbs and fat and protein in it, and so if you eat that first and then have the alcohol, the alcohol's gonna take a lot longer to hit your system than if you have an empty stomach. Boom, alcohol is absorbed and you're donezo so, um, which by the way, guys, alcohol is a form of sugar, just so you know. It is merely just fermented sugar. So keep that in mind.

Katie: 19:18

So going back a little bit to your discussion on Alzheimer's. I did pick up some information about it, kind of being linked to the sugar stuff, as well as having, a low protein diet, so needing, you know, the proteins and the fats and stuff for your brain to develop properly. I also wrote down some notes of like the necessary nutrients that you need in order for your brain to be functioning long term in a healthy way. You need a lot of like antioxidants and Omega-3 fatty acids. I, I actually copied this down. It looks like it was a book actually read a while ago. It's called The Home Reference to Holistic Health and Healing. It was, they had a lot of like quick hits of like each chapter was a different health thing that they talked about and one of them was actually um, this one was called Boost Brain Power. This whole chapter was on that and they had a lot of on Alzheimer's and talking about antioxidants and making sure to get lots of proteins and avoid trans fats, and kind of focus on things that are more like saturated fats. So yeah. What do you have to say about some of these thoughts? I don't know.

Chrissy: 20:38

I agree. I know. Another thing is that a lot of extra sugar in your diet can lead to the release of free radicals. So essentially the process is, I'm like racking my brain back to anatomy during college. But essentially when the mitochondria uses the glucose to create energy. The byproduct is free radicals, which is essentially like a super unstable form of energy in your body that can react pretty explosively on a cellular level.

Katie: 21:16

And the, free radicals can lead to things like cancers, right?

Chrissy: 21:20

Yeah. Yeah.'cause it damages the cells like healing abilities. And so cells lose their ability to like check themselves. There's a process called apoptosis, which is essentially when the cell decides, okay. I am no longer healthy, I'm no longer good, and then it dies on purpose, essentially. Or the body will like kill off dying or damaged cells in order to prevent them from replicating over and over and over again, which causes cancer. And so yeah, these free radicals prevent the cells from dying off when they are sick or not working properly. And so yes, it can lead to cancer.

Katie: 22:07

Actually, yeah, I, I found the page finally in my Nourishing Traditions book. I've been sitting here flipping back and forth, and I did find this sentence that said, tumors are known to be enormous sugar absorbers. And I do like, that's one of those facts that I keep hearing so often is that our choices today, like what we're eating, what we're drinking, what we're breathing in, how we're living our lives, you know, the activity that we're doing. It all impacts our health long-term. And so if we're eating a lot of sugar, it sounds like we are essentially feeding cancerous tumors in our bodies. And I, I read a fact once that said, you know, that the tumors like that, the cancerous tumors that you have in your body, they don't just show up there one day. Right. That, that would be silly. It's like all of a sudden you have this golf ball sized tumor somewhere in your body. No, it, it's a result of years worth of lifestyle choices. So the tumors that you have are typically. Eight to 10 years old. So it's the choices that you made 10 years ago that are impacting your health today. And so it's so important. Like the, when you go out to eat, you're like, I'm gonna go get this really sugary ice cream. Or even just when you go out to eat and you're eating something that is just loaded with sugar, it's not even a dessert.'cause like we said, sugar's in so much. You might think like, it's not gonna kill me right here and right now. Sure. Yeah, you're right. You're not going to die by eating that bowl of ice cream today. But what is happening is that it's building up over time, these lifestyle choices build up, and then eventually that bucket kind of spills over and causes these chronic illnesses such as diabetes or cancers or Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease, any of these things are results from the choices that we make. And for some reason, I don't know why I mentioned this one time to someone, when I learned that fact about the tumors growing from years past, you know, like the choices you made when you were like, like a decade ago when you were in your thirties and is now showing up in your body like. People for some reason seem like they, they get really offended by that because oftentimes I think what the traditional narrative, what they like to say is that it's kind of a random chance that you got ill with whatever sickness you have and nothing you did was the cause of it. And so it's just totally by chance, it's totally your genes, but it's really our choices plus our genes. So there's epigenetics. And the way that I've heard it explained is, yes, you were born with certain genes in your body, right? But, it's like, it's like the gun in the story, but the way that you choose to live out your life is you loading that gun and kind of pulling the trigger, versus if you have these genes, they can stay dormant in you if you don't act on the unhealthy lifestyle choices and you might never get sick because you chose to live a really healthy life and avoid sugars and other harmful chemicals and toxins. So, I don't know, it's, it's really interesting because I feel like sometimes the answer can be so simple to avoiding these chronic illnesses, but people don't want to always take responsibility for what happens to them and their health. I don't know. I don't, I don't like, I don't wanna offend anybody, but that's just kind of where my thought process is going. It's like I wanna help you and share with you that if you avoid sugar, not just sugar, lots of things, but sugar is one of the big culprits. If you avoid it now, it can help your health in the future and maybe you won't get sick. I don't know.

Chrissy: 26:20

Yeah, I think it's one of those things that like if somebody who has been diagnosed with cancer. It's a lot easier to swallow the diagnosis pill. If you know, you hear, okay, well it just happened my chance. This is all a fluke. Nothing you did could have caused it. Whereas if you hear, no, actually the lifestyle choices that you've made for the past 10 years is what caused this super traumatic life altering illness. Well, that's a lot harder news to swallow. And it's one of those things that people, especially those who like try to be healthy and, don't know any better with the sugar. They're, it's kind of like a news flash that you just got smacked in the face of like, I've been. Working out, I've been eating quote unquote healthy and I've been eating low fat and all these things for so many years and trying to do my best. And you're saying that all of those choices that I thought were good led to me having cancer like that, that's a lot harder of a pill to swallow than, yeah, well this is just what the universe had for me and we'll get through it, you know, to like actually take that responsibility. Accountability and taking responsibility for one's actions is so incredibly difficult, especially when it's an action that you thought was good but actually wasn't, or that you didn't know was bad and you just thought it was neutral, you know? And so, um, eating sugar and eating toxins I think is one of those things that like the media has to. Totally let us astray in our diets because they say that low fat things are good and, it's okay to eat, food colorings and things like that, uh, that it's non-toxic and it's not gonna cause problems. But the reality is like, no, actually all of these things are adding up in our bodies, and ultimately in the end, it's going to kill us slowly but surely. Like Katie said, you're not gonna drop dead after eating a fruit loop. But, if you eat those fruit loops every single day, you'll eventually have problems from it. So.

Katie: 28:25

Yeah, the phrase generally regarded as safe is what you typically will hear in regards to lots of ingredients that we find in our food. Food dies is one of those easy ones to pick on now because it's been exposed that food dyes are actually very harmful and have been linked to a lot of challenges and illnesses in children, especially because. food coloring is in so much, so much food for children, it's generally regarded as safe. But the FDA never actually really does studies on it. In fact, it's, there's a bunch of loopholes where the food companies can kind of like do their own research to prove that these things are generally safe for human consumption. And it's basically the whole idea of like, oh. Well, when kids eat this food dye. They're not keeling over dead right now, but, we have to ask those questions. What is it doing over time when it gets piled up in our systems and these food dyes are coming from? Like literally petroleum, like it's, it's like we're eating gasoline and we all know that eating gasoline itself is so bad, but why is it okay if we eat it in these really tiny micro doses in our foods as a beautiful coloring? It doesn't really make sense. So. And I, I wanna actually make one small note on, like, I just wanna kind of go back to the cancer stuff, and I'm not pointing fingers at people saying like, you're doing, you're, you're, you've done this to yourself. And I want to also say, you know, give yourself some grace in the midst of it. Like, we have been taught that certain things are okay and that certain things are safe. And so I don't want to say like, it is your fault for getting to this place because ultimately we've been lied to and, and that's just kind of the result of our world, is that it is broken. It has fallen, and there are people out there who are trying to make a dollar. And so they tell the rest of us lies knowing that we trust them. We trust our doctors, we trust people who are making our food. We want to believe that they have our best in mind, but the reality is, and what I've, I've kind of been learning is that. Nobody really does have the best in mind for us. And so I, I've been kind of questioning the narrative a lot more when it comes to all this conventional quote unquote wisdom about health and wellness. Especially after reading this book when we've been told that fat is evil and really, no, we need fat and good proteins and everything to make our brains grow and to keep our bones healthy and our muscles strong. And. We need these things, but the narrative has been reversed so that people can sell stuff to us. And it's really, really sad because it's people who we want to trust. We want to believe them and so it's, it's. Not a hundred percent your fault, but now that you have this information, you should hopefully feel empowered to make a lifestyle change and to do something different so that things can change. And the good news is that a lot of these chronic illnesses with a lot of lifestyle change can be reversed. And that is like the, the redemptive story of this is that there is kind of a way out. Yes, there are moments where maybe an illness has gone too far and there might not be a lot that you can do, but if you start to see things early on, if you catch them early, you can actually reverse a lot of this stuff, which is so cool that we have these tools and that like our bodies, like God did design them to heal themselves and to work against the toxins and to push them out, you know, that's why we have things like kidneys and livers that are supposed to help take out all the toxins and to do all that. And I don't know all the specifics and that is where Chrissy comes in, but it's, that's the good news. And one other last thing, because I just like, I'm, I'm sitting here thinking about like, oh, what did I say? And I don't want to. Like offend people. The other question then is are, so are things like childhood cancers because obviously children have not lived long lives of bad lifestyle choices and so where do we find answers for those kinds of cancers? And ultimately I don't have all the answers, but what I have started to pick up from, from the doctors that I do trust that I've been listening to, um, on podcasts and in books that I've been reading, is that. Cancers are the result of certain toxins in our bodies. And so we have to ask ourselves like, where are children being exposed to these toxins? Um, some of the things that I have learned can be those toxins are pesticides are a big one. Um, as well as things like mercury or aluminum, poisonings. And so. You kind of have to look in your environment where those toxins might be coming from and potentially avoid them. Um, especially, you know, for us it's, it's a really big thing that we've been focusing on is avoiding a lot of these toxins because Malakai's life started with being in the hospital and being subjected to a lot of antibiotics, which ultimately really harmed his immune system. And so we want to be really, really, really, really careful about what he's exposed to because his immune system and his gut, lining and everything, it's all out of whack because of the antibiotics. And so we are trying our best to avoid as much of these so that way he doesn't get sicker in the future. So that's my little rant. And I had to just say that before we moved on.

Chrissy: 34:40

You are so encouraging. I love it. It makes. It brings a nice light to this conversation.'cause I, this conversation has been very like, you're gonna die. But like, no, that's not the reality. It's like when you change your lifestyle choices, you can change the trajectory of your life. And, that, that's kind of what we're trying to get at here is, not you're gonna die, but rather you

Katie: 35:02

Mm-hmm.

Chrissy: 35:03

can live better and live healthier. So I think what you wanna transition and maybe talk about some sugar alternatives, because let's be real, we still all want our sweets in our lives. So how can we still have sweet food and decrease that blood sugar spike and ultimately decrease that insulin spike? So, there are a few things out there that are really great for, um, sugar alternatives. One of the ways that you can actually truly identify what is a good sugar alternative and what is not is if you look up the glycemic index of something. So the glycemic index of glucose is 100, so that's about as high as you can get. And so ultimately if you want something that is not going to be as dangerous to your blood sugar levels as sugar, uh, do something else. So. There are some things that Max and I have incorporated into our diets, and I have some other things my friends have incorporated into their diets that they really like. The first and foremost thing that we love, is honey, we have been incorporating honey into our diet like nobody's business. In our coffee in the morning, we do milk and honey. My theory was originally, you know, if you have a land flowing with milk and honey, let's put milk and honey in my coffee and maybe I'll reach the promised land someday. I haven't reached the promised land yet, but milk and honey is very yummy in my coffee. So. I've been doing that and the glycemic index of honey is usually, anywhere from like 50 to 60 depending on what kind of honey and where it's from and everything like that. So I already, that's half of what. Regular sugar is. But at the same time, if you're making like brownies or cookies and stuff like that, you're not necessarily gonna use honey in it because that is just not the right flavor profile. I, and so there's another, sugar substitute that is very, very good. They haven't identified any sort of long term issues with it. And that is Monk fruit. Monk fruit actually has a glycemic index of zero, meaning if you have a spoonful of monk fruit, it will not increase your blood sugar, but it tastes just like sugar. It looks like sugar and acts like sugar. And so, um, it's really beneficial.

Katie: 37:45

I actually went to the store the other day. I was looking for powdered sugar because right now powdered sugar is one of those items that I haven't been able to find as good of a replacement for, especially when you're making some kind of frosting like thing. I like to bake and put frosting stuff on my foods, and I've been just trying to look for different alternatives in general to that. But I was in the sugar aisle and I found this powdered monk fruit sweetener. I actually, I'm looking at it right now. I took a picture of it with my phone because I wanted to know more about monk fruit as a sweetener because it, it looked exactly like powdered sugar. The way that they had it. It was loads more expensive, I will say. And that's why I didn't just like jump into it.'cause I had no idea really what it was but maybe if somebody out there has any experience with it, I'd love to know if you have made any kind of frosting with powdered monk, fruit sweetener. The brand that I found here is called. Lakanto, L-A-K-A-N-T-O. So anyway, check it out. They had other like monk fruit things with it, but yeah, that's, I didn't know anything about it. So it's interesting that you mentioned it.

Chrissy: 39:04

Yeah. Monk Fruit I've learned is I, I don't have experience working with Monk Fruit nearly at all, but I have a friend actually crazy enough, she had a tumor and from discovering this tumor. She has completely changed her lifestyle and her diet and everything, and they have taken sugar completely out of their household and replaced it with monk fruit. And so, um, that has been very beneficial for them. And they make, still have all the same kind of desserts and everything like that, but they make it with monk fruit instead of sugar. And so it greatly decreases that glycemic index on their bodies. and, um, she says has made her feel tremendously better, which is great. Um, one thing I also wanna touch on is artificial sweeteners. This conversation is not one to encourage you to go out and use artificial sweeteners like sucralose and aspartame and things like that. Those, even though they do not have a high glycemic index, like they do not cause a blood sugar spike crazy enough, they do still cause the insulin spike, which is wild. And so it's very important to still avoid aspartame and sucralose and things like that because you still get that insulin spike from them, which can still lead to these health issues that are related to blood sugar levels. And so, um, especially people with diabetes out there, I would highly encourage you to look into using monk fruit as a sweetener instead of. Artificial sweeteners because ultimately anything that says artificial on it is bad. Avoid, get away from it. In the end, anything that man has created is not as good as the things that the Lord has made for us to use for our bodies.

Katie: 41:02

What I have learned is that you wanna avoid kind of the refined sugars and a lot of those. Synthetic sweetener kind of things and focus on anything that is a natural sweetener. So anything that's found in nature. So we've been doing maple syrup. I put maple syrup in tons of stuff. I love the flavor of it. We do a lot of honey as well, but maple syrup has been my favorite in things like coffee. Um, and the other one actually, Chrissy is coconut palm sugar. I really like,'cause I really like coconut, like the flavor of coconut. And so coconut palm sugar does have a coconutty taste to it. And those two have been like my, my favorite in fact, fun story and I'll have to share with everybody the recipe. I finally found like my favorite ice cream recipe to make homemade ice cream. We've been making ice cream for a while and it's really hard to get a good, yummy ice cream without using like boat loads of sugar. And I finally found, I, I kind of actually made it up a little bit. It's a combination of coconut palm sugar with maple syrup, and it is now my favorite ice cream recipe. In fact, I have a batch of ice cream being made right now that we're gonna enjoy this afternoon. So I'm actually really excited about that. But those are my two favorites, of, instead of like doing sugar, like, so those are the natural sweeteners that we've been using.

Chrissy: 42:37

Yeah, Max has actually made, he has successfully made a very delicious high protein chocolate ice cream. He used like natural protein powder and then, raw cocoa powder, and I think it was like heavy whipping cream and honey. And those were the four ingredients, and it was delicious. And I think that's another thing. If you're gonna make chocolate ice cream versus vanilla, you can get away with using less sweetener because you have that cocoa powder as like a other flavor kind of thing.

Katie: 43:11

I found that, I think it's called Dutch pressed cocoa powder. It's something Dutch, if you're looking at cocoa powders, the one that says Dutch in front of it is actually just slightly sweeter than the traditional like cocoa powder because of the way that it is like. They actually process it or something. And it is so good in ice cream and in coffee'cause it doesn't, has have as much of a bitter taste to it. So definitely I would recommend checking that out. I'll send Chrissy, I'll, I'll send you a link to the one that we've been using that it's like an organic one that we have found on Amazon. And yeah, I've been, I love that. I love it in all my things, so it's really good.

Chrissy: 43:52

Also just for you listeners out there, all of these things that we've mentioned, we will make sure we mention them in the description for this episode so you can go out and try to find them. Look at them on Amazon and things like that, and buy them for yourselves because we want you guys to be healthy just as much as we want us to be healthy, and we want the whole world to be healthy. So let's get on this bandwagon together. Okay.

Katie: 44:19

Well, I think we definitely need to sign off. Malakai is scooting around the house and wants attention from mommy now that he's back from his walk with daddy, so Chrissy, you wanna sign us off?

Chrissy: 44:32

Absolutely. Well, we, uh, pray for you guys every day, and we hope that these episodes can be helpful in your journey to becoming a better steward of your body, your mind, your soul, your spirit, your finances, and your families. And we are praying that this episode was helpful for you. And we'll see you next time. Until next time, my name is Chrissy

Katie: 44:56

And my name is Katie.

Chrissy: 44:58

and thanks for listening to Crunchy Stewardship. Bye bye.