OVERWEIGHT...NOW OKAY --- FRUCTOSE...NOKAY

Here, for years, I've been warning you about obesity.  Then, George Blackburn of the Harvard Medical School comes out and says that your risk of death is increased if you're NOT overweight!!!  What???

A hundred studies were analyzed, and the bottom line is that you should be slightly overweight than not.  Mind you, morbid obesity is still very bad.  But, apparently, these extra pounds serve as a reservoir in case you get seriously sick.  Actually, I've been saying and practicing this, too.  My Body-Mass Index is just in the okay range when I'm hungry, but slips into the overweight category after a particularly huge meal.  Now, I can feel reassured about this condition.

If I avoid any strenuous exercise for a week, I gain several pounds.  I now only have a third of an apple for breakfast, plus two meals daily, with perhaps one on the order of Rainbow Drive Inn lethality.  One of my favorites is perfect for carbo loading if you're running the marathon, their spaghetti with rice, macaroni salad and a hot dog.  Unfortunately, I don't do the marathon.

Going back to being somewhat chubby, what is more important than BMI, according to Samuel Klein of Washington University, are body conditions such as lower blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar.  Get this.  Being too thin is not recommended.  You can now begin to feel sorry for those model types.  Ah, I can now have just one more snack tonight.

While I'm at this, on the same page of the previous report was a note that there is something good about glucose and bad about fructose.  What happens is that a soft drink with more fructose than glucose (sucrose, or sugar, is half of each) does not provide a signal to your brain that you are satisfied or full.  Thus, you tend to eat more.  Glucose does warn your body.

Worse, fructose becomes visceral fat, which induces diseases.  And fructose seems to increase Low Density Lipoprotein, which is bad cholesterol.   A report indicates fructose wrinkles your skin.  Finally, fructose, seems to bypass the gastrointestinal path and go straight to your liver, which overworks this key organ and makes it fatty.

Corn syrup has a higher fructose ratio, while cane sugar, or sucrose, has half and half of each.  This conversion from sugar cane sweetener to corn sweetener happened because the latter was cheaper.  This is about when children began to get obese.

So what should you drink?  Water.  Or wine.  Coke and Pepsi use corn sweeteners,  Not good.  Sierra Mist is good, Sprite is bad.  All the common ginger ales use fructose, while Whole Foods and Trader Joe's sell this drink with sugar from cane, which, is okay, relatively.

Grains contain some glucose, but no fructose.  Dairy products have glucose, but chocolate milk and flavored yogurts add fructose.  Honey has a higher fructose ratio than sugar cane.

Agave (right) is 90-97% fructose.  Blue agave is used for tequila.  I might add that artificial sweeteners are considered to be worse than frutose.

THUS, WHILE FRUCTOSE IS A NATURAL SUGAR, IT IS MORE AND MORE BEING PROVEN TO BE DETRIMENTAL TO YOUR HEALTH!!!

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