The Hidden Sweeteners in Our Food
Welcome to the Reality of Health Podcast! In this episode, we explore why almost everything we eat or drink today is flavored or sweetened, and the impact this has on our health. We'll uncover hidden sugars and flavor enhancers like rice syrup, sorghum syrup, dextrin, and the notorious maltodextrin, which are commonly added to foods without us even knowing. We also discuss the addiction to sweet tastes created by these additives and the historical shift from naturally flavored foods to today's super-sweet varieties. Understanding what's really in our food is crucial, so join us as we delve into these issues and learn how to make healthier choices. Don't forget to subscribe for more insights on maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Thank you for listening and take care of yourselves.
00:00 Introduction to Sweetness in Our Diets
00:29 Hidden Sugars and Flavor Enhancers
01:28 The Problem with Sweetness Addiction
02:04 Natural Sweetness and Eating Habits
02:59 Modern Fruits and Vegetables
03:24 The Contrast in Flavor Experiences
06:02 Synthetic vs. Natural Flavors
07:43 The Impact of Altered Foods
08:07 Conclusion and Future Topics
Welcome healthy friends to the reality of health podcast. Why is it? We have to flavor or sweeten, almost everything we eat or drink. Why can't we just eat it as it is. A very long time ago, we most likely didn't eat things that were sweet. Nowadays, everything is sweet. Well, almost everything.
Because of this you're acclimating to everything tasting sweeter or even semi-sweet.
They are literally hiding sugar and flavor enhancers in almost everything. . And you wouldn't even know that's what they were.
Not just the normal stuff, like sugar or corn syrup.
But they add things like.
What you see here?
Like rice syrup.
You wouldn't even know that with sugar.
Or sorghum syrup.
Or dextrin, but the worst on this list,
Is maltodextrin. That has the highest insulin yield.
They put it in everything, especially low fat foods.
then we have things like flavor enhancers, all their derivatives,
like MSG as one you've always heard of, but it's also known as hydrolyzed protein. Or textured protein or yeast extract.
Or autolyzed east.
Then of course. The fake flavors. We all know what those are. You see them all the time.
They usually just call them flavor or a specific flavor. Let's say strawberry flavor.
So here's the underlining problem. You can only take so much of your food, not being sweet. Then you need to have something to satisfy you like a dessert.
And of course we all know what that does. That creates a dopamine response.
Bunch of other chemical responses and just gives you flavor. It's you become addicted.
Not saying you can't have something sweet. It should just be very particular. Not super sweet, totally natural and real. I'll get into that. Organic if possible and only just do a small amount. You don't need a lot of something. Sweet.
My belief is you should eat it on its own. Not with, or right after eating anything. When you eat it on its own, you immediately know how sweet it is. You won't need a lot because your body intuitively will tell you when to stop. I can also tell it's super sweet. Therefore. You will automatically know not to eat too much.
When you eat it with food or right after food, like a dessert, you have two extremes and it's really hard to shut that off well i'll get into that.
📍 So we used to have to forage for our food. Therefore you would normally just eat food that wasn't even sweet. Fruit back in the day was not sweet.
Yeah, maybe some of it was, but very few times, would you get that? Maybe only for a couple of weeks of the entire year. 📍
you were lucky enough to get honey.
It would probably be so sweet to your pallet that you couldn't only consume. Let's say a little bit.
Nowadays. We've bred our fruits to be super sweet. Also our vegetables, believe it or not. They breed those to be sweeter as well. These just make addiction. You're always consuming something sweet. Sometimes you don't even know you're eating it. It doesn't register as sweet to your pallet. Like you think of a sugar.
So here's the two opposite situations you deal with while eating. First you have a bite of a grilled steak with butter. Yum. By the way.
And you're like, wow, that's so good. Then when that's 📍 done, you have a bite of chocolate mousse and you're like, wow, that's so good. You see. You have two polar opposites. Of course, you're going to feel pleasure because you felt the extremes of both ends of the flavor spectrum.
When you eat too much of something that doesn't stimulate your taste buds. You're going to get tired of it. Nobody eats plain pasta or plain bread, Turkey, chicken, oatmeal. Rice grains. You'll have to get a swig of water or a beverage. That resets you a little bit. And of course those beverages are either just straight water. Which let's say it's flavorless, but it cleaned your mouth. Or you'll have tea or maybe milk. Or a fizzy beverage, like soda pop. Or wine. Or even a cocktail.
Then we feel refreshed in our taste buds in order to continue eating something. That is not as flavorful as most of those beverages, you were just consuming.
You see, you're constantly looking for stimulus. Sugar is the main one.
And it could be from regular sugar, all the way to carbohydrates naturally occurring things like. Potato chips. Anywhere that your brain can pick up sweetness from a liquid or a solid it's going to be happy.
Come on, you know, as well as I do it is rare for somebody to say, wow, that broccoli tastes so good.
Oral is brussel sprouts are so super tasty without all the balsamic, vinegar and salt and Parmesan, cheese and olive oil. Come on, we don't do that. What was the last time you ate a salad without dressing?
That's because vegetables and leaves generally do not taste good. At all whatsoever. Kind of bitter. Maybe with rare exceptions, you know what I mean, carrots or something? But again, it's got sugar. Then you have to cook them and flavor them in order to be palatable.
So you're at a party. You see a broccoli Florette.
And you're like, that's not so bad, but I wouldn't eat it. If it wasn't for the sour cream based dip sitting right there in the center of that circular tray now.
What'd ya.
Come on. You know, what I'm telling you is totally true.
Then we're willing to doctor or create flavor profiles to mimic foods and vegetables.
And beverages that don't naturally occur in order to satisfy our cravings and desires and addictions to unhealthy and unnatural foods and beverages and the flavor profiles. One of those is Stevia. Yes, Stevia has complications. We will do an episode on sweeteners in the future.
We flavor things with unnatural, totally synthetic flavorings in order to taste like something that we think is real. 📍 Like fruity pebbles.
They are anything but fruity.
Yes, I know they're tasty and they bring it to your childhood, but you know what I mean?
Some of us think that synthetically flavored substances tastes better than naturally flavored substances. I like the taste of fake peach, more than real peach.
Or the taste of strawberry over real strawberry. Probably because when I was a child, we didn't have peaches and strawberries. But we did have fake flavored stuff. After all it was the seventies and eighties. 📍
It's probably because real fruit like peaches and strawberries and banana and many others. Don't actually taste like what we think they taste like. Because we've altered them. Real peach and real strawberries are probably more sweet sour.
Not sweet and probably lightly fragranced, not like what you smell and taste nowadays. We don't know what they actually tastes like, because they've been bred to be super sweet. Cultures have always done things like this to breed it, to be the most tasty you can. When we didn't have agriculture, you just ate whatever the land provided.
Most people alive today have never tasted what the original fruits tasted like. That is a shame.
We have bread. More fruits and vegetables than were actually naturally occurring.
All the way back in time. We've bred those.
So you here.
As we progress further in these modern times, companies try and hide and add more and more sugar. Cause it's cheap. And they know it's addicting.
They know, you'll buy more of it.
That is the epitome of the destruction of anything natural. And of course it's all greed and profitability.
Be careful what you eat. Read the labels. We'll do an episode in the future on how to read labels. learn how they make the food that you are actually purchasing.
Try not to buy highly altered fruits and vegetables. Like we went over.
In the future, we'll do an episode on grains. And how to purchase and where to purchase and how to eat them.
Please subscribe and do all the things everybody always asks you to do. Thank you for listening. Take care of yourselves.