Halloween: There’s a Monster at the End of this Month (and a few tips for how to survive it)

Posted on | October 30, 2009 | 10 Comments

Seriously. I feel like Grover in the book “There’s a Monster at the End of This Book”.  I feverishly want to scream at every parent; “Don’t turn the page! Don’t come to the end of the month! Don’t add an hour to your clock! Put your kids to bed at 5 pm, tell them that Halloween isn’t happening this year due to budget cuts, and wake up on November 1st happy and NOT in a sugar coma.

Sometimes I think I beat this whole sugar thing like a dead horse, but there is really no other time I feel like ranting and screaming then when it comes to Halloween: The Great Feast of Sugar.  I know, it’s fun for the kids. It’s only once a year.  You mostly throw all of the candy away anyway; they don’t eat all of it.

I guess I’m just more sensitive to the insidious nature of giving copious amounts of candy to children because I recognize what a stronghold sugar had over me for most of my adlescent and young adult life, and how difficult it was (but OH SO REWARDING!) to give it up for good. 

Now studying nutrition, I see the unequivocable facts about the physiological consequenses that refined sugars have on our health; including cancers, diabetes, oestoperosis, heart disease, and tooth decay (not to mention the common cold and the flu).  And to think of the TRILLIONS of dollars that are spent in health care on the aforementioned ailments which could SO EASILY be prevented through a diet free of refined garbage.  But tell that to the American people who are eating, on average, 170 lbs of refined sugar per year, per person!  That’s not to mention refined wheat and grain products, whose ultimate fate in our digestive system is their conversion into glucose.

But what is really so bad about glucuse, don’t we need it for our cellular energy? (Warning: About to Nerd Out on Biology Here)

Sure, our cells can produce ATP from glucose, but the transfer of glucose into our cells requires insulin.  Our cells can also produce ATP from fatty acids, which freely pass (by “simple diffusion”) right through the cell membrane into the mitochondra, where they can be used very efficiently to make energy.  By the looks of the basic anatomy of a cell, it seems very clear that our cells *were made* to run on fat. 

It’s hard to see in the picture, but the diagram is of a cell membrane.  The orange circles which comprise the outer layer and the inner layer of the membrane are made of fatty acid cells known as the “lipid bilayer”.  Fat cells readily pass right through the cell membrane without any special “transporter” into the mitochondra. (Picture source).

Glucose, on the other hand, is a secondary form of fuel. I believe it was intended to be used for emergencies when fat supplies were exhausted.  The reason why glucose is such an inefficient form of fuel, compared to fat, is for the following reasons:

1) First off all, the cells need fat.  Fat is a fuel as well as a building block for the structural integrity of the cell.

2) Insulin is required to transport glucose into the cell.  The problem with insulin is that it is a hormone that signals our body to store fat This makes sense, because if we are in an emergency situation of starvation and we need to be fueled by glucose, then our body would need to respond by storing as much fat as possible so that eventually it can covert back to running on fat, which it prefers.

What’s wrong with insulin? Isn’t it supposed to help lower our blood sugar?

Yes, but that is not the primary role of insulin. That’s a side effect of it, since it’s primary role is to transport glucose into the cells!   Insulin is the only hormone that our body produces to lower blood sugar.  Never before in the history of mankind have we had a need to lower our blood sugar, until the modern advent of refined carbohydrates.   We have 3 hormones in our bodies that work to raise blood sugar, which is a survival mechanism as well.  Glucagon is the main hormone that raises blood sugar when we are low. 

The basic, in-a-nutshell problem with insulin is that every time it “fires”, so do our adrenal glands, which contain all of our stress hormones.  When insulin fires, it’s a signal to our adrenals that we are under stress (because we are suddenly needing glucose rather than fat, so we must be in an emergency!). Often insulin must work hard to bring down our blood sugar because in the Standard American Diet we typically eat an abundance of high-glycemic foods which spike our blood sugar very quickly, and the insulin has to act fast to process it out of the blood. Our blood really can only handle about 4/5 tsp of sugar at any given time.  If you want to fancy math to prove it, check out Dr. Michael Eades blog post here.

OK, so back to Halloween.  So according to Dr. Eades calculations, you get 1 piece of candy before your body starts going all insulin crazy on you, activating your adrenals, suppressing your immune system (which is really a convenient thing to have happen right smack in the middle of Swine Flu season. Ever wonder why “flu season” is the highest during the “holidays”?), and depleting your chromium, zinc, and B6.

Not to mention the fact that sugar is just plain addictive.

So, is it possible to go through all of the festivities of Halloween, be it harvest parties, mall trick-or-treating, or braving the elements in the neighborhood, and eat just one piece of candy?

Maybe, and hopefully if you’re involved in candy-pushing, er I mean Halloween, in any way this year you’ll keep some of these points in mind.

So what can we do to curb the effects of a Halloween Binge?

So if you are set on indulging just this once, okay, I still like you and am not judging you!  But beware that if there are children in your life with compromised immune systems, this is not a good idea, given the immune-suppressing effects of the overtaxed adrenal response to insulin.

Here are a few tips for indulging responsibly (if you must) on Halloween:

1) On the day of Halloween, feed your kids healthy meals throughout the day (fill your kids up on veggies, wholesome meats and eggs, and good fats such as coconut oil and grassfed butter).  Absolutely NO refined carbs. You are saving your “allowance” for later.

2) Drink Kombucha, which is a cultured beverage that actually feeds on white sugar and turns it into beneficial vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. It’s also full of beneficial probiotics, essential for gut health!  If you must eat candy, chase it down with some kombucha (with my kids, I make it a rule. If you eat something sweet, you must have a shot of kombucha to chase it down).

3) Drink coconut water kefir (you can make your own or if you are local to Portland, you can buy a great product locally at Whole Foods and People’s called CultureBiota. It has many of the same positive effects of kombucha mentioned above, with a different taste and nutrient profile.

4) If you have time, prepare your own nutrient-dense treats and celebrate the season’s Harvest and talk about the ill effects of refined junk food.    Serve locally-grown Honey Crisp apples with cinnamon and almond butter. Make date-nut balls, snack on cacao nibs or dried fruit, or dark chocolate.  All of these foods are pretty self-limiting because they contain a lot of fiber, unrefined sweets, vitamins and minerals, and healthy fats.  I plan on making some simple, delicious pralines out of pecans, raw honey, and grassfed butter.

5) Ration the candy and keep Dr. Eades’ reccommendations in mind. Limit to one piece per day AFTER a healthy meal is consumed.  If the healthy stuff outweighs the junk, chances are the body will prefer the healthy food over the junk.

6) Use the candy collected from trick-or-treating as “money” . My neighbors give their kids cash for each piece of candy they collect, and they donate the candy to a food bank (or toss it?) and the kids get to go purchase a treat for themselves that won’t rot their teeth. Pretty cool idea!

7) Drink plenty of pure water with the candy to dilute the sugar’s potency and to help the body detoxify.

Overall, be aware that sugar suppresses the immune system and with swine flu floating around out there, an onslaught of candy might be all your body needs to tip the scales and fall prey to swine flu.  Please eat candy responsibly, and at your own risk!

But whatever you do, DON’T ……….TURN……….THE………PAGE!!!!!

This post is my attempt to encourage the world to become a Food Renegade and ditch the sugar!

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