Stop or Reduce Sugar

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I knew for quite a long time that sugar was bad, but I recently realise how atually bad it was, especially for autists.
I suggest you type sugar and autism and google, and you'll find lots f very interesting sources.

I reduced dramaticly sugar 2 weeks ago, I can feel that my head is much clearer, i remember stuff much better, I know more often what I have to do. In short : stop sugar.

When I begun to diet I didn't have sugar by accident and I ended up almost fainting.

Reduce sugar but do not stop. I think you need about 30mg of sugar a day. Some sugar is good, like the one in fruit. Refined sugar is bad but a tiny tiny is ok.

This type of post is very dangerous. It's bad enough we get told no gluten and casein. Now you want to take sugar away from us?

I can't even have rich foods or too much salt and that's for epilepsy, so I already reduce my sugar intake.

I doubt you can fix autism through diet alone. If you can was it really autism to begin with?

I tend to feel that it is processed sugar that does much of the harm to a person's health especially when it comes to things like diabetes (not sure about its affects on autism) so for general health reasons I would say to avoid processed sugars or limit them to treats only.

I am personally going back on the paleo diet but I do still eat naturally occurring sugars on such a diet as it is natural to do so. Much research shows that our ancestors would have had access to fruits and tubers (depending on the region they lived in) both of which contain sugars. They would have also occasionally consumed rice.

So with that in mind I do keep foods like butternut squash, potatoes, rice and fruits as part of my diet.

Due to my own personal preferences I also keep some dairy.

But I limit the amount of processed foods and processed sugars I consume and try to keep a whole foods diet. Processed foods/sugar are treats, if I eat some of them at all.

I did recently go back to eating grains like wheat and a lot of processed sugars but my IBS has flared up big time and that in itself is enough to send me back to the paleo diet as that mostly got rid of that most days of the week (had the occasional day of upset bowel, but nothing like I am getting now).

When dieting you don't need to go to extremes, I prefer balance. Small quantities probably won't hurt you, it is when you over do it trouble can set in.

I don't like sugary foods. I'll usually only eat sugary foods when they are given to me.

Like others have said, no sugar at all may not be the healthiest thing in the world, but the amounts that your average person today consumes aren't exactly healthy either lol. After all there's a reason it tastes so good, because our bodies need it! Probably the #1 thing you can do to reduce sugar intake is to stop drinking soda and sweetened drinks if you do drink them currently...most of them have absolutely obscene amounts of sugar in them. I personally switched to purely water and unsweetened tea a few years ago and haven't gone back!

Too much processed sugar can definitely be a problem. On the other hand, I would much rather give my daughter sugar than artificial sweeteners such as aspartame.

Just for reference. Glucose (a sugar) is used to produce ATP which is the fuel molecule that all cells need, especially neurons and muscle fibers. Brains need glucose. The harder the brain works, the more glucose it needs. Carbohydrates produce 4 k/cal per gram. Proteins can be broken down into glucose and produce 4 k/cal per gram. Fats are also broken down into glucose and produce 9 k/cal per gram. Muscles can use other pathways to produce glucose which is used to produce ATP which is the fuel that the body uses, but brains have a harder time. That's it in a very small nutshell. Excess sugar is stored as fat which is where much of the problem lies.

Here's a fairly good explanation (at least in a quick search):

http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/ ... lysis.html

Keywords: ATP, adenosine triphosphate, Krebbs cycle, citric acid cycle, glycolisis

Wikipedia actually has a good description if you like super detail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbohydrate_metabolism

Too much of anything messes up the body's regulatory systems.

I don't think there's anything wrong with knowing about nutrition and its effects on the body, especially the brain. What you choose to do with such knowledge is completely up to you. I'm not a big fan of the GFCF diets myself, but perhaps for some people there is a good effect. My grandson must avoid gluten since he has confirmed celiac disease.

I don't know why but I heard that eating more sugar makes poo and farts stink less. And it's actually true.