Goodbye, Beloved Sugar

As I mentioned in class, I was raised on a very meat-reduced diet, and have tried to be conscious of the impact that goes into what I eat. After re-reading Omnivore's Dilemma for this course, my eating style changed, reflecting some of Hannah's sentiments below. While in the past I have always tried to think about where the food I eat comes from, and whether it is ethical to eat it, I am proud to say that I am now trying to take a much more active stance on eating local, and severely limiting my meat consumption. I am so grateful that we did the food logs in this class, because they inspired me to track different meal plans over a few month's time. As my physician, and mother, have always said, being mindful of how much water, protein, caffeine and sugar I consume in a day can really improve my quality of life. I realized through our food log that when I extremely limit my intake of processed sugar, my acne disappears, as does my intense cravings for excessive amounts of said sugar! Limiting the sugar also allows me to control my weight so much easier- I just wish these epiphanies came about eight years earlier, by c'est la vie... Also, I realized that according to current scientific research, adults need 0.8g of protein/ kg body weight per day. Before I realized this, I was getting about 20 g protein a day. Since I weigh about 115 lbs, I need 41 g protein a day, and usually a bit more, since I run 4-8 mi most days. All in all, thank you very much CSCL for motivating me to look a little more closely at my health- I feel a lot better :)

http://www.clinicalnutritionjournal.com/article/S0261-5614(08)00117-9/abstract