Balance

I have a beloved cousin who lives in Oklahoma who I grew up with, and his birthday is 5 days before mine so I always remember him on his birthday and call him, and if I don't reach him he usually calls me on my birthday 5 days later. This year we were talking and he asked if I was still strict off sugar. I told him I was even more strict off sugar than I used to be, and he applauded my effort, but warned me about getting to extreme.  "I have to have my dessert each night, that's my splurge." I told him that having half a tortilla or sauce on my chicken was splurging for me, what he has for dessert is simply going overboard. "No, Heather what you do is too much." We kind of left it there, but I later pondered on how differently he and I defined balance in our intake.
Fast forward to this scenario a week later: I registered for an Autism conference at BYU and always look forward to those events for two reasons, 1. I get to spend the day with my good friend Shannon, and 2. there is a luncheon catered for participants. I got ready bright and early and had my sensible egg and green shake breakfast, made sure I had nuts in my purse and water with me, and eagerly drove to BYU. I was confronted with a continental breakfast at the registration area: bagels, cream cheese, and juice.  Strike strike strike. Good thing I ate before I came. But since I told the dining staff when I registered for the lunch that I don't eat sugar, surely I will be able to have something at lunch. I met Shannon and enjoyed the information and catching up with her. When we went out on the beautiful patio under a covered pavillion with Y mountain in view for lunch, I started to panic. All the lunch settings had been preset with plates of lettuce, with a cake above the plate, rolls on the table, and salad dressing. Three strikes again.  I started to choke down my plain lettuce trying to concentrate on my visit with Shannon instead of the greens, and again informed a kitchen staff I don't eat sugar.  Obviously they don't consider dressing, cake, and rolls sugar. They brought out the main course, chicken with white sauce and pasta (strike), covered with sun dried tomatoes and mushrooms.  Looks delicious.  As I pushed my pasta aside and wondered what the sauce was made with but knowing I had to eat something, I devoured my chicken.  Meanwhile a staff had filled my cup with sparkling apple cider. Strike 5.  I looked around the table and people eating the rolls, cake, juice, and pasta.  I felt the familiar tug of despair that I could not join them, combined with the knowledge of the unknown consequences they were falling prey to, and top that off with my own guilt for eating food of which I didn't know what the ingredients were. Shannon engaged me in conversation as to why I don't eat the refined carbs, and I felt even more mortified talking to her about the dangers of sugar consumption while she was eating cake.  She didn't seem to mind the side order of guilt, she was very understanding, and thankfully the chicken was sufficient to fill me up.  When 3:00 came they announced a cookie break in the next room. 9 strikes in one day.  I was emotionally spent.
But the day wasn't over. That evening I had the privilege of taking my Grandma to a play at BYU. We didn't have time to go to a sit down restaurant but I had to provide dinner for us, so I reluctantly took her to a fast food place, she ordered a chicken sandwich and I got a baked potato and chili.  Her dinner looked so good, with the bun and honey mustard sauce, and I had to choke down chili that probably had some sort of covert sugar in it that I didn't know about, so I was splurging but at least I was trying to avoid refined carbs, and it didn't even taste that good. Strike 10. And I burned my tongue. I had had it.
In the movie "Fed Up" it talks about this very thing, our bodies can handle a little refined sugars and flours but we are eating far far more than a little every day, and that Friday at BYU I witnessed the overflow. The World Health Organization suggests 6 teaspoons or refined sugars a day as a maximum, yet a typical conference attendee who would have eaten the bagles, cream, juice, rolls, dressing, cake, pasta, sparkling cider, and cookies, and then went home and ate out at Wendy's with their family and had a chicken sandwich, would have consumed over 40 teaspoons of refined sugars in one day. Who is the extreme one now?
The labels on food have a percentage next to the ingredients contained therein, this percentage represents the WHO daily recommended intake for that ingredient.  Sugar has no percentage next to it, because if it did, the percentage would be so high it might discourage patrons from purchasing that item.  For example, if we are only supposed to have 6 teaspoons of sugar a day, then putting three tablespoons of cream cheese on your refined flour bagel (sugar 90%), having 2 cookies (sugar 120%) and soda with your lunch (sugar 200%), you've crossed your threshold or the recommended intake by about 200%.  Its no wonder that what used to be called "adult onset diabetes" is now diagnosed in over 50,000 children and adolescents.
So when my cousin tells me he has to have his dessert every night, I'm not faulting him for having a little ice cream and chocolate sauce (sugar 180% of daily recommended allowance). I'm thinking about the toast and jam he had for breakfast (sugar 60%), the gatorade, ketchup and hotdog bun he ate for lunch (sugar 150%), the teryaki sauce he had on his meat and veggies and white rice he had for dinner (sugar 100%), and finding it odd that he thinks I'm the one out of balance. But again, why bring that to his attention?  All it will do is give him a side order of guilt, because when confronted with refined sugars, the brain will always choose in favor of intake over abstinence. Unless you like me got fed up.