11 Foods with SHOCKINGLY High Amounts of Sugar (Best Sugar Substitutes)

Hey everyone, welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. I am your host, Dr. Axe, and each and every week on this show, we explore the science behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your health and your life to the next level. On today's episode, I'll be talking about how to do a sugar detox.

By the way, this was one of the breakthroughs that allowed myself and people like my own mom who beat cancer to experience Uh, just a new, new profound health in our life. And so this is one of the most important things I could go through, and I'm gonna go through some really, really interesting things regarding where sugar is hidden, what the best sugar substitutes are.

I'll talk about the truth about stevia and honey and other sweeteners out there as well. Before I do that though, make sure to subscribe to this channel and hit the notification bell so you don't miss a single episode. Episode. Now, here's a reality. I first became very aware of the negative impact of sugar when I was a kid. So my mom was diagnosed with cancer when I was 13 years old.

And I remember my mom going through chemotherapy, her losing her hair. I remember just sobbing and just being so— it being such a traumatic experience, having losing my— almost losing my mom. There was one time we thought she was going to die, and miraculously, she she, uh, she was able to live through all the chemo treatments. And when I was 14 years old, I made a decision.

I didn't know anything about health except for this: I knew that sugar was bad. I remember hearing that, that candy bars and soda was bad. So I stopped eating candy, candy bars and drinking, uh, soda when I was, when I was a kid. And, um, One of the things that, that, and, and I, I'll tell you, I saw improvements in my health because of it.

I started using protein powder, working out a lot, became even more health conscious, and it really impacted my health in a positive way. And, uh, I look back at my mom's cancer diagnosis, and one of the reasons I believe she developed cancer, and I believe it's because she drank so much sugar. My mom was a sugar addict, and she drank Fruit juices, sodas, just sugar, sugar, sugar all day long.

And when you look at the research today, we know that a lot of sugar, uh, it will feed cancer cells, especially if it's added sugar. And so it's something you need to be conscious of.

And so on this episode, I'm going to really go through how to detox from sugar, get it out of your diet, and replace it with things that still are sweet and that taste amazing, that can really Take care of those cravings that you might have. You know, I remember this as well growing up. My, my mom, we had this beverage called Juicy Juice. Okay.

Now, at the time, I flipped it over and it said made with 10% juice. Now, today, I want to say Juicy Juice is made with 100% juice, but I'm sure it's still pasteurized and not healthy for you at all. But that's a lot of what my mom drank. And there's people today thinking, I'm doing great drinking fruit juice all day long. And the reality is that's not true.

But I'll get into that here in a minute. Now, here is Here's the reality of how much sugar people are getting on a regular basis. According to the Mayo Clinic, the average person consumes 22 teaspoons of added sugar per day. That's about 82 pounds a year. Think about this now. Now, what you're thinking is, okay, I don't sit there and add— think about this— 1, 2, 3.

You're not sitting there adding 22 spoonfuls of sugar. To your drinks and to your meals. But the reality is this added sugar is hidden in everything from ketchup to lunch meat. It is hidden all over the place. And so I'm going to unveil to you the biggest sources of hidden sugar. Now, the most common ones are beverages, okay? Sugary drinks are the leading source of added sugar.

They contribute to nearly half of our added sugar intake. You know, I was at the store recently with my daughter And I was looking at, you know, she said, oh, can I have a fruit juice? And I flipped over the bottle of the one today. And, and this happened again earlier in the week. The one today, though, had like 70 grams of sugar. Okay. Now, 40 or 50 if it was fruit juice, another 20 was added.

But again, there you go. I mean, I mean, that's, that is a lot of sugar. And 16 teaspoons is 65 grams of sugar. Okay. So that one beverage I could have given my daughter is like her getting probably 17 grams, 17 to 18 grams of sugar. And a typical 20-ounce soda, so a 20-ounce soda, if you drink it, that's around 65 to 70 grams of sugar, around that 17 to 18 or 16 to 18 grams of added sugar.

So if your kids have just one soda a day, or if you have one soda drink a day, you're getting almost that in that one drink. Now, the other one is foods and desserts. Desserts, sweet snacks, that's about 20%. Soft drinks, 16%. Coffee and tea, about 11%. Candy, 9%. Listen to that, coffee and tea. I mean, that is one of the largest sources of our added sugar today. It's very, very high.

And when I get into the information here about Starbucks and how much sugar they add to those drinks, your mind is probably going to be blown. At least mine was. Okay, here are the products that have the, on average, the largest amounts of sugar added. Mm-hmm. Number 1, breakfast cereals. On average, between 20 to 40 grams per serving. Now, here's the other crazy part. That's per serving.

And it may say per serving on a bowl of cereal, maybe let's say 15 grams of sugar. But if you look at a serving size, it's like maybe even half a cup on some of them. Most kids are doing at least 1, if not 2 cups of breakfast cereal. If you look at actually how much is in there, I know as a kid I would go back and get thirds of breakfast cereal.

I was getting over 100 grams of sugar or carbs and probably over 50 grams of sugar per breakfast cereal, not to mention adding skim milk. That's more sugar. And so it's added in breakfast cereals, typically 12 to 40 grams per serving. Yogurt, 20 grams per serving. Granola bars, 7 to 20 grams. Salad dressings, on average, 6 grams. Pasta sauces, 12 grams. Instant oatmeal, 12 grams.

Canned soups have an average of 12 grams of added sugar per serving. Breads, 3 grams per slice. Smoothies and juices, of course, I mentioned this, 40 grams per just 12 ounces. Protein bars, 20 grams per bar. And condiments, specifically barbecue sauce, has 16 grams per 2 tablespoons. Now, when I use barbecue sauce, I'll do more than just a flat tablespoon.

I mean, I probably do 6, 8 tablespoons, maybe possibly of some condiment. And it's hidden in ketchup as well. So if you're wondering where your sugar is coming from, this is just a few, not to mention other packaged foods. Even candy bars even aren't even on this list. Desserts like chocolate aren't even on this list. But these are some sources of added sugar.

And I wanna share with you a patient story. I had a patient come in, her name was Miriam, and she had hypothyroidism, was overweight. She'd be getting these B vitamin B12 injections. And she was just, her health was a mess. And when she came in to see me, I had her fill out a diet diary of what she was eating on a daily basis. And then I went back and I said, hey, would you do this a second time?

And I want you to write down not only what you're eating for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but also if you're having any snacks, any beverages. And she wrote down that she went to Starbucks twice a day, okay? And I asked her what she got and she mentioned, oh, I drink Frappuccinos.

Well, when I went and looked at her diet, she was doing a smoothie for breakfast with a lot of fruit, and she would add in fruit juice, apple juice, to her smoothie. She was doing 2 Frappuccinos a day, and then she was doing bread and other things. I mean, I calculated she was doing not 22 teaspoons, but closer to 50 teaspoons of added sugar per day, and probably close to 200. Wow.

Grams of sugar per day, not to mention all the other carbohydrates, over 1,000 calories probably worth of carbohydrates a day. And I put her on a program where the biggest thing we did is we cut out all added sugar. Now, she still ate fruit. She still got some natural sugars and sweeteners. She still did honey, but we cut all that out.

And she lost about 20 pounds in 2 months, was able to get off the vitamin B12 injections. And over time, over the next several months, we reversed her hypothyroidism and she was off all medications, including Synthroid. And that's the power of getting off sugar. I mentioned my mom earlier.

My mom, the biggest step in reversing her cancer, which my mom did, reversed it naturally, uh, the second time she got it, the biggest step we took was we got her off the added sugar. Again, I'm not talking about fruit or, or raw local honey. I'm talking about all of the added sugar we get in our diet, and it's so toxic to our bodies. Now, I want you to check this out.

This That is the sugar content found in Starbucks Frappuccinos. If you just got a coffee Frappuccino, on average, it's 45 grams of sugar. Now, if we move down this list and continue on to the bottom, listen to these numbers. A peppermint mocha. A lot of times people get this white chocolate mocha, peppermint mocha, or even a matcha crème. Think about this, matcha.

Everybody knows matcha is healthy. Well, a matcha crème, at a matcha drink at Starbucks has 61 grams of added sugar. Peppermint mocha, 63 grams. Caffe vanilla Frappuccino, 63 grams. Pumpkin spice Frappuccino, their most popular Frappuccino every fall, 65 grams of sugar. And their peppermint white chocolate mocha, probably their most popular Christmas beverage, 73 grams of added sugar. Wow.

That right there is close to that 22 teaspoons of added sugar per serving that the average person gets per day in their diet in one single drink. These beverages will destroy your health. The problem is, is that sugar has so many side effects that we don't realize. Now listen, it's not just Frappuccinos. It's also their eggnog latte that has 56 grams of sugar. Their hot chocolate.

Their fudge hot chocolate that has 54 grams of added sugar per serving. It's like eating donuts there. And so it's absolutely nuts when we look at the amount of sugar. Now, here is why sugar is so damaging to our bodies. Number one, it causes inflammation.

A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that consuming 50 grams of even fruit sugar per day, 50 grams of fructose daily for 10 weeks, increased inflammation markers like C-reactive protein. Routine by 24 to 34%. Another study that was done on— and so number one, sugar causes inflammation. Number two, it causes insulin resistance.

A study done in the medical journal Diabetes Care found that if you consume sugary drinks for just 6 months, I'm talking about one drink a day, okay, one sugary drink for 6 months, it resulted in a 20% increase in insulin resistance in overweight individuals. Number 3, it causes Candida and bad bacteria overgrowth. A study found that it also increases your risk of other infections.

And so getting— if you consume a lot of sugar, it weakens your immune system. You have Candida, bad bacteria overgrowth. It's also linked to SIBO, known as small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. This will also keep you from absorbing and digesting your vitamins and minerals.

So not only is sugar bad for insulin, not only is it inflammatory, it also causes bacterial, fungal, and, and, and microbial overgrowth. Number 4, it causes weight gain. A study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine found that regular consumption of sugary beverages caused a dramatic increase in weight gain.

In fact, in one study, People who drank sugary drinks, uh, gained on average, uh, 1 pound more than those who did not over a 4-year period. And, and, and that's actually significant when you start compounding these numbers over time. Also, it's hard on cardiovascular health, higher cholesterol levels, increases your risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Just one sugary drink, that's it.

Listen, one sugary drink. By the way, that could be one Fruit juice a day, 26% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Also, listen, here's a big one for men out there: low testosterone. By the way, I shouldn't just say men because a lot of women also have imbalanced testosterone, which is causing them to have low energy and, and hormonal issues.

But a study found that consuming sugar leads to an immediate 25% decrease in testosterone levels, which can have long-term effects on hormone balance and even reproductive health. Think about that, men. If you consume sugar, boom, your testosterone level drops by 25%. Cancer. That's another link between sugar. High sugar intake has been linked to an increased risk of certain cancers.

In fact, one medical journal found that if you drink— again, going back to one sugary drink a day, okay, that's on average, you're drinking sugary beverages— have a 23% greater increased risk of breast cancer, which is exactly what my mom had the first time she was diagnosed with cancer. Here's another big one, hypothyroidism.

Studies have shown that insulin resistance is associated with altered thyroid hormone levels, particularly a decrease in TSH sensitivity. This means that people with insulin resistance— so if you eat sugar, That infects your insulin. Your insulin then impacts your thyroid hormones. And so what now, you have lower levels of T4, which then you can't convert as much to T3.

And so we see in this study that when you have those blood sugar spikes, that affects insulin, which then affects your thyroid hormones, increasing your risk of hypothyroidism. Another side effect of sugar is it's an immune system Suppressant.

A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that consuming 100 grams of sugar— that's the equivalent of 2 cans of soda— significantly reduced the ability of white blood cells to engulf and destroy bacteria for up to 5 hours after consumption. This suppression lowers the body's ability to fight off infections. Now, it's not just 2 sodas a day or 2 sugary drinks a day.

It's any sugar that's added. Added sugar keeps your body from being able to fight off things like COVID or Lyme disease or parasites or any type of viral infection. You know, if you hate being sick, you get the common cold or flu and you're sick for a week, you maybe could have cut that time in half if you had not been eating sugary beverages all year, even the Starbucks beverages.

So it's important to understand this. By the way, a study proves this. There's another medical journal that found That consuming high amounts of sugar, people that have more sugar in their diet, were 30% more likely to develop infections compared to those with low sugar intake.

And another study found if you have sugar in your diet, added sugar, it takes those people 40% longer to recover from common colds and flus compared to those with a low sugar consumption. Diet. You have it right there. So next time you're not feeling well, know if you just wouldn't have eaten as much sugar, you would have been better. Now, here's the great thing.

You can still get sugar in your diet. It just needs to be from fruit and honey and other natural things I'm going to talk about here in just a minute. I'll go through the swaps and exactly what to do. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, you know what, here's the reality, Dr. Axe. I don't want to eat the sugar. However, I crave it. I have ups and downs in terms of my mood.

I find myself just buying things and eating it and to deal with emotional turmoil, to deal with stress. And by the way, that's a reality. In fact, there are studies that show that when you get in a stressed-out state, and it could be from work stress, family stress, whatever it is, and you get stressed, your body starts releasing the stress hormone cortisol.

And that hormone, then elevates insulin. But, but basically what it does is it gives you cravings for high-energy foods. Remember, your body now— cortisol's high, your body's in a fight-or-flight response. So your body thinks, I gotta fight somebody or I've gotta fly away, so I need energy. So then your body starts saying, okay, I need sugar, I need fat.

According to— this is according to a Harvard study. And so you start to crave sugar and fat, sweet and fatty foods. Okay. You crave pizza, you crave ice cream especially.

I mean, I, I think about all the, you know, romantic comedy movies growing up where somewhere at the beginning of the movie, the girl is, you know, drowning her sorrows in a tub of Rocky Road ice cream until the, you know, the spoon hits the bottom. And that's, that's part of what happens. There's a bad breakup and then eventually they find the love of their life, right?

So I'm sharing this sort of storyline of most romantic comedies out there. Or, or, but again, there's always a scene in the movie where they're eating ice cream. And so, but why? Because it's sweet and it's fatty, right? It's sugar and fat. That's what your body craves when you get in that, you feel unsafe, unprotected, or you're going through emotional stress.

Um, and so, and really it's comfort eating, right? And another thing that happens when you immediately taste sugar, your serotonin level, your serotonin levels Increase. And so you feel better for that short period of time. However, later on, you feel even worse about yourself, right? And so those are some of those issues that happen.

So obviously, there is a hormonal connection between cortisol, serotonin, insulin that's causing us to crave sweets on a regular basis. Now, one of the good things is if you can lower your stress levels, You can start to reduce your sugar cravings and that will help.

And so going for a walk, if you are in that state where you are stressed and you feel like, okay, I'm going for the sugar, here's what I recommend doing first. Go on a walk. Go on a walk, take some deep breaths, maybe talk to God, talk with a best friend, whatever it is, and then get back and make a decision. Okay? And know this craving I'm having right now.

It's not that my body actually needs this or that it's going to fix anything. It's my hormones talking to me. And if I go on a walk or if I have a piece of dark chocolate instead or something else, that's going to be a better decision and that's going to help. But getting your body out of that stressed state will actually start to lower those cravings for sugar.

So take a walk, read a book, do lunch with a best friend, go on a date night, do your favorite hobbies. But do anything you can to get rid of the sugar, and if not, then find a healthy replacement and a swap that can help you. Now, one of the swaps you do not want to make for sugar are artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose.

In fact, studies have found that they have a negative impact on our cardiovascular health, increasing risks of things like stroke and coronary artery disease, and also may increase the risk, aspartame specifically, of certain types of breast cancers. Also, we know artificial sweeteners may have a negative impact on our gut microbiome.

A study published in the Journal of Nutrition Reviews found that sucralose and aspartame negatively affect the gut microbiota. The study indicated that these sweeteners could alter gut bacteria composition, which could increase our risk of diseases like diabetes and weight gain. Now, by the way, there are some different views on this.

There are some studies that show that potentially artificial sweeteners may not be that bad for us. But, but I really think that common sense is the way to go here, that thinking of that something that is a chemical made up in a lab is going to be healthy for you long term, the reality it's not.

And when there's natural alternatives that are much healthier, like monk fruit and stevia and allulose and others I'll cover, you're much, much better off Doing those instead. I also believe, according to some published studies, that there are some neuro— neurotoxic effects of artificial sweeteners like aspartame. All right. So let's talk about sugar alternatives.

Some of my favorites include fruit, stevia, monk fruit, and even local honey. And they've been shown in studies to significantly improve health outcomes. Here's a few studies and how I like to use these natural sweeteners. The first is fruit.

Now, the reality is that fruit contains sugars, but it also contains fiber, vitamins, minerals, water, which contribute to better health compared to refined sugar. A study published in the British Medical Journal indicated that consuming whole fruits, particularly berries, apples, and grapes, is associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.

The fiber in fruit slows down the absorption of sugar, Preventing spikes in blood glucose levels. So the reality is, if you're eating a piece of fruit, it will help reverse type 2 diabetes. If you are eating added sugar, it will increase your risk of type 2 diabetes. So here's the thing. Sugar is not the culprit.

It's sugar that doesn't have fiber and nutrients in a whole food form and how that impacts your body. So every time you are trying to sweeten up a recipe, or you are trying to satisfy your sweet tooth, do fruit. Even some of the sweeter fruits like watermelon or bananas, they're always going to be better than added sugar or doing some sort of sweetened dessert.

So I'd recommend doing fruit instead. Now, of course, berries are the best. They have more fiber, they're lower glycemically, they have less sugar, they tend to have more antioxidants. So go with berries whenever you can. But other fruits like like grapes, apples, watermelon. Those are fantastic choices. Go for fruit whenever possible. And even something like dates.

You know, this is a sweetener Chelsea and I will use sometime in certain recipes, is we'll use dates. Now, it's more concentrated sugar, it's higher in sugar, but again, there are loads of antioxidants, fiber, and nutrients in there that slow down the sugar absorption. Another great sugar replacement and a natural sweetener I love is Mm-hmm.

Studies suggest that monk fruit can help regulate blood sugar levels and improve weight loss. Now, monk fruit is, is a sweetener derived from mogrosides in actual fruit, and it's been shown to have no impact on blood glucose levels and actually promotes the growth of beneficial bacteria in your gut.

The Journal of Food Sciences noted that monk fruit's around 150 times sweeter than regular sugar, which Which means you can use a lot less of it and it reduces your calories greatly. So it's like a very, very low-calorie, all-natural sweetener from fruit. Number 3 is stevia.

Now, I've recently got some questions from stevia, people saying, well, I read that maybe stevia isn't the best sweetener anymore. Here's the reality. Stevia has been used in South American medicine. It's been used in Asian medicine. It's been used to sweeten teas. In medicine for thousands of years, okay?

And we're talking about traditional Chinese medicine, Japanese medicine, uh, American Indian and, and, uh, South American Indian medicine. And so the reality is it has been proven to be healthy with very little to no side effects for thousands of years.

It's actually a relative of chrysanthemum, okay, which is another very effective herb herb for blood sugar and has tremendous health impacts on the body for things like rosacea and eczema. But stevia is a relative of chrysanthemum. It's a leaf of a plant, of a flower, and it tends— the leaves of the stevia plant, of course, are very, very sweet.

A study published in the Journal of Nutrition found that replacing sugar with stevia reduced postprandial blood glucose and insulin levels, which can help manage diabetes and prevent insulin resistance. Now, I do think stevia, if you consume a lot of it, it can actually lower your blood pressure. So that's another way it was used, is to lower blood pressure.

So if you have very, very low blood pressure, then you want to be careful not to consume too much stevia. But if you have high blood pressure, it could actually lower your blood pressure, which is a great form of medicine. I saw some questions of stevia around possibly fertility. I actually think one single study showed that it might not be good for fertility.

And then another study came out showing, no, it actually is good for fertility. So the reality is, is that if you look at the history of stevia, it's safe and effective. Recent medical studies generally speak to it as being safe and effective. So it's a sweetener that I personally use and still think it's good.

Now, listen, if you're doing loads of stevia and monk fruit and these sweeteners all the time, your body is tasting something sweet. That does have an impact on your body to a small degree.

But if you do a lot of it over time, and maybe for some of you, just like somebody can have a food sensitivity to broccoli or carrots, you could have a food sensitivity to stevia, and maybe that causes an upset stomach. But for most people, stevia is a completely fine and good natural sweetener, along with monk fruit and of course fruit. Being another big one.

Now, here's another one that I really like called allulose. It's also known as D-piscose, and it's a rare sugar that naturally occurs in small quantities in certain fruits such as figs, raisins, and jackfruit. And it's a low-calorie sweetener that provides about 70% of the sweetness of table sugar, but only 0.4% of the calories per gram.

And allulose is absorbed by the body But it's not metabolized, which means it does not contribute to calories or significantly impact your blood sugar levels. So allulose is another good sweetener. In fact, the monk fruit that I buy is a monk fruit plus allulose.

And so you might look this up on Amazon or go to a health food store and look up allulose plus monk fruit and use that as a natural, very low-calorie sweetener, which is what we use in the Axe household on a regular basis. Now, my number 5 Great sugar replacement and natural sweetener is honey. I am a huge honey fan. It's referenced many times in the Bible. It's been— listen to this.

I mean, honey doesn't go bad if it's in the proper environment. They went and you can look this up. They went and they did some archaeological digs in Egypt and they found honey that was 3,000 years old. That was still good. That's amazing. This is also why it's one of the top longevity foods. It keeps things from going bad.

Honey as well, even though it has a significant amount of sugar, it also contains a significant amount of vitamins, minerals, hydrogen peroxide, and other bioactive compounds that allow it to act as a medicine. And also allow it to be absorbed more slowly in your bloodstream. Studies have shown that consuming— by the way, I do want to mention this.

I'm talking about raw, local honey or Manuka honey that's raw. That's the sort of honey I'm talking about. If you're buying filtered honey that's processed, it is more like sugar. Okay? So when you are consuming honey, you want to make sure it's raw and local. You can actually do a water test with this. If you have water, And you put in honey and it just dissolves, that's filtered honey.

It's not the good stuff. If you put honey in a glass of water and it sinks to the bottom and kind of stays as one, that means it's, it's typically not pasteurized, it's not heated, it's not filtered. It's a better type of honey. That's what you want to look for, and that's known as the real honey water test. Now, there are studies showing that honey actually can be good for blood sugar levels.

Listen to this comprehensive review. This isn't a single study. This was multiple studies done on over 1,000 people published in 2022. They found that honey consumption lowered fasting blood sugar levels, lowered total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, markers for fatty liver disease. It also increased HDL cholesterol and was good for inflammation.

The medium daily dose of honey in the trials was 40 grams per day. That's about 2 tablespoons. And the medium length of the trials was 8 weeks. Raw honey, especially from monofloral sources like acacia and clover, drove many of the beneficial effects observed in the study.

So basically this, up to 2 tablespoons of honey a day can lower your, your bad cholesterol, lower triglycerides, reduce liver inflammation, and balance your blood sugar. It's amazing. So anytime Chelsea and I are doing recipes today, we tend to do raw local honey as our number one sweetener.

If we don't use that, we— or in combination with, we use that monk fruit allulose blend, or we'll use some fruit or dates. That's what we use in all of our recipes. When we make sourdough pancakes at home, we use raw local honey. If we're making waffles, if we're making crepes, if we're making something sweet, Sweet, uh, such as, uh, you know, I'm trying to think. Chelsea made something last week.

Oh, she made cinnamon rolls with the sourdough, and we used honey in that, and we actually mixed some dates and some, um, some cinnamon in there. So anyways, there are natural ways, natural alternatives to sugar that you should do instead. I want to mention something else. Using herbs like pumpkin pie spice also can add some sweetness To your recipes.

So I think that's another good option to consider. Now, I want to mention this about, uh, about honey, okay? According to Proverbs 25:16, it says, if you find honey, eat just enough, not too much, or it can make you vomit. Okay? So, so here's the thing about honey. Remember this, eat some, but not too much, right? Don't be eating, like drinking a cup of it. 2 Tablespoons a day total. Great.

That's a great sugar replacement that is going to be great for your body. But don't have too much sugar. Okay. In moderation still. Now, I want to talk about other ways to start to reduce your sugar cravings. And one is what I call the power of sour via probiotic-rich foods.

A study published in the Journal of Appetite found that obese individuals who consumed a probiotic blend of specific strains of probiotics like like Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. These are ones you'd find in something like yogurt. Those who did that for 12 weeks reported reduced sugar cravings and lower sugar consumption compared to the placebo group.

Another study was done very similarly for just 4 weeks, and they found the very same thing. And so one of the ways you can reduce sugar cravings is to take a probiotic supplement and Eat probiotic-rich foods— sauerkraut, kefir, yogurt, even apple cider vinegar. These are ways eating those sour foods reduces those sugar cravings. And even fermented foods— sourdough bread, that's another good one.

But doing those fermented foods, um, you know, I also like kimchi, by the way, coconut yogurt. These are all good options. They also— one of the things that happens is When you have Candida, that yeast in your gut will start to signal that it wants sugar to feed off of. So that's part of why you get these cravings.

I mentioned hormones earlier, which is a big one, but in addition to hormones, it's, it's your gut health. And if you have a lot of Candida and microbial overgrowth in your gut, it will tell your body, give me sugar. But sour foods that have good probiotics will help start to kill off some of the Candida and the bad bacteria in your gut, which is one of the big reasons it helps.

Now, it's not just probiotic-rich foods, just generally sour foods help. Citrus fruits like grapefruit, green apples, and cranberries also are good for gut bacteria and will also help reduce these sugar cravings. A few other things that can help you fend off the sugar cravings along with the sour foods and the natural sugar replacements. Eating more fiber.

A study done at Harvard found that fiber slows the digestion of glucose over— that over time that will stabilize blood sugar and help you feel fuller longer. Another study found that ideally you want to be consuming about 35 grams of sugar a day. You want to do a lot of fruit, a lot of vegetables, things like beans, nuts and seeds, whole grains, getting fiber that way.

Will allow you to consume less sugar. Now listen to this other amazing study that talks about eating a fiber-rich diet versus taking something like Ozempic. Okay. Research shows that fiber-rich foods delay gastric emptying and enhance satiety hormones such as peptides YY and PYY, which helps to suppress appetite and reduce cravings for high-sugar foods.

Now, fiber helps your body do this naturally, where drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy do it unnaturally. So Ozempic causes gastroparesis. It slows your gastric emptying, but it also causes you to lose muscle mass and causes nutritional deficiencies, where fiber does the opposite. It increases the absorption, increases the production of good bacteria, and causes you to lose weight.

So if you truly want to lose weight the healthy way, So you want to increase your fiber. In addition, you want to increase your protein consumption. Studies have shown that if you increase the amount of protein you're eating, it allows you to feel more full and allows for more loss of body fat.

And what you want to do is you want to take your body weight, cut it in half, and consume at least that in protein daily. Okay, but typically a little bit more. So if you weigh 150 pounds, 150 you want to consume 75 grams of protein daily. Pounds, you want to consume about 100 grams of protein a day. Let's say 30 grams per meal would get you pretty close to that number.

In addition to fiber and protein, drink more water. That by simply increasing the amount of water you drink, by drinking 1 to 3 cups more daily, it reduced your average calorie intake by around 70 to 200 calories daily, and specifically lowered mostly your consumption of sugar, sodium, and saturated fat.

So remember this: eat more fiber— that's going to be vegetables and berries primarily— eat more meat and protein powder and things like bone broth, and then drink more fluids and eat more hydrating foods like watermelon and fruits as well. That's going to help you fend off these cravings.

Now I want to go into the nutrients that will most help you curb sugar cravings and help balance out your blood sugar levels. The first is chromium. Chromium is a trace mineral that has been shown in studies— actually, it's found in the highest levels in broccoli, but you want to do about 200 micrograms 3 times daily. That, in studies, have been shown to reduce sugar cravings.

Magnesium, about 300 to 500 grams daily. You can find magnesium naturally in dark chocolate. So if you have that craving coming on by 70-plus percent, Dark chocolate, which will also give you magnesium, which will help lower your sugar cravings. But you could also do around 300 to 500 grams of magnesium a day. Zinc helps.

Okay, now you're going to get zinc via eating red meat, poultry, wild fish, beans, nuts and seeds, especially pumpkin seeds. So you could make a trail mix with pumpkin seeds, okay, and dried fruit like raisins and Snack on that instead, which will help satisfy your sweet tooth and also reduce those sugar cravings. Also, B vitamins are critical.

I would recommend taking a B vitamin supplement or a liver supplement that has B vitamins on a regular basis to help curb those cravings. That's one of the first things that goes, by the way, are B— if you consume excess sugar, it will start to leach B vitamins out of your body.

So this is where taking a B complex or a multivitamin or A multi-organ or liver supplement will help you get more of those B vitamins. There are also other herbs that help with blood sugar control. Gymnema sylvestre helps. Also, as I mentioned, increasing your protein powder consumption.

Do bone broth protein, do collagen, do plant protein, do organic sources of protein, get more fiber, do probiotics, do cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice as an herb. What I'd recommend, if you're doing a smoothie in the morning, Add at least a 4th of a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice to that smoothie. That's going to help balance out blood sugar, reduce cravings. Also, herbs like fenugreek are good.

And probably the top supplement for regulating blood sugar levels to reduce cravings is berberine. It's a compound found in the bayberry leaf. So taking that as a supplement would also be helpful. But remember, sugar is toxic. It increases your risk of cancer. Diabetes, weight gain, hypothyroidism, chronic infections and weak immunity, and almost every other condition you can think of.

And the great news is, is you can simply replace added sugar in your diet with fruit, with honey, with monk fruit, with stevia, with allulose, and still satisfy your sweet tooth. Hey, do me a favor, share this episode. More people need You need to know the truth about sugar. Here's the reality. We all need to do a sugar detox.

By the way, there are 70+ grams of sugar in certain Starbucks Frappuccinos. People don't know where they're getting this sugar. And I wish we would have known about this as a family. My mom would have known about this. I think maybe if my mom wasn't consuming all that sugar, she maybe, maybe never would have gotten cancer in the first place.

But that was part of our battle in reversing her cancer was getting her off all added sugar. So hey, do me a favor, share this on Instagram and Facebook, or just text it to a friend. More people need to know the truth about the toxic effects of sugar and what to do instead.

Hey, thanks so much for being on mission with me, and thank you so much, all of you that are subscribed here, that are liking and commenting on the show. I am so grateful for you, and I hope you're enjoying this information and that it's changing your life as it is mine.

Thanks for tuning in here to My show, The Dr. Josh Axe Show, or should I say our show, The Dr. Josh Axe Show, where each and every week we explore the science and principles of how to heal in body, mind, and spirit. I'll see you on the next episode.