Valentine's Day is Over - Break Up with Refined Sugar
Stephanie Lowery • February 21, 2026
How bad can refined sugar be?
The global rise in diabetes is directly linked to how we make and eat our food today. Because refined sugar is cheap to make and easy to ship around the world, it is hidden in almost everything. Even if a label says a drink or food is "healthy," it usually is NOT!
Refined sugar is 99-100% sucrose and is processed in a factory using heat to extract pure sugar, which removes the fiber, vitamins and minerals found in the original plant. Hence the phrase, "added sugar is empty calories", that means there is no nutritional value. When you eat plain sucrose, like in a candy bar, your body digests it almost instantly. This causes a huge sugar rush where your energy spikes, but then it crashes quickly, leaving you feeling tired and cranky.
The natural sugars found in fruits and vegetables are fructose, glucose, and sucrose. It is nature's way of packaging these foods with needed fiber, vitamins, and minerals. In fruits and vegetables, the three sugars are trapped inside tiny "cages" made of fiber. Your body has to work hard to break those cages open. This means that fructose, glucose, and sucrose enter your blood slowly and steadily. This gives you long-lasting energy instead of a crash. Fruits and vegetables are nutrient-rich and come with a list of benefits:
- Vitamin C: Helps your body fight off colds.
- Potassium: Keeps your muscles and heart working well.
- Antioxidants: Protects your cells from getting damaged.
When refined sugar is added to food, it becomes processed food, which is fake food. When you eat fake food it spikes your hormone insulin. When insulin goes up, then glucagon goes down. Glucagon’s job is to take fat and use it as fuel. If you do not have enough glucagon, then you cannot effectively use your fat as fuel. This forces your body to continue storing new energy as fat while being unable to use the fat it already has, wow what a problem!
Other hormones that processed food messes up are, ghrelin (your hunger hormone) and leptin (your feeling full hormone). Refined sugar increases ghrelin and decreases leptin, so you stay hungry without feeling full, when you eat fake food. Have you ever started eating something like sugary cereal or donuts and it is hard to stop? Refined sugar increases the amount of dopamine in your brain. Since dopamine makes you feel good, you become addicted to sugar. The end result is that processed,fake food, is full of refined sugar that is driving you to feel good but not full. Yet, the good feeling does not last because of the sugar rush/crash explained above.
It turns into a vicious cycle, the more refined sugar you eat, the more your body wants to eat it, because you feel good and you are still hungry. Refined sugar is an addictive substance that has become a world health crisis. Globally, diabetes incidence among children and adolescents has increased by approximately 94% from 1990 to 2021.
Make the Healthy Choice:
There is something we can all do to decrease the diabetes epidemic that is a world health problem. Choose to eat real vegetables and fruits that are in their natural state like a sliced avocado or a bowl full of blueberries. Strive to have a variety of colors in the fruits and vegetables that you eat each day. Reach for vegetables and fruits as a snack instead of processed food. Every choice that you make about what you eat matters!
BECOME The WHOLE Healthy YOU
A miracle is an amazing or wonderful occurrence. A miracle is something unique. And that is you! You are absolutely unique. In this world of more than eight billion people, there is not one other person who is exactly like you. Even if you have an identical twin, you each have different thoughts, feelings, ideas, talents, likes and dislikes. You can do anything you put your mind and effort into. You can be creative, imaginative, healthy or you can excel as a leader, or in academics, sports, art, theater, music, whatever you choose. You were born at this time to be here now. You were meant to be here, in this place, at this time. You have the power to make all kinds of choices in your life. These are lifestyle choices . You can choose to study to learn fascinating facts, you can choose to practice to become better at music, art, or sports. You can choose to eat healthy. You can choose to be kind to other people, even if people are not so nice to you. All your lifestyle choices accumulate to either improve your health or detract from your health. What you choose is up to you. To make the right choices for you, use your own unique thoughts and ideas. You should not make choices just because other people make that choice, or it is a popular choice. Just like you are unique, each person around you is unique too. What might be good for someone else, might not be good for you. This is bio-individuality . For example, you might like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but a friend might be allergic to peanuts, so he cannot eat the same sandwich. What is good for you might not be good for someone else. Bio-individuality is how you learn about and then figure out which lifestyle choices are good specifically for you. You have your own health needs, your own routines, practices, and things you like to do or not do. Each person around you, family, friends, and classmates also have bio- indiviualty. To be the healthiest you can be, you need to make lifestyle choices that work for your own bio- idividualty because you are unique. You are a miracle!