Healthy Sugar Substitute

My kids have sweet tooths and so do I and my husband. Still we all know how sugar is supposed to be bad for you.
The first thing that you have to do is cut the level of refined sugar that you take on board every day. This means that you must cut right back on sugar rich foods such as cakes, cookies, candies, chocolate, jellies and the like and if you currently ladle sugar all over your breakfast cereal in the morning, stop doing it right now.
In addition, if you take sugar with your tea or coffee, try to wean yourself off sweetening your drinks or if this is something that you cannot imagine doing, try a natural sweetener like stevia or sucanat as alternative.
The first of these natural sweeteners is somewhat controversial in that it is approved by the FDA as a dietary supplement but not as a sweetener. Nevertheless, even though it is a little expensive, the extreme sweetness of stevia means that a little goes an awful long way, so the cost per cup of tea or coffee is probably no different to cost of the sugar you are currently buying.
On the other hand, sucanat is a one-for-one direct replacement for processed sugar and as always, there are plenty of places on the net where you can obtain both of these substances.
The point about having too much sugar in your diet is that not only does all of that instant energy tend to get piled on as fat if it is not used, processed sugar is bad for your immune system and particularly for your skin. Consequently, if you consume too much processed sugar or products made from sugar, it is pretty much a given that you are going to suffer boils and other skin problems.
Of course, this does not necessarily mean that you have to cut all sweet foods from your diet, but what you should do is replace the sweets that you used to use with natural sweet substances wherever possible. For example, eating plenty of fruit and vegetables is an essential of any well-balanced diet, and if you want to boost your immune system, then you can replace some of the sweetness that you have lost with the sweetness of fruit.
Furthermore, there are lots of other entirely natural sweet substances that you can use to satisfy your sweet tooth. The sweet syrup that is commercially extracted from Agave comes in three different variations, ranging from a ‘light version' that has little traceable taste of the plant (just sweetness) to the version that carries a noticeable taste of the plant itself.
You then have reliable old standbys like maple syrup as well as less known but entirely natural sweeteners such as barley malt, date sugar, fruit juice concentrate and sorghum syrup.
There is also honey with some varieties such as manuka honey from New Zealand having acknowledged antibacterial qualities as well as being stunningly sweet as well. Indeed, as you can read on the website, the antibacterial qualities of this particular honey are so pronounced that you can even apply it to wounds for its antibacterial qualities!

Chocolate is Good For You

Unless you are pregnant or obese you should not feel that guilty about eating chocolate. You can sneak it into your daily diet because studies are showing that it is actually excellent for your overall heath. After years of being maligned it is finally getting a rep as a health food.

This is because container has known chocolate over three hundred active chemical agents. These agents are all beneficial for health.

Believe it or not eating chocolate can be good for your teeth because they have antibacterial agents that fight tooth decay in them. This is truer of pure chocolate. The high sugar content of milk chocolate can actually cause tooth decay.

The smell of chocolate is also beneficial. It can relax you, which is good for PMS. That is also why it can calm down a hyperactive kid, but ONLY if there is not too much sugar in it. I like chocolate milk for calming kids down. Chocolate also contains phenyl ethylamine, which is a mild mood elevator

Scientists have also found that the cocoa butter in chocolate contains oleic acid, a mono-unsaturated fat that lowers bad cholesterol and may raise good cholesterol.

You can also try drinking a cup of hot chocolate before you eat. This helps diminish your need for calories. This is a trick I used to lose my post pregnancy weight. Make sure that the milk is low fat as in skim or 1% or you could gain weight despite your good intentions.

Weirdly, chocolate can also prevent heart attacks. The flavanoids in chocolate keep blood vessels elastic. It also increase antioxidant levels in the blood. Men who eat chocolate, for instance, live a year longer then men who don't.

Why do you crave it when you are feeling depressed? The carbohydrates in chocolate raise serotonin levels in the brain, resulting in a sense of over-all well-being.

It's full of antioxidants. They help fight the free radicals which can attack DNA and cause long term serious damage to body. This means that eating chocolate makes cancer and heart attacks less likely. So the more antioxidants that you and your family eat the longer you are likely to live and chocolate is the absolutely richest source of them. The darker the chocolate the better it is for you and the richer it is in antioxidants. In fact the darker any type of food is, especially the fruits, the more likely it is to contain antioxidants.

Dark chocolate also contains catchetins which are what is in tea. Catchetins keep the immune system healthy. Chocolate is alos a good source of magnesium and copper, both of which help the brain as well as help a person maintain a regular heart rate.

Buy some great chocolate at this store.