Everyone enjoys a celebration, and it's hard to turn away a well-deserved treat. But when the treat is not made with healthy ingredients, there's plenty to watch out for.......
Sugar
When you eat sugar, your body responds with an immediate, intense rise in blood glucose. In order to quickly regulate blood sugar, your body releases insulin into your bloodstream. Insulin plays many key roles in your body, and also serves as a fat storage hormone. When insulin is released, it moves the glucose into fat cells for storage. This is bad news if weight loss (or not gaining weight) is your goal, and it’s far from the only problem with sugar.
A 2012 UC Davis study showed that sugar (including high-fructose corn syrup and other forms of sugar) increased risk factors for heart disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and poor blood lipid profiles. Because the liver can’t deal with excessive amounts of sugar, it instead leaks it out into the bloodstream. There it forms small, dense LDL, the type of cholesterol that sticks to artery walls. With fruit, there is fiber, so your body responds differently than from processed treats.
The same study links sugar to cancer. This is due to certain malignant tumors containing more insulin receptors than normal cells. These receptor cells signal the tumors to consume glucose to support the growth of the tumor. Cancer cells feed on sugar.
Wheat
Unless enjoying a gluten-free cake, most cakes contain white or wheat flour. Gluten is a sticky protein that naturally occurs in wheat, rye, barley, and oats. Wheat flour, aside from appearing in a number of the processed foods humans eat, is also used to make glue. For many, when the sticky stuff enters our digestive systems, our bodies have difficulty trying to digest it. In fact, a significant portion of the population is either allergic to wheat (it is one of the most highly allergenic foods) or sensitive to gluten. This can cause problems, ranging from mild allergic reactions to a total inability to absorb nutrients in the intestines, as found in celiac disease. For most of the population, wheat is best avoided.Dairy
Many cakes contain dairy products such as butter and milk. Like wheat, dairy is one of the most common food allergies exhibited in humans. Dairy products also leave a significant acidic residue in the body, which, according toThe China Study, can rob the bones of the minerals such as calcium and weaken the bones and body.
Likewise, dairy contains the protein casein, which is poorly integrated into the human body, and the sugar lactose, which causes digestive problems in a significant portion of the population. There are many other problems with dairy, as well, including the hormones used in dairy production. I recommend avoiding dairy, unless organic.
Soy, Corn and other Genetically Modified Ingredients
If you’re eating a commercially prepared cake or one prepared from a cake mix, chances are it has some genetically modified ingredients. Common sources of GMOs include soy (soybean oil, soy flour, soy lecithin, etc.) and corn. Genetic modification of food crops is a relatively recent development in human history, beginning in the mid-1990s. Since that time, studies have shown multiple health dangers associated with GMOs (most countries outside of the US do not allow them), and further investigation is needed to truly discover the long-term effects on human health. Eating GMOs amounts to a huge health experiment on the human population.Artificial Colors
With all of the brightly colored frosting, birthday cake is often a work of art. What isn’t art, however, are the dyes that color the frosting into the body. While food coloring has long been an additive in the foods we eat, in 2011 the FDA released a report suggesting a possible link between food coloring and ADHD in kids. The chemicals in these dyes contribute to our toxic load and should be avoided.Omega-6 Fats
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