Among the day’s headlines comes this gem: A single Starbuck’s “coffee” drink may contain as much as 25 teaspoons of sugar. Ech!

Not surprising.

The main reason I started to put on weight — other than encroaching middle age — was that my pal SDXB and I got into the habit of hanging out at a local gourmet grocery store’s sidewalk cafe, where we would order up a coffee drink and watch the world go by. Even though this usually happened after we had walked upwards of three miles over hilly terrain, the exercise didn’t negate the malign effects of a mocha and a palmier.

Refined sugar is fundamentally toxic. Yeah, an argument can be made that it doesn’t poison you directly and so it can’t be “toxic.” But anything that disturbs your metabolism so that you load on weight, predisposing you to high blood pressure and diabetes — potentially fatal conditions —  can’t fairly be called anything other than toxic.

The other day a friend who’d bought a copy of 30 Pounds /4 Months remarked that she decided to try going off sugar cold turkey. She admitted she had quite a craving for sweets  but was worried about her slow but steady weight gain.

She said that after about four days of pining for another Starbuck’s or a candy bar, the craving went away. Suddenly, she found she didn’t even want heavily sugared gunk. Fresh fruits began to taste sweet again, and satisfying. Having been mighty skeptical about my sugar fanaticism, she was surprised.

Sugar makes you crave more sweets. In a sense, it’s like an addictive drug: the more of it you consume, the more you want still more.

30 Pounds/4 Months contains four chapters explaining why this and many other fattening facts are so. It helps you to break free of sugar and processed foods, and gives you some moral support while you’re fighting the good fight.

Coffee hint of the day: Starbuck’s plain, unadulterated coffee tastes a lot like battery acid. It needs all that sugar and cream and fake flavoring to be drinkable. When you’re in a Starbuck’s or at any coffee bar that’s peddling sweetened drinks, instead of plain black coffee try a café Americano.

A hit of espresso diluted in hot water, a café Americano tastes the way black coffee is supposed to taste: rich, mellow, and bracing. That’s because espresso beans are usually higher quality than the beans used to make ordinary roadhouse coffee. You can train your taste buds to prefer quality over low-grade, addictive sugary stuff. ♥

Coffee image: Shutterstock. © 2016 Sarah Urbina