The Boom in the BBQ

Well It's almost the 4th of July and folks are gettings ready to slap on some SPF, buy some extra lawn furniture, and clean out their pools for the impending light show and festivities. The one thing that certain is that there will be a spike in the number of grills cooking up red and processed meats.

In fact a study done by the Statistic Brain Research Institute and the U.S. census bureau showed that there was at least 700 million pounds of chicken, 190 million pounds of red meat, processed meat and pork bought in the week leading up to July 4th. How much of that actually gets eaten isn't known but what is known is that at least 80% of the U.S. population will attend a BBQ, picnic or cookout during the holiday.

Now as adament as am about my distaste for the agriculture industries and their practices with domesticated animals, I'm not going to be talking about that in this blog. Though I do encourage you to do some research into in the issue and how it's impacting our environment (Food inc. on netflix). It'd be silly of me to think that I could disuade anyone from buying as much meat as they could shovel down their mouths this weekend.

No, I'm not a vegetarian, nor am I vegan. I simply think we need to rethink our eating practices and focus more on the nutrition aspect then pumping animals filled with hormones to make them bigger, then inhumanely slaughtering them for mass consumption.

What I really want to discuss, is what we brush on to the animals we eat when they're charred, scarred and tender.

BBQ sauce! that Sweet and savory mahogany nectar of the Gods that seems to make colors pop, the bird sing, and fingers the most sexual part of your body after eating a rib or drumstick. I Love BBQ sauce as much as the next man (unless he's Texan) but let's be honest the reason most of us love BBQ sauce is because of the absurd amount of sugar that most of them contain. Most name brand sauces have as much as 16 grams of sugar per table spoon, That's 291 grams in a cup!, That means half a bottle of sauce is just sugar. (If your bad at math imagine coating 2 sets of 4 ribs with BBQ sauce as the equivilant of eating 21 frosted doughnuts with sprinkles on top in one sitting, That's crazy...unless your into that kinda thing.)

In an article titled "Beware the BBQ" by Alex@A Spoonful of sugar free writes

"Sugar lurks in the most unlikely places, and it is everywhere! It’s like playing I-Spy in the ingredient list because it hides everywhere and disguises itself in many different names. Here is a list of all the names of “sugar” so that you can look for them on ingredient lists:

Agave nectarBarbados Sugar

Barley malt

Beet sugar

Blackstrap molasses

Brown sugar

Buttered syrup

Cane crystals

Cane juice crystals

Cane sugar

Caramel

Carob syrupCastorsugar

Confectioner’s sugar

Corn syrup

Corn sweetener

Corn syrup solids

Corn Sugar

Crystalline fructose

Date sugar

Demerara Sugar

Dextrin

DextranDextrose

Diastatic malt

Diatase

D-mannose

Evaporated cane juice

Ethyl maltol

Florida Crystals

Free Flowing

Fructose

Galactose

GlucoseGlucose solids

Golden sugar

Golden syrup

Granulated sugar

Grape sugar

HFCS

High-fructose corn Syrup

Honey

Icing sugar

Invert sugar

LactoseMalt syrup

Maltodextrin

Maltose

Mannitol

Powdered sugar

Raw sugar

Refiner’s syrup

Rice Syrup

Maple syrup

Molasses

Muscovado sugarOrganic raw sugar

Panocha

Sorbitol

Sucrose

Sugar

Syrup

Table sugar

Treacle

Turbinado sugar

Yellow sugar"

I don't know about you, but i find it strange to name the one thing so many different names, unless your trying to disguise it as something else. If sugar were a person, it'd be arrested for identity fraud.

Now theres nothing wrong with adding anything to your food to enhance the flavor of what your eating, but the thing about BBQ sauce is that "Tasting better" is all an illusion. It's the human brains desire for more sugar that translates as deliciousness on our tounges.

Kinda like how heroin or cocaine creates the same effects in drug addicts, That's what these "negligent" amounts of sugar (according to the FDA...) do to our bodies as well. Top that with the copious amounts of sugar laced soft drinks and sodas that will be paired with the meals this holiday and well...I'm sure you get the picture.

With that said, I don't want to leave you empty handed or thinking you have to live in fear of BBQ sauce or make excuses to miss out on your friends upcomming cookout. All i really want is for more people to be informed about what they are really putting into their bodies, and why. In that spirit click on the meme below to find a sugar free BBQ sauce recipe that's only 37 calories and easy to make!