Overcoming Sugar Cravings with Herbs

Continuing with the topic of losing weight, one of the primary changes that would be helpful for most people in my experience is eating fewer carbohydrates. In general eating whole grains and less processed complex carbohydrates is better than eating refined carbohydrates.

Of course, eating fewer desserts and sweets is very helpful as well. If one has a sweet tooth, there is an interesting Ayurvedic herb that can help with this.

It is called Gymnema Sylvestre or gurmar (which means “sugar destroyer”) in Ayurvedic medicine. When taken as a liquid extract, this herb has the property of anesthetizing the tastebuds responsible for detecting the sweet taste. After swishing it around the mouth for about 30 seconds, one is actually not able to really experienced the “sweet” taste temporarily — any chocolate candies such as Hershey’s kisses or Kit Kat would actually not be sweet. You don’t even have to swallow the extract, you can just spit it out.

If you feel like you really have a bad sweet tooth, keep a liquid extract of Gymnema around. When you have a craving for dessert, just swish and spit this extract and then have the dessert — you’ll find that it probably won’t taste very good, and over time perhaps your cravings will decrease. I know it’s hard to believe but it actually works!

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One Comment

  1. Prema January 17, 2012 at 10:58 am - Reply

    I really need to curb my sweet tooth. Where does one get this Gymnema Sylvestre ? Does it have any other effect on the body?–the thyroid hormones in particular.

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