Sugar… The Bitter Sweet
As I sat yesterday pouring through my notes on sugar and its evils; I was trying to find a simple way to explain all of those big terms, fancy molecular diagrams to give you all a clearer picture of why sugar should be one of the first substances to be eliminated from the diets of not only cancer sufferers but everyone on the planet.
The answer came to me this morning during my acupuncture appointment with the very wise Professor Wang and his wife Joyce. They reminded me not to over complicate this whole cancer business.
They reiterated to me that everything in our bodies, cells, blood, plasma is made up of fluids. “These fluids circulate around our body transporting the nutrients as energy (Qi, Chi). As our energy weakens from stresses and toxins this fluid becomes slow even stagnate. Solid masses form as there is not enough ‘Chi’ to prevent the traffic jam of cells and toxins”. And so develop cysts and tumors.
Professor Wang’s philosophy is simple. “By rebuilding the flow of Chi (energy) we can turn those solid masses back into the free flowing liquids that they were previously.”
My light bulb switched on! This is exactly what my belief system around the formation of many cancers has always been. Interestingly I noted that, even I need to be reminded sometimes to keep it simple.
When it comes to foods regardless of treatment choices there is a maze to navigate of Do’s and Don’ts.
No Dairy, No Soy, No Animal Protein….Grains?? Some of these are more because of the hormone factor and chemicals added to enhance the growing process.
Some are more obvious like Sugar, which is my pet dislike and one of the most addictive toxic substances on the planet. Sugar is highly acidic and it is responsible for more than 100 different illnesses including
- hyperactivity
- suppressed immune system
- food allergies
- cardiovascular disease
- malabsorption of calcium and magnesium right through to Fibromyalgia.
- can produce an acidic digestive tract
- can lead to Crohn’s disease
- can cause varicose veins
- Aids uncontrolled yeast overgrowth in the form of Candida Albicans
More information can be found from probably one of the worlds’ most researched anti sugar advocates Dr Nancy Appleton Nancy is a published author and lists 141 reasons why sugar is ruining your health.
One of the more recent publications and one of my favorites is David Gillespie’s book Sweet Poison A book everyone should read! The amount of sugar I observe people consume is truly frightening.
On average Australians consume more than 40kg per year! That’s 17 more kilos than the average check in baggage allowance with an airline. I’m sure if we were to be charged the standard $10 per excess kilo we were carrying we would start to cut back our sugar consumption! In the United States is more like 68kg per year.
Of course refined sugar is the more dangerous as it comes with no fibre like the sugars in whole fruits and vegetables. Bottled fruit juices are certainly not offering the enzyme quality of a whole piece of fruit. In his book ‘Sweet Poison’ David particularly focuses attention on fructose. The sugar we have all been told at some point is the healthier sugar.
At the end of the day sugar is sugar and glucose is the preferred fuel for cancer cells. Whilst all cells use glucose as their fuel the glucose in a cancer cell is fermented as there is no oxygen present. A cancer cell consumes 2 to 3 times more glucose than a healthy cell.
It was the 1931 Nobel laureate in medicine, received by German Otto Warburg, Ph.D., a biochemist who first discovered that cancer cells have a fundamentally different energy metabolism compared to healthy cells. Even while there are many secondary causes for cancer Warburg theorized the prime cause of cancer is the replacement of the respiration of oxygen in normal body cells by a fermentation of sugar. All normal body cells meet their energy needs by respiration of oxygen, whereas cancer cells meet their energy needs largely by fermentation.
This is a huge reason why exercise is considered vital in cancer treatment as cancer cells do not thrive in an oxygenated environment.
On our food labels sugar can be listed as brown sugar, palm sugar, cane sugar, corn syrup, fructose, fruit juice concentrate, glucose (dextrose), high fructose corn syrup, honey, invert sugar, lactose, maltose, molasses, raw sugar, sucrose.
This is not including artificial sweeteners such as Aspartame and the more recently FDA approved Neotame, that is approximately 40 times sweeter than the former. A topic I will reserve for a later date.
Sugar is also has an estrogenic value meaning it converts to estrogen in the body. Since my cancer was diagnosed estrogen positive I needed to be sure that I eliminated all foods that could be increasing the levels in my body and feeding cancer cells.
In my next blog I explore further into the hormone factor associated with breast cancer.
On a lighter note, I’ve been asked if I avoided Easter completely. I did for the health reasons I have just explained however I did not totally deprive the ‘littlies’ or some of the ‘biggies’ for whom the Easter Egg Hunt is tradition.
My goal was to make it as healthy and preservative free option as possible. My recipe of choice is below.
Kapai Puku Easter Eggs
3 blocks of Organic 80% Cocoa dark chocolate
¼ cup of Kapai Puku Naked Blend
Chocolate egg moulds
A pinch of Cinnamon
A pinch of Cayenne pepper for those who like some spice.
Place chocolate in a glass bowl in a pot of gently simmering water to melt.
Once melted fold into the chocolate ¼ cup of Kapai Puku, pour into the moulds and place in the fridge to set.
After one hour carefully extract chocolate from moulds and paint edges with some more melted chocolate and join egg halves together and replace into refrigerator.
