In 1957, Dr. William Coda Martin tried to answer the question: When is a food a food and when is it a poison? His working definition of “poison” was: “Medically: Any substance applied to the body, ingested or developed within the body, which causes or may cause disease. Physically: Any substance which inhibits the activity of a catalyst which is a minor substance, chemical or enzyme that activates a reaction.”1 The dictionary gives an even broader definition for “poison”: “to exert a harmful influence on, or to pervert”.
Dr. Martin classified refined sugar as a poison because it has been depleted of its life forces, vitamins and minerals. “What is left consists of pure, refined carbohydrates. The body cannot utilize this refined starch and carbohydrate unless the depleted proteins, vitamins and minerals are present. Nature supplies these elements in each plant in quantities sufficient to metabolize the carbohydrate in that particular plant. There is no excess for other added carbohydrates. Incomplete carbohydrate metabolism results in the formation of ‘toxic metabolite’ such as pyruvic acid and abnormal sugars containing five carbon atoms. Pyruvic acid accumulates in the brain and nervous system and the abnormal sugars in the red blood cells.
These toxic metabolites interfere with the respiration of the cells. They cannot get sufficient oxygen to survive and function normally. In time, some of the cells die. This interferes with the function of a part of the body and is the beginning of degenerative disease.”
When the Muslims originally clashed with the Christian warriors in the Middle-east at the time of the Crusades they were formidable warriors. As they slowly started capturing Christian territory and took over the sugar cane plantations and began to cultivate a “sweet tooth” they slowly lost their invincibility.
A molecule of sucrose requires 27 nutrients before it can be broken down to supply energy in the Kreb’s cycle. Which means that since white sugar is “empty” calories, every molecule of sugar will strip 27 nutrients from the body (normally from the nutrients stored in the liver for detoxification). When you smoke, you are exposed to about 4000 toxic items in the cigarette smoke which your body must use up nutrients from your liver to detox.
It is a noticeable trend that more and more food items have “low-sugar” labels on them. With respect to human body needs, how much sugar do we really need daily? Low sugar labels are fine. Sugar substitutes however can be even worse as in aspartame or nutrasweet. Refer to Andy Ho’s article a few years ago about aspartame being used to kill ants because of its neurotoxic properties.
The world (particularly East Asian) countries are facing an epidemic called “Syndrome X”. One of the major reasons for this is the introduction of refined carbohydrates and white sugar.
You need from 1200 calories for women to 1800 calories for men on a daily basis. You can get these calories from foods which are packed with nutrition or from foods with empty calories like white sugar. If you get them from nutrient rich food than as you meet your caloric needs, you are also meeting your nutritional needs for vitamins and minerals.
When carbohydrates from your diet are processed in you body they are broken down into glucose. You don’t need to take extra sugar, provided you meet your caloric needs.
There are different forms of sugars and sugar substitutes. Some of you may wonder what they are all about. Fructose is fruit sugar. Table sugar is sucrose which is the most common form of empty calories. Glucose is the form that all forms of carbohydrates and sugars are broken down in your body to naturally.
Molasses is what is obtained from sugar cane juice when its concentrated. Honey is from bees. These are probably the healthiest ways of getting your sugar, because they are often rich in nutrients.
Nutrasweet or aspartame – I have mentioned above is neurotoxic. One account states that diabetics who sued it found their diabetes hard to manage in the long term.
Many people experience craving for sugary items, e.g. cakes and cookies, when they are stressed, and they feel better after satisfying the craving. Some health reports point out that this is in fact very bad for health. This is often related to hypoglycemia. As they get stressed, the body overreacts and the sugar level plummets down.
So they take more sugar rich foods, which further strips the body of nutrition and upsets the body’s biochemistry. As they keep doing this, the cells become increasingly resistant to glucose so they move towards either Syndrome X or diabetes.
How does want start to reduce sugar in one’s diet? One teaspoonful of granulated sugar contains 15 calories, 8 teaspoonfuls of sugar is found in one can of coke. You don’t need to drink coke. If you must drink coffee and tea, do it without sugar. This is one extreme. If you really wanted to cut out totally empty calories, this is how you can do it. Instead of drinking coke, drink water.
For some, this feels like too much. So they can gradually cut down. If you drink one coke a day, do it on alternate days for one week, the next week once in three days. The week therafter, once in 4days, than once in five days and so on. Finally you drink only one can of coke a week.
Be well
Dr Sundardas