Nexus - 0701 - New Times Magazine-pages

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food of mankind for thousands of years) and man-refined sugar sucrose. People who kick sucrose addiction and stay off sucrose (which is a manufactured drug and principal poison of mankind find that the glucose level of their blood returns to normal and for only a few hundred years) is demonstrably wicked. This kind stays there. of confusion makes possible the flimflam practised by sugar push- Since the late 1960s, millions of Americans have returned to ers to confound anxious mothers into thinking kiddies need sugar _ natural food. A new type of store, the natural food store, has to survive. encouraged many to become dropouts from the supermarket. In 1973, the Sugar Information Foundation placed full-page Natural food can be instrumental in restoring health. Many peo- advertisements in national magazines. Actually, the ads were dis- ple, therefore, have come to equate the word "natural" with guised retractions they were forced to make in a strategic retreat "healthy". So the sugar pushers have begun to pervert the word after a lengthy tussle with the Federal Trade Commission over an "natural" in order to mislead the public. earlier ad campaign claiming that a little shot of sugar before "Made from natural ingredients", the television sugar-pushers meals would "curb" your appetite. "You need carbohydrates. tell us about product after product. The word "from" is not And it so happens that sugar is the best-tasting carbohydrate." accented on television. It should be. Even refined sugar is made You might as well say everybody needs liquids every day. Itso —_ from natural ingredients. There is nothing new about that. The happens that many people find champagne is the best-tasting liq- natural ingredients are cane and beets. But that four-letter word uid. How long would the Women's Christian Temperance Union "from" hardly suggests that 90 per cent of the cane and beet have let the liquor lobby get away with that one? been removed. Heroin, too, could be advertised as being made The use of the word "carbohydrate" to describe sugar is deliber- _ from natural ingredients. The opium poppy 1 natural as the ately misleading. Since the improved labelling of nutritional sugar beet. It's what man does with it that tells the story. properties was required on packages and cans, refined carbohy- If you want to avoid sugar in the supermarket, there is only one drates like sugar are lumped together with those carbohydrates sure way. Don't buy anything unless it says on the label promi- which may or may not be refined. The several types of carbohy- nently, in plain English: "No sugar added". Use of the word "car- drates are added together for an overall carbohydrate total. Thus, bohydrate" as a "scientific" word for sugar has become a standard the effect of the label is to hide the sugar content from the unwary defence strategy with sugar pushers and many of their medical buyer. Chemists add to the confusion apologists. It's their security blanket. by using the word "sugar" to describe an entire group of substances that are Sir Frederick Banting, the CORRECT FOOD COMBINING Miluese isa sar found usually with codiscoverer of insulin, noticed in and black coffee for Troaktst ether other sugars, in fruits and vegetables. It 1929 in Panama that, among sugar it's hamburgers and Coca-Cola for is a key material in the metabolism of plantation owners who ate large lunch or the full "gourmet" dinner in all Plants and animals. Many er our amounts of their refined stuff, we evening, chemically the average rincipal foods are converted into glu- . merican diet is a formula that guaran - tose in our bodies. Glucose is always diabetes was common. Among tees bubble, bubble, stomach trouble. present in our bloodstream, and it is native cane-cutters, who only got Unless you've taken too much often called "blood sugar". to chew the raw cane, he saw insulin and, in a state of insulin shock, Dextrose, also called "corn sugar", is derived synthetically from starch. Fructose is fruit sugar. Maltose is malt Humans need sugar as much as they sugar. Lactose is milk sugar. Sucrose need the nicotine in tobacco. Crave it is refined sugar made from sugar cane and sugar beet. is one thing—need it is another. From the days of the Persian Glucose has always been an essential element in the human Empire to our own, sugar has usually been used to hop up the bloodstream. Sucrose addiction is something new in the history flavour of other food and drink, as an ingredient in the kitchen or of the human animal. To use the word "sugar" to describe two as a condiment at the table. Let us leave aside for the moment the need sugar as an antidote, hardly any- one ever has cause to take sugar alone. no diabetes. substances which are far from being identical, which have differ- known effect of sugar (long-term and short-term) on the entire ent chemical structures and which affect the body in profoundly system and concentrate on the effect of sugar taken in combina- different ways compounds confusion. tion with other daily foods. It makes possible more flimflam from the sugar pushers who When Grandma warned that sugared cookies before meals "will tell us how important sugar is as an essential component of the spoil your supper", she knew what she was talking about. Her human body, how it is oxidised to produce energy, how it is explanation might not have satisfied a chemist but, as with many metabolised to produce warmth, and so on. They're talking about traditional axioms from the Mosaic law on kosher food and sepa- glucose, of course, which is manufactured in our bodies. ration in the kitchen, such rules are based on years of trial and However, one is led to believe that the manufacturers are talking _ error and are apt to be right on the button. Most modern research about the sucrose which is made in their refineries. When the in combining food is a laboured discovery of the things Grandma word "sugar" can mean the glucose in your blood as well as the took for granted. sucrose in your Coca-Cola, it's great for the sugar pushers but it's Any diet or regimen undertaken for the single purpose of losing rough on everybody else. weight is dangerous, by definition. Obesity is talked about and People have been bamboozled into thinking of their bodies the treated as a disease in 20th-century America. Obesity is not a dis- way they think of their cheque accounts. If they suspect they ease. It is only a symptom, a sign, a warning that your body is out have low blood sugar, they are programmed to snack on vending of order. Dieting to lose weight is as silly and dangerous as tak- machine candies and sodas in order to raise their blood sugar ing aspirin to relieve a headache before you know the reason for level. Actually, this is the worst thing to do. The level of glucose the headache. Getting rid of a symptom is like turning off an in their blood is apt to be low because they are addicted to alarm. It leaves the basic cause untouched. 22 - NEXUS DECEMBER 1999 — JANUARY 2000