Many herbalists and alternative nutritionists have said for years that sugar is not good for us, especially if you have cancer. Here is a study that shows that sugar consumption makes cancer cells multiply faster:

https://www.salon.com/2017/10/18/study-sugar-consumption-makes-cancer-cells-multiply-faster/

My How Time Flies

Clichés are so often true, and somehow an entire season has passed since I last wrote…

I’ve been experimenting with a new way of gardening: a mix of Hugelkulture and permaculture. Once I get some help uploading photos, I’ll post more on that. Teaser: it works fabulously!

I also spent a ridiculous number of hours doing a renovation project. Completion is very close, and that means more time freed up for research and education. Maybe even more posts…

The teaching has continued all summer,  and we focused on nutrition after we spent weeks on the digestive system.  Now we’ve segued into diet. I cannot believe how contentious this subject is! Vegan, paleo, vegetarian, omnivore: the experts mostly put a finger in the air and say “my way is the best.” People are adamant that you and I are eating too much or too little fat, too much or too little carbs, too much or too little protein. Saturated fat is the devil incarnate; starchy carbs fog your brain; gluten is evil; eating meat gives you cancer; soy isn’t really food; I could go on and on. But here’s the single most important piece of diet info I can give you: if your great, great grandmother didn’t eat it, neither should you! To be more blunt: processed food is killing us. To be even more specific: sugar is terrifically addictive, is empty calories, and we eat a ridiculous amount of it every day which directly and adversely affects our health. The best research I’ve come across basically says that most people can safely consume 15 grams of non-GMO cane sugar a day as well as 25 grams of fructose in the form of whole fruits a day. Any more than that and you can begin the cascade to metabolic syndrome, feed the “bad guys” of our gut biome, and do damage to neurotransmitters, not to mention depressing your entire immune system. Worried about the flu/cancer/Ebola/whatever other scary disease is on your personal radar? Then stop eating so much white flour and sugar.

 

How Sweet It Is!

Here’s a great article on the 5 worst and 5 best sweeteners…and the results may surprise you. Some evils are pretty obvious, and the article does a good job of explaining why. However, one of the worst, agave nectar, has been so relentlessly promoted as fabulous that you might be a bit shocked at how awful it really is. Even the “good guys” need to be used in deep moderation…many folks have their sweet tooth activated when they eat anything sweet, which makes it difficult to eat moderately of even the healthy choices. So remember, sweets are special, not a food group!

GO HERE for article.

 

Cancer Feeds on Fructose

This came to my attention this afternoon, and is the perfect complement to the sugar post: the twin evils of sucrose and fructose (especially high fructose corn syrup). The title of the article, cited on GreenMedInfo.com is:

Cancer Feeds on Fructose, America’s #1 Source of Calories

(and isn’t THAT a scary thought)

Post date:

Wednesday, April 11th 2012 at 6:00 am by Anthony Gucciardi

High-fructose corn syrup is the primary source of calories in the United States. In addition to containing mercury, a known carcinogen, cancer cells actually feed on high-fructose corn syrup after it is metabolized by the liver. A recent study, published in the Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Targets, examined the link between refined sugar and cancer. The results add further evidence to the reports of many health experts and scientific studies that have drawn the connection between excess sugar consumption and the development of cancer.

The researchers highlighted the numerous ways in which fructose directly contributes to cancer risk and other health problems, including:

• DNA damage
• Inflammation
• Altered cellular metabolism
• Increased production of free radicals

According to Lewis Cantley, director of the Cancer Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard Medical School, as much as 80 percent of all cancers are “driven by either mutations or environmental factors that work to enhance or mimic the effect of insulin on the incipient tumor cells.”

To read the rest of this article, please go HERE.

Epigenetics: how environment affects gene expression. Our overuse of fructose and sucrose is ruining our health….

Is Sugar Toxic?

In case you missed the CBS 60 Minutes special on sugar, here is the transcript and a link to see the presentation….and how wonderful that some mainstream scientists were able to pull off the technical studies that actually prove what alternative folks have been saying for decades: Sugar Is Toxic.