The funny thing about sugar is how people actually joke about being addicted to it. There’s nothing amusing about the damaging affects of sugar, nor the depth of its addiction.
The fact that most people feed it to their bodies several times throughout the day, nearly every day—often unknowingly, is a major problem. It’s like being hooked up to an IV… drip… drip… drip. This consistent and unconscious sugar habit ranks sugar addiction just as troublesome, if not more, than any other addiction. The damage it causes the body is just as worrisome.
These statements may initially shock you. Until you think of a person who’s is trying to ‘quit’ sugar. It’s just as addictive as drugs and alcohol—if not more. What exacerbates the problem is that most people can get their hands on it any time, and those who can’t, like young children and babies, we freely give it to them. It’s often not an addiction of choice but one of circumstance.
How can sugar be more dangerous than cocaine?
Highly addictive
Sugar is eight times more addictive than cocaine. In fact, it lights up the brain like a christmas tree—affecting the same regions of the brain as cocaine – and heroins-use elicits.
The food industry hires “craveability experts” in order to assure you get addicted to their processed foods. These guys are paid to invent “addictive, hyper palatable processed junk foods” with the goal of capturing the biggest market share—what the insiders call ‘stomach share’ (Dr. Lustig). Sugar is technically a poison that the body can process in small amounts. Yet, we’re currently overdosed 2-3 times that, and as our tolerance to sugar increases, we need more and more of it to get the same effects.
Animal testing is not recommended nor supported, yet it’s worth mentioning that animals who were put on electric shock continued to consume sugar while being shocked. A human being would most likely cease snorting cocaine if under such pressure.
Easy access
You can get a hold of this white powder (and its other forms) by walking into any store or shopping mall. It’s well-stocked on the shelves of grocery and convenience stores, strip malls, shopping malls, drug stores, and fast food chains. You don’t need a prescription, nor are you required to be “of age.” Minors can indulge it until their hearts desire, and many do. Convenience is no joke as it’s laced throughout the kitchen pantries of most homes. Not only can you eat it—you can drink it too!
Legal
You don’t need to go undercover, meet your dealer in a dark alley, or be prepared to run from the police in order to score some. In fact, police officers, with their enduring long hours alongside their coffee and donut addictions, are as high on it as anyone. This drug is legal, anyone can buy it, and it’s everywhere. It doesn’t get any more genius, nor profitable, for those lining their pockets beckoning their addicts.
Highly promoted
Print marketing, such as magazines and billboards, constantly remind you how much you need it. Television, with more commercial-filled minutes than quality material, purposefully use subliminal marketing to ‘hook’ you on their drug of choice. The food and drug industry is incestuous. Those who fund the mis-represented research on sugar naming it ‘safe,’ are none other than the sugar-pushers themselves, camouflaged by fancy organizational names.
Disguised as reputable health and nutritional organizations with your best interest at heart lie such culprits as Coca-cola, General Foods, General Mills, Nestles, and the list goes on. Science finds it difficult to accomplish much without sponsors, and those who sponsor the research are none other than those who reap the benefits. The systems intended to help keep you healthy and your food safe, including the FDA, are broken and in most cases corrupt.
Their vision is impaired by the tremendous profits they reap from a long laundry list of addictive substances they promote, including processed foods, fast food, sodas (all of which are burdened with sugar) and even pharmaceuticals. Sugar is a widespread culprit, therefore—quite possibly the most dangerous.
‘Hidden’ sugars
The mere fact that sugars are often hidden from the consumer is largely why it’s so dangerous. The majority of sugar-aholics aren’t aware that beyond being seduced by their sweet tooth, they’re also being consistently dosed with sugar present in processed foods.
It’s become quite difficult to find foods beyond the produce section that aren’t ridden with sugar. In fact, there are approximately 600,00 different food items sold in a typical grocery store of which approximately 80% of them have added sugar.
More often than not, sugar falls in the top half of the ingredients list signifying that it’s been added in abundance. Unfortunately, few people have learned how to read food labels. Those who do read labels are often fooled because they don’t realize “fruit juice concentrate” is one of the many ways they hide sugar. People assume fruit is always good— which is far from the truth.
It’s far more complicated than looking for high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The fact that the use of fructose is eight-fold that of its use in the 1950’s should concern you, but it’s the multitude of ways in which it’s ‘hidden’ that’s really disconcerting.
Keep in mind there is not a Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of sugar. You don’t need it. The sugar you consume from eating fresh fruits is really more than enough, and anything beyond that begins to wreck havoc on your body.
Socially accepted
Everyone is doing it. It’s socially accepted and even peer-pressured to indulge in sugar. In fact, if you don’t eat sugar, you’re quite likely to catch drift about it from colleagues, friends, and family. “Ah, com’on just have one little slice, it’s not going to kill you.”
Or ”Don’t worry, eat this piece of chocolate and you’ll forget all about it.” We use sugar just like any other drug, as ‘pick-me-ups’—energetically and emotionally. The next thing you know you can’t live without it.
Leads to Obesity
Equally accepted by society is the overweight epidemic (largely created by sugar consumption). Being overweight has become as common and socially accepted as sugar addiction, which brings it’s own set of problems.
Sugar plays a primary role in the extra pounds carried around by our society. For example, when fructose is consumed, it doesn’t trigger the typical insulin response that tells your body that you ate anything. Instead it goes straight to the liver. Rather than converting to glycogen it becomes fat. It basically says to the body “make fat and stay hungry”.
The food industry amplifies the problem focusing on calories as the solution for weight-loss. All calories are not created equal. What this causes is people forgoing 100 calories of a healthy food, such as almonds, in order to eat 100 calories worth of M&Ms.
Elusive addiction
Like most addicts, sugar-addicts don’t realize they’re hooked. And even when they do, they justify:
“I know I shouldn’t eat sugar but I love it.” Or, “I know it’s bad for me but I don’t do anything else that’s bad for me.”
The average American consumes 150 pounds of added sugars each year.
A favorite quote that really hits home here is…”to know and not to do—is not to know”. When people really comprehend the reality of sugar, when they really figure out what’s in processed food, they’d be insane to continue eating it—at least in the quantities in which they currently do. It’s with good reason that people feel remarkably better when they quit eating process foods and/or sugars.
Creates and Feeds Disease
Not that cocaine won’t lead to illness if you snort enough of it, it’s yet important to note that sugar not only creates but also feeds chronic degenerative disease. Consumption of sugar is linked to insulin resistance, Diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, obesity and quite possibly cancer and dementia. It feeds nearly every disease process, particularly cancer and candida. Cancer cells love sugar, as do parasites. Yeast, and therefore candida, as well as other detrimental bacteria thrive on sugar and acidity (which sugar also creates).
Find out if you are feeding a “beast” in your intestinal system.
Solution
Educate and take action. Check out “Sugar: The Sweet Killer” by Dr. Robert Lustig (M.D). When you learn the truth about sugar and take earnest action, you’ll experientially recognize the price of consuming processed foods and sugar, and you’ll discover a new found freedom.
Within days of abstaining from sugar, most people state that they feel lighter, more energized, and happier. The level of your addiction will predict whether you can quit cold turkey or if you need to ween. According to JJ Virgin, nutritionist to many celebrities, anyone can manage it within a 2 week period. Her book “Sugar Impact Diet: Drop 7 Hidden Sugars, Lose up to 10 Pounds in just 2 weeks” is a great resource.
Food choice should be a basic human right. By sneaking sugar into your diet for over 40 years, your freedom and your health have been sabotaged. You, and only you, can reclaim that right. Education and action are the only way.
Buy a minimum of 80% of your food items in the produce section. Avoid the perimeter of the store where the multitude of bags, boxes, cans, and jars of ‘food stuff’ are stacked high. Eat real food. If you buy any processed foods, buy those with no more than 5-10 ingredients of which all are common real foods (ie. tomatoes, garlic, onion, sweet potatoes). If you aren’t 100% sure what an ingredient is, or you struggle to pronounce it—leave it behind. It’s not real food. Once you experience the improvement in your health and energy levels, your desire for those toxic foods will decrease as your craving for real food increases.
Eating real food, as fresh and raw as you can, will always be the best option for good health. A nutrient dense diet will put a bounce in your step and years on your life. Find out for yourself!
Resources:
Food Revolution, Dr. Mark Hyman, JJ Virgin, Dr. Robert Lustig.
Your Brain On Sugar
What’s Worse For Your Brain: Sugar or Cocaine?
How To Lose Weight By Identifying Hidden Sugars In You Diet
Sugar: Eliminate This One Ingredient and Watch Your Health Soar
