Kristi Whitley

Healthy Living

What’s Wrong With

Sugar?

Worst Poison of All

Halloween night, a friend of mine and I decided to avoid poisoning little

children at our front doors, turn off the porch light, and go out to dinner.

We chose a new Asian chain restaurant in town. The menu was delightfully

full of veggie choices and even offered brown rice. The sauces, however,

were very suspicious. When the server came to take our order, he began waxing poetic about the specials of the evening, which were all meat. We told him it was our first time in the restaurant and would appreciate any suggestions for our special diets. He shuffled his feet a little and looked at the ceiling after we told him the list of things we don’t eat. He recovered and started directing us around the menu. He only had to make one trip to the kitchen to find out which sauces had sugar in them. Only one had none. When we were finished eating and he returned with the check, he said “By the way, what’s wrong with sugar? Uh, I mean, it comes out of the ground.” At that, I closed my gaping mouth and looked at the ceiling, suppressed the urge to say “nothing”, took one last glance at his almost complete set of rotten teeth, and said “It’s the worst poison of all.” I left him with that. Some projects are too big to take on at the moment.

Boxed Cake Mix Cancer Promoter

Another challenge took on  was from an acquaintance that sent an email regarding boxed cake mix. She wrote to ask what I thought of it. She added that she replaced the wet ingredients with canned pumpkin. Let me back up and say that this sweet, delightful, precious person was, at the time, a one-year breast cancer survivor and worked in an oncology office. She was at least fifty pounds over weight and ate a typical American diet, I'm sure, because her doctor never said anything about how her abdominal fat produces cancer-promoting estrogen and her diet is also too laden with grains and sugar to prevent cancer recurrence. I think she had made some changes in her diet since cancer but they were not significant as to actually prevent other diseases much less a cancer recurrence. 

My response went something like this: "Dear Blank, Thank you for thinking of me. Hope you are healthy and happy since we last saw each other. I just got back from a fun shopping weekend with two girlfriends. One is also a bc survivor of one year and the other just got diagnosed with hypertension and hypercholesterolemia. We had a very healthy weekend and talked a lot about nutrition. Your email seems like an appropriate ending to the weekend.

My first thoughts about the boxed cake mix are not regarding the fillers, separators, preservatives, white flour which has been stripped of nutrients and other mystery ingredients that are poison enough but are about the sugar content. As you probably know, sugar is to cancer as gas is to fire. Cancer feeds off high blood sugar. Sugar adds another mode of attack by suppressing the immune response. That immune response is what kills mutated cells and sweeps them out of the body.  You want your immune system at it’s best at all times. Sugar causes inflammation. Inflammation causes cancer cells to proliferate. Inflammation is the basis for heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and all autoimmune diseases. I know you are regretting sending the email about now. Sorry! I’m attaching some healthy recipes for sweets and baked goods that are far superior to anything you can get at the grocery store, much less in a box. Enjoy!"

Eat this instead

It is very important that you embark on a war on sugar. There is no dabbling in sugar. One taste, one dose will leave you only wanting more and more. Throw it all away and buy these to fill your cupboards.

• Bananas
• Raisins
• Dates
• Agave nectar
• Honey
• Maple syrup
• 85% cacao chocolate
• coconut palm sugar

 

Don’t deviate from this list except for other fruits. No fruit is off-limits, just the quantity. You should limit fruit consumption to two servings a day if you have blood sugar issues and three if you don’t. A serving is half a large banana or ½ cup of most other fruits.

Cold Turkey Gets Rid of Cravings

No, don't eat leftover turkey to get rid of sugar cravings, stop eating it all together. High fructose corn syrup is disguised as corn sugar solids, corn syrup, or any combination of words that describe sweet and corn. It is the CRACK cocaine of sweeteners. It is more addictive than any other refined sugar. Treat it like POISON. People ask me all the time “A little won’t hurt you, will it?” If dose makes the poison, no, a little won’t hurt, but the problem is the cravings. You will not forget that taste. It will haunt you for the rest of the day and night. You will only want more. Sugar is evil. Don’t forget it.

Beware of sugar in packaged and canned food. It will be in the ingredient list. I don’t buy anything with any amount of it as an ingredient except 85% cacao chocolate. Pick your poison wisely.

Proverbs 24:14

Know also that wisdom is sweet to your soul; if you find it, there is a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off.