Sugar isn’t food. Neither is alcohol. Sorry to wreck your week, stop reading right now if you don’t want to know anymore… I am committed to truth, even when it hurts, and from there on the rest is happily up to you – I won’t ever judge you, promise!
Can you think of any energy source that is not nutritious, has no biochemical reaction in the human body (or in any organism) that requires it, which causes disease when consumed at high dose, yet we love it anyway become addicted to it? Did you get the right answer? Correct – its alcohol. It has calories for sure, but it’s not nutritious. No biochemical reaction requires it, and at high doses you can wave goodbye to your liver. Yet, it’s addictive.
Alcohol is not dangerous due to the calories nor the associated weight gain which ensues. It is dangerous because alcohol is a toxin (I know! It’s awful reading this!!). When consumed in excess it is a toxic poison. But don’t be too smug if you don’t drink – because sugar is just as bad. The fructose molecule in sugar (sugar is made up of glucose and fructose) is the ‘sweet’ part of sugar, but it has no nutrition whatsoever. Like alcohol, there is no biochemical process which requires it. It is a liver-destroying toxin, and treated by the liver the way it treats alcohol as they use the same pathway. So, where do you get your alcohol from? Sugar or wine? Same thing.
Diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver and tooth decay are all related to sugar; again it’s not the huge amount of calories that are dangerous nor the weight gain (although weight gain is not healthy) it’s because it is sugar. It has no nutrition, just empty calories and when consumed in excess, it is a toxin. Like alcohol, sugar is addictive and actually surpasses cocaine in the reward centre of the brain. It’s hard to believe but these are ‘legal recreational drugs’ if you like, both of which may cause dependence, cravings, bingeing, withdrawal and abuse.
Sugar is just like alcohol. Professor of paediatric endocrinology, Professor Robert Lustig rightly calls sugar the ‘alcohol of the child’. Children are getting the same diseases adult heavy drinkers get – fatty liver, metabolic syndrome, hypertension and diabetes – yet without the alcohol. Could sugar be “the new alcohol”?
But the good news here is that you can begin to recover from this downward spiral in as little as 10 days. Sure, there’s a protocol you could follow with a healthy lifestyle, but I think you have a good idea as to what to do right now if you have any of these complaints and want to recover from them. Cheers!
