Interesting Blog on Sugar, Please share your thoughts...

A friend share this blog on fb.  http://healthyfamiliesforgod.com/2011/11/from-all-natural-to-class-a-drug-how-refinement-makes-cocaine-heroine-sugar/  I wanted to pull some of the things she talks about out and share here.   I really encourage everyone to go read the blog fully.   Here are some of her findings in her researching sugar that may surprise you.  Some of it did me some I already knew.  

sugar was three times more addictive than cocaine. 

Did that surprise you?  It did me.  I knew sugar was addictive but 3 times more than cocaine?  Wow!  

Surprising to me, however, was that indigenous women who converted to this “modernized” diet began giving birth to children who would have decreased bone mass (including in their skull) and reduced jaw/facial bone sizes. This change caused them to have inadequate space in their mouth for all of their teeth, causing crowding and painful eruption of their third molars (wisdom teeth).

Makes you wonder if this is why so many kids now have braces on their teeth.   I wonder if our soda filled world of mommies realize the price of those soda's in braces down the road.

The group that had consumed the largest amount of sugar had essentially no functioning white blood cells within an hour after consuming the sugar.

Does this explain so much illness?  Or maybe not explain, but could this be a contributing factor to why so many are ill, so many have issues that are long term and never seem to get better?  I do know personally that when I was battling chronic fatigue and a chronic yeast infection I ended up giving up all sugar and all yeast bread.  For several years anytime I over indulged I was again attached with a serious yeast infection and generally felt yucky for days. That was also when I gave up Dr. Pepper.  One big Dr. Pepper equaled days or weeks of raging yeast infection. It wasn't worth it! 

Refined sugar causes the liver to store up fat, resulting in reduced liver and kidney function. The mineral deficiencies caused by sugar include a major loss of magnesium which is responsible for keeping blood vessels open.

 
I find this super interesting in that I have just discovered that giving my 10 yo magnesium calms him.  It stopped the tantrums.  It changed his ADHD issues into ADD.  I have a friend that is dealing with kidney issues right now.  I know she does have a sweet tooth.  I wonder.....  Is liver fat what leads to fat in our blood?   The liver should be cleaning the blood, but if it is filled with fat, how can it clean right?   Again I am doing more thinking on here than anything else.

Long-term effects include depression, addiction, autoimmune diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and cancer. In fact, it is commonly known that cancer cells need sugar in order to survive, so eating sugar just invites cancerous cells to grow and thrive.

WOW!!!  How many people do you know that are dealing with at least one of these?   I know some that are dealing with MOST of these.  

The Church, for instance, would never allow cocaine or heroin to be distributed within its walls, but hands out sugar-laden products in common areas and the children’s classrooms.

This has been a pet peeve of mine for many years that gets louder as I learn more.   Not just the church, but any and every well meaning place that is going to do any thing with children think they need to feed them sugar.  Often they combine sugar and red food coloring then complain because the kids are climbing the walls.  The kids get blamed for misbehaving while the adults just gave them foods filled with stimulants and depressants and their bodies are out of control.

I read all this, I post it and my thoughts and really don't have an easy or even good answer.   Give up sugar?   Sound simple, but sugar and even worse corn syrup is hidden in so many things you wouldn't expect.  Cook from scratch?   That seems to be the answer.   That said as my kids make French toast and eat syrup for breakfast.   I do think it is a process.  I think I have back slid, in part because my husband isn't on board with no sugar.   Yes, he is highly addicted I think.   I know I am one that if I can totally avoid sweets I do better than just eating small amounts.  It does leave me wanting more.   I find eating at home is easy.  I really don't eat sugar often, and can easily stop.  It is when I go to friends homes, and am offered sweets or out to eat I fall off the wagon.  I don't get my sugar fix from drinks.  Coffee and tea are without sugar. My fix comes from chocolate chips, or cookies or cake or brownies.

I am going to work toward no sugar more.  I am going to work toward teaching my children ways to eat without sugar.  I ask others to come along side me and support me and I will support them and together we can improve not only our health, but the generations to come!  We do it not for us but for our children, our grandchildren, our great grand children.  When I think of it like that it seems very important to change our mindset.  To re-write what we eat.   To stop allowing the world to feed us, but instead learn to feed ourselves the way God intended. 

Please please share your thoughts on this.  Read the article.   Share your thoughts on it or sugar in general.  This is one of those topics I really want to sit down with a cup of coffee or ice tea, (without sugar of course) and visit and talk and discuss with my friends.   Since I have friends around the world, lets visit on here!