In colonial America, table sugar cost around $2.40 a pound, but now sugar is around $0.30 a pound. Adjusted for an average 4% rate of inflation, that pound of sugar would have cost us about $6,800 a pound in today's dollars!! No wonder only the rich got to eat cake!

Sugar was first refined from cane or beets.

In 1795, a large-scale method of granulating sugar was devised, and Louisiana farmers began growing sugar cane as a major crop.

During the 70's, high fructose corn syrup was introduced and is now the most widely used type of refined sugar.

Glucose, as high in calories as refined sugar, is actually a predigested food that undergoes no processing at all in the stomach OR intestines. Glucose, not as sweet tasting as sugar, is widely used as a cheap filler and is not required by the FDA to be listed on the label. (very convenient huh?!)

In 1994, FDA research shows sugar consumption averaged 149 pounds per person per year. This is @37 teaspoons per day ya all.

As little as two teaspoons of sugar can cause a radical change in the balance of micro nutrients and the delicate ratios required for growth.

The minerals needed to digest sugar: Chromium, manganese, cobalt, copper, zinc, and magnesium. All of which have been stripped from sugar during the refining process and must be supplied by the body further depleting mineral reserves and thereby disrupting the body's chemistry.

Sugar includes: sucrose; fructose; glucose; dextrose; levulse; maltose; raw sugar; turbinado sugar; maple sugar; galactose; brown sugar; dextrine; barley malt; rice syrup; corn sweetener, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, and yes, even honey. All of these are simple sugars. They take very little time to digest and get into the bloodstream where they perform the same disturbance to your body chemistry as table sugar.

Main Course:

In the body, minerals rule over all other nutrients. Vitamins, proteins, amino acids, carbohydrates, fats and enzymes require minerals for activity. Trace minerals, such as zinc, chromium, and copper are needed in small amounts. They are, however, no less important to the functioning of the body than are the macro minerals - calcium, magnesium, potassium, sulphur, and chloride. Of the 84 known minerals, 17 are considered to be essential, if there is a shortage of just one of these essential minerals, the balance of activity in the entire system can be thrown off, negatively impacting the entire chain of growth and further rendering other nutrients ineffective and useless. (So no musle building either!)

Sugar directly impacts the endocrine system and determines which minerals are going to be most affected. This system is made up of several organs - or glands and is the automatic pilot of processes in the body. It regulates all involuntary activities. Some of which are: respiration; heartbeat; digestion assimilation and elimination of food; body temperature; and others, all come under the supervision of the endocrine glands. The endocrine glands include the pituitary, the thyroid, the parathyroid, the hypothalamus, the adrenals, part of the pancreas, the thymus, the pineal, and the gonads. These glands are characterized by their ability to produce chemical messengers called HORMONES. Sugar directly reduces the efficiency of the glands causing both a decrease and increase in hormone secretion. When ingesting sugar, certain glands are accelerated to function at a faster-that-normal speed. These glands include the pancreas, which secretes the insulin needed to metabolize sugar, and a part of the adrenal gland called the adrenal medulla, which produces epinephrine (adrenaline). Epinephrine is the hormone responsible for stimulating the breakdown of stored glycogen back to the usable glucose. These glands also control the assimilation of calcium; the faster they, work the more calcium is absorbed into the blood. Other glands, such as the thyroid and the adrenals, are reduced to a slower-than-normal activity level due to sugar. These glands control the assimilation of phosphorus. So just as the overstimulation of the calcium regulators causes an increase in calcium, the suppression of these phosphorus regulators leads to a decreases in phosphorus. Such a decrease means a decrease in usable calcium even as the overall calcium level in the blood rises and results a calcium-phosphorus imbalance (very bad). This calcium-phosphorus imbalance renders the body less capable of breaking down proteins into amino acids (not good). Among other uses, amino acids are also the essential building block of... HORMONES. With less protein, insulin begins to diminish resulting in an insulin deficiency.

Our metabolism is also directly influenced. Metabolism is the process by which food is broken down into essential nutrients that can be absorbed by the cells of the body. This function is performed by enzymes, and enzymes are influenced by minerals - which are unbalanced by sugar. Most enzymes are, in fact, mineral dependant and not only work to digest food, but to bring about certain necessary biochemical functions. Chymotrypsin, for example, is a zinc-dependent enzyme needed to fine-tune carbohydrate metabolism and it is also used to counteract inflammation and reduce swelling! If and when we eat sugar, it is difficult for the body to digest and metabolize anything in the small intestine due to the lack (or decrease) of functioning enzymes.

The first organ of the endocrine system to come into contact with ingested foods is the pancreas. Insulin, a hormone secreted by the pancreas, is responsible for controlling the amount of sugar in the bloodstream. When we ingest sugar, or blood sugar level goes up. Clusters of endocrine cells in the pancreas, called the islets of Langerhans, detect this excess sugar and secrete insulin. The hypothalamus is also highly sensitive to changes in blood sugar. It is this endocrine reflex causing the release of insulin which brings the body's sugar level back to normal. However, this overstimulation of the pancreas eventually causes blood sugar levels to drop below normal (hypoglycemia) as well as further depleting mineral stores to process this excess sugar. But wait, there is more. In addition to insulin, the islets secrete another hormone called glucagon, which stimulates the release of glycogen, a sugar stored in the liver and tissues to compensate for the dramatic drop in blood sugar (caused by the over stimulation and ingestion of sugar). This mechanism eventually wears out from overuse and glycogen released diminishes resulting in a craving to restore blood sugar level by eating more sugar! A very, very nasty cycle indeed. But sugar isn't done yet, there are other ramifications (oh joy).

When we eat sugar and our blood sugar rises, insulin levels in our blood also must rise. The thyroid gland must now secrete the hormone thyroxin into the bloodstream to open the receptor cells and allow insulin into the cells. This process diminishes and exhausts the thyroid, and since the thyroid regulates metabolic functions, everything in the body slows down. Blood moves through the body more slowly decreasing the delivery of nutrients. This slow down further inhibits the ability of the enzymes to digest food. As such, food will begin to putrefy in the small intestine causing inflammation to protect the lining of the small intestine (and colon) from the undigested proteins. This inflammation and resulting mucus makes the intestine diameter smaller. This again reduces and slows down not only feces (commonly called constipation), but the whole digestive process and makes it nearly impossible for what little nutrients that may have been available to reach the bloodstream. This also allows harmful bacteria the time they need to seep back into the wall of the colon and become toxic - ouch! And lets not mention the resulting intestinal gas as a result of improper metabolic functions (can you say F-A-R-T-S?)

But all is not lost, there is a cure so to speak. There are no up-front costs, you do not have to finance a dime, or incur any cost what so ever. All you have to do is STOP EATING REFINED SUGAR. Don't try to go cold turkey, just take it one step at a time. Maybe then first thing you could do is stop drinking sodas, or just stop eating candy bars. But what ever you do, stop the sugar intake. Learn to read the lables on everything, look at the list of stuff printed for you to read.

Please feel free to copy and keep for your files. Give it to friends. Hell, what ever it takes. And you can be sure I took the simple path to explain how this very complicated cycle wacks you out. Many of the long term effects I just didn't want to get into. I hope you all might gain some insight and think twice about that "sports drink" before, during, of after your workout.

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LAte

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LAte

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Kaizen

"Omnia praeclara
tam difficilia
quam rara sunt."

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LAte

So I'm not sliding yet Lobo...

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Patience is a bitter plant, but it has sweet fruit.

The good news about this stuff is that it seems to be a decent glucose clearing agent (increases insulin in the presence of glucose). The only drawback is that most of the glucose goes into liver glycogen. Still, pretty good if you're diabetic.

You mentioned simple carbs (sugar, fructose, glucose, etc) raising insulin levels. Does it depend on the GI rating, or simply the fact that it is a simple sugar? The reason I ask is because although I have always followed the no sugar rule, I have recently read studies stating that refined sugar/fruits/etc caused less of an insulin spike than many complex carbs.

If someone can shed more light on this, please do.

Remember that sugar does more than just spike insulin levels. And one thing to keep in mind is that we are talking about longer term sugar intake, and much larger doeses - at least I HOPE you all are not salamming 50+ grams of sugar a day!

We need the good things from whole foods. Yes they do have some simple sugars in them, but they also have many, many benefits. My whole point was to get folks to think about the down right shitty stuff... candy bars, soda, Ho Ho's, ice cream, and them turtle thing-a-ma- bobs. To read the lables on our food packages!

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LAte