Are sugar cravings bad? I was a sugar junkie, so I have a definite opinion about this question.
Sugar is the primary ingredient in the highly-regarded anti-inflammatory diet, and the cornerstone of my clean eating programs, that took me down as a young girl. (Yes, “took me down” absolutely means destroyed the whole quality of my life.) Sure, all of the other inflammatory foods that we remove on a clean eating diet contributed to my body breaking down, but I was a sugar addict. Hands down. What does that mean in a larger context, I was a sugar addict?
My body was riddled with candida—an overgrowth of yeast throughout my body. Candida is an imbalance of bad bacteria, to good bacteria in the body. Ha! That’s when I first heard the word poly-systemic. New vocab word—poly-systemic. Yup, poly-systemic meant that the yeast spread from my gut into the tissues of all the organs in my body. No wonder I was a hot mess! Yes. It was very bad. I had symptoms raging from cystic acne to chronic constipation, from poor digestion to chronic fear and sadness. And 25+ years ago Dr. William Crook, author of the Yeast Connection estimated that 80 million Americans had candida at that time, but didn’t know it. Hmm. Wonder how many million there are now, especially with the way most of us eat these days? Wonder if you are one of the lucky ones who does not have it, from among those 80 million—with inflation of course. I tried to figure out where and how this began for me. Why? I just wanted to pinpoint where this started so I could stop it from happening. I came up with all sorts of theories, but the bottom line is sugar NOT GOOD, or as my Dad would say, NG!
Sugar is acidic. Sugar feeds candida. Sugar is acidic. Sugar feeds candida.
Sugar feeds candida. Candida loves sugar. Cancer loves sugar. ALL chronic disease loves sugar AND an acidic environment. Candida, cancer and chronic disease can NOT live in an alkaline environment. It’s a simple math equation really. Easy Peasy, right?
So is a little sugar OK once in a while? Is a little alcohol, gluten, dairy and caffeine OK once in a while? You tell me. Are you healthy? Are you happy? I mean are you healthy and happy in the ways that you wake up feeling energetic and on fire for your day—you just can’t wait to go and express your love for your family and friends and everyone you interact with in your life? Does kindness in your heart explode and you can’t wait to share it with everyone? Or do you experience low energy? Do you experience chronic bloating, headaches, bad breath, moodiness, slackened skin, even anger? Or maybe you have behaviors that feel far less that who you know yourself to be deep down, or just not you, but you just can’t help yourself? That is an acidic environment. That IS an acidic environment.
Until we stop the looping cycle of what came first, the low energy and poor health or the negative, less than our best thinking and behaving, I say keep your diet PRISTINE.
People like Jay Kordich and Kris Carr began to eat cooked vegan fare ONLY after they healed themselves. While they were sick with cancer and in healing mode, they kept their diet raw, very green and loaded with juice. Why? Because the raw food diet and juice-fasts are known to be the most healing protocols on the planet BECAUSE they alkalize the body. And if you ever get to talk to her, which I have once at the Tibet House in NYC, she will tell you that she was caught in this looping too. But today Kris Carr is one of the most gorgeous and vibrant voices in the health world! She, among other very luminous people in the world I move inspired me to create a personal credo a few years back “put off what I want now, for what I want most.”
Sugar? My vote? Don’t. Pretty compelling when the president of Sloan Kettering Hospital, the leading cancer research and treatment center on the planet opts out!
Interested in cutting out sugar? Take 1000 milligrams of a supplement, an amino acid called glutamine every 5 hours. It literally fools your body into thinking it’s getting sugar.
