My last couple newsletters have focused on the common foods in our Standard American Diet (SAD) that promote inflammation in our bodies.  The biggest offenders are sugar, vegetable oils, grain flours, and dairy foods.  There are lots of other poisons in our food supply, but these four are by far the biggest contributors to ill health simply because of the shear volume of them we consume.  Sadly, the average American will find 50% to 70% of their diet is made up of these foods.  Over the course of a lifetime, that is a lot of poison down the hatch.

The good news is that we have healthy alternatives to these foods available to us.  There are non-toxic sugars, healthy oils, non-grain low glycemic flours, and dairy alternatives that we can use to greatly improve our health and our diet.  We have to be careful though; as the food processing industry begins to hear our cries for alternative foods, they are starting to produce junk that has healthy sounding names.  Most of the big names in health food are just marketing arms of the same old food companies that have been pushing junk food poisons on us forever.  Marketing is powerfully devious in making us believe whatever they want us to believe.  We have to be smart.  We have to use the power of our purchasing to let them know what it is we really want.

Until that day arrives, we have to do a lot of food preparation ourselves to get the variety of tasty flavors and foods into our diet in a healthy form.  Today I want to focus on the first of the most common food poisons - sugar.  Sugar is a two-fold poison.  It has two parts to it - glucose and fructose.  These two molecules join together to form what we call sugar.  Glucose is used by our body to produce energy for everything we do.  It is not the best energy source as it is very "dirty".  It is like nuclear power - it produces lots of toxic waste while it is making energy.  Fats are the other major energy source.  They are more like solar power in that they produce very little toxic waste as they produce energy.

Glucose is so "dirty" that the cells will always use it for energy first to keep the sugar out of the blood stream where it will damage the arteries and nerves.  Inside the cells the toxic waste (free radicals) are attacked by anti-oxidants to try to neutralize the poison generated by the sugar.  Outside the cells (like in the blood stream) the sugar causes a process called glycation to any exposed tissues.  Glycation basically candies the tissues.  Nerve endings are especially sensitive to being candied.  This is why peripheral neuropathy happens in diabetes.  The high sugar levels in the blood of diabetics cause the nerve endings to be destroyed by becoming candied.

When sugar enters our blood stream too fast from our digestive tract, our ability to clear the excess sugar out of the blood by putting it into cells for energy is compromised.  Light fluffy flour products cause this same problem because the flour turns into glucose sugar so fast.  Speed of digestion is our enemy here.  We can only handle so much at one time.  Sugar overloads us, it is too fast.  We need slow foods.  We need our nutrients entering our system slowly, at a pace we can handle.  Highly processed foods are fast foods because they enter our blood stream so fast we can't handle it.  The body can handle tiny amounts of sugar entering slowly.  This is what happens when we eat low glycemic foods that still turn into sugar but do so slowly like sweet potatoes.

The other half of the sugar molecule, the fructose, acts on the body in the exact same way as alcohol.  Taste-wise we like the fructose the most because it is intensely sweet.  It is twice as sweet as glucose.  But it is toxic.  The body can handle about 15 grams (1/2 ounce) of fructose per day.  Beyond that and it starts damaging the liver and other organs.  Because fructose is what makes fruit sweet, we have to be cautious not to eat too much fruit a day.  About 1 cup of fruit provides that ½ ounce of fructose, so that is our limit.  More than that induces Metabolic Syndrome causing insulin resistance and obesity.

An interesting side note - our ancestors used this tendency for fructose to induce obesity to help them survive the winter's lack of food.  By eating lots of sweet fruit as it became ripe in August and September, we would put on a lot of fat in the abdominal area, which we would use for energy in the winter to keep us warm.  Bears do the same thing before hibernating.  The long periods of fasting in January and February when food supplies were gone reversed the negative effects of the weight gain and Metabolic Syndrome.

Fortunately for us there are many kinds of sugar molecules besides glucose and fructose.  They are not abundant in nature so our system has not learned how to use most of them and therefore does not digest most of them.  They will still taste sweet to varying degrees, and we can use them in cooking like regular sugar without the dangers to our body.  For most of them their benefit is also their weakness.  Because they are not digested, they stay in the gut where they hold water in the bowel, often causing diarrhea and gas.  One of these sugars does not stay in the bowel, but instead passes through the system and is dumped out through the kidneys into the urine.  This sugar is called erythritol, and it is the sugar I use in making up my Dr Dave Double Sugar.

Sweet taste can also be stimulated by foods other than sugar.  Sometimes that is good and sometimes it is bad.  Did you know that the reason old lead based paint is so dangerous is because lead tastes sweet.  That is why infants end up with lead poisoning from old paint - they eat it right off the walls!  Many toxic chemicals also taste sweet, and some of them have been turned into artificial sweeteners.  But there are a few natural plant extracts that taste very sweet.  The two best known ones available to us today are stevia and lo han guo or monk fruit.  They have been used for centuries as a sweetener in foods without any toxic reactions.  I use a de-bitterized stevia extract in my Dr Dave sugar.

Now for the fun!  The combination of erythritol and stevia closely matches table sugar in taste.  It looks like table sugar and dissolves in liquids like table sugar.  So for many purposes we have a healthy replacement for table sugar.  But in some ways it does not act like table sugar.  It does not melt and fuse together like normal sugar does.  This makes candy making a challenge.  I have taken up that challenge to see how I can use Dr Dave sugar in candy making projects.  So far my most successful attempts have been with chocolate type candies and jelly type candies.  The following is my latest attempt at a chocolate type candy- a caramel coconut candy and a chocolate caramel coconut candy.

Since I can not melt the Dr Dave sugar in the traditional method, I have to find a way to suspend the sugar in the candy without it being obvious or granular.  Cocoa butter is an excellent medium for making candy.  It is what you make white chocolate from.  To make the Dr Dave sugar seem to melt into the candy I turn it into powdered sugar by putting it into the Vita Mix blender dry and whip it on high for several minutes.  This turns the granular sugar into a finely textured powdered sugar.  I also have on hand dried shredded coconut that has not been sweetened.  And I have either peanut flour or almond flour to add into the base.

The other essential ingredient in candy making is candy flavors.  These can usually be found where candy-making supplies are sold.  There is a special line of candy flavors just for using in chocolate.  Flavors for chocolate can not have any water in them as water causes chocolate to seize up into an unusable mass.  In this recipe I used caramel flavor, caramel cream flavor, and marshmallow flavoring.

1 cup cocoa butter chips
1 cup almond or peanut flour
¼ cup powdered Dr Dave double sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. flavorings 1,2,or3
11/2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
1 Tbs. Cocoa powder unsweetened


From here the candy making is very easy.  I simply melted 1 cup of the cocoa butter chips in a glass bowel in the microwave for 2 minutes.  Using a hand wand type blender I mix in the ¼ cup Dr Dave powdered sugar, the 1 cup of either almond flour or peanut flour, 1/8th teaspoon of salt, and a teaspoon of each of the flavorings.  I blend the whole mixture on high for a minute until very smooth then add in the 11/2 cups of shredded coconut and mix this in by hand with a spatula.  I don't use the wand blender as it will chop up the coconut shreds and turn it into coconut flour.

I scoop out half of the mixture into candy molds and then add 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract to the remaining half and mix it in by hand.  Now I have a chocolate colored and flavored mixture.  This half now goes into the candy molds.  I place the mold into the freezer for 20 minutes to set up the candy.  In my case I was using a long bar type mold so I popped the candy out of the mold and cut each piece into 4 pieces.  I now have bite sized candy pieces in two colors.  This can be made into a nice arrangement for presentation at your next party as you amaze your friends with a healthy sugar-free candy that actually tastes good.

Enjoy


David

Tuesdays and Fridays

Sugar overload can damage heart

The sugar molecule glucose breaks down to glucose-6-phosphate, which stresses the heart muscle proteins responsible for pumping blood.  This leads to heart failure.  Heart failure kills 5 million Americans each year and is difficult to treat.  The authors naturally are looking for new drugs to treat this problem.  Funny, no one even considers the idea of not eating sugar.

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5 clues you are addicted to sugar 

In a brilliant unassailable study completed recently it was proven that sugar and high glycemic foods stimulate the addiction centers in the brain - the same centers responsible for gambling and drug addiction.  Some studied have found sugar is 8 times more addictive than cocaine. 

Here are five clues you may be addicted to sugar, flour and processed food:

1. 1. You consume certain foods even if you are not hungry because of cravings.
2. 2. You worry about cutting down on certain foods.
3. 3. You feel sluggish or fatigued from overeating.
4. 4. You have health or social problems (affecting school or work) because of food issues and yet keep eating the way you do despite negative consequences.
5. 5. You need more and more of the foods you crave to experience any pleasure or reduce negative emotions.

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About Dr. DeLapp

Dr. DeLapp has been a philosopher, non-force Chiropractor, medical intuitive, and health innovator for over 30 years.  He began experimenting with  medical intuition in 1972 while studying physics at UC Davis.  In addition to physics he designed and completed an individual major in the philosophy and psychology of education.  Shortly after he choose to pursue a career in the only truly health oriented profession available at that time, Chiropractic.  He graduated with honors in 1981 with his doctorate and opened a private practice. 
Since that time he has continued his research into the effects of consciousness and learning on health. 
He developed the Biomagnetic Retraining system for correcting movement abnormalities. 
Since 1991 he has focused on developing a powerful system for uncovering and assisting the mind-body connection in health and personal growth.  The in-depth coaching, guided by the subconscious direction from the body, is called Heartflow and the simpler mind-body retraining for health and unfoldment he has named Gracework.  Both are available at Fair Oaks Health.

Dr David DeLapp DC
Chiropractor

Ellen Flowers FGM
Spiritual Life Coach

 

 

 

Catherine Cummings

 

 

Jin Shin Jitsu

 

 

Lorena Morales

 

 

Massage Practitioner

 

 

 

 

 Is there a sweet that is not poisonous?  Yes!


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