Licking the Razor's Edge (2015)

Addiction #04 – Freedom from SUGAR
“Sugar-pushers tell that their products are ‘made from natural ingredients’. Of
course, the word ‘from’ is not accented on television. It should be. Even refined
sugar is made from natural ingredients … but that four-letter word ‘from’ hardly
suggests that 90 per cent of the cane and beet have been removed. Heroin, too,
could be advertised as being made from natural ingredients. The opium poppy is
as natural as the sugar beet. It’s what man does with it that tells the story.”
~ William Dufty
We all know that sugar is essentially bad for our health, and yet many of us wonder: just
how damaging is it? And is it really addictive? Well, to make things very clear right
away, the answers to those straightforward questions are just as direct – VERY
DAMAGING … and YES, it is extremely addictive.
The question is not whether or not sugar is deadly. It is, without a doubt -- when
regularly ingested, a killer. No, the real question is what might it take to inspire you to
cut back on your sugar consumption or, better yet, to stop eating sugar completely …
In the interests of brevity, I will not bore you with the details of the research studies that
have proven that eating sugar causes tooth decay, or that sugar intake leads to intense
weight gain, or that sugar consumption has been linked to the major diseases of diabetes,
cancer and heart illness.
I won’t tell you how refined sugar is lethal to humans because it only provides “empty
calories”; that people who eat only sugar die much faster and experience far more
debilitating pain than those who die from eating nothing at all.
I won’t tell you much about the over-acidic condition that sugar produces in your
bloodstream that sucks needed minerals from the rest of your body – eventually causing
your bones and teeth to become brittle and your whole body to become weak.
I won’t tell you the particulars about how eating sugar makes your liver expand like a
balloon, and that once it can’t expand anymore, the liver spits out excess glycogen into
your bloodstream in the form of fatty acids, which are then carried to every part of your
body – stored first in its relatively inactive parts (belly, buttocks, breasts & thighs), but
then being stored in your active organs as well (namely your kidneys and your heart).
And I won’t tell you the finer points about how eating sugar damages your immune
system, nor will I go into any detail on how “even one lump of sugar in your coffee after
eating a sandwich is enough to turn your stomach into a fermenter” – or how “drinking
one soda with your French fries is enough to turn your stomach into a still” (William
Dufty).
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