Sugar’s Bitter Truth

Sugar and Inflammation

For the last four decades, Americans have avoided fats and gorged on sugar. Sugar is a leading contributor to type 2 diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, MS, metabolic syndrome, and excessive weight gain.  It also increases the risk of heart disease, certain cancers, high blood pressure, and osteoporosis; actually nearly every disease has a link to sugar.

Sugar in the amount that the typical Americans eat (about 64 pounds a year) continually upsets our body chemistry and causes the inflammatory process that leads to disease. The less sugar you eat, the less inflammation, and the stronger your immune system, which defends us against infectious and degenerative diseases.

Excess sugar in the blood causes glycation, a process where a sugar molecule binds to a protein or a fat, and leads to the formation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs). AGEs are inflammatory; they are associated with type 2 diabetes, aging, and many diseases.

Don’t be fooled. Sugar is hidden in packaging in many different forms: high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup solids, sucrose, maltose, dextrose, fructose, glucose, galactose, lactose.  When a manufacturer wants to sweeten up a certain brand of cereal, for example, it can either do this using 15 grams of sugar, or, 5 grams of malt syrup, 5 grams of invert sugar, and 5 grams of glucose. Some manufacturers seem to be choosing this divide and masquerade method, placing these ingredients lower down on their products’ lists, making the public believe that the amount of sugar in the product is smaller than it is.

It’s all still sugar:  Cane juice, dehydrated cane juice, cane juice solids, cane juice crystals, dextrin, maltodextrin, dextran, barley malt, beet sugar, caramel, buttered syrup, carob syrup, brown sugar, date sugar, malt syrup, diatastic malt (enzymes that breakdown starch into sugar), fruit juice concentrate, dehydrated fruit juice, fruit juice crystals, golden syrup, turbinado, sorghum syrup, molasses, refiner’s syrup, ethyl malitol, maple syrup, yellow rock sugar, and sugar alcohols such as sorbitol and mannitol.

Healthy Alternative Sweeteners

• Stevia (recommend Sweet Leaf Vanilla Creme)
• Coconut sugar and coconut nectar
• Small amounts of pure maple syrup
• Small amounts of local raw honey

Dairy Free Cream of Asparagus Soup & Kale Salad

Dairy Free Cream of Asparagus Soup & Kale Salad

Inflammation Shown By the CDC as a Major Cause if Illness and Disease

If you have suffered with ill health, I highly recommend that you follow the anti-inflammation diet.  Many people have been healed and lives changed by reducing inflammation in their body. The recipes that follow are from my new book The Juice Lady’s Anti-Inflammation Diet. As you follow this program, you should notice that your health greatly improves.  You will also lose weight if you need to.

Basic Raw Kale Salad With “Dairy Free” Cream of Asparagus Soup

Serves 4–6

Basic Raw Kale Salad
1 cup shredded carrot, or snap peas (when in season)
2 cups radishes, sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
6 cups kale, chopped into bite-size pieces (2 bunches)
1-inch-piece of ginger, minced (optional)
Sea salt, to taste
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. With clean hands, massage the vegetables as if you are squeezing water out of them. Work the vegetables at least 15 times. After 10 minutes, work the vegetables another 15 times. Season to taste and enjoy many variations on this theme!

Fun Variations:
*Add sesame seeds and sesame oil at the end, or chopped cashews for crunch.
*Reduce sea salt to 1/2 teaspoon, and add 1 teaspoon umeboshi plum paste.
*Add golden raisins soaked in apple juice and pumpkin seeds for a kale “granola”

Shopping List
1 clove garlic
1-inch ginger
2 large bunches of kale (green
or red or lacinato)
1 lemon
1 large bunch radishes
1 cup snap peas or 3 carrots
Check the Pantry
Extra-virgin olive oil
Sea salt

“Dairy Free”  Cream of Asparagus Soup
Serves 6
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup diced onion
1/2 Tbsp. green curry paste (optional)
5 cups fresh asparagus, (or frozen) cut into 1-inch pieces (2 bunches)
4 cups rutabaga, one inch dice
4 cups vegetable stock, to cover
1/2 bunch parsley, roughly chopped
11/2 tsp. sea salt (or more to taste)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1–2 cups coconut milk, or to taste (hemp or plain almond milk can be substituted)
Fresh water, as needed

Heat the olive oil in a large soup pot set over medium heat and stir in the garlic, onion, and curry paste (this seasons the oil). Add in the cut asparagus and rutabaga. Add just enough stock to cover the vegetables—not too much, you can always thin the soup later if you need to. Add the chopped parsley. Season with sea salt and fresh pepper, to taste.

Bring the vegetables to a high simmer. Cover the pot, and reduce the heat to a medium simmer. Cook for 20 minutes or so, until the rutabaga are fork tender. Remove the pot from the heat. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup. Return the pot to the stove and add in the coconut milk. Stir and heat through gently (don’t boil the pureed soup). Taste test and adjust seasonings.

Serve with a sprinkle of fresh minced parsley or a spoonful of plain vegan yogurt or vegan sour cream.

Shopping List
2 bunches asparagus
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium yellow onion
1 bunch parsley
3 lb. rutabaga

Check the Pantry
Black peppercorns
Coconut milk
Extra-virgin olive oil
Green curry paste (optional)
Sea salt

From The Juice Lady’s Anti-Inflammation Diet