Sugar

A simple google search reveals list after lists of the negative effects of sugar to your body. Yet many of us are unwilling or unable to give up sugar. It sneaks in every where and the level in many foods can be startling. Everyone needs to evaluate their sugar consumption. Sugar is known to suppress the immune system, mess up your digestive system and cause a long list of side effects that are harsh enough to cause havoc all over your body.

Kathleen DesMaisons, author of "Potatoes Not Prozac" asks her clients this question:
"Imagine you come home and go into the kitchen. A plate of warm chocolate chip cookies sits on the counter just out of the oven. Their smell hits you as you walk in. You do not feel hungry. No one else is around. What would you do?"

If your answer involves inhaling one or more of those cookies and you like bread, pasta, crackers, cereal, popcorn, pop, smoke cigarettes and/or drink alcohol you probably need to run out and buy "Potatoes Not Prozac". There's a real good chance you're sugar sensitive and sugar is causing you problems. A person who isn't sugar sensitive would not eat a cookie because they weren't hungry or after giving it some thought they might try one. They can take it or leave it. A sugar sensitive person has that warm, sweet cookie in their mouth before even giving it a thought.

When you have an immune disorder sugar becomes even more of a problem. In studying and coaching Ideal Protein I've learned a lot about sneaky sugar; no matter what form it takes, sugar paralyzes the immune system in a variety of ways:
1)Sugar has been proven to destroy the germ-killing ability of white blood cells for up to five hours after ingestion.
2)It reduces the production of antibodies, proteins that combine with and inactivate foreign invaders in the body.
3)It interferes with the transport of vitamin C, one of the most important nutrients for all facets of immune function.
4)It causes mineral imbalances and sometimes allergic reactions, both of which weaken the immune system.
5)It neutralizes the action of essential fatty acids, thus making cells more permeable to invasion by allergens and microorganisms."

I challenge you to try 30 days without sugar, I've done it. Obvious sugar, processed foods, yogurt, cookies, ice cream, candy and other treats, can easily be ruled out. Unfortunately unless you are hyper-aware of all the foods you eat sugar will sneak up on you, in ketchup, store-bought bread, many processed foods and fruit. Although you may have previously thought of these foods as 'healthy' you body does not know the difference in sugar types and processes them all very similarly.