Ep. 43 - Sugar: The Sweet Killer

 Welcome friends.

Today's topic is going to hit some of your really hard. I'm sorry, but I got to bring it to you. It's the one thing that nobody ever wants to give up. So one thing that we all say, can I have just a little bit, do you have to take it all away? Oh, you don't have to. Just have to determine for yourself how much you're willing to put up with . How much pain suffering. Weight gain. Disease and sickness and general. Feeling like garbage.

All right.

Enough of that. Let's get right into this one. Strap in.

Sugar.

Man, do we all love sugar? Everybody loves sugar. Have you ever met anybody who doesn't like sugar or. I should say sugar put into foods. Nobody just sits down and eats tablespoons of sugar. That's just not a thing. You'll put it into things and then eat it.

Some people can't stop. Others. They just have a little bit. They can move on, not a biggie, but for most people that's not the case. For most people, they have no control.

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Curtailing your sugar intake could be the single most important thing you can do for your overall health. Not just health, but overall health. Just because you're alive. Doesn't mean you're healthy. So we think I'm alive. Everything's good. I feel fine right now. So you keeping that sugar. Eventually it's gonna catch up. It does for everyone.

Sugar used to be used as a condiment.

Now it's literally in everything. It's in everything. All right, Erik, can't see everything really. I can't go to the store. Look at every single label. That's not a single ingredient like beef. And you will see some form of sugar. In that product.

Sugar is not poison because it's a calorie. It's poisoned because of sugar itself. What sugar does to you? There's nothing to do with the calories. Actually sugar doesn't have as many calories as you might think.

One of the equivalent things you could. Use to describe sugar would be cyanide. Oh, yeah.

Erik did you just.

Compare sugar to cyanide. Yes, I did. Sugar does the same thing as cyanide. To your cells. It kills energy production, and that's why it kills you. Cyanide just happens to be faster. Sugar takes a lot longer. And result same.

It feeds cancer cells right there. You shouldn't consume it. Nobody wants cancer. And then they don't want to increase the cancer cells. But then we say, oh, I want that. Sugary product, whatever that is.

Everything from bread to beer. 📍

It's actually considered a drug. What's the drug things that will increase the dopamine response in your brain. Sugar does this. Sugar is not food. And it can be converted into fat if you don't burn it up. We're going to get into the whole burning thing. Cause it's not the way it works. It's actually metabolized, not burned. Then.

If you keep consuming a lot of sugar, then that ups your VLDL cholesterol.

That's the only cholesterol that's really that bad for you. But as that VLDL goes up, it fills up in your liver. And that gives you. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. That's the new term. Everyone keeps talking about fatty liver disease. Yeah, it's a thing. And they didn't know it. Until recently. Sugar consumption causes insulin resistance. All of the metabolic diseases, all chronic diseases. It impacts all of them. Either directly makes them happen or. Makes them worse.

So let's get into the minutia.

Shall we? What is food? It's actually considered a substrate that attributes to growth or burning of an organism. Sugar does not contribute to either of these.

You ever heard of ultra processed foods? Yeah, we have, we're starting to hear more about those. All the ultra processed foods are killers. Ultra process actually makes up 67% of all the food consumed in America, usually around the world, unless you go into a smaller areas. Second and third world, they do more real food. First world countries, 67% of food is ultra processed. Guess what's in almost every single thing.

That's ultra processed. You guessed it sugar or some form thereof. Is it really food? Is ultra processed food. Actually food. We just gave you the definition. Substrate that attributes to growth or burning of an organism.

So my question to you is. Our Oreo cookies food. Hmm.

When you have a high sugar intake, you will quote, burn less. Or in better case scenario would be described as. Metabolized less. And then you gain more weight.

Ultra processed foods do the same thing. There's more sugar, more carbohydrates to burn. Or metabolize, therefore increases more weight.

Okay. So then what about growth? Member.

Metabolism. Or growth is the definition of food.

Well, actually it inhibits growth. For example. It inhibits your skeletal health.

So the length and width.

Of your bones.

Can be inhibited by sugar and ultra processed foods.

Actually hollows out your femur. Yeah, isn't that wild. When you consume a lot of sugar or ultra processed foods. Your femurs. Actually hollow out. That's not good. So ultra processed food is not food.

No one is addressing this. No doctors, no government, or you. You're not addressing it. And then when people around you tell you, Hey, Probably shouldn't eat that. And you do it anyway. Or you do it in secret, that's even worse.

Chronic diseases. Are all attributed. To ultra processed foods and sugar. It has been normalized in the schools and everywhere that serves food. And even most restaurants. Very few restaurants cook from scratch. They all buy frozen garbage, and then reheat it.

And that's true for even a lot of the bigger restaurants that you would think is actually making food.

Ultra processed food is not normal. Throughout history. You didn't go into a store in 500 BC and pick up a box package container of non-food. They didn't have it. They were like, What do you wanna eat? You're like, ah, I'll take some lamb. And. Wherever else you got. There was no food that was created and boxed and. Made to be put in a 📍 microwave or an oven.

They didn't have that stuff. This is all modern.

Then we have things like 📍 soda. Which is literally liquid sugar. That is the fastest way. To get all sugar. Chronic diseases. Literally the fastest. If you want to speed up the degregation in sickness of your body, then drink soda pop. And by the way, even diet is horrible for you could even be worse.

So with children. Sugars, basically like alcohol is to an adult. It creates type two diabetes And fatty liver disease. They are finding. Children now. 3 4, 5, 6 years old that actually have fatty liver disease. Now mind you. They may not look fat. That's subcutaneous fat, which we talked about. It is internal fat.

So there's three places you hold fat, your liver subcutaneous, that's outside your body, like between your skin and your muscle. That's what makes you look flabby? And then your visceral fat, that's all inside your muscles. And then in and around all of your organs of your torso. Well guess what. Your kid looks fine, but his liver's full of fat. Not good. Really, really not good.

45% of Americans have fatty liver disease.

Now that's when it's actually classified as a disease.

You might be halfway there or you wouldn't even know it. It could be going on for most of your life, that way. Then you start to notice all the symptoms of chronic disease or metabolic syndrome or any number of things.

ic fatty liver disease before: 1980

One of these days, we'll do a metabolic syndrome episode. It's huge lot to go through, but. You know what foie gras is. Yeah. That's that goose 📍 liver. And in order to make it, they force feed these geese, corn and sugar, like right down their throat. They don't anything else. I mean, they get bugs here and there and. That kind of thing, but they're basically just overfeeding them, corn and sugar. And then their liver gets super fatty. Um, What do you think happens to our livers? Hmm. Interesting.

Isn't it. Pretty simple. Interrupt how the liver processes sugar. By increasing the pancreas insulin load. Or output. And you shut down the liver, then it gets stagnant. Thereby interrupting all of the fantastic and wonderful benefits of your liver. How many benefits. Does your liver give you? It's pretty cool. More than 500 functions.

That's insane. Think about it. Have you ever done even 500 things in the last month? I mean, your liver is doing that all day every day. Over 500. It's the most active tissue in your body.

So then you might be considering like, okay, you're talking about sugar, Erik, what about things like honey? Nope.

But I can sweeten things like cookies or cakes and whatever. Nope. No way.

Honey is still sugar to the body, actually. No different.

So what about high fructose corn syrup? Ooh, that's the bad one. That's the one you always hear. Can't have high fructose corn syrup, which is in almost everything. But you can have honey. Guess what they do the same thing in the body. No difference. None.

Now the effect, the long-term effect. And I mean, hours, not years. Honey. Is metabolized a little bit better. But overall. Not good. If I was going to have some sugar. Yeah, honey, every so often not a big deal has to be raw. You should know how to buy honey. If you want an episode on that, let me know.

fat-free foods because of the: 1970

They end up substituting fats. With sugar. Maltodextrin, which we're going to talk about. And other fillers. Okay. So, how do you make a salad dressing without oil? You got to make it creamy. Gotta make it. Pourable. Right. Has to be a certain viscosity. You can do that with sugar. What about treats? Well, how often do you eat them? How often do you want to eat them?

Once you understand how bad sugar is for you? Maybe you don't want them as much as you think you do.

You can decide after this episode, if it's really worth it. And if so, how often. So, what about things like cookies? Smaller portion, couple bites, no big deal. Nope. Flour sugar. It's processed. Usually if you purchase them. They are using trans fats.

Or some kind of horrible, terrible vegetable seed oil in there. You're making them at home. You could make them out of lard. Make your own flour. Use quality sugar. At least there's something redeeming about that.

So I learned from this ex pro football player, I used to help a little bit. His name was Johnny Morton used to play for the Detroit lions, went on to Kansas city afterwards. He said he's never had sugar in his life. It says his mom wouldn't let it in the house ever. So I said, you've never tasted sugar.

He said, Nope. I refuse to.

I thought that is amazing. Guess what he played all those years and he never gets hurt. Everybody else gets hurt. He never does. He sprained his pinky once that was it, like just a little bit. But he said, no, I don't need it. I don't crave it. I'm healthy. I have tons of energy. I mean. There you go. There's a person who can be a professional athlete. Never had sugar and very successful, super, super healthy. I knew another mountain biker.

That was the same way. I never ever consume sugar. And when he had anything, it would be maple syrup and then he'd be bouncing off the walls, like a little kid, just that. Just sucked down an entire Pepsi or something like crazy. He just, he hated it. It was just too much. Didn't even eat fruit either.

Couldn't handle it. He was a vegan by the way.

So the problem is, is that we think our sugars, this. Physical object. We don't realize that it has an impact on your mental health. It affects your mental cognition. It can make you depressed. It can interfere with, uh, your, uh, mental clarity. See, I just did it.

Neuronal communication. Can make you sleepy all the time.

It's just overall, nothing beneficial, nothing. Zero. And by the way, when you completely give up sugar and pretty much all carbs, you don't have blood sugar crashes. You don't have anything like that. Those go away.

So what does sugar breakdown into what's its components? Why is it so bad? Well, it breaks down into glucose and fructose. Now, of course everyone's heard of glucose. They talk about it incessantly, especially with the new monitors. We got an episode coming on that don't you worry? But the real bad boy is not glucose.

It's fructose. And by the way, that's the main sugar in fruit. Hence F R U maybe. I don't know. Maybe somebody coined that.

Fructose actually acts like alcohol in the body. It is seriously bad. First of all it inhibits the three. Necessary enzyme pathways for normal mitochondrial function. Glucose doesn't do that.

So our mitochondria can metabolize glucose very easily, but it can't metabolize, fructose very efficiently. So too much glucose in the body will convert it into fructose, which is the poisonous part of sugar. The real, real poison is part.

Glucose is still not great for you. But you can handle in small amounts, just not large amounts because when it gets larger. The body will convert into fructose. Fructose, seven times more addictive. So right there, you're going to be an addict. You don't even realize it. That's literally. Seven times what glucose is.

That's crazy.

Do you know what the highest level of fructose is? It's fruit. Fruit is literally almost pure sugar. Sorry. That's just the way it is. You might love your fruit. Fruit is not what fruit always was. It has been bred to be. Overly sweet and large and juicy.

Go ahead. Look up. Online photos of original fruits, bananas, oranges, all this kind of stuff. It's not what you think it is. Actually hardly, barely sweet at all. Now it's just pure candy. It's literally candy from the tree. Or the plan. It's just the way it is. I'm sorry. There's an argument that says that we'll it's.

Not that bad for you because it's got fiber. The infamous fiber.

The argument is that it has fiber. Therefore not allowing you to absorb as much of the fructose or the glucose. And by the way, when you. Consume sugar. It breaks down into galactose as well. But I disagree with this whole concept. Like I said fruit nowadays. Oh, man, it is just pure sugar.

It's just candy.

And there's way more sugar than there is fiber. And most of it. So the idea goes that the fiber creates this matrix that keeps the sugar from being broken down In the duodenum. That's the area of your intestine right after your stomach. Then after that it goes into the jejunum. Which is where the microbiome mostly lives. Your duodenum can hold yeast and I'll whole lot of it. Fruit. Nowadays is large and been bred to be super sweet.

Like I was saying, even berries. You won't believe what blueberries are like. Huge. Sugar content.

Therefore. Eating a lot of fruit. Actually increased the candida yeast epidemic. But Erik, I was told fruit is healthy. Okay. Take it out of your diet. See how good you feel. Guarantee you, you feel better when you remove fruit.

So if you keep eating that. Fruit. And sugar. What does it do? It feeds all the microbes that are in your microbiome that tell you to eat more sugar. See, it's a perpetuating cycle. It creates lactic acidosis. In the body. Which is. The mechanism for all chronic disease. If you go back, listen to episode 10. I hit lactic acidosis, and it is. Amazing game-changing information.

Once you listen to that, if you still consume carbohydrates, I don't know what to tell you.

Too many carbs. And sugar. Creates. Insulin resistance, right? Kind of hit upon that. So let's give you an idea of what insulin resistance is really like.

But first. A couple of fun facts. I love fun facts. Don't you? When someone says fun fact. And you go, all this is going to be good. Pregnancy. Is insulin resistance. See, the body needs to gain weight.

Puberty. Is the other one. Isn't that wild. Pregnancy. And puberty are both insulin resistant quote diseases.

You only get two of these in your entire lifetime.

Estrogen. All most. Is the equivalent. But basically estrogen. Also creates insulin resistance. at a very high level. So when you increase estrogen production in the body, naturally, which has endogenously or exogenously meaning outside the body with all the chemicals and the hormones inside of all the things that you use that touch your skin, or you put in your mouth. You help create insulin resistance.

People never talk about that one.

You think? Well, estrogen is just this female hormone. Yeah. Well, you can make more of it in your body, by the stuff in your environment and the things you put in your body or on your body. When that goes up, you create insulin resistance. Literally.

So basically your body has insulin.

Which stores energy in the body. In both the liver and the muscles. And then you have a hormone called leptin that tells your body to stop consuming things that your body uses as fuel or energy.

When those are out of balance. Causes obesity. Or maybe just for you, it's 20 pounds overweight. Not talking about weight from inflammation, which is water and other things I'm talking about straight fat, visceral fat or subcutaneous fat.

Visceral fats the bad one. Subcutaneous, not as bad. Just doesn't look great. So if your insulin is high, it blocks leptin. That tells you to stop consuming those donuts, the ice cream and the sweet potatoes and pizza chips. And what else? Candy. Fruit. Pasta rice bread, soda pop. Juice. Cookies cakes brownies. Reese's peanut butter cups. 📍 Oh man. Who doesn't love. Reese's peanut butter cups. Seriously.

Yeah, that was a hard one for me to give up to.

You ever heard the concept? Calories in calories out. They say all calories are the same. That is so wrong. It's the worst advice ever. Sugar is totally different than fat or protein. It's what you got to ask yourself is qui bono. Who benefits? That would be the food industry. The food industry has protections. From guests who yep.

Your government. Which keeps them wealthy. Cause they can sell you everything and you believe them. They fund studies and then they say, see. This is fine for you, nothing wrong with sugar. The problem is the fat. Yeah. Who funded the studies? Sugar companies. Or the food companies that have nothing but sugar, rich foods. There's only 10 companies that own all the food in the world. All the food companies.

There's only 10. And if you think they're not out to make money off of the world's population. Oh man, you need to look closer at who's selling you what to eat.

So what does a calorie? Well, it's a measurement that come from a bomb. Calorimeter you heard me bomb. 📍 It's what determines how much fuel is in a substance. If you explode it or burn it.

Here's the funny thing. You're telling me that a calorie is the measurement that we need to determine. On how it explodes. Or burns. Okay. Let's think about that. Does your body explode any sugars at all?

Does your body explode? Anything, not just sugar, no, nothing explodes in the body. Your body metabolizes things. We don't burn anything either.

We metabolize things. So.

Our chemical pathways, metabolize all the substances that we consume. That's totally different than burning. Now when you burn sugar, you get four calories per gram fat. You get nine calories per gram and alcohol. You get seven. Another fun fact for you.

Last 150 years, our average body temperature has gone down by 1.5 degrees.

Why does that matter? Well, you only produce heat from your mitochondria. Your mitochondria. Took those substances, you consumed and tried to turn them into energy through metabolism. The consensus is that our mitochondria are actually broken. Therefore we produce less quote. Heat. Unquote.

It is thought you have turned 40% of what you've consumed into energy and 6% into heat. Now, I know both of those are energy, but they're different types of energy. Energy from mitochondria keeps you moving, keeps you awake. Alert keeps you alive. And the heat keeps you from freezing. And also, this is awesome.

Keeps. The fat in your body from solidifying. You imagine that. Think about it. If you didn't have heat all the fat and your body would be solid, like butter, just like a solid brick. That would be something to see. Wouldn't it.

It helps with circulation. And your ability to perspire, therefore you can detoxify. Now with cancer, the cells don't need ATP. So they don't have functioning mitochondria. They don't need oxygen, which is what you would need to use to metabolize sugar. So instead they ferment their sugars, just like lactic, acidosis. That lactic acidosis is the mechanism for chronic disease. You got to listen to that episode.

It's crucial to understand how sugar is processed in the body and why you don't want carbs and sugar.

Sugar is not food. It's poison. It inhibits the mitochondrial function in all the cells in your body. That's in every area. It's not just like, well, your toe. It's your brain. It's your eyes. It's your nose, your tongue.

They're in every single cell. So if you feel sick in a certain area, Could very well be just mitochondrial function. Or disfunction.

So why do I crave sugar so much? Well, it has to do with the reward center, your brains called the nucleus accumbens. The more you stimulate it. It makes you an addict. This is what is associated with any word that ends with oh, holic. Right. We have sexaholic we got alcoholic. We have sugarholic.

If you say anything like I have a horrible sweet tooth.

That means you're an addict. If you stop. sugar. Totally. Dopamine goes way down and you will experience withdrawals, just like a drug addict. It can take up to three weeks to get full you rid of those symptoms, unless you are gifted. And don't have any, some people just cold Turkey stuff all the time. And you're fine.

Usually that's not the case with sugar because it's so powerful.

You can definitely experience things like mood changes and concentration issues. You have a tendency to be unruly. Nobody wants to be around you. When you give up sugar. Then when those start going down, you get that sense of feeling calmer. More in control smarter. You're just generally. Better. Your wellbeing is better.

Sugar is basically in everything.

And then there's all types of sugar in all that stuff. Especially the ultra processed foods. Like we talked about. This is all done on purpose. that's to make as much money as possible. They're not trying to make healthy food. Healthy food. Doesn't sell. Because it doesn't stimulate the reward center near as much.

Now you still will reward, you know, good steak bite. You're like, wow, that's really tasty. Fantastic salt. Does that? Herbs will do that. Vinegars can do that.

But when you get rid of sugar or anything that rewards the dopamine centers of your brain, you will eat less food as a whole.

Because you're no longer an addict.

So they make more money. The more you eat. Problem is sugar is as you eat, you want more sugar and carbohydrates as well. It's this vicious cycle. You can never get rid of him. And he goes, eat, and eat and eat. How many people have eaten an entire bucket of popcorn and like man I should go back for a refill.

Sugar is always there. So it's super easy to fall off the wagon. It's everywhere.

What's funny is there's no actual guidelines at all for the sugar in our diet, the food pyramid barely even talks about it. But. The label on all your foods is all about calories and sodium and all these other things. That they want you to watch out for not what you should be watching out for. But what they want you to watch out for fats? As an example or the big no-no. But they never talk about added sugars. Why.

Why is fat the problem and not sugar yet. No one's ever like, man, you know, That butter. I had some butter and I felt terrible. No one's ever said that ever. No one's ever said, man. I have a couple of pieces of bacon and whew. I can just, I could go to sleep. Nope. Never happens. But you eat a lot of sugar.

You get. This high and then you're sleeping an hour later. Or at least you want to.

So when we had the Obama white house, They went all in. On salad bars for schools.

They were then asked why. Isn't sugar taken in consideration.

That administration said, because sugars are not a nutrient. What. Not a nutrient. That's weird. So then we just ignore it.

Question for you. You ever see a salad bar in a school anymore? Not talking to college, talking about a regular school and most college food's terrible too. Nope. You never see them.

Did you know, there's no cell or structure in your body or any other vertebrate? That requires sugar. The only sugar your body actually requires is glucose. But your liver makes that from protein. You do not need any exongenous sugar at all whatsoever. Especially fructose, which is poison. fructose increases leaky gut as well.

And it lowers interleukin 17, which inhibits your immune function. You don't need to consume carbohydrates either. If you want to go ahead. You will be converting those carbohydrates into glucose. Fructose and galactose and alcohol. And then that causes again, the cycle of lactic acid over and over again. Is alcohol and essential nutrient. I don't think so. Well, unless you're an addict.

So your mitochondrial dysfunction is another reason why you can't metabolize sugar.

Very well. You see. Therefore.

When your mitochondria are dysfunctional, that causes. A period or so. I have like a health condition, chronic or acute either way.

There's this new. Term in pathology called. An obesogen. O B E S O G E N S. They're in food and water, food packaging. It's in the air. their your clothes, all the chemicals you use in your life, which is everything from laundry soap to body lotion. Anything that you deal with in your daily life, from plastic to EMF fields? Mitochondria are so fragile. The healthier you are, the more powerful your mitochondria. Professional athletes when they retire, they end up with like major chronic illnesses because.

Like brain issues. Because they're still eating the same way they did when they were training their mitochondria health has decreased so much. They cannot process or metabolize the food that they intake. Or the sugar that's in there, food. Because previously, you know, they could. Eat. As much sugar and carbohydrates. Technically as they wanted when they're training, because their mitochondria. We're so active.

Kinda like when you see kids and really active people, you're like, man. Person could eat anything, never gains a pound. Just look at all that energy. Yeah, well, it's going to catch up eventually, just like it does with pro athletes. So, what does that look like for you? How metabolically active are your mitochondria? That's how you can determine how much sugar or . Carbohydrates, you can actually metabolize. If you don't metabolize those sugars and carbs, guess what? They start to ferment in the body. And then create more sugars. And then they just keep doing it over and over and over again.

And then that excess that you can't metabolize is then stored as what. Body fat. Yay. Body fat because of donuts. And Reeses peanut butter cups. And.

Moose tracks, ice cream. Man, that's a great ice cream.

There are eight. Sub-cellular pathologies. Sugar makes all of these worse. Your doctor, won't talk about these either because there's no medicine for them. And there's no ICD 11 code for any of them.

Which means he can't bill for them. 📍

First one's called glycation. It's basically aging. Tell you age. They can't stop that. There's no medications for it. Oxidative stress. I think rust. Listen to episode 24, I talk about stress. I go through all of that. Third one's Mitochondrial dysfunction, which we've been discussing here. Fourth. Is insulin resistance, which we've been discussing here,

Fifth is membrane instability.

If you haven't listened to episode nine. It will teach you all. You need to know about the quality of your cells. Think sickness and death. Your cell membranes are really important to keep them. Soft. Pliable. Permeable. Vegetable and seed oils and sugar combined are a one-two punch. They just solidify. That covering of your cell. And keeps the good stuff from getting in and the bad stuff from getting out. Omega 6's.

They are basically inflammation. So when you eat these vegetables and seed oils, they just increase your inflammation because your. Cells can't function properly.

We're basically on an average of 25 to one omega six to three's ratio in the standard american diet. One to one is actually considered optimal. So, how do you raise your omega-threes and lower omega 6's? Well, seafood. Meat dairy eggs. Think. Your brain, what's your brain man out of. Fat. Is that funny? We think, oh, I need to have low fat, no fat foods. What happens to your brain?

Well, if you think that low fat, no fat is good for you. That's because you're not getting it, which is making you dumber.

Next one is inflammation.

You need short-term. Like fighting off pathogens or you sprained your ankle. But that's not what we're talking about. Those are totally normal and fine. We're talking about chronic high levels of inflammation. That is seriously bad. Three in five people. Die every day from inflammation related illnesses. That's a lot.

Can't bill for it. No medication for it. Next one's methylation. Which is basically your body's ability to regulate your cellular processes. Think life.

Lastly. Autophagy.

This is where sugar inhibits your ability. To regenerate cells and structures of your body.

So those eight. Our killers.

These all affect your mitochondria and then you die from them. So the healthier you are, the less, these will affect you. The longer you'll live and the better you will feel. Isn't that what we all want in the grand scheme of this life? No pain. No sicknesses, no suffering. When this is out of balance, any of these. That's when you have all these chronic and acute issues, you just don't feel good ever.

So what causes them? Bad food. Sugar. Vegetable seed oils, chemicals, toxins. And of course the new one we just learned about obesogens. So what about exercise? Well, it can only mitigate four of these.

It'll stop or mitigate the destruction of mitochondrial dysfunction.

Insulin resistance, inflammation and autophagy.

Your diet is the best way. Then exercise, diet, and exercise. Fix all eight together. You could also incorporate all the other topics I've addressed in this podcast, but you start with these two first diet than exercise. If you still have poor health. Then you need to learn about. Others that might be affecting you.

Now, if you just want to be as healthy as you can then learn about those topics. I have made them super simple to understand and all these episodes while he is. I hope so. Ultra processed and processed foods basically nullify all the benefits of exercise.

So, if you think you can have bread or chips or that bun on the burger or the pizza crust, or a lot of fruit. Which I know is not processed, but acts like it. Pre-made meals and mashed potatoes and cereal and a billion other foods in the grocery store, then workout. To burn it off. You are fooling yourself. You are just wanting your cake and eat it too. It's not how it works. Ultra athletes can do that. Any normal human can't. You don't have the mitochondrial function.

You don't work out for four to eight hours every day.

Does that mean you can never, ever have anything that's processed or contain? Sure. No.

No, not at all. I have a benchmark. Okay.

If you eat something like that. And you have no ill health afterwards. Then make it a treat only every so often. But if you feel terrible afterwards, then that's a pretty good sign that you should not be eating that stuff at all whatsoever. Or maybe you had too much of it. There's a difference between one bite and of course, like a whole piece of cake, right. Just remember. You cut that stuff out and then you have it every so often.

You'll bring those cravings back. The brain never forgets. The microbiome loves the things that are bad for you. And then they control you. All those little critters.

So what are processed foods anyway? Well, anything. That you do to the ingredient or ingredients to change its original structure. Too far from its original ingredient. Or structure. Or basically foods that are typically a result of a lot of intensive manufacturing, things like this.

Everyone's definition of processes, different mine. Is anything in a package? Pre cooked. Anything with synthetic ingredients or foods or ingredients that are not natural or they're not like real. If you sat down and just jumped into a carrot, that's not processed.

Or if there's too many steps to make it. Artificially colored. And of course anything with that, sugar. So what about recipes, Erik? No problem. Real ingredients and walla food. Sugar is processed. So when you add sugar to anything, you just made it a processed or ultra processed foods.

So with all that said, should you eat processed or ultra processed foods?

Well, you're gambling. You're gambling with your health. If the risk is worth the reward, keep going. But once it's too late, it's too late. For the majority of people, it will catch up to you. I guarantee it, it catches up to everyone. Ultra processed and processed food and sugar are literally poison to the body.

You can only handle so much exercise. Doesn't lower the gambling percentage. It starts with your diet first. You see, you've been sold to believe that it's okay to eat fast food, processed foods and alcohol and soda. Desserts and fruit and grandma's cookies. In reality, that is not optimal for your body and it will catch up to you for some people it's very soon for other people it's later on in life. For others, it's middle of your life. How many people do you know that get diagnosed with metabolic syndrome or diabetes? And they're like 29. Or they're 37. It doesn't just happen to old people.

If you're young, you've probably had so much sugar that you've just destroyed your body earlier.

So, how do you quantify people who get off sugar? Lots of carbohydrates, processed foods. And they all say how much better they feel. If you think you feel good now when you're consuming all this garbage. How good would you feel if you didn't. If you just want to eat what you want to eat. And no, you will pay the consequences. Knock yourself out. Just realize that's a gamble. You can either pay the farmer or you can pay the doctor.

Suffering is not living. On average suffering lasts 15 years. So is it worth it? Pain and suffering.

hat. It's claimed now that by: 2029

The companies and the personal responsibility of individuals, it's a two-fold destructive force. Sugar's killing you and taking money out of your pocket to the tune of $2,750 per year is what employees pay into healthcare. Just. For obesity care, not all healthcare, just obesity. That's insane.

Your employer is paying almost three grand. Into healthcare. After just obesity, that's not smoking. That's not diabetes. This is just obesity.

So what is the one sugar to watch out for more than any other? Well, Maltodextrin.

It's the most evil type of sugar. It's. Hidden. You don't even know it's there. This is why it's diabolical. It will alter your microbiome causes, gut inflammation. Causes diabetes and weight gain makes you irritable increases the insulin resistance, leaky gut fermentation.

By the way. That fermentation is called gas 📍 and bloating. And since it comes from corn, it's loaded with glyphosate.

See how hidden these things are. You're consuming maltodextrin to levels. You didn't even know you were consuming. And that maltodextrin is loaded with glyphosate. Which is a neural toxin.

They don't even have to state it on the label. If it's below one gram. Again, The food companies are lying to you. You've been sold to think their product is sugar-free carb free. Low-glycemic Nope, it's not. It's killing you slowly.

They say it counts as a fiber, so they sneak it in. Because it's cheap. It's a filler. It doesn't taste sweet. So, you know, it's not even there. It's also known as dextrin or modified food starch. Glucose syrup, corn syrup. You have to read your labels. Because the FDA considered it to be safe. On the glycaemic scale.

It's 95. Sugar is 65. So you think, oh, there's no word that says sugar. I'm fine. We're good. No. There's corn syrup, glucose syrup, modified food starch, dextrin, maltodextrin high-fructose corn syrup. All these ones that don't say sugar. So let's get some perspective on this glycaemic value. Some of these foods that we normally deal with every day.

Bread, oatmeal, rice, grains, pasta, all that fun stuff. Those sit between 50 to 95. No glucose is considered a 100 K.

So you go, all right, we're going to make a homemade Italian pasta blah-blah-blah tonight. So you make the sauce for three hours and you either buy pasta or you make your own pasta. And then what do you do? Yeah, you have that garlic bread with it, right. So baguette.

Is a 95. On the glycaemic scale, it's pretty much pure glucose. Baked potato. 95. Oh, yeah. You thought that big potato was really healthy at Wendy's and you thought that baked potato is really good. Cause it's low fat. It's a 95 on the glycaemic scale. You might as well eat sugar. Beans are an 80. Oh, but Erik, I heard beans are so healthy for you.

They're all protein and fiber and all. Oh yeah. 80. Beers only a 70. So. You can eat. Beans and have a higher glycemic load. Then beer. Carrots are an 85.

Everyone thinks carrots are healthy. No they're full of sugar. Watch this. You can tell I'm getting heated up. This is what drives me, bonkers corn flakes.

Oh, you think, well, it's, you know, serial must be, must be healthy cereal. It's a fiber. It's got, you know, all that. Wrong. Wrong core flakes or an 85. So cornflakes are as bad as carrots. And yet you thought carrots were good for you?

There's less glycaemic load in beer than there is corn flakes and carrots. And then of course we have rice. Man. Rice is super high, pretty much everything. Rice is 80 to 95. How does that rice cake sound now? 📍

Sweet potatoes, we think, oh, I'll just ask sweet potatoes instead of a regular potato. Okay. 75. On the glycaemic scale. 75. By the way these numbers I got right from glycaemic index.net. This is the, the source for glycemic index, not some of these other ones that make you want to see what they want you to see.

Pretty much all baked goods with wheat flour, era 90. 90 that is. Basically sugar, right? So you think, oh, I'm going to have this bread. That's brown. Terrible. I'm going to have this bread. That's white, terrible. Any bread? Terrible. Donuts. We have these muffins, we think, ah, muffin, right? It's just cake without icing.

That's all it is.

And then one that people think is healthy and, and, uh, it's not that much because it's so light and, you know, just airy whenever 📍 popcorn. Yeah. That's a 72. So it's higher than beer.

It's amazing. Guess what. Pizza's only a 60. So your popcorn. Is a higher glycaemic value. Oven pizza. And guess what. That popcorn. It's also higher than raisins. Ice cream is only a 61. Snickers bars are only 55. Honey's a 55 to 60, depending on the quality. So that popcorn is a 72. I think I'd rather eat raisins almost. Well anyway, so what about fruit? Gosh, darn fruit must be like really high.

No fruits, not as high as most of those. I just mentioned. The worst one watermelon. 76.

You think really? Watermelon's not even that sweet. It's mostly water. Wrong.

It's the type of sugar.

Fructose. Is. Seriously powerful.

Guess what also was really high. You think, oh, This is part of the Mediterranean diet. They eat them should be fine dates. Wrong. There are 70. Same as beer. Papaya is only a 60 compared to dates, sixties high. Anything about 50 is really high. Dried fruits, 60. You ready? Blueberries. What do you think blueberries are at? Well, you're probably wrong there at a 53. Apples are only 36.

They're less than blueberries. The problem with an apple is they're huge compared to blueberries. You usually don't sit down and eat the equivalent and blueberries. Of like the amount of an apple. So if you were to take a couple apple slices, Then yeah, apples less than blueberries. Yeah, we think, oh, berries are so low in glycaemic index.

Well, they are low in the glycemic index, but they're still a 53.

So, what does all this tell you? Why am I bringing this all to you? Am I trying to hurt your feelings and take away all.

Fun in your life. And.

Is it just to tell you that you shouldn't have sugar or do you think. My motivation is to help you see that sugar is literally killing you. There is not a redeeming factor to sugar or carbohydrates at all whatsoever. They do nothing but hurt you. The biggest issue is most people overdo them. It's not like you're having a small amount of sugar each day. And you're active. No, that's not how it is.

Most people aren't active.

And the eat a lot of sugar and carbohydrates. That is killing your mitochondria, which is the basis for your life.

I'm not trying to be.

A downer.

I'm not trying to ruin all your fun. I'm just trying to give you perspective, make you think about what you're actually putting in your body. Because ultimately everybody keeps saying they want to feel good. They want to feel better. They feel terrible. They don't sleep very well. They get sick all the time.

Their joints hurt. Their body hurts. Everything hurts. Well, it could be sugar. Carbohydrates. Just saying.

Well, thanks for hanging on this one.

Really appreciate you listening. This is one of those episodes you should let everybody know about everybody in your life needs to know how bad sugar really is.

Nobody's talking about it. They all know it. But they don't want to talk about it. Well, I'm talking about it. I'm trying to help you. Maybe you could help somebody else with this info.

Thank you for listening. Take care of yourselves.