The Baby Boomer Diet

Even in the 1940s, enlightened health professionals were implicating sugar as a dangerous poison and major culprit in aging. How can we satisfy our taste for sugar without harming ourselves?

During World War II, just prior to the births of the first Baby Boomers, sugar and sweetened dairy products such as ice cream were rationed. Indeed, they were thought to be luxury items … rarely obtained. Once the war ended, the restriction was lifted, and sugar consumption increased dramatically. Suddenly, highly sweetened foods—including refined, puffy, sweetened cereals and a number of brands of soda pop—began hitting America’s supermarket shelves. The switch from farmgrown foods to processed ones, where sugar was often used as a preservative and “flavor enhancer,” further shoved consumers down the high-sugar path … coinciding with a continual decline in our health.

Coincidentally (or was it?), polio suddenly emerged as an “epidemic” and became a serious threat to America’s Baby Boomer generation. From 1945 to 1949, an average of more than 20,000 cases of polio were reported per year.

In 1951, a medical book entitled Diet Prevents Polio was published by Benjamin P. Sandler, M.D., a noted authority on nutrition who lived and practiced in North Carolina. Despite its unassuming cover and title, this little blue book would generate a storm of controversy.

Specifically, I suspected that children and adults contracted polio because of low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) brought on by a diet containing sugar and starch. I reasoned that the poliovirus was able to cross tissue barriers, reach the brain and spinal cord, invade the nerve cells, damage or destroy them and cause paralysis. And I further reasoned that if the blood sugar never fell below 80 mg, polio could never result. I suspected that during a polio epidemic only those children and adults who experienced periods of low blood sugar would contract the disease and that those individuals who were in actual contact with the virus but who maintained normal blood sugar levels would not contract the disease.¹

Dr. Sandler began to teach his patients that low blood sugar—caused, paradoxically, by eating high-sugar foods such as soft drinks; fruit juices; ice cream; cakes; canned and preserved fruits; and starches, including bread, potatoes, and grits—led to hypoglycemia, a lowering of immunity, and a susceptibility to polio. By increasing “protective proteins” (that is, eggs, fish, poultry, beef, milk, and cream); eating lots of vegetables (for example, string beans, cucumbers, greens, lettuce, turnips, carrots, red beets, cabbage, and onions); and even limiting fresh fruits in the diet, Sandler believed one could protect oneself against the disease during an epidemic.

As early as 1948, in an interview in The Asheville Citizen, Sandler is quoted as saying:

The crisis is here and hours have become precious… . I have been impelled to bring this directly to the newspapers because of my profound conviction that, through community cooperation and general acceptance of a diet low in sugars and starches, this epidemic can be got under control in about two weeks’ time… . I am willing to state without reserve that such a diet, strictly observed, can build up in 24 hours’ time a resistance in the human body sufficiently strong to combat the disease successfully. The answer lies in maintaining a normal blood sugar.”²

Today it is well accepted that when we eat dietary sugar, it causes a yo-yo effect on our blood sugar. Dietary sugar creates a temporary spike in our glucose, followed by a dramatic drop in glucose, causing our energy to plummet. To regain energy, we crave and then eat another sweet-tasting food or drink that will send it soaring once again.

Sandler was right on target in his understanding that maintaining healthy blood sugar (and, I would add, the right pH balance of the body) made one susceptible to polio. His recommendations to avoid sugar had a dramatic and immediate impact in the form of a reduction of polio cases in North Carolina … but only temporarily. Unfortunately, his work was mocked by his colleagues and ignored by most of the public. The marketing efforts of companies such as Rockefeller Milk Trust and Coca-Cola, coupled with our enthusiasm to eat whatever we desired, saw sugar consumption returning to previous levels. Soon, polio statistics would also climb to as high as 58,000 cases by 1952.

Sandler’s warnings that sugar consumption was the underlying cause of a life-threatening health epidemic were also frighteningly prophetic. We Baby Boomers have been addicted to sugar since infancy, and now as we age, we are once again experiencing multiple epidemics of poor health, including obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, cancer, and digestive diseases such as Crohn’s. Obviously, to reverse the aging process, we must stop the madness and avoid the consumption of sugars. We must do so for our own well-being and, especially, for the wellbeing of our children and grandchildren, because autism, obesity, diabetes, and cancer have now become their epidemics.

When you think about how much sugar is found in processed foods today, it’s pretty scary. Statistics say that more than 20 percent of the total calories we consume each day are from refined sugars. Sugar is hidden in our foods under the guise of sucrose, dextrose, maltose, sorbitol, turbinado—and more. In fact, the average person consumes his or her body weight in these empty, dangerous calories, plus more than 20 pounds of corn syrup, in one year.

Sugar may “help the medicine go down,” but it definitely also depletes us of our prenatal life force, our jing. And, unfortunately, death by sugar is usually slow and can be physically painful. As my friend Dr. Joe Mercola stated on his popular health website (www.mercola.com): “The health dangers ingested sugar creates when habitually imposed upon human physiology are certain. Simple sugars have been observed to aggravate asthma, muster mental illness, move mood swings, provoke personality changes, nourish nervous disorders, hurry heart disease, deliver diabetes, grow gallstones, hasten hypertension, add arthritis, and on top of all of that … it will kill you!”³

If Joe’s words of warning that sugar is slowly but surely killing us may seem a bit too dramatic to you, there is much research to support his statements. Recent cell-metabolism experiments suggest that when worms were fed glucose as part of their diets, they lived for a shorter amount of time than those that never consumed it, according to researchers from the University of Jena, Germany.⁴ If these findings in worms hold for humans, then even in healthy people, the breakdown of sugar into glucose has detrimental effects on life span.

Sugar consumption may not only shorten our lives, it may make the quality of our final years quite a bit bleaker as well. A study conducted by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology showed that high sugar consumption in an otherwise-normal diet could affect the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Using a genetic mouse model, researchers found that mice that were given 10 percent sugar water showed poorer learning and memory retention than the control group, and their brains contained more than twice as many amyloid plaque deposits, which play a major role in the destruction of nerve cells and are an anatomical hallmark of Alzheimer’s.⁵ The connection between diabetes and Alzheimer’s has long been known. In fact, some scientists even refer to Alzheimer’s as “type 3 diabetes.”

Sugar hardens, weakens, and poisons every system in the body including the endocrine system. As powerful as any drug, it lifts us up, only to knock us right back down.

Dietary-sugar molecules bond to protein molecules and create “cross-linked proteins,” meaning that proteins start bonding to each other. This is called glycosylation (see Chapter 3 and the glycation theory of aging). Basically, tissues stiffen and do not function efficiently. Cataracts are an example of stiffening of our eye lenses, and we lose our sight. Stiffening skin tissue becomes tough, yellow, and leathery. You can imagine what it looks like to see the results of cross-linked proteins accumulating in cartilage, lung tissue, arteries, and tendons.

Sugar hardens, weakens, and poisons every system in the body, including the endocrine system. As hormone production slowly fades away—especially in our adrenals and the pituitary, which produces growth hormone—our sex drive diminishes, men become impotent, and energy wanes, causing us to lose our ability to cleanse out toxins. We become more and more constipated, and our intestines fill with decaying fecal material. Signs that we are poisoning ourselves are gray hair, weak fingernails, bone loss, and sarcopenia (loss of lean muscle, replaced by fat). Perhaps worst of all is that our brains literally shrink in size and develop holes.

Artificial Sweeteners … On Their Way Out!

While it may have seemed smart at one point to turn to artificial sweeteners such as aspartame (NutraSweet and Equal) and sucralose (Splenda), we now know that these alternatives are a double-edged sword. The average American consumes more than 50 pounds of artificial sweetener per year, often unwittingly, in snacks and soda pop. Aspartame has been found to create side effects such as memory loss, blurry vision, and headaches.

Even if you were to risk these side effects in exchange for weight loss, evidence is now showing that aspartame actually contributes to obesity. One of its ingredients, the amino acid phenylalanine, blocks serotonin, which plays a role in controlling cravings. The effect on your body may be that you start to crave all of those high-carbohydrate, processed foods that can sabotage your dieting goals.

Sucralose has elicited similar findings, such as enlargement of the liver and kidneys, shrinking of the thymus gland (which plays a role in immunity and disease fighting), lymph atrophy, decreased red-blood-cell count, decreased fetal body weight, and diarrhea, just to name a few.

Stevia has none of these side effects, and is all natural! It has no calories, is low on the glycemic index, and produces no increase in blood-sugar levels.

Because sugar is devoid of vitamins, minerals, and fiber, it creates an acidic body—and one day, a checkup at the doctor’s office reveals that we have cancer cells growing rapidly out of control. As powerful as any drug, sugar lifts us up, only to knock us right back down. It has long been known that sugar’s addictive properties and withdrawal symptoms are similar to narcotics. Are we shocked, then, that most of us are sugar addicts?

It should come as no surprise that our children and grandchildren face an even grimmer future. A recent study by researchers at the Royal Veterinary College in London found that mothers who eat junk food during pregnancy and while breast-feeding may be putting their children at risk for overeating and developing obesity. The study was carried out on an animal model, in which researchers observed rats fed a diet of processed junk food during pregnancy and lactation. The rats gave birth to offspring that overate and showed a preference for foods rich in fat, sugar, and salt, compared to the offspring of rat mothers given regular feed. The implications for humans are obvious.⁶

In our grandchildren, we can clearly see the effects of generations of sugar consumption: early puberty, anxiety, depression, weight gain, confused minds, drug and alcohol addiction, and, sadly, increasing juvenile criminal behavior.

But statistics also show that Baby Boomers are very concerned about the amount of sugar in their diets today. They are taking greater responsibility for their own health and for their grandchildren’s. They are reading labels more. They want a change.

The Diet is almost totally free of sugars in any form. At Body Ecology, we are committed to helping you reduce your sugar consumption dramatically. Yet, we also recognize the need that we humans have for the sweet taste. Remember that according to Ayurvedic medicine, we humans desire and even need six tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, pungent, and astringent. In a well-prepared meal, the Ayurvedic cook balances the sweet taste with the other tastes on the plate. With this balance, we feel satisfied, and our organs will be receiving what they need. In other words, the sweet taste is just as important as salty, bitter, sour, and so on, so we should not feel guilty when we desire it. It has a clear purpose along with all the other tastes and senses.

In small amounts, sugar is necessary for energy, especially in demanding situations such as physical labor or exercise. It also nourishes our sense organs and promotes strength. But it is well understood that sugar “increases tissue,” meaning it causes us to become larger, even obese. In addition, the character of this taste is cold, damp, and heavy on digestion. When there’s too much, we create an imbalance, experiencing lethargy, mucous conditions, constipation, and a general heaviness.

The first step in overcoming a serious sugar addiction is to quell our desire for it. The sour taste does just that. We can be satisfied by eating or drinking sour, fermented foods (see the previous chapter).

Once you add fermented foods and beverages to your diet, you will begin to lose much of your desire for sweet foods. In fact, you will start to really be able to taste the natural sweetness in fruits and sweet vegetables and be perfectly satisfied with these. Candy bars, pastries, and colas will become disgustingly overly sweet.

Fermented foods must become an essential part of an antiaging diet. They allow us to eat the healthier sweets found in nature without the sugar causing us damage. This is because the microflora in these natural foods consume it and protect us. What a perfect symbiotic relationship! We enjoy the sweet taste of a carrot while the beneficial microflora thrive on the sugar present.

Have you ever noticed how, soon after a sugar binge, out of the blue you crave salty foods such as chips? Or you might suddenly begin to crave an animal-protein meal? These cravings are your body’s way of trying to maintain balance. Sea salt, an alkaline food, provides valuable minerals that are lost when acidic, mineral-leaching sugars are consumed. Animal proteins also contain salt and minerals in the blood.

Adrenal fatigue becomes the norm as we age, so to get a boost of temporary energy, many of us reach for sugar and/or salty foods. We seesaw back and forth, wanting both, but those sugary snacks that give us a short-lived boost of energy drain the adrenals even further, and a vicious cycle results. Fermented foods, on the other hand, help nourish the body so efficiently that our blood sugar stays stable, minerals are extracted and retained to build our adrenals, and cravings disappear.

A major cause of cravings for sweets is that your body needs water. Before you succumb to a sugar craving, try this: Sit down for five or ten minutes and drink two glasses of mineral-rich water. You’ll be amazed by how well this works. You can also add stevia and lemon juice to your water to satisfy your sweet tooth. Even better, add a few ounces of a probiotic liquid such as young coconut kefir or Body Ecology’s CocoBiotic.

As you know, when there is too much sugar in your body, an overly acidic condition results. (See Chapter 12: The Principle of Acid and Alkaline.) An acidic body provides an ideal haven for pathogens such as viruses, fungi, and cancer cells. Viruses, for example, have been shown to create serious chronic inflammation, which is a major cause of aging. They have been linked to heart disease as well.

Sugar should always be eaten alone. When you combine it with another food, it creates gas. (See Chapter 13: The Principle of Food Combining.)

There are several natural ways to sweeten your foods and beverages that are healthy for your body. You may not have heard of all of them because they don’t have billion-dollar marketing budgets behind them, but they are quietly entering health-food stores or are sold on the Internet.

The Story of Stevia

Years ago, I was instrumental in bringing stevia to the United States and published a book called Stevia: Nature’s Calorie-Free Sweetener. The story behind this is that stevia was a huge threat to the food conglomerate Monsanto, when they still had the patent for aspartame (sold under the labels of Equal and NutraSweet). Someone (no one knew for sure) petitioned the FDA to raid those tea companies that were using the green stevia leaves in their tea bags. Stevia was then banned from being imported in the U.S.

I led a grassroots movement; and soon, with the help of Drs. Robert Atkins, Andrew Weil, and Julian Whitaker, tens of thousands of people were safely using and enjoying the white powder extract. What an interesting twist of fate that Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Cargill, which now want to use stevia extract in their beverages, have recently obtained approval from the FDA! Personally, I see this as a victory for all of us who fought to bring stevia into the U.S.

An extraordinarily sweet herb, stevia is 200 to 300 times sweeter than sugar—and yet, it’s nearly calorie free! Stevia is a member of the chrysanthemum family (closely related to chamomile and tarragon) and is totally safe.

Stevia is available as crushed green leaves; as a crude, greenish-brown syrup; as a white powder extract; and as an easy-to-use liquid concentrate prepared from the white powder extract. In its crude, unprocessed form, the stevia plant has been consumed for centuries by the Indians of South America. The Japanese, looking for a safe sweetener substitute, developed the process used to extract two primary compounds, rebaudioside and stevioside, from the plant to create a delicious white powder. Stevia has now been enjoyed and used safely in Japan for the past 30-plus years.

The crude green stevia leaves and syrup have a strong licorice-like flavor that many do not like. So while they do have medicinal value (such as helping to heal wounds and preventing dental cavities), they are not recommended as a sweetener. The white powder doesn’t have this aftertaste if used sparingly.

Neither the whole plant nor the extract will raise blood sugar, making it safe for diabetics. An excellent flavor enhancer when used in very small amounts, stevia is especially tasty in dairy and with fruits.

Stevia has been tested in human and animal studies in many major countries, including Japan, Brazil, and Israel, with no negative side effects. Ironically, of the more than 9,000 complaints filed with the FDA since 1985, about 80 percent are related to NutraSweet, yet it is still on the market.⁷ Once the patent on aspartame had expired, more and more natural alternative sweeteners began to appear on the market. Not all are safe, however. Asparatame, Acesulfame K, and Splenda are not on the Baby Boomer Diet. (See www.mercola.com for excellent articles on the dangers of these.)

When purchasing stevia, be aware that there are different strengths available, some of which you may like less than others. At Body Ecology, we prefer a stevia liquid concentrate for its convenience. The liquid form is great for those who are just starting to experiment with stevia, because you can easily control the amount you add to beverages and foods. The white powder can be more difficult to work with, resulting in oversweetening your food. Many people tell us that our own delicious stevia concentrate is the best-tasting product on the market. It is available at: www.bodyecology.com.

Lakanto has been in use in Japan since 1996 and is served in thousands of restaurants and hospitals. It is recommended (not just approved) by the Japanese minister of health as a food for special dietary uses, and it has GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) approval in the United States.

What is great about Lakanto is its absolutely delicious taste, and unlike stevia, you can bake with it. You use it just like you would sugar and can even sprinkle it on your food. (Stevia is too strong to “sprinkle.” In fact, a tiny bit can be too much, and you will ruin the taste of your food or drink.)

Lakanto is made from a unique patented combination of erythritol and a pure extract of luo han guo, an exotic vine fruit cultivated mainly in East Asia. Erythritol is unlike any other sugar alcohol (see more on sugar alcohol below) because it is made from the process of fermentation. The sugar in corn is fermented, not the protein … so those sensitive to corn can tolerate Lakanto quite well. All other sugar alcohols (maltitol, sorbitol, and xylitol) are made by hydrogenation. This may explain why Lakanto does not cause the symptoms of diarrhea that some people experience when they eat a food or chew gum made with the other sugar alcohols. Luo han guo has been used in traditional Chinese medicine since ancient times to treat a variety of ailments, such as chronic cough, heat stroke, larynx infections, and constipation.

Lakanto is an excellent choice for people who want to combat age, who want to lose weight, or who are insulin resistant or diabetic. It registers “0” on the glycemic index and causes no rise in serum insulin or blood-sugar levels. It tastes similar to maple sugar or toffee, and because it is not altered by heat, it is excellent for baking and cooking. A recipe book is available online at: www.bodyecology.com.

Xylitol and erythritol are both called “sugar alcohols.” And what is a sugar alcohol?

There are two kinds of carbohydrates: (1) available carbohydrates, those that the body can use and metabolize; and (2) unavailable, also known as “non-glycemic,” meaning they have no calories. These zero-calorie, non-glycemic carbs are not used as energy by the body and therefore do not raise blood-sugar levels. This means they will not conflict with your low-carb diet and will not spike blood glucose. A healthy, natural sweetener, xylitol is considered to be an “unavailable” carbohydrate sweetener and is extracted from fruits, vegetables, and birch cellulose.

Xylitol is clinically proven to fight and lessen the occurrence of inner-ear infection. It also has many benefits for teeth, making it a natural replacement for fluoride. These proven benefits include: reducing plaque, fighting cavities, reducing the secretion of plaque acids, and facilitating the re-mineralization of tooth enamel. Additionally, xylitol may help against group B strep and has been given to mothers in prenatal clinics.

Xylitol and erythritol are low on the glycemic index, and like stevia, are safe for diabetics and hypoglycemics. They look and taste similar to sugar, with 40 percent fewer calories. You can purchase xylitol and erythritol in your health-food store. Some people are sensitive to xylitol, and excessive amounts may cause digestive issues, including diarrhea. Erythritol is made from a different process using fermentation and rarely has negative side effects.

Eliminating sugar from your diet may be the most important first step you take in impeding the aging process. It can be challenging, but by including fermented foods and beverages in your diet, you can manage and eventually get over the desire for sweets.

Sugar is not the only area of our diet where Americans have been perilously “duped.” As you will see in the next chapter, we have also been misled about the importance of healthy fats and oils in a well-rounded diet.