Introduction

Maybe you've just recently come to realize that, like most people around you, you have never known how to eat or cook properly in order to truly nourish your health... Or maybe you have realized this for a long time, and you are already on an alternative diet. Or perhaps for you it's still different.

Whichever the case, if you are one of those people who eat regularly, and if you want to do so in a way that really supports you instead of really harming you, you will surely find some interesting things here. Especially if you like to do things simply, but well.

Don't think too quickly that you already know everything about food, and especially on the foundations of healthy food. It may just happen that you skipped some key information, and that you are thinking that you treat yourself really well, while, in reality, you still do yourself a lot of harm.

Perhaps your diet is like a house, beautiful and well engineered, and balanced - but built with bricks that are damaged, spoiled, or rotten from within, without your knowing it. This little blog - which does nothing more than relay some information that's part of human heritage - is not about praising or condemning any particular diet, but simply about giving you some of the information necessary to eat and prepare your diet in a non-destructive way...

So before we start to run, let's learn walking... Here is the first lesson in food - the zero degree, which perhaps you've always skipped, anxious as you were to get to the heart of the matter, anxious to start healing yourself - with the sad result of having continued to cause ill health.

May you be well...

(On the right side of this message, you should find the content of this blog as a list of articles... Click on any title to view the article...)

QUICK OVERVIEW OF FOOD RECOMMENDATIONS

Here is a quick overview of some of the most important recommendations you can find in this blog(1), with links to the articles where you can find more information on the "how" and the "why":

1. Avoid refined foods, choose whole foods instead. Refined foods extract nutrients from your body!
   
2. Always soak your grains, seeds, nuts and legumes. Be sure to discard soaking water. Otherwise the phytic acid in them will remain intact, and mineral absorption in your body will be significantly lower.
   
3. The mineral uptake from yeasted bread is much lower than that of the same sourdough bread. Try to avoid yeasted bread and eat sourdough bread instead.
4. Vegetarians might be at risk of vitamin B12 deficiency. Consider a weekly (vegan) B12 complement.
5. Avoid microwave cooking.
6. Use good quality kitchen ware: glass, wood, lead-free earthenware, ceramic, and high quality(2) stainless steel. Avoid plastic, aluminum and aluminum foil, poor-quality stainless steel, thin enamel on flimsy pots, Teflon, and other cookware coated with synthetic materials. Don't keep oils and fats (or foods containing them) in plastic.
   
7. Make peace with sugar. Avoid all refined sugars. Highly recommended alternatives are barley malt syrup, rice syrup, and amasake. Others, very acceptable but to use with caution, include unrefined cane juice powder, molasses, maple syrup, stevia, (dried) fruit and fruit juices.
8. Avoid common (refined) salt and use only unrefined sea salt instead (slightly grey). Use it moderately.
9. Nuts, seeds and grains deteriorate rapidly once they are hulled, shelled, grinded, roasted, rolled (into flakes) and/or otherwise processed (flour, noodles, ...) - even somewhat in vacuum packaging. Buy nuts in the shell, and store hulled seeds in dark bottles in cold places. Make your own tahini and other nut and seed preparations yourself. Also flour, cereals (oat flakes, corn flakes, muesli, couscous, bulghur, ...), and noodles (spaghetti, lasagna, ...) become easily rancid. Flour should ideally be used directly after grinding, or otherwise stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator and used within two weeks. Take special care also with cereals and noodles: often they are already rancid when you buy them, and if not, they become so easily when not well kept.
   
10. Some essential information on how to cook beans and other legumes properly...: soak them overnight, scoop of the foam once they boil, cook them with kombu or kelp and fennel or cumin to increase digestibility, and some other basic but very helpful things you should know if you want to bring out the best in them and not suffer from bad digestion after eating them...
    
11. The proper usage and storage of oils. Avoid rancid and refined oils - such as about every oil you will find in your regular supermarket or shop... Avoid also hydrogenated fats (most margarines and snacks): they do not lower cholesterol but in fact raise it, and besides, are toxic... Also avoid oil (and products containing oil) in plastic containers - they react and produce plasticides, which are toxic also.
    Try to consume only high-quality, fresh, unrefined oils. For cooking below 160°C, olive and sesame oil are highly recommended. Above 160°C clarified butter (ghee), coconut, palm and palm kernel oil are recommended. Be very careful with any other oil, some become rancid very easily, others should be avoided - see the article for more information.
12. Proteins are not something to especially worry about as a vegetarian. For most of us, a reasonable daily amount of legumes and some nuts and seeds are more than sufficient. Occasionally a "meat substitute" can be tasty and nutritious, but take care, not all that is sold, is healthful - see the article for protein guidelines and some more information, especially on soy products.
    
13. Some general good advice:
    
    • don't eat or snack late at night (not after 7 pm);
      
    • chew well (30-60 times per mouthful);
      
    • don't overeat (no more than 2/3 full).
    • don't eat cold foods; everything should be at least at room temperature; (nor too hot either of course)
      

Footnotes:
(1) For the sources, see "Where the information in this blog comes from..."
(2) A quick indication is if the stainless steel utensils are attracted by magnets. If they are, they are rather low quality. You can do a simple, quick and non-destructive test with a small magnet: if it sticks to the pan or other utensil, it is of low quality. (If it does not stick, I don't know if it is guaranteed that it's good quality however ...)

Foods that feed you, and foods that feed UPON you...

"As a result of consuming refined foods, (...) nutrients are extracted from the bones, tissues and nerves."(1)

"Whole foods means foods that are in their unrefined edible state, for example, whole wheat and whole grain pasta, whole fruits, and unrefined oils, salt and sweeteners. (...) Refined foods, such as white flour used in bread, pastry, and pasta, are not just missing a few ingredients that can be replaced by enrichment with three or four vitamins. They lack up to 50 different minerals and trace minerals, a number of vitamins, virtually all the fiber and precious oils, and untold numbers of phytochemicals that support full immune function.
These nutrients are required for complete metabolism to occur. As a result of consuming refined foods, the missing nutrients are extracted from the bones, tissues and nerves."(1)

I was studying recently an introductory course on microbiology, and amongst others, the molecular processes taking place in cells, as in the human body. A cell is very much like an "autonomous" being, an "individual" ("the smallest unit of an organism that is classified as living", says Wikipedia). So in this course there was a description of this "individual" cell interacting with its environment: taking up certain things that are absolutely essential for its survival as a cell - and thus for the well-being and survival of the organism as a whole (the human body it is part of, for instance); getting rid of other things (waste products from digestion on a cellular level); transformation processes taking place inside without which it cannot survive, etcetera etc.

In this microbiology course, all this was explained in terms of chemical reactions and interactions, like equations or very precise recipes. And guess what? In (almost?) every reaction, minerals were absolutely essential: magnesium, calcium, ..., you name it - without them, nothing goes on a cellular level. In every single reaction, one or more minerals appeared as part of the equation. This means: for about anything a cell has to do, it needs minerals available and around!

This really helped me to be conscious of how minerals are necessary in a very concrete way on a very very basic level of my being - the cellular level. My body is the sum of all these cells, constantly carrying out thousands of reactions and interactions, right now as I write this and right now as you read it, and for about every one of these, they need minerals around!

I imagined a cell of my heart, for instance, starting some simple but absolutely vital process, being in need of some magnesium or calcium to complete it, and not finding any available - that's a horrifying thought! It'll get sick, or die off, or become cancerous - and I with it! I don't want any cell of my heart ever to lack some necessary element! And the same goes really for any other cell, wherever it is in my body! So becoming aware that refined foods actually not only fail to replenish minerals, but actively rob them from my body, was quite a shock.

"As a result of consuming (...) [food], (...) nutrients are extracted." Isn't that absurd! But well, it's what happens when you consume refined foods. They're a kind of Trojan horses...

"But how about complements, can't they do the trick?" (says the stubborn refined-foods-addict in me...) Some tablets or powders (natural or synthetic) or miracle extract from the Amazon Forest or the Himalaya's, to get the necessary elements that are lacking in our refined diet?

To start with, it's really not very smart to conceive things this way. It's like trying to fill a bucket with water and at the same time punch holes in the bottom. What the complements bring in, the refined foods flush out, that's such a waste of money and energy.

Secondly, unrefined foods are like refined foods, so to speak, but with exactly the necessary complement simply built in, part of the package - easy and low-cost, for you and for the planet. "... Unrefined cane sugar", for instance, "actually prevents tooth decay and nerve deterioration instead of causing them as refined sugars do."(1)

And then there's also the following. Pitchford takes here the example of calcium, but the same goes for any other mineral...
"All the minerals in the body are in a delicate, dynamic balance (...) Exactly how minerals should be balanced internally is a biochemical puzzle which scientists reinterpret and question from year to year. For example, the ideal ratio of calcium to magnesium in the diet was once thought to be two-to-one. More recently, researchers have advocated a one-to-one raio, and now some are asserting that magnesium intake should be twice that of calcium. (...) In fact, a favorable mix of all known nutrients essential for calcium absorption is found in a balanced whole-food diet. (...) [C]alcium absorption requires adequate dietary magnesium, phosphorus, and vitamins A, C and D. In fact, without certain of these nutrients, it appears that calcium cannot be absorbed at all"(2).
So taking calcium tablets, and even eating more dairy, is not a guaranteed solution of calcium deficiency - it may even, on the contrary, lead to calcium being deposited in places where it is a problem (like in arteries) instead of a solution (as in the bones). And who can tell which of the many known, and still unknown, other elements it should be combined with, and in what quantities? And you can't just take too much (just to be on the safe side): too much of any mineral can also be a problem...

It's all very simple really: a balanced dietary regime of whole foods is all that is needed. Easy and tasty...
Sometimes I wish I would have been aware of this earlier on in my life... I just didn't know any of this, and nobody around me seemed to know either... And it's so simple really, but so very important, it seems to me...

Some final, related quotes to finish:

"Overeating, a popular pastime in the wealthy nations, is thought to be the major cause of premature aging. (...) Refined foods may also contribute to overeating, according to a scientific study reported by the U.S. Agricultural Research Service (March 1, 1999). An explanation is that one is biologically conditioned over millions of years of human evolution to consume whole foods; excessive eating may represent an instinctive craving to obtain nutrients that are lost during refining. Common foods depleted in nutrients include "white" refined: sugar, pasta, bread, pastries, and rice; refined oils, and reduced-fat dairy." (3)

"Certain refined foods such as cornstarch, white rice, and the white-flour versions of noodles, spaghetti and bread take almost twice as long to digest as whole grains and give one a feeling of being full or having something that "sticks to the ribs". This creates the delusion of being nourished and warm. However, these foods form a sticky mucus that accumulates in the intestines causing coldness(5), constipation and stuffiness. Nevertheless, it is important for some people to maintain this feeling of fullness until they can accept the light, clear experience resulting from eating whole grains."(4)

Footnotes:
(1) Paul Pitchford in the foreword to "The new whole foods encyclopedia" by Rebecca Wood, 1999, p. viii
(2) Paul Pitchford, "Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition", North Atlantic Books; 3rd edition (2002), pp. 217-218
(3) id., p. 251
(4) id., p.449
(5) Coldness refers here to a term in Traditional Chinese Medicine, which can include, but is much vaster than, the sensation of having cold.

Soak your grains, seeds and legumes

Phytic acid is naturally present in the grains of many cereals (rice, wheat, oat, ...) and legumes (beans, lentils, chick peas, ...). It is found in the outer part of the grains (the bran f.i.).

"Phytic acid in grains and legumes interferes with the assimilation of their minerals, especially zinc."(1) This means that if you eat foods containing minerals but also phytic acid, a significant part of the minerals consumed will be of no use to your body. They will bind with the phytic acid, forming salts which are indigestible, and leave your body again without being absorbed.

Now this seems a bit tricky.
The very great majority of the minerals in grains and legumes is present in the outer part; but so is the phytic acid, its "ennemy". This means that if you take away the outer part, you get rid of the phytic acid allright, but also of the minerals. You throw away the good with the bad, so that's no solution. It's what happens with white flour, white bread, pasta and so on... Much less phytic acid, but also: much less minerals.
But if you retain the outer part (as in brown rice, brown bread, whole-grain pasta etcetera), you retain the minerals, but also the phytic acid - and so the minerals will not be well assimilated, you will not profit well from them either. So that's no solution either!

Luckily, there is a solution, and a very simple one: soaking! "Presoak grains and legumes before cooking to neutralize their phytic acid content, which otherwise binds the zinc, magnesium calcium and other minerals in these foods."(2) "Soaking removes phytic acid (...)."(3)

"Soak legumes for 12 hours or overnight in four parts water to one part legume. For best results, change the water once or twice. Lentils and whole dried peas require shorter soaking, while soybeans and garbanzos need to soak longer. Soaking softens skins and begins the sprouting process, which eliminates phytic acid, thereby making more minerals available. (...) Be sure to discard the soak water."(4)
And for cereals like whole rice, the process is similar.

So for the home kitchen, all is well. But what about store-bought foods? Are oats soaked before they're turned into flakes? And cornflakes? And any other breakfast cereal? Rice cakes?
No need to get paranoid - paranoia also inhibits assimilation of minerals :) - but it does put health claims on packaging and advertisments in another perspective.

If you are told that a breakfast cereal is full of minerals, that may be so, that's no lie - but it may be only half of the truth. Because it also may be full of phytic acid, so to speak, and the assimilation of these minerals into your body will be very low... So although a lot of minerals pass through your mouth, very few of them will actually get to your cells, to your blood in a useful way - and that's what counts eventually.

Footnotes:
(1) Paul Pitchford, "Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition", North Atlantic Books; 3rd edition (2002), p. 272
(2) id., p. 225
(3) id., p. 272
(4) id., pp. 512-513

Phytic acid in sourdough bread vs. yeast bread

The previous article was about phytic acid in grains and legumes: how it inhibits assimilation of minerals in the body, and how soaking resolves the problem.

But how about bread? In brown bread the bran is still present - and so we get back to the problem of the phytic acid: if the phytic acid present in the bran is not broken down, the minerals will not be well assimilated. And in the case of bread soaking is not an option, because it is impossible (or very impractical at least) to soak grains before grinding them into flour.

Luckily, again, the solution is very simple: sourdough!
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about it: "Natural sourdough fermentation (without yeast) is slow and creates an acid environment (pH below 5.5) that activates enzymes, called phytase, that are present in the flour."(1) "Phytase is an enzyme that can break down the undigestible phytic acid (phytate) part found in grains and oil seeds and thus release digestible phosphorus, calcium and other nutrients."(2)
And Paul Pitchford: "[In sourdough bread] the natural bacterial action and baking neutralize nearly all of the phytic acid which occurs in wheat and other grains. (Phytic acid reduces mineral metabolism - especially in those whose diet includes a good percentage of grains and legumes - and can contribute to anemia, nervous disorders, and rickets.)"(3)

However, "about 90% of the phytic acid remains in yeasted breads"(4). So even if it contains a lot of minerals, as in brown yeast bread, you will profit very little of them.

This doesn't mean you should prefer white yeast bread over brown yeast bread. Brown yeast bread still contains other things which are beneficial, like fiber, and which white bread doesn't contain. And even with the phytic acid, you still assimilate more minerals from brown yeast bread than from white yeast bread, it seems.

But compared to sourdough bread, the mineral uptake from yeast bread is very low...

(By the way, the same problem occurs with "a diet rich in whole-grain noodles": "the phytic acid they contain [...] tends to bind minerals in the body. Of course, this problem is neutralized in a sourdough process, and so the home noodle-maker should use such a natural leavening process."(5))

Footnotes:
(1) "Acide phytique", Wikipedia, translated by me.
(2) "Phytase", Wikipedia
(3, 4) Paul Pitchford, "Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition", North Atlantic Books; 3rd edition (2002), p. 492
(5) id. p. 484

On sugar and sweeteners...

Refined vs. unrefined sugar

"Sugar is a major life force and our bodies need it as fuel to feed the ongoing fire of life's process. The sugars in whole foods are balanced with the proper minerals. The energy obtained from breaking down and assimilating these sugars is of a constant and enduring nature. When natural sugar is refined and concentrated, the life force is dispersed and the natural balance upset.

Refined sugar passes quickly into the bloodstream in large amounts, giving the stomach and pancreas a shock. An acid condition forms which consumes the body's minerals quickly. Thus calcium is lost from the system, causing bone problems. The digestive system is weakened and food cannot be digested or assimilated properly. This leads to a blood-sugar imbalance and to another craving for sugar. Refined sugar delivers high energy and enables one to keep working, but unfortunately, it is addicting and contributes greatly to disease and unhappiness. While in very small amounts it can be used as medicine, in large amounts sugar leads instead to obesity, hypoglycemia, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, anemia, immune deficiency, tooth decay, and bone loss; it contributes to herpes, yeast infections, cancer, pre-menstrual syndrome, menstrual problems, and male impotence; it weakens the mind, causing: loss of memory and concentration, nervousness, shyness, violence, excessive or no talking, negative thought, paranoia, and emotional upsets such as self-pity, arguments, irritability, and the desire for only sweet things in life."(2)

"Refined sugar is implicated in all of our contemporary degenerative health problems." (3)

General useful information

"The sweetness found in grains, dairy, meat, legumes, and some vegetables like squash, carrots and yams strengthens the spleen-pancreas and helps build energy. These foods satisfy the sweet tooth.
'Empty sweets', to use a Chinese medical term, are those primarily composed of simple sugars (sweet fruits, juices, honey, sugar, and other sweeteners). These foods give a short-term energy boost by increasing the amount of sugar in the blood. When concentrated or used in excess, sweets damage the spleen-pancreas. Excessive use leads to chronic fatigue, bodily weakness, edema, and various digestive problems.
Sweeteners composed of maltose, a complex carbohydrate, are relatively more healthful. Barley malt and rice syrup, for example, take longer to assimilate than the more simple sugar molecules do. (...)
Other sweeteners contain glucose, fructose and sucrose and are more problematic because they are quickly absorbed into the bloodstream, stress the whole metabolism, and suppress the immune system. Such sweeteners cause the pancreas to secrete more insulin to monitor the amount of sugar going into the blood, and extra adrenaline from the adrenal gland is also mobilized to monitor the blood sugar level. Simple sugars provide a few hours of increased energy, which are followed by energy depletion and an emotional low aptly known as "the sugar blues". Thus sweeteners that contain sucrose are best used occasionally and with discretion. These include carob, date sugar, honey, maple syrup, rapadura, and sorghum molasses. (...) Strive to avoid fructose, fruit juice concentrate, granular fruit sugar, isomol, malitol, mannitol, sorbitol and xylitol (and aspartame)."(5)

• "The best source of sweetness is a diet of whole vegetal foods that are chewed well to bring out their natural flavor and sweetness. All complex carbohydrates such as grains, legumes, and vegetables become sweeter the longer they are chewed. (...)
  
• "Be wary of so-called 'natural' sweeteners such as fructose, brown sugar, and turbinado sugar. They are nearly as refined and concentrated as white sugar and have similar effects.
• "(...) Salty foods [and proteins] (...) create a craving for sweets (...). Most animal foods - meats, fish and cheese - are high in protein and (...) should be used sparingly to avoid sugar cravings.
• "Sweeten desserts with fruit, fruit juices, rice syrup, barley malt, stevia, unrefined sugar (unrefined cane juice powder), maple syrup, molasses, or amasake."(2)

"Read labels. Sugar and chemical sweeteners are in almost everything - breads, cereals, salad dressings, soups, mixes, cured meat, canned food, bottled drinks."(2)

Some alternatives and their pro's and con's

"Some people are aware that white sugar is one of the worst foods and are replacing it with equally large amounts of honey. Honey is highly refined by bees and has more calories than white sugar. It is much sweeter and is assimilated directly into the bloodstream very quickly. However, honey does contain some minerals and enzymes and thus does not upset the body's mineral balance as much as sugar. For centuries, honey has been used as a medicine."(2)
(And that's exactly how I use it too - not as a food or a sweetener, but as a medicine. )

"Our recommendation is to use the least concentrated, least sweet, and most nearly whole-food sweeteners [: rice and barley grain malts (syrups or powders), and amasake.] (...) At least half the composition of these grain-based sweeteners are nutrients found in whole grains; they also contain good percentages of complex sugars (...). This smooths out the blood-sugar peaks and valleys associated with the consumption of highly refined sweeteners."(2)

"A relatively healthy alternative [for those who have yet to wean themselves from sugar's shocking sweetness] is granules of unrefined, dried cane juice (...). It is made by simply evaporating the water from whole sugar cane juice. (...) It is not to be confused with brown sugar or various kinds of raw sugar; it has far more mineralization and other nutrients to help prevent tooth decay and the plethora of diseases brought on by all refined sugar. (...) (The [following] other naturally processed sweeteners [: maple syrup, sorghum molasses, barbados molasses, rice syrup and barley malt, honey, fruit juices, fruit syrups and date sugar, and amasake] also possess a full complement of nutrients.)
Several food producers are acutely aware of the advertising advantage of no longer listing "sugar" as an ingredient. Now they still put in refined sugar but list it as "dried cane juice" or "cane juice" (or "cane sugar", bva). However, when dried cane juice is highly refined, it is simply another name for refined white sugar. To be certain of a whole-food product, choose unrefined dried cane juice."(2)

And Rebecca Wood on unrefined, dried cane juice or "rapadura":

"Because its vitamins, minerals and micronutrients are intact (...), rapadura does not pass as quickly into the bloodstream as sugar does. If used in excess, however, it contributes to the same health problems as sugar. (...) Today, I'm aware of only one domestic brand of unrefined, evaporated cane juice. This granular organic rapadura is available at natural food stores (...) from Rapunzel Pure Organics.

(...) Avoid the numerous highly refined sugar products that mimic rapadura."(4) "These (...) include, but are not limited to: brown sugar, cane crystals, evaporated cane juice, Demerara sugar, dried cane juice, granulated cane juice, milled cane, molasses, muscovado sugar, natural milled cane sugar, plantation white, raw cane juice, Sucanat, turbinado sugar, unrefined cane sugar, and yellow-D sugar."(3) So all these are NOT unrefined, according to Rebecca Wood.

"Fruit juices can be recommended because of their availability and the relatively low sweetness their watery content provides. When they are concentrated into fruit syrups, however, their sugar content becomes very high. In contrast to the grain ferments, the fruit juices and syrups are much further from being whole foods, i.e., from having the multiple nutrients of whole foods."(2)

Footnotes:
(2) Paul Pitchford, "Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition", North Atlantic Books; 3rd edition (2002), pp.189 - 194
(3) Rebecca Wood, "The new whole foods encyclopedia: a comprehensive resource for healthy eating", foreword by Paul pitchford, revised and updated ed., 1999, Penguin Books, p.328
(4) id., p.285
(5) id., p.331

Sugar, sugar and sugar - what's the difference?

There exist many substances that can be called sugars, and discussions and information about sugar can be very confusing. "Simple" and "complex", "fast" and "slow", "refined", "unrefined", "whole", "natural", "raw", ... - what's it all about?

I'm not an expert on the matter, only a very concerned human being and father - and ex-hypoglycemic -, so after studying a lot on the matter, I finally boiled it down to the following.

As far as I'm concerned, for practical purposes there are only two interesting distinctions in the sugar debate. The first one is "simple" and "complex" sugars (or "slow" and "fast"). The second one is "refined" and "unrefined" sugars.
Traditional Chinese Medicine has an interesting concept of "full sweets" in contrast to "empty sweet", which incorporates also these distinctions, and which I'll touch briefly here.
Most other distinctions and notions about sugar don't have much practical use at home, and even tend to confuse an otherwise rather simple matter.

Simple vs. complex

Sugars are made up of chains of molecules, and according to the type of sugar, these chains are longer or shorter, or more precisely: "complex" or "simple". Maltose, for instance, the main ingredient in barley malt suryp, is a complex sugar, a long chain. Glucose on the other hand, found in soft-drinks for instance, is a simple sugar, a short chain. So are fructose and sucrose.
What you should know about sugar in this respect is that consumption of simple sugars causes dramatic effects in the body, shocks really, whereas complex sugars are much more moderate, much more easy-going on the body.

Refined vs. unrefined

The second important distinction is between "refined" and "unrefined" sugars(1). Starting from cane juice for instance, you can just evaporate the water and consume it as such - this is the only truly "unrefined" cane sugar. Nothing, except the water (together with the unedible portion and impurities of course), has been removed from the original plant.
However, you can also submit it to a long process in the refinery, and the further you go down this process, the more refined the resulting product. First you can centrifuge it (separating the molasses), and then you can refine it further and further by various processes (some of them very unhealthful using chemicals), producing lighter and lighter grades of cane sugar, until you end up with "white" sugar. The result of every step in this process is still called "cane sugar", but whereas the original, whole, evaporated cane juice is full of minerals and vitamins, with each step in the process some of these are lost, until finally, in the white sugar, they have all virtually disappeared, and you retain only the pure sucrose, the pure "sugar". This is of course also the sweetest, shockingly sweet even, but if you decided to stop shocking your body and start taking care of it, you will want to avoid refined sugars and stick with the unrefined ones.
As explained in "On sugar and sweeteners..." and "Foods that feed you, and foods that feed UPON you....", refined sugars are very unhealthful, while unrefined sugars can be actually nurturing and help to prevent illnesses.

Empty sweets vs. full sweets

An interesting notion in Traditional Chinese Medicine that also embodies the previous distictions, is that of "empty sweet" and "full sweet":

"The ['full'] sweetness found in grains, dairy, meat, legumes, and some vegetables like squash, carrots and yams strengthens the spleen-pancreas and helps build energy. These foods satisfy the sweet tooth.
'Empty sweets' (...) are those primarily composed of simple sugars (sweet fruits, juices, honey, sugar, and other sweeteners). These foods give a short-term energy boost by increasing the amount of sugar in the blood. When concentrated or used in excess, sweets damage the spleen-pancreas. Excessive use leads to chronic fatigue, bodily weakness, edema, and various digestive problems."(2)

Where do all the sweeteners and sugars fit in?

The final step in being able to use sugars and sweeteners wisely, is to know which are the complex and unrefined sugars. Because these are the ones you want to consume, and these are the ones you want to give to your child. Once you made that decision, it's really easy: you seek out the healthful sugars and sweeteners, and you simply avoid all the rest. Very easy indeed, because in the supermarket or regular shop or grocery store, for instance, you can just completely ignore about anything that is sweet. You'll have to go to a health food store, and there, closely examine the ingredient lists. Don't think that because you're in a "health food store" all the food is healthful! Because there you (probably) will find healthful alternatives, but not only those - there also you will find an astonishing variety of very unhealthful foods.

So, in a nutshell, here's what you want to look out for:

• complex sugars, unrefined - highly recommended: barley malt syrup, rice syrup, and amasake
• simple sugars, unrefined - very acceptable but use moderately : (dried) fruit; fruit juice; honey; date sugar; unrefined dried cane juice ("rapadura"); maple syrup; molasses.

Fruit syrups are also unrefined, but very concentrated in simple sugars, so better avoid these altogether.

Simply avoid all the rest, including all cane sugar that is not rapadura (even if it says "unrefined"), fructose, aspartame, and so on...


Related articles in this blog:

• "Foods that feed you, and foods that feed UPON you" - about refined and unrefined food in general
• "On sugar and sweeteners": some extensive quotes by experts on most kinds of sugar and their advantages and disadvantages

Footnotes:
(1) For an introductory article on the benefits of unrefined (also known as "whole") foods in general and the drawbacks of refined foods, see "Foods that feed you, and foods that feed UPON you...."
(2) Rebecca Wood, "The new whole foods encyclopedia: a comprehensive resource for healthy eating", foreword by Paul pitchford, revised and updated ed., 1999, Penguin Books, p.331