By Penelope A. Domogo, MD
Last week, we discussed how nature provided fruits. Let us review briefly. Fruits are given by nature in season and depending on the locality. For example, mangoes don’t thrive in North America while apples don’t thrive in Tabuk. Fruits contain fructose, which is a simple sugar and thus not good to eat much. The sweeter the fruit, the lesser is provided. In other words, if we eat and behave according to the design of nature, then we are well. Parang too simplistic, you would think. But it is the case. What’s our proof? Our evidence is our ancestors and all those who live in harmony with nature. Igorots are lucky, especially those of my generation and earlier generations, because we have experienced living in harmony with nature and we also are experiencing living according to what the sari-sari store or the supermarket dictates and we see the difference in our health and strength. I have seen so many elderlies in the past able to walk far to their farms, till the soil, plant, harvest and carry produce, on their heads or shoulders, back home. And no hypertension, diabetes, rayuma or cancer. How about the people today? But this is getting ahead of our topic.
This issue, we will go deeper into the discussion of sugar or sweets. Aside from fruits, where else do we get our sweets naturally? In the tropics like the Philippines, he gave sugar cane. In winter countries, he gave sugar beets. In both, he gave honey. Let’s talk about what he gave in the Philippines – sugar cane and honey.
Sugarcane is such a deliciously sweet plant. It takes a year for it to mature and be harvested. God encased the sweet thing in a super hard covering that no child will be able to taste sugarcane without the supervision of an adult or much bigger child who will remove the covering. What more, the stuff inside is not soft like a banana. You need to “o-os” it – meaning you need to chew the cane well for you to extract the sugar. With this process, it’s difficult even to finish one sugarcane stalk. When we were young, Daddy would get one mature stalk and that would be enough for all of us, for the week. So you cannot get overdosed with sugarcane if you consume it naturally.
Then humans designed a technology to press the sugar easier- the sugarcane mill was born. Still, in the Cordillera, even if there was the sugarcane mill driven by a carabao or by children, muscovado or inti was produced only once a year. If that supply was consumed, then you have to wait for the next milling season to taste milled sugar. Meaning that people in those times were able to live happily without sugar. I am happy that sugar cane is still produced organically- meaning you have to wait for a year at least for them to mature. So even now, we have times when there’s no more muscovado and we have to wait for the nest milling season.
How about honey? Well, God gave it deep in the forest. But if you are lucky the honey bees built their house in your garden. Do you think it’s easy to get their honey? I don’t know what bee keepers do but I know that, in nature, it’s not easy. You have to smoke the bees out, or wait for the bees to fly out, cover yourself, to make sure you are not bitten by the owners. You see, honey is food of the baby bees, so I heard that one should only harvest the left-over of the baby bees. Otherwise, we are grabbing their food. So there’s a season for harvesting honey and it’s this dry season. Meaning again that once your supply of honey is consumed, you have to wait for the next season- and is, next year.
But what’s happening today? You buy sugar by the kilo, place it in a container and place it on the table, within reach of everybody- from the child to the elderly. What’s worse, this sugar that you buy is refined, it is highly processed. Whether it is white or brown, it is the same highly processed sugar. Meaning all the precious nutrients like vitamins and minerals that are naturally present in sugar cane are removed and what’s left are pure sugar crystals that provide you with nothing but empty calories. They even contain a lot of toxic chemicals which are remnants of the processing. And when eaten, this refined sugar goes immediately to your blood, spiking up your blood sugar level and making your blood acidic. You see, dear reader, our bodies are not designed for acidic things and for all those toxic chemicals. Compare the traditional way of consuming sugar to the modern way and you will understand why we have a lot of diseases today. Refined sugar is implicated in almost all diseases today- cancer, hypertension, diabetes, rayuma, infections. Sugar is the food of germs. It is also the food of cancer cells. Sugar sticks the uric acid crystals in your joints. Excess sugar in the blood converts to fat so don’t be surprised if the triglyceride level in your blood is high, even if your sugar level is okay.
Reflecting on how our Creator provided sugar in nature, we can discern how He really loves us and wants us to be well. Don’t you think so? We, humans, are just so arrogant that we think we can do away with nature’s design. We think we are more intelligent than our Creator. We look into our microscopes and mix and match in our laboratories and then claim that we know the formula. But what’s happening if you live by the book of humans? We know. But if you don’t know yet, I suggest you visit in the hospital and see the suffering that our hardheadedness and arrogance places on people.***
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“He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck, will suddenly be broken beyond healing.” Proverbs 29:1
