The Role of Sugar in the Development of Individuality
One of the essential insights provided by spiritual science is that
behind every material substance there also are active spiritual forces.
These forces are not uniform but they have specific properties which are
dependent on the type of substance. If we want to understand the underlying
reasons for the high tide of the problems related to sugar consumption in
modern times, we need to become familiar with the nature of spiritual forces
working through sugar, because this knowledge alone can enable us to
orientate ourselves in the best manner in regard to the questions of sugar
consumption and thus safeguard us from falling into traps of one-sided
interpretations of the facts about sugar and its effects on the human being.
With the aim to grasp this we will start with the recognition that "the
human organism evolves activities through all its constituent parts that can
only have their impulses within the organism as such. Anything taken in from
outside must either merely be something that enables the human organism to
develop its own activity; or it has to act in such a way in the body that
the foreign activity does not differ from one of the body's own inner
activities once it has entered into the body. The food human beings need
contains carbohydrates, for instance. These are partly starchlike. As such
they are substances that develop their activity in the plant. Carbohydrates
enter into the human body in the state they are able to achieve in the
plant. In this state, starch is a foreign body. The human organism does not
evolve any activity that goes in the direction of what starch is able to
evolve as an activity when it enters into the body. Thus the starchlike
material developed in the human liver (glycogen) is different
from vegetable starch. Glucose
on the other hand is a substance that stimulates activities which are of the same kind as
activities of the human organism. Starch therefore must not continue as
starch in the human organism. If it is to evolve an activity that plays a
role in the body, it must first be transformed." [1]
In WHOLEFOOD vs REFINED FOOD there is, among other things, a description
of the gradual transformation of starch into simple sugars. Thus we can see
that "the conversion of starch into sugars occurs throughout the digestive
process. Starch that has not been converted by
ptyalin will
be converted by the gastric juice. If starch is converted by ptyalin, the
process is on the borderline for anything that occurs in the sphere of the
‘I’-organization.
The first conversion of what has been taken in from outside takes place in
its sphere. Glucose is a substance able to be active in
the sphere of the ‘I’-organization. Glucose relates to the taste of sweetness, which has its
being in the ‘I’-organization. It is thus possible to trace the ‘I’-organization
in the material sphere by the presence of sugar. Where you have sugar, you
have ‘I’-organization; where sugar is produced, the ‘I’-organization comes on
the scene and gives subhuman (vegetative,
animalic)
bodily nature an orientation towards humanity." [2] This means
that consumption of sugar stimulates the transformation of everything that
is of the plant-etheric and of the animal-astral nature in our organism into
the form suited to human being.
However, it is important that these processes are active within specific
limits. "Consumed as it is, sugar is in the ‘I’-organization. It causes the
sweet taste to develop. Sugar is also found in the blood. Because the blood
contains sugar as it circulates throughout the whole body it carries the
‘I’-organization to all parts of it. Yet wherever it goes this
‘I’-organization
is kept in balance by the activity of the human organism." [3]
This means that the activity of the ego-organisation is under constant
supervision of the whole human body. This is clearly evident when we
investigate all factors involved in the maintenance of the blood sugar. We
can thus designate the activities of blood sugar control as those which are
keeping human ego-organization within healthy borders on the physiological level.
But this is not all, for what is happening on the physiological level is
also reflected in the higher activities of man."The process in digestion
resulting from the consumption of larger quantities of sugar has its
correlation in the upper man in a stronger independence of the thinking
capacity. When a person is very independent, and tends strongly towards
egotism, then he should eat only small amounts of sugar. If someone,
however, is without inner and outer security, and always believes he needs
support, then he should eat more sugar in order to become more
independent." [4] For "sugar permeates man 'with a kind of
natural egotism', through which a counter-balance can be created, if man
strives toward selflessness by spiritual training." [5]
From this example it is evident that our task is to maintain a healthy balance
between the forces of egoism and the forces of altruism which are expressed
in our care for the well-being of other people and the rest of living beings.
By the help of the above description we can understand why sweet taste is
so attractive for modern human beings, and why consumption of sugar in our
times has so dramatically increased. We live in the time when our main task
is to develop our own personality. This means that "every single human being
must develop himself as an individual, and particularly in our modern age of
the consciousness soul this self-culture of the individual is one of the
most important matters." [6] Therefore we can see that consumption of sugar
serves our instinctive inclination towards development of our personality.
Here we have an example that demonstrates how we need to take into
account all possible effects, including the soul-spiritual ones, if we want
to judge any issue of nutrition properly. If we want to choose the right
sweeteners we need to know something about the relationship of sugar to
human 'I', otherwise we can easily get into extremes, either wholeheartedly
surrender to the taste of sugar – which is for more than obvious reasons the
prevalent case – or to reject sugar or even all sweeteners completely.
Neither of these extremes is good, for our task is to find the right balance
and with the continuous maintenance of this balance to enable the proper
development of our individuality.
The Comparison of Effects of Whole versus Refined Sugar
Carbohydrates, which are one of the main groups of nutrients in our food, can be divided into three groups:
The main ingredients of sweeteners are simple carbohydrates also called
'simple sugars', which create the taste of sweetness. If we want to
understand what makes a good sweetener and what makes a bad one we need to
explore their effect on the human being. As an example we will take white
sugar, because it is the most common type of sweeteners used globally. White
sugar is one of the most highly refined food products which contain 100%
pure sucrose at the end of its processing. [7]
Sucrose is disaccharide, made from one molecule of glucose and one molecule of
fructose.
We will compare white sugar with whole sugar which has not been subjected
to any refining after extraction of sugar juice from raw plant material,
except for the removal of water until it crystallizes. Whole sugar contains
beside sucrose about five percent of molasses; in it are the most prominent
substances – essential minerals (listed on the picture) and B-complex
vitamins.
♣ If you are not familiar with
these types of sugar then you can see the visual overview of both processing
methods in Whole versus Refined Sugar.
Now we will compare the effects of white sugar and whole sugar after the
absorption of the simple sugars into the blood stream. [8] Consumption of
white sugar has the following consequences:
1. Disturbed Metabolism of Sugar
Involved in the maintenance of a healthy level of blood sugar are the
nervous system and the
endocrine system. These two systems
meet in the region of the brain where we find the
pituitary gland
which directs activities of the pancreas and adrenal glands (see
Maintenance
of Blood Sugar in Cooperation with Two Nutritional Streams) by the means
of hormones, of which are the most prominent insulin,
glucagon and adrenalin. But beside hormones "many vitamins and trace
elements – including vitamin C, the B complex of vitamins, calcium,
potassium, magnesium, zinc, chromium, manganese, and phosphorus – are
involved in glucose metabolism and the activities of the endocrine glands.
Sugar cannot be (properly) stored or used without (these) minerals."
[9] When we consume whole sugar we are provided with all these
trace minerals and vitamins, with the exception of vitamin C. All these
additional substances serve as stimulus for our higher bodies – for the etheric body,
the astral body, and the ego – to perform all activities which are needed
for proper carbohydrate metabolism. When we consume white sugar the
maintenance of a healthy quantity of blood sugar is therefore seriously
disturbed due to the lack of this stimulus.
2. Weakening of Self-Healing Capacity
In
NUTRITION & INNER HEALER there is an explanation of the great importance of
minerals which we obtain from food for the stimulation of the healing
processes active in the rhythmic system. Within this context we can see that
the intake of white sugar cannot provide the same stimulus of the rhythmic
system as whole sugar due to the absence of all trace minerals. This means
that regular consumption of food products made with white sugar (or other
types of highly refined sugars) will contribute to the weakening of our
self-healing capacities. The fact that the quantities of other minerals are
very small in comparison to the quantity of sugar, just demonstrates to us
their large effects on the metabolic processes in the body. This is the
reason why they are called 'essential minerals and trace elements'.
3. Malnourishment of the Nerve-Sense System
From the explanation of the
EARTHLY NUTRITIONAL STREAM
we can see that the minerals from our food serve
exclusively our nerve-sense system. This means that in the case of white
sugar our brain gets just one mineral compound, glucose. In the case of
whole sugar our nerve system gets also iron, manganese, chromium, calcium,
copper, selenium, potassium, magnesium, and phosphorus. Beside these it gets
chemical compounds which contribute to the rich flavour and
fragrance, and to the earthly colours of various types of whole sugars.
[10] Thus regular consumption of products made from refined sweeteners seriously
malnourish our nerve-sense system which is the physiological seat of our
activities of perception and thinking.
4. Impoverishment of Cosmic Nourishment
As is explained in
COSMIC NUTRITIONAL STREAM, the quality of sense impressions has great
importance for the inflow of cosmic ethers into our metabolic-limb system.
If we compare white sugar with whole sugar we can observe that:
- Whole sugar has various hues of brown earthly
colours, it has a rich diversity of fragrances and it contains the
symphony of tastes.
- White sugar has one colour, it has one, very subtle fragrance, and one
single taste – the taste of sweetness.
This means that a candy made from white sugar cannot stimulate the intake of
cosmic nutrition to the same measure as candy made from whole sugar. The above
description offers an explanation as to why products made from white flour and
white sugar cause craving for more, while this is not the case with products
made from wholemeal flour and natural sweetener. This is due to the fact that
our body is craving for the minerals and mineral compounds which are present in
wholefoods. Among them are exceptionally important natural chemical compounds –
which science calls phytochemicals – which give to the food the richness of
tastes, fragrances and colours. These substances are lacking to a high degree in
modern industrial food, and often replaced by cheap artificial imitations which
do not nourish our sense organs to the same extent as natural ones.
5. Over-Stimulation of Forces of Egoism
When looking at the above list of the negative consequences of the
consumption of white sugar, one might wonder why people still continue to
consume it. In the first part of this nutritional principle has been given
an explanation which helps to understand why we cannot avoid as modern
people the challenge posed to us by sugar consumption. From the content of the nutritional principle
FOOD VERSUS STIMULANTS it is also clear that sugar is a powerful stimulant,
as are all other pure mineral substances (e.g. drugs, medicines, etc.) This
explains why people can become so easily addicted to sugar. [11]
The obvious question now is: What is the key difference between the
stimulative effects of white sugar versus whole sugar? With the aim to
answer this we need to look at the crucial difference between the
stimulative effects of pure sugar and other minerals present in the whole
sugar – that is, potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, sodium,
etc. For this purpose we need to observe how the spiritual forces active
behind these substances influence the human 'I'. While spiritual forces working through
sugar stimulate expansion of ego-organization, the spiritual forces working
through other minerals provide for the keeping of ego-organization inside
healthy confines. When we consume white sugar we get just an expanding
effect. When we consume whole sugar we get both in a balanced ratio.
Thus we can see the paramount importance of the small quantity of
minerals that are naturally present in unrefined sugar for the proper degree
of motivation of our 'I' – the spiritual core of our being. This insight
also enables us to grasp why the modern over-consumption of refined
sweeteners is contributing to the excessive stimulation of individual forces
of 'I', and consequently significantly contributing to the excessive egoism
of modern people.
For complementary perspectives see:
♦ FOOD VERSUS STIMULANTS
♦ NUTRITION & SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS
DIETARY CONCLUSIONS & PRACTICAL INSTRUCTIONS
We can divide sweeteners
in regard to their origin into the following groups:
- Honey as the sweetener which is the result of
cooperation of bees and plants
- Sweeteners from plant sources (such as cane sugar, barley malt
extract, concentrated apple juice, etc.)
- Artificially made sweeteners from raw plant materials (such as
sucralose, HFCS, etc.)
- Artificially made sweeteners from raw
inorganic materials (such
as saccharine, etc.)
Bad sweeteners are all from the last two groups. Artificially made
sweeteners are not recommended for human consumption. The fact is that all
food ingredients made by means of chemical or biological engineering are
contrary to natural food irrespective of the origin of raw materials used
in their production. [12] Of course, it is much worse if the raw materials
come from an inorganic realm, than if they come from plants' sources. But
we should not be deceived by this into the use of such artificial
sweeteners as high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) which is produced by the
action of enzymes acquired with the help of microbes. The fact is that this
is a form of biological engineering by which they succeed to convert
glucose molecules into fructose ones. [13]
Even in the first two groups of sweeteners we need to distinguish between
good and bad sweeteners. For that purpose we need to take into account the
methods and substances used in their production.
The need for sweetness is intrinsically human and should not be banned
from our lives due to the existence of too many bad quality sweeteners and a
multitude of health problems related to over-consumption of them.
[14] We can
safely fulfil our need for sweetness if we consume wholefood products, made
from wholegrain flours and good quality natural sweeteners.
How can we recognize such sweeteners? The first thing to consider is the
method of farming or bee-keeping.
Organic farming
and bee-keeping has obvious advantages. But this is not enough; of the same
importance is the method of its processing. For example, cane sugar should
be whole, unrefined. Here we need to warn about the deceiving labelling of
refined sugars as 'unrefined' or 'raw' or 'natural'.
Whole sugar is the only type of sugar which is really unrefined. All other
so-called 'unrefined' sugars are labelled falsely and among them we can find
all types of sugar except the white one. [15]
Here we need to address the problem that organic standards do not
prohibit sugar refining. This is a great fault of the organic movement, for
it allow certification of white sugar and other types of highly refined
sugars from organically grown sugar cane and sugar beet as 'organic
produce'. [16] But white sugar is –
according to all available evidence – one of the most harmful food products in the history of
food processing. This is in stark contrast with one of the main principles
of IFOAM
"to produce high quality,
nutritious food that contributes to preventive health care and well-being"
of consumers of organic foods. The result is that we now have available
plenty of organic partially refined and highly refined sugars – including
the white one! – but very few organic whole sugars. [17]
In regard to honey we need to take into account two things:
- organic/biodynamic methods of bee-keeping are better for bees and for honey
- but even organic/biodynamic standards allow regular feeding of bees
with (refined) sugar which is not natural food for bees [18]
The best honey is from bees which are managed as naturally as possible,
including not being fed routinely by sugar. [19]
The last, but not the least important point, is the
question of quantity. Here we need to be aware
that even whole sugar is still a stimulant and for that reason its
consumption needs to be limited to the amount which each person can manage
in such manner that it does not lead to homeostatic imbalance. The right
amount of sweet food products can be, of course, very individual, but we
need to be aware that it is very easy – especially in the case of children –
to have too much. The danger of over-consumption is not so strong if one has
an overall good diet, based on whole grains, vegetables and fruit. This is
especially the case with wholegrain cakes, biscuits, etc. which provide the
experience of sweetness and at the same time nourish the body.
♣ For the list of recommended sweeteners see
NATURAL SWEETENERS
WARNING: You always have to put the above
practical dietary instructions inside the framework of
GENERAL NUTRITIONAL
GUIDELINES with the aim to know their limits when looking for a solution
of a specific nutritional problem. You also need to be familiar with
THE ROLE OF NUTRITIONAL GUIDELINES
with the aim to avoid any one-sided conclusions.
