Over the past fifty years, we as a society have sold our health to the Gods of C onvenience.

We have embraced convenience and fast foods under the guise of freei ng us to have more time to enjoy life while in fact it is this very enjoyment of living long and healthy, energetic lives that these 'foods' are robbing us. Just examine any list of ingredients and, besides the usual assortment of unpron ounceable polysyllabic additives, you will regularly find enriched 'this' and fo rtified 'that.' Really, the wheat flour started out enriched before they process ed the heck out of it and oranges are a natural source of vitamins, no fortifica tion required. So where does this get us, besides depressed? Well, it leads us to a national co nversation about getting back to basics. Cooking shows are so popular that they have generated more than a few television networks. But does anyone really cook anymore? I know it's difficult, especially when you are sick and your chemo is robbing yo u of what little energy you have left. But we all need to try to eat basic, heal thy, grown from the earth foods. Most experts agree that fifty per cent of our d iets should be raw foods (except if your treatment compromises your immune or di gestive system - you should then poach your fruits and vegetables before consump tion.) In the last post on sugar, I clued you in to how to read the nutrition label to monitor your sugar intake (4 grams of sugar equals 1 teaspoon of sugar- then com pare it to the portion size so if you have 2 tablespoons per serving which is 6 teaspoons and each serving has 20 grams of sugar then 5 0f those 6 teaspoons are sugar - YIKES). Now, I am going to introduce the tools you will need to do the same for raw foods. Instead of a PhD in nutrition, you will need to understand two numbers, the ever -popular glycemic index and the not-so-well-known glycemic load. The glycemic index rates the speed and amount of absorbed sugar of a particular food into your blood. This is especially important to diabetics who need to moni tor blood glucose levels regularly. You will remember from the Sugar Connection, Part 1 that I discussed how cancer loves sugar and the importance of keeping yo ur blood sugar from spiking. Instead of constantly looking up the GI value of various foods - although I bet there's an App for that, too - you can basically guess the GI of a particular f ood by the sweetness of its taste. Pineapple high, blueberries lower. Fruit can be a real culprit here so weigh your servings of daily fruits and vegetables tow ard the veggie side of the scale. But if fruit is to be limited, then fruit juice is an occasional treat. If you h ave ever made yourself a glass of orange juice, you will not doubt remember that if took masses of 'elbow grease' to squeeze about four or five oranges just to fill a 4-6 ounce glass. Now, you wouldn't eat 4 or 5 oranges in one sitting but you are consuming all the fructose from those oranges in one glass of juice. So keep your fruit intake to a minimum and eat your fruit whole. Now the glycemic load was introduced in 1997 by Dr. Walter Willet and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health, according to an informative article in nutritiondata.com. The article goes on to define glycemic load as the value of t he amount and type of carbohydrate consumed - GL= GI/100 x Net Carbs (Net Carbs being total carbs minus dietary fiber) - as well as charting the GI and GL of so me common foods. Okay, you can't say I didn't warn you about the PhD. So stop looking for that ol

d algebra book because I found a database where you can enter the type of food e tc. and it will calculate the GI and GL for you. Just click this database link t hen GI database on the left of the page to find the calculator. I am still researching the pros and cons of the various substitutes so for now r emember to limit all sweeteners as immoderation is bad. Stevia appears to be the best choice, with good quality organic raw agave and Lo Han Guo and lucuma, two promising new comers on the scene that I am researching as I write, for occasio nal use. I hope this has done more than confuse you about sweeteners. I will continue to update you as I find new information. Next time, I will shift gears and tackle t he other half of the cancer equation - Cancer may love sugar but it HATES oxygen . Besides obvious exercise, we will see how it is possible to oxygenate your sys tem without even getting out of bed. And my first Book Report, Getting Well Again by O. Carl Simonton, MD. Thanks for visiting. Please come back soon. Bless you all.