Meat and sugar: a deadly combination

Meat and sugar combine to weaken the immune even more than a high-meat diet or high-sugar diet alone.

Part II of this article examines the link between why heavy meat eaters are attracted to sugar. Click here to read Part I, which explains how a meat-eating affects immunity.

These articles were originally published in The Good Life issue #2, 1995, which focused on infectious diseases like Aids, and how dietary and lifestyle factors can make us more susceptible to these diseases.

Heavy meat eaters tend to take large amounts of sugar. Because meat and sugar attract each other. Eating meat increases the level of protein and fats in the body. To maintain balance, the body needs to increase the level of carbohydrates, or sugar.

The healthiest way to balance meat is to eat vegetables. But this means eating enormous amounts of vegetables – about seven times as much as meat. It is not practical. In any case, meat eaters generally do not enjoy eating vegetables.

Grains, too, can balance meat. But it takes several hours for the carbohydrates in grains to convert into sugar. So grains do not correct an urgent imbalance.

When the meat eater's body needs a quick fix, it craves fruit, cakes, ice cream and other sweet desserts. When too much sugar is eaten, however, it depletes the body of protein, calcium and other minerals, as well as vitamin B. This produces a craving for more meat which, in turn, creates a craving for yet more sugar.

Meat and sugar represents the attraction of yin and yang. Sugar is yin, meat is yang. Eating one creates a craving for the other.

Although meat and sugar are opposites in many ways, they have similar effects on immunity. Both create an acidic environment in the body that enables bacteria and viruses to flourish. Excess sugar, like meat, also weakens the kidneys, which are key organs in immunity.

And sugar, like protein, is also food for bacteria and other micro-organisms. This is why sweet foods spoil faster, and why adding a bit of sugar will help the yeast in bread to grow.

When you eat sugar, therefore, the population of bacteria, yeast and other microbes in your body will increase sharply. These microorganisms will then demand more sugar as food. Eating sugar therefore produces a craving for more sugar.

This means that even vegetarians can develop sugar cravings. Click here to read a sharing by Genevieve Tha, a macrobiotic and (at that time) vgetarian, about her "sugar research".

But for meat eaters, eating sugar will produce a craving for more meat. And more sugar. It creates a vicious cycle of cravings for meat and sugar and the person soon becomes addicted to both foods.

Friends who have worked with Aids patients have observed that many are sugar addicts. At a Gay Parade in New York, I saw many people with Aids. Some were sucking lollipop!