Not a Sweet Matter…

Ensures

I found this piece written in the form of a letter by a dear friend and Art of Living faculty from Kolkatta Ms Sujala Roy. Here is unedited version (except for Hyperlinking)

Dear friends

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Satsang in Progress in Amphi Theatre

During December 2012, when I had visited Art of Living Ashram to do my 10 days Advanced Course (Part-2 Course), there was something startling that He mentioned.

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Just after a woman , shared her osteoporosis health problems with Gurudev in the Satsang, He said, one of the main reasons for weak rubbery bones once people hit 50 years of age, is the consumption of white sugar. White is NOT the natural color of sugar. Some chemicals like phosphorous is added to give the white color. When we consume this , it corrodes the calcium in our bones making them soft like rubber.
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Unrefined sugar or brown sugar is not easily available in the Indian market because there is no demand for it (blame it on our fascination for color white !). His Holiness Pujya Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar promised us that soon Art of Living will get in touch with manufacturers (it is pertinent to note here that a group of Art of Living Volunteers have started a Sugar Co-operative in Sangli, Maharashtra – Click the link for details) and package and sell “raw” sugar in mass scale.
Turbinado_sugar
Till that time, He urged us to find brown sugar from the local market and consume that only. Guruji also said, rather than sugar (white/brown) , jaggery is the best and the healthiest sweetener available to us.
I did some research on the internet too. There are a lot of articles which describes the poisonous effects of white sugar on human body scientifically. The basic problem is , since refined sugar is only carbohydrates with no minerals, its’ metabolism requires calcium and other minerals which it extracts from the human body depleting it of these vital minerals.  Some sentences verbatim from the articles are :
 

“Refined sugar is lethal when ingested by humans because it provides only that which nutritionists describe as “empty” or “naked” calories. It lacks the natural minerals which are present in the sugar beet or cane.”

“In addition, sugar is worse than nothing because it drains and leaches the body of precious vitamins and minerals through the demand its digestion, detoxification and elimination makes upon one’s entire system. So essential is balance to our bodies that we have many ways to provide against the sudden shock of a heavy intake of sugar. Minerals such as sodium (from salt), potassium and magnesium (from vegetables), and calcium (from the bones) are mobilized and used in chemical transmutation; neutral acids are produced which attempt to return the acid-alkaline balance factor of the blood to a more normal state.”

Links to some articles
Point to be noted is the commercially available brown sugars not really raw sugar , but that is the best deal we can get. I have found a brand of brown sugar in Spencer’s . I urge each one of you to –
  • Cut down the intake of sugar
  • Switch to jaggery or raw sugar or brown sugar
  • Buy the raw sugar from Art of Living when it is available
Health, happiness and energy to each one of you ! 🙂
You can read other blogs of Sujala Roy here
Here is the transcript of the Original Talk from Gurudev Sri Sri Ravishankar (His twitter (Source of Transcript🙂 
Gurudev urged everyone to stop using white sugar IMMEDIATELY.

Apparently white sugar has sulphur added to it during processing in order to give it its characteristic white sheen. Sulphur leeches calcium from our bodies making us susceptible to osteoporosis (incurable) and a host of other bone diseases.

He exhorted everyone to immediately switch to jaggery. He cautioned that some manufacturers add sulphur even to jaggery in order to make it lighter in colour. Purchase your jaggery from reputed and reliable places. Remember that the darker the jaggery, the more nutritious it is.

Some AOL members have begun manufacturing different kinds of raw sugar (light brown, medium brown, dark brown) and even white, sulphur-less sugar. Their products will soon be made available in #Bengaluru Ashram. These sugars are comparable in price with table sugar but are a whole lot more nutritious. If you wish to switch to raw/brown sugar right away, alternative places to source them (in Bangalore) are FabIndia (raw sugar, cane sugar, evaporated cane sugar, jaggery etc all organic) HyperCity (Waitrose brand has light brown,medium brown cane sugars, and dark brown muscovado sugar), Spar etc. However these are typically over-priced!!!