Noshi-do’s various grades are signified by belts of appropriate colours, from a sort of sickly grey for the novice as yet unschooled in its arts, up through pallid to cordon blue, rosy and then positively glowing at its advanced levels.

Herein follows a basic lesson for those often overweight novices who sport the sickly belt and aspire to shorter belts of more sanguine hue. It concerns self-defence against a food industry armed with fructose, a lethal weapon in the hands of an assailant who doesn’t care if he kills you.

Fructose sounds harmless but it is deadly and can be concealed in soft drinks and fast foods and behind the datum that it is "a sugar found in fruit."

One of its deadliest forms, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), is now the main ingredient in most soft drinks and many processed foods.

Fructose affects the body’s biochemistry in ways that lead to elevated insulin levels, which are a primary factor in nearly every chronic disease, including diabetes, heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis, aging and arthritis.

Those concerned about their weight should know that HFCS is the number one source of calories, having 250% more calories than sugar. Apparently, fructose contributes to other health problems like increased inflammation, high blood pressure and excess uric acid as well as causing fatty liver deposits in ways similar to alcohol.

If you are searching for a major cause for widespread obesity and other modern health problems, shine your searchlight on soft drinks and the HFCS hidden therein.

The notion that fructose is an acceptable form of sugar is dangerously false.

Like nearly all simple sugars it metabolizes quickly and thereby disrupts insulin levels and this contributes to most chronic illness. HFCS metabolizes to fat in your body even more quickly and its negative effects are magnified when you consume it in liquid form.

Even worse, the corn that the high fructose corn syrup comes from is genetically modified corn, which insinuates even more health risks into your food chain.

It is hardly surprising that HFCS has been strongly linked to diabetes, obesity and metabolic disorders.

It is however surprising that the government of our beloved European Union has recently gone out of its way to ban many traditional herbal remedies that have no such links - and have indeed proven pretty safe after hundreds of years of use - while leaving the field wide open to substances that are positively lethal.

None of this should, however, put you off eating fruit.

Moderate amounts of whole fruit will not hit you with huge amounts of fructose and should not be a problem. On the other hand, foods containing fructose in concentrated amounts, such as fruit juices, sodas and other beverages sweetened with it, should be avoided.

I’m sure that failure to mention these potential threats to your health is just an innocent mistake by the manufacturers and their servants in government and they will be correcting this oversight shortly before too many more people die.

But why wait for them to get honest and straight?

The way to defend yourself and your children against a food industry armed with fructose is so simple anyone can do it. Just don't consume foods or drinks containing fructose.

And that, my friends, concludes the Noble Art of Noshi-do, lesson one.

[Steve is a freelance writer and copywriter at Able Copywriting http://ablecopywriting.blogspot.com and Laugh or be Shot http://laughorbeshot.blogspot.com]

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