Sometimes I read interesting things on Quora, and this post caught my eye because the author’s friend is from Iran, where they use rock sugar infused with saffron to calm nausea.

At first she thought this was extremely weird – but Nabat sugar is a popular remedy throughout the middle east. Why? Then she realized that one of our most popular western drugs for nausea (Emetrol) is composed mostly of fructose and glucose, with a minute amount of phosphoric acid! How is it possible that sugar calms the stomach and settles nausea?

This got me thinking about Absorb Plus.

23 years ago, when I first formulated Absorb Plus – after developing the elemental formula that allowed me to go from 99 lbs (after a severe hemorrhage from mercury poisoning) to 135 lbs and working out 3x/week at the gym, in 7 weeks flat – I used fructose and stevia to sweeten the shakes.

For a long time, I thought diabetics would not be able to use Absorb Plus. Because the tapioca maltodextrin (glucose polymer) and fructose hit the bloodstream so fast. However, we’ve since heard from many people with diabetes who can use the shake just fine. Then my own father with diabetes, developed acute pancreatitis, and Absorb Plus was the only food he could consume. His pancreas could not tolerate anything else – not even broth.

He consumed nothing but Absorb Plus for a week and monitored his blood sugar multiple times a day. Imagine our collective surprise when his blood sugar went down, every day, all day, when he drank nothing but Absorb Plus! He mixed the Berry (fructose) together with Unsweetened Vanilla.

And did you know that fructose has been shown in multiple trials to be beneficial to insulin response?

When did natural sugar – from fruit and vegetables – become so maligned in our culture? Of course, there’s the fact that we all consume way too much in the form of candy, cakes, and processed foods. If it comes in a package or can, there’s a good chance it contains sugar – and high levels of salt. Health is about balance. And listening to what our unique body wants – which often changes with the seasons, stress levels, age, etc.

But things also got really skewed when the food industry invented high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). This hybrid sugar does not exist in nature and yet it was/is added to the majority of processed/packaged foods. This unnatural hybrid is not good for diabetics, or nausea treatment, and does a lot of damage to the body. Unfortunately, most mainstream consumers thought that meant all fructose was bad. Not so. The body has always been able to digest and utilize natural fructose – and even derive some benefit from it!