The war against sugar doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of slowing down, and last week took a new turn as a growing number of scientists are convinced that Professor John Yudkin, a respected British Nutritionist who wrote ‘Pure, White and Deadly’ back in 1972, was right.
Back in the early 1970s, obesity wasn’t the health issue of the day, it was heart disease, and fat was believed to be behind the rising levels of heart disease in the west. Despite this being the popular view, Yudkin argued that we’d been eating fats for centuries and the real issue was sugar which was a relatively new entrant into the human food supply.
Well as you can imagine, with most people seeing fat as the energy and the food industry investing millions in innovating around decent tasting, low fat versions of their popular dishes, Yudkin’s theory that the real culprit is sugar, wasn’t popular and his research was discredited.
If Yudkin were alive today, he’d no doubt be pleased to see that his sugar theory is finally gathering interest and momentum. So much so that, according to the Daily Telegraph in the UK, ‘The World Health Organisation said that it would advise adults to drastically reduce the levels of sugar in their diet, from 22 teaspoons per day to just 6. ‘Given that there are about 10 teaspoons in a can of coke, that’s a big reduction!
One of the big obstacles we have is that many people are just not aware of how much sugar they are eating. Take the view from Cardiologist, Dr Aseem Malhotta, writing in the Daily Telegraph, who sees the effects of sugar on health every day. For instance, one of his patients, a lady in her 40s who had suffered a heart-attack, came to see the doctor in desperation as she had gained two stone in weight. It transpired that she has been drinking a low fat milk drink which she thought was healthy and had been drinking two litres per day, the equivalent of swallowing 70 teaspoons of sugar a day!
Are you, like millions of people, being conned by clever marketing by food manufacturers? Do you agree? Write a comment below and let me know your thoughts.
