The quick answer: Sugary drinks, whether real or imitation, are a leading cause of chronic disease and premature death. Pure water is the healthiest drink.
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Two Biggest Diet Problems
The two worst problems with the modern American diet are sugar (in excess) and trans fats (in any quantity). We’ll address trans fats next week; this post is about the 100 lbs of sugar consumed annually by Americans, much of which goes to our waist. No one puts that much sugar in their food, they don’t have to—sugar is the #1 additive in processed foods.
The most toxic source of sugar—whether sucrose (table sugar), corn syrup, or high fructose corn syrup—is soda drinks. So we start the year with Healthy Change #1: If you consume sodas or other sugary drinks, limit yourself to one (12 oz.) serving per week.
I’m not trying to destroy the Coca-Cola or PepsiCo companies—but if they don't offer healthy products they'll destroy themselves. One other thing: Healthy Change #1 includes the chemical substitutes used in diet drinks, which simply reinforce our sugar cravings.
Sugar History
Sugar in the early 1800s was a special occasion treat. Traditional sweeteners were natural, local, and seasonal: honey in the summer, maple sugar in the winter. The nation couldn’t overdose on honey—first, there wasn’t enough, and second, honey doesn’t have that effect.
When the Word of Wisdom was revealed in 1833, American consumption of sweeteners stood at 10 lbs per year—about 3 tsp a day. Now, depending on the data source, we eat 21-30 teaspoons daily. The AHA recommends no more than 6 tsp (24 grams) daily for women, 9 for men (based on their greater weight). The AHA guidance seems a wise goal.
In his 1925 book, Food, Health, Vitamins, the pioneer English biochemist, R. H. A. Plimmer made a foreboding but prophetic comment about sugar in America: “The Americans, with their love of candy, are the largest sugar eaters in the world. Incidentally, cancer and diabetes, two scourges of civilization, have increased proportionately to the sugar consumption.”
Few heeded Plimmer’s warning—our sugar intake continued to increase, as did the incidence of diabetes and cancer. Add to that list the illness that has since grown to be the #1 cause of death: heart disease.
Toxic Sugar
In the ‘70s Dr. John Yudkin of England warned of sugar’s toxicity in his book Pure, White and Deadly,” (published in the US as Sweet and Dangerous, now a collectors item). Yudkin made the link between our sugar intake and heart disease when so-called experts were wrongly blaming saturated fats.
The science establishment, committed to the Lipid Theory of heart disease, turned on Yudkin with a vengeance and it became politically incorrect to mention Yudkin or his work. Time has shown Yudkin to be right, lipids weren’t the big problem, but a generation was wasted.
Food Inc’s reduced-fat response to the Lipid Theory had worse consequences: Traditional saturated fats were replaced with hydrogenated vegetable oils containing transfats, and low-fat foods had extra sugar added to improve the taste. In this false move, we added both trans fats and sugar do our diet. We not only didn’t reduce heart disease, we increased the problem of overweight and diabetes.
Scary Sugar
The author today who has done the most to warn of our sugar addiction and correct the Lipid Theory error is Gary Taubes, author of Good Calories, Bad Calories. Here are quotes, beginning with Taubes’ closing paragraph from Good Calories, Bad Calories:
“Sugar scares me . . . I’d like to eat it in moderation . . . but I don’t actually know what that means, and I’ve been reporting on this subject and studying it for more than a decade. If sugar just makes us fatter, that’s one thing. We start gaining weight, we eat less of it. But we are also talking about things we can’t see — fatty liver, insulin resistance and all that follows. Officially I’m not supposed to worry because the evidence isn’t conclusive, but I do.”
Dr. Craig Thompson (head of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in N.Y.): I have eliminated refined sugar from my diet and eat as little as I possibly can.
Dr. Lewis Cantley (director of Harvard Medical Schools cancer center): Sugar scares me.
Please Comment: Share your best ways of protecting your family from the effects of our sugar addiction.