Sugar Is Toxic

[Alison]

This one doesn't worry me at all as we eat very little commercially processed food and therefore I know pretty confidently how much sugar (or salt or whatever) is in my food. I've never had a sweet tooth and although I do use sugar the thought of adding it to cereal, tea etc is pretty horrible to me and fruit just doesn't need anything extra added to it. Eat jams and cakes occaisionally but not to excess and therefore don't see any need to worry for myself.

However it does concern me how much certain friends give out the cans of coke, 3 and 4 year olds just don't need a whole can to themselves, it's horrible stuff anyway with so many ethical reasons for avoiding (read http://www.amazon.co.uk/Belching-Out...8259320&sr=1-1 or many more publications if you're not convinced ) before you even get to the sugar content.

Anyway, to sum up, I don't believe sugar is the enemy here but the way it, and other additives, are used to excess in processed foods.

[Two_Sheds]

Sugar is cheap for manufacturers who stuff it into otherwise unappetising foods to make them more palatable.

Babies are (usually) brought up to develop a sweet tooth: canned baby foods are sweetened, even the savoury ones; sweets as treats (daily, if not thrice daily); squash/Ribena instead of water; chocolate in excess.

By the time they're teens and have their own lunch money, they're on cakes, biscuits & Red Bull because you get lots of cheap sweet processed food for your money.
Look at the litter near any high school and you can see what the kids are eating.

[Alison]

Babies are (usually) brought up to develop a sweet tooth: canned baby foods are sweetened, even the savoury ones; sweets as treats (daily, if not thrice daily); squash/Ribena instead of water; chocolate in excess.

That's what I mean about processed foods being the problem. If you make your own baby food you'd not had a quarter of that amount of sugar and none in savoury stuffs but you have no control if you buy the ready made stuff.

[Capsid]

It's not a Daily Mail story but from Nature which is the foremost and highly respected science journal. However, the article in Nature is only a commentary. I heard a discussion about it on Radio 4 by the authors an the counter argument is that a healthy lifestyle with exercise is what should be promoted. In truth, we should all just by less processed food which is what us gardeners do anyway.

[donnakebab]

I was diagnosed with diabetes about 6 years ago. I was not overweight and never have been. Haven't drank sugar in drinks for years and have never eaten chocolate or cakes on a regular basis. Do like a biscuit now and again to dunk in my tea (gingersnaps the best for this), so if I have a hypo at home or on my lottie that's what I do. When I'm out or at work I always carry glucose tablets with me.

I don't like honey. Somebody once told me it's good for putting on exzema but it just made me itch like hell.

I would never use artificial sweeteners for cooking or baking. I hate the taste and I think they are the work of the devil!

As the saying goes...'Everything in moderation.'

[snohare]

I seem to have developed a bit of an addiction to apples instead, not sure if that's a bad thing or not

Nah, that's okay. Not least because it gives you lots of fibre with the fructose - exactly the way - the only way - we have evolved to cope with fructose. (The reason you can't eat a lot of unprocessed fruit is that it is naturally limiting because of this.) Fruit tends also to encourage helpful bacteria in the gut, which dampen down nasty inflammatory processes.

As the saying goes...'Everything in moderation.'

Quite, but how much arsenic, for example, is a moderate amount ? Dosage is all, but as Robert Lustig shows comprehensively on YouTube's "Sugar: The Bitter Truth", we as a society have seriously underestimated the hazards associated with fructose. End result is billions spent on avoidable healthcare problems, and the NHS verging on bankruptcy; but Nabisco always makes a profit.

As far as artificial sweeteners are concerned, I'm totally in agreement Donna, some at least are endocrine disruptors...the ingestion of which by previous generations, might have caused you to have a malfunctioning pancreas.

I used to think it wasn't that important, but my God, it is amazing how much better my Crohn's Disease has become since I started to avoid sugar. Anything beyond a certain small amount in my diet, I will be ill.

[mothhawk]

Yeh!!!.....I just had to go and check didn't I??????
.....standard hot chocolate with no cream = around 21g sugar
( 1 tablespoon=14g sugar)

21 grams! That's SIX teaspoons!!

[mothhawk]

I don't have sugar in tea or coffee and can still do short tempered and irate to perfection ......so with respect the don't prove owt.....

So you don't use canned food at all, don't buy biscuits, crackers, bottled sauces, pickles, ketchups, cereal (porage and weetabix excluded), you don't buy pizza, lasagne, fish in batter/breadcrumbs, in fact any processed food, including meats - bacon sausage, ham, cooked chicken/turkey/beef, flavoured yoghurts? And you don't eat chocolate or caaaaake?

Join the club!

[veggiechicken]

I don't have sugar (or milk) in coffee and I don't drink tea or fizzy drinks, nor do I eat meat products or flavoured yogurts - but I get very irate if I can't have chocolate or wine. What does that prove?

[binley100]

I buy and eat very little processed food , no biscuits, crisps ,fizzy drinks etc.....wouldn't give a thankyou for pizza. I tend to compare labels before I buy and make my own cakes, bread etc cutting down on sugar and salt as much as possible ...Even use pureed prunes in baking to replace fat . I do like the odd glass of red tho'

[Hilary B]

If sugar is bad, why do all 'reduced sugar' products have enough artificial sweetener added to make food just as sweet? Why can't they make a 'less sweet' version of fizzy drinks, or squash for diluting? I'd prefer that anyway. My favourite fizzy drink is apple-juice spritzer (half apple juice, half fizzy water).
I can't stand artificial sweeteners (currently managing Stevia, which is a herbal extract, but really need to stop using that as well) but when it comes to coffee, if it isn't sweet I'm not going to bother with it at all. Tea I can drink without sweetening, but I don't really enjoy it and would as soon have something else (fruit-juice usually).

Soon be Lent, I give up alcohol, tea, coffee and 'eating chocolate' (I do allow myself the occasional drinking chocolate) for nearly 6 weeks. It's a good exercise in discipline, and I enjoy these things so much more afterwards!

[piskieinboots]

... but I get very irate if I can't have chocolate or wine. What does that prove?

That you are human

[veggiechicken]

That you are human

What a relief! Thank you. Think I'll celebrate with a bar of chocolate - keeping the wine for later. Cheers!!

[Potstubsdustbins]

I have to post a retraction SWMBO does NOT get irate and is NOT short tempered.

The lumps will be gone by Monday and there will be very little scarring.

Colin

[snohare]

The lumps will be gone by Monday

One lump or two ?