Great Wealth Poor Health by Farrell David;

Author:Farrell, David;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nottingham University Press
Published: 2010-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

SUGAR

Sugar is arguably the most seductive and lethal component of foods and probably the most addictive.54 It is often clumped under the general heading of ‘refined carbohydrates’ and seen to be an unhealthy food, particularly in young children, who are predisposed to developing sweet tastes from a very early age.55 The culprit is not only raw sugar, but sugar which is added to foods.

Dr Atkins56 (p.24), surely one of the authorities on dietary carbohydrates even if you don’t subscribe to the Atkins Diet, was so much against sugar and its involvement in obesity and diabetes, that he labelled it ‘a metabolic poison’.

The sugar industry, at every level, is highly controversial. The constant lobbying, and often whingeing, by the Australian sugar industry resulted in a recent levy charged to the consumer to subsidise the cane grower by 2¢/kg and to underwrite a $444 million rescue package over four years to a then struggling, highly inefficient industry, comprising of thousands of small farms. Despite a recent steep increase in the world market price of sugar (US$0.30/pound), the Australian industry is fighting to hold on to an estimated unspent amount of almost $100 million of the subsidy.59

Trevor Douglas,57 in his book on longevity, goes even further: ‘So sugar is not just one of the most addictive food substances but it is also one of the most destructive with regards to our health, well-being, and longevity’.

Warren Truss, the then Minister of Federal Agriculture and Fisheries, stated in 2005, ‘Basically the sugar industry is an industry that wants progress without any change’.

‘Sugar is the colossus in the world of bad carbohydrates. It should have a health warning on the packet, just like cigarettes …’ Michel Montignac58

Of the 5.3 million tonnes of sugar produced in Australia in 2004/5, four million tonnes were exported and the rest consumed domestically. This equates to 56 kg/head, although the official figure given was 46 kg/head in 2003/4.

FAO estimated that, in Australia, sugar contributes 10-15% to our daily energy intake. The distribution is of course not equal across the population. In the US, sugar accounted for 20% of teenagers’ daily energy intake and 16% of that of the average American.59 A recent survey found that in Australia about half of 16 to 18-year-olds consumed almost a litre of soft drink each day.60

Those of us with long memories may recall that sugar was so cheap in the early 1970s that the industry was seeking alternative uses. Bob Beeton, then a student at the University of New England and now on staff at the University of Queensland, each day trudged on foot all the way down to Laureldale farm to feed his laying hens their high sugar-based diet and tally the eggs that they had laid on the previous day. The end result was that production was no different from that on a conventional, grain-based, layer diet although Bob told me recently that the hens did scour a little.

Almost all sugar in Australia is processed from sugar cane. In many parts of the world it is extracted from sugar beet.

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