Strewth! Sugar!

 

 

 

 

While medical industry and heart charities around the world have had their eyes fixed on fat as the main culprit in the decline in metabolic health status, the sugar industry and it's barking dogs, the soft drink, confectionery, biscuit, cake and breakfast food manufacturers of the world have sneaked through on the inside to claim first place in the poor metabolic health and the fattening-up stakes.

 

Right now it’s sugar that’s increasingly being fixed in the cross hairs of a range of health groups.

 

When I first wrote this piece, Michael Bloomberg, as Mayor of New York was trying to institute a ban on large soda drinks because of the high sugar content. You can guess how well that went down with overweight Yanks.

 

In Australia there are groups that want to place a tax on highly sugared foods, including drinks. But I doubt that will have much of an impact, such is the addiction to sugar in our culture.

 

Right now, based on the mark-up of sugared drinks you could almost say there’s already a tax on them. When petrol is costing around $1.45 a litre, a litre of the world's most popular cola drink at my local supermarket costs $2.07 or (on a good day) $1.43 if bought in a 2 litre bottle and $1.78 if bought in a slab of 24 cans. Maybe if it was available at the bowser and you bought it in 50 litre containers it would cost a lot less. There could be a business opportunity here for someone!

 

It’s obvious that price isn’t stopping people from buying sugar mixed with caramel, caffeine, phosphoric acid, coca leaf, kola nut extract, lime extract, flavoring mixture, vanilla and glycerin, nutmeg, cinnamon, orange, lime and lemon.

 

The same litre of cola drink purchased from a service station in a 375ml can costs $7.47. The service stations are clawing back the 4 cents a litre discount in a couple of swallows.

 

So how much sugar are people buying when they purchase a bottle of cola?

 

A litre of the popular brown, carbonated syrup contains 106gms, or 25 teaspoons of sugar. The number of kilojoules is 1800, which when you consider you only need about 7,000Kj a day is a high percentage of daily energy intake from sugar. No wonder people are becoming fatter.

 

But it’s not just the energy impact, that’s bad enough, it’s the effect the drink has on metabolic function, particularly pancreatic function - the end result of which is diabetes. Excessive consumption causes a fall in blood potassium levels, bringing with it an adverse impact on muscle function.

 

And as for the magnitude of the cola addiction problem, my internet search of cola consumption in litres per person, world wide, came up with the following (2008) statistics:

 

 

USA 

97

  
 

Australia

77

  
 

Argentina

74

  
 

Spain

72

  
 

South Africa

60

  
 

Canada

56

  
 

Brasil

47

  
 

England

46

  

 

But it’s not just cola drinks, it’s all flavoured drinks; carbonated beverages in general and flavoured milk drinks and slurries. The fruit juices are also a problem, they too have around 10% sugar and though it’s not added sugar, the effect is pretty much the same.

 

At the moment the beverage companies are running amok without thought to the impact their sugared beverages are having on the metabolic health of their customers. The private interests of the beverage companies are taking precedence over public health. The problem has become so large it’s now a public health problem and governments have to do something to regulate this industry. Like the tobacco and gambling industries, the food industry will not change its practices without kicking, screaming and legislation.

 

My recommendation is that in 10 years time the amount of added sugar in any manufactured beverage must be below 5%. The immediate standard should be a limit of less than 10% added sugar. Each year thereafter the limit will be set at .5% lower, the gradual decline in added sugar going unnoticed by drinkers - until they travel overseas when they’ll be repulsed by the taste of sickly sweet syrups.

 

The other recommendation is plain packaging and heath warnings, similar to cigarette packets, such is the damage to poor health for which these products are responsible.

 

That’s just beverages.

 

Wait until I get stuck into the breakfast food, biscuit and confectionery industries! It’s high time the license to manufacture garbohydrates (yep, that's a 'g' not a 'c') came with some restrictions, though I won’t be volunteering for the job of standing between chocoholics and confectionery counters.

 

The sugar limit for chocolate should be less than 20%: that would curb the eating habits of (milk) chocoholics - and the breakfast food (read breakfast biscuit) limit should be set at less than 5%. How dare these companies produce breakfast biscuit packets with 40% sugar in them.

 

Then there is the deliberate indoctrination of young children into the high sugar way of life. Cadbury's mini eggs contain 69% sugar. That is an abomination.

Cadbury image

  

In the meantime stay tuned, highly tuned and if you’re thirsty, take my mother’s advice and ‘Have a drink of water.' And if you're hungry, 'Eat and apple.'

 

Regards and best wishes

 

 

John Miller

Daily Health Break

 

 

Daily Health Break

Miller Health P/l

7 Salvado Place, Stirling

ACT 2611 Australia

61 2 62887703

 

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