Sugar, Sugar

In 1969, a fictional musical group, The Archies, had a #1 hit: Sugar, Sugar (see below). According to new research, the title of their pop song should have been "Toxin, Toxin!"

We may look back on this week as the moment when public opinion finally turned against the idea that fat is what makes us ill and embraced the emerging science implicating sugar as the nation’s number one threat to good health.

In Sunday’s New York Time’s Magazine, science writer Gary Taubes makes the case that sugar–not fat–is the agent behind our most pressing health problems, including obesity and the various degenerative ailments associated with “metabolic syndrome,” including diabetes, hypertension and coronary artery disease. If true, this would overturn more than 30 years of ill-conceived nutrition and health policy in this country, recognizing what a growing number of medical researchers have already concluded: fat is not the problem. The reason for America’s shocking level of obesity and related health problems lies with our addiction to processed, carbohydrate-rich foods, starches, and especially sugar.

The implications for those of us primarily concerned with children’s health are clear: kids should not be drinking sodas or sugary flavored milks. They need to stop indulging in all kinds of snack foods and desserts that now play such a prominent role in children’s eating habits. School menus should be sugar-free–and that goes for chocolate milk, too...

It's hard to keep up with all this dietary information! At different times throughout my adult life, researchers have targeted cholesterol, fat, lack of fiber, high glycemic foods, salt and now sugar as the main culprit in a number of medical conditions. It's hard to know what a person can eat anymore. :-(