Nexus - 0701 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

Foods, General Mills, Nestlé Co., Pet Milk Co. and Sunshine A very inexpensive way to kill yourself. Biscuits—about 45 such companies in all. "Of course, we don't live on any such unbalanced diet," they Perhaps the most significant thing about McCollum's 1957 his- admitted later. "But that figure serves to point out how inexpen- tory was what he left out: a monumental earlier work described sive sugar is as an energy-building food. What was once a luxury by an eminent Harvard professor as "one of those epochal pieces only a privileged few could enjoy is now a food for the poorest of of research which makes every other investigator desirous of people." kicking himself because he never thought of doing the same Later, the sugar pushers advertised that sugar was chemically thing". In the 1930s, a research dentist from Cleveland, Ohio, Dr _ pure, topping Ivory soap in that department, being 99.9 per cent Weston A. Price, travelled all over the world—from the lands of _ pure against Ivory's vaunted 99.44 per cent. "No food of our the Eskimos to the South Sea Islands, from Africa to New everyday diet is purer," we were assured. Zealand. His Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A What was meant by purity, besides the unarguable fact that all Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects ,° vitamins, minerals, salts, fibres and proteins had been removed in which is illustrated with hundreds of photographs, was first pub- the refining process? Well, the sugar pushers came up with a new lished in 1939. slant on purity. Dr Price took the whole world as his laboratory. His devastat- "You don't have to sort it like beans, wash it like rice. Every ing conclusion, recorded in horrifying detail in area after area, grain is like every other. No waste attends its use. No useless was simple. People who live under so-called backward primitive bones like in meat, no grounds like coffee." conditions had excellent teeth and wonderful general health. "Pure" is a favourite adjective of the sugar pushers because it They ate natural, unrefined food from their own locale. As soon means one thing to the chemists and another thing to the ordinary as refined, sugared foods were import- mortals. When honey is labelled pure, ed as a result of contact with "civilisa- this means that it is in its natural state tion", physical degeneration began in a It has been proved, however, that (stolen directly from the bees who way that was definitely observable (1) sugar is a major factor in dental made it), with no adulteration with within a single generation. sucrose to stretch it and no harmful Any credibility the sugar pushers decay; (2) sugar ina person's diet chemical residues which may have have is based on our ignorance of does cause overweight; (3) removal been sprayed on the flowers. It does works like that of Dr Price. Sugar of sugar from diets has cured not mean that the honey is free from manufacturers keep trying, hoping and : 4 4 minerals like iodine, iron, calcium, contributing generous research grants symptoms of crippling, worldwide phosphorus or multiple vitamins. So to colleges and universities; but the diseases such as diabetes, cancer effective is the purification process research laboratories never come up and heart illnesses. which sugar cane and beets undergo in with anything solid the manufacturers the refineries that sugar ends up as can use. Invariably, the research chemically pure as the morphine or the results are bad news. heroin a chemist has on the laboratory "Let us go to the ignorant savage, consider his way of eating shelves. What nutritional virtue this abstract chemical purity rep- and be wise," Harvard professor Ernest Hooten said in Apes, Men, resents, the sugar pushers never tell us. and Morons.’ "Let us cease pretending that toothbrushes and Beginning with World War I, the sugar pushers coated their toothpaste are any more important than shoe brushes and shoe propaganda with a preparedness pitch. "Dietitians have known polish. It is store food that has given us store teeth." the high food value of sugar for a long time," said an industry When the researchers bite the hands that feed them, and the tract of the 1920s. "But it took World War I to bring this home. news gets out, it's embarrassing all around. In 1958, Time maga- The energy-building power of sugar reaches the muscles in min- zine reported that a Harvard biochemist and his assistants had utes and it was of value to soldiers as a ration given them just worked with myriads of mice for more than ten years, bankrolled before an attack was launched." The sugar pushers have been by the Sugar Research Foundation, Inc. to the tune of $57,000, to harping on the energy-building power of sucrose for years find out how sugar causes dental cavities and how to prevent this. because it contains nothing else. Caloric energy and habit-form- It took them ten years to discover that there was no way to pre- ing taste: that's what sucrose has, and nothing else. vent sugar causing dental decay. When the researchers reported All other foods contain energy plus. All foods contain some their findings in the Dental Association Journal, their source of _ nutrients in the way of proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins or miner- money dried up. The Sugar Research Foundation withdrew its als, or all of these. Sucrose contains caloric energy, period. support. The "quick" energy claim the sugar pushers talk about, which The more that the scientists disappointed them, the more the drives reluctant doughboys over the top and drives children up the sugar pushers had to rely on the ad men. wall, is based on the fact that refined sucrose is not digested in the mouth or the stomach but passes directly to the lower intestines SUCROSE: "PURE" ENERGY AT A PRICE and thence to the bloodstream. The extra speed with which When calories became the big thing in the 1920s, and every- sucrose enters the bloodstream does more harm than good. body was learning to count them, the sugar pushers turned up with Much of the public confusion about refined sugar is compound- anew pitch. They boasted there were 2,500 calories in a pound of ed by language. Sugars are classified by chemists as "carbohy- sugar. A little over a quarter-pound of sugar would produce 20 _— drates". This manufactured word means "a substance containing per cent of the total daily quota. carbon with oxygen and hydrogen". If chemists want to use these "If you could buy all your food energy as cheaply as you buy hermetic terms in their laboratories when they talk to one another, calories in sugar," they told us, "your board bill for the year would fine. The use of the word "carbohydrate" outside the laboratory— be very low. If sugar were seven cents a pound, it would cost less especially in food labelling and advertising lingo—to describe than $35 for a whole year." both natural, complete cereal grains (which have been a principal SUCROSE: "PURE" ENERGY AT A PRICE When calories became the big thing in the 1920s, and every- body was learning to count them, the sugar pushers turned up with anew pitch. They boasted there were 2,500 calories in a pound of sugar. A little over a quarter-pound of sugar would produce 20 per cent of the total daily quota. "If you could buy all your food energy as cheaply as you buy calories in sugar," they told us, "your board bill for the year would be very low. If sugar were seven cents a pound, it would cost less than $35 for a whole year." NEXUS 21 DECEMBER 1999 — JANUARY 2000