Is sugar a harmful or beneficial food for our health? At the moment there seem to be no official guidelines valid all over the world that determine the quantities of sugar to be consumed without fear of consequences in the diet of people in good health.
Don't store avocado like this: it's dangerous
Lo XNUMX/XNUMX cup sugar it is a food harmful or beneficial to our health? At the moment there seem to be no official guidelines valid all over the world that determine the quantities of sugar to be consumed without fear of consequences in the diet of people in good health. From an investigation into the archives of the so-called "Big Sugar”, the big one American sugar industry, it emerged that in the past it was the manufacturing companies themselves who intervened for promote the harmless consumption of this food.
"Sugar is safe and healthy" is the message that has started to circulate in the United States and in the world since the 50s, leading to a consumption of this food that has even tripled over the last 50 years. At the same time, the scientific world has begun to investigate the possible correlations between sugar intake and the onset of welfare diseases, such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease.
A study reported by the scientific journal "Nature "in February 2012 bears an eloquent title: "Public health: The toxic truth about sugar". The full document however, it is not publicly available for reading, but it seems that it hides some data regarding the addiction that sugar would be able to create in those who consume it.
Gary Taubes and Cristin Kearns Couzens were involved in conducting an investigation into the spread of the belief that sugar is healthy and safe, an aspect that has involved in the past the Sugar Association, which would have been among those responsible of a campaign that has proved capable of change the way sugar has been and is perceived by the scientific community and the general public.
In the years leading up to that campaign, scientists had started suspect sugar and to correlate it with the onset of heart disease, diabetes and obesity. Doubts about sugar had caused a decrease in its consumption estimated by 12%. The moves would have taken place precisely from the decrease in the consumption of sugar marketing campaigns in support of its recovery by the large manufacturers of the same, which would have focused on the promotion of a product to be consumed without problems as healthy, safe, indeed beneficial.
It all began in 1942, with the drafting of a document entitled "A Suggested Program for the Cane and Beet Sugar Industries", which encouraged companies producing cane and beet sugar to create a joint research foundation to counteract the "ignorance" which was undermining the activity of the same, with particular reference to the opinion of the nutritionists of the time who expressed themselves contrary to sugar, and to the birth of the first campaigns aimed at showing how the consumption of sugar and sweets should have been avoided and limited in order not to go to meet a weight gain.
The document reads how a similar consequence of sugar intake should be presented as part of dishonest propaganda, as weight gain is not due to sugar, but to fat, carbohydrates and lack of exercise. According to the authors of the document, the major campaigns against sugar they would be conducted by nutritionists, government authorities, and rival companies.
Le sugar producing industries would thus have initiated acontrast action aimed at underlining the harmlessness of sugar intake and the importance of its nutritional intake, as well convincing to make it appear in the world as a whole harmless to health.
How to behave then? It is not up to us to answer, but to nutrition experts from all over the world, from whom it appears legitimate hope for an official pronouncement in this regard, that it may oppose what has been argued in the past and in the present by the sugar producing companies.
Marta Albè
Read also:
- what XNUMX/XNUMX cup sugar? As toxic and harmful as smoking and alcohol
- 5 commonly used refined ingredients that fit poisoning
- Natural sweeteners: 10 valid alternatives to XNUMX/XNUMX cup sugar White
- Stevia: grow and produce your own natural sweetener
- The "exotic" green alternatives to sweeteners XNUMX/XNUMX cup sugar White
