Oh Sugar Sugar (& fat & salt…)

There seems to be a lot more being written about the problems with sugar. Here are some of them:

Channel 4 – Dispatches – Are you addicted to Sugar?

BBC2 – Horizons – Sugar vs Fat

The Times – Why carbs are destroying your brain

I think there still needs to be a distinction between white refined sugar and the other natural sugars in whole fruit & veg plus grains like oats.  Otherwise people are going to get confused!

Just click here to read my past blogs about sugar…

But it’s that combination of fats with sugar which is irresistible to us!  Just think of hot buttered toast with jam!

This is not a new revelation!  There have been a few articles, books and documentaries over the past few years about how the major food companies are purposefully manipulating foods to make them so appealing to us.

While most people understand that eating too much processed food is inherently unhealthy, what is less known is how such foods are purposely engineered to be addictive. The New York Times posted an article last year, adapted from the book ‘Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us’, which goes into detail about how scientists and marketers in the employ of food giants such as Cadbury Schweppes, Coke and Kraft have manipulated the consumer into buying more and more processed food by adjusting both the recipes and the messaging around the foods found on the supermarket shelves.

As outlined by the NY Times article, food scientists search for what is called the “Bliss Point,” that balance of ingredients, packaging, and experience that make certain products all but irresistible. By manipulating the ratio of salt, fat and sugar in a product, as well as fiddling with product presentation and “mouth feel,” food scientists can fool the brain into wanting more even when a sufficient number of calories have been consumed.

It’s all a dangerous mix for us mere mortals!  So please try to be strong and resist buying those pre-prepared foods as they’re deliberately devised to suck us in!

Oh sugar, sugar (& fat & salt),

You’ve got me wanting you…