“The human race had no sweet drinks until 1915”

A group of supposedly reputable researchers at UCSF have made headlines for demanding that sugar be regulated as a “toxin.”

 

Sugar and other sweeteners are, in fact, so toxic to the human body that they should be regulated as strictly as alcohol by governments worldwide, according to a commentary in the current issue of the journal Nature by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

The researchers propose regulations such as taxing all foods and drinks that include added sugar, banning sales in or near schools and placing age limits on purchases.

Although the commentary might seem straight out of the Journal of Ideas That Will Never Fly, the researchers cite numerous studies and statistics to make their case that added sugar — or, more specifically, sucrose, an even mix of glucose and fructose found in high-fructose corn syrup and in table sugar made from sugar cane and sugar beets — has been as detrimental to society as alcohol and tobacco.

Sour words about sugar

The background is well-known: In the United States, more than two-thirds of the population is overweight, and half of them are obese. About 80 percent of those who are obese will have diabetes or metabolic disorders and will have shortened lives, according to the UCSF authors of the commentary, led by Robert Lustig.

Lustig, a pediatrician, is an outspoken anti-sugar activist. And like many activists, he is not content merely to spout his opinions. He wants his opinions to be the law of the land:

Lustig, a medical doctor in UCSF’s Department of Pediatrics, compares added sugar to tobacco and alcohol (coincidentally made from sugar) in that it is addictive, toxic and has a negative impact on society, thus meeting established public health criteria for regulation. Lustig advocates a consumer tax on any product with added sugar.

Among Lustig’s more radical proposals are to ban the sale of sugary drinks to children under age 17 and to tighten zoning laws for the sale of sugary beverages and snacks around schools and in low-income areas plagued by obesity, analogous to alcoholism and alcohol regulation.

Economists, however, debate as to whether a consumer tax — such as a soda tax proposed in many U.S. states — is the most effective means of curbing sugar consumption.

I would suggest that it is not the business of “economists” to be debating the most effective means of curbing sugar consumption. They should be debating how to help our ailing economy and not how to control people’s lives with busybody behavioralist tactics.

If you think sugar is unhealthy, then by all means don’t buy or use it! Just don’t try to tell me what I can use or buy. I know I’m sounding like a broken record, but you’d think these people would have learned from Prohibition.

Anyway, the thinking of evangelists like Lustig always intrigues me, so I decided to check out some of his views, and I found some of them a bit startling.

From an interview posted right at the UCSF website:

Sweetened coffees or teas are no better than soda, as they still generate an insulin response, and they are sweetened with sucrose (which is half fructose, which is bad for your liver). My question to you is, why do you need sweet drinks at all? What’s wrong with water? The human race had no sweet drinks until 1915, when Coca-Cola went national. Until then, we had water and milk, and we did just fine, thank you. Juice was invented in the 1950s.

The human race had no sweet drinks until 1915? Really? Remember, this guy is billed as a scientist, and one of the world’s leading experts on sugar.

Never mind that sugar is an ancient substance. Refined sugar has been around since the Dark Ages (when Arabs set up the first refineries). Crusaders brought it back to Europe:

Crusaders brought sugar home with them to Europe after their campaigns in the Holy Land, where they encountered caravans carrying “sweet salt”. Early in the 12th century, Venice acquired some villages near Tyre and set up estates to produce sugar for export to Europe, where it supplemented honey as the only other available sweetener.^[13] Crusade chronicler William of Tyre, writing in the late 12th century, described sugar as “very necessary for the use and health of mankind”

What a shame that the Crusader chroniclers didn’t have Dr. Lustig around to tell them that before 1915, the human race had only water and milk! And since alcoholic beverages did not exist, temperance activists like Carrie Nation were battling imaginary phantoms or were way ahead of their time.

Obviously, Lustig doesn’t think that lemonade counts as a sweet drink:

In the 16th century Rabbi Yosef Karo, the author of the Shulchan Aruch, the code of Jewish law, mentions the use of sugar mixed with the juice of lemons and water by Jews in Cairo, Egypt to make lemonade on Sabbath. (Orech Chayim, Hilchot Shabbat)

Lemonade — made with real sugar — has been consumed in this country since at least the 1700s, and recipes abound — from a European cookbook in 1653 to Martha Washington’s cookbook:

[1653]
“How to make Lemonade
It is made several waies, according to the diversity of the ingredients. For to make it with Jasmin, you must take of it about two handfull, infuse it in two or three quarts of water the space of eight or ten houres; then to one quart of water you shall put six ounces of sugar. Those of orange flowers, of muscade roses, and of gelliflowers, are made after the same way. For to make that of lemon, take some lemons, cut them, and take out the juice, cut it into slices, put it among this juice, and some sugar proportionately. That of orange is made the same way.”
—The French Cook, Francoise Pierre, La Varenne, Englished by I.D.G. 1653, introduced by Philip and Mary Hyman [Southover Press:East Sussex] 2001 (p. 238-9)

[1769]
“Lemonade for the same use. To one quart of boiled water add the juice of six lemons, rub the rinds of the lemons with sugar to your own taste. When the water is near cold mix the juice and sugar with it, then bottle it for use.”
—The Experienced English Housekeeper, Elizabeth Raffald, (1769), with an introduction by Roy Shipperbottom [Southover Press:East Sussex] 1997 (p. 172)

[late 1700s]
“To Make Sirrup of Leamons. First cut your leamons in 2 & pick out ye [the] stones & prick them well with a knife, & ye Juice will come out ye better. Then wring them as long as you can get out any Juice, & to every pinte of it take a pound of sugar. Set them on ye fire together & make them boyle as fast as you can, to a thin sirrup, for If you boyle it too much, it will candy presently. It will require a great many leamons to make a pound.”
—Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery, transcribed by Karen Hess [Columbia University Press:New York] 1995 (p. 370-1)

Sugar, sugar, sugar! (I put the word in bold for evil emphasis, of course.)

What a pity that Dr. Lustig was not there to tell Martha how deluded she was about toxins, and what a terrible example she was setting as the nation’s first First Lady!

Do the parents of that small child with a corner lemonade stand realize that the substance being peddled is “addictive, toxic and has a negative impact on society”?

Anyway, as if the above wasn’t enough for me to conclude that this modern sugar warrior is dishonest with his facts, I found a History and Timeline of Soft Drinks:

1851 Ginger ale created in Ireland.

1861 The term “pop” first coined.

1874 The first ice-cream soda sold.

1876 Root beer mass produced for public sale.

1881 The first cola-flavored beverage introduced.

1885 Charles Aderton invented “Dr Pepper” in Waco, Texas.

1886 Dr. John S. Pemberton invented “Coca-Cola” in Atlanta, Georgia.

1892 William Painter invented the crown bottle cap.

1898 “Pepsi-Cola” is invented by Caleb Bradham.

1899 The first patent issued for a glass blowing machine, used to produce glass bottles.

Coca Cola dates back to 1886, and was first sold in bottles in 1894.

Sweet drinks in general, of course, are even more ancient than refined sugar. Honey was widely used in sweet drinks of all sorts, but I guess honey does not count as sugar. Oh, no:

Honey is a mixture of sugars and other compounds. With respect to carbohydrates, honey is mainly fructose (about 38.5%) and glucose (about 31.0%),^[1] making it similar to the synthetically produced inverted sugar syrup, which is approximately 48% fructose, 47% glucose, and 5% sucrose. Honey’s remaining carbohydrates include maltose, sucrose, and other complex carbohydrates.^[1] As with all nutritive sweeteners, honey is mostly sugars and contains only trace amounts of vitamins or minerals.^[28][29]

Which means that according to Dr. Lustig, honey has to be very dangerous as it is loaded with a very deadly toxin:

White sugar is sucrose, which is half glucose and half fructose (fruit sugar). Although glucose generates an insulin response (and therefore promotes deposition of energy into fat and weight gain right after a meal), fructose is the really bad actor. Fructose is like “alcohol without the buzz.” It poisons your liver, and makes it insulin resistant; therefore, your pancreas makes even more insulin to make the liver work properly. This forces energy into fat all the time. Maple syrup and honey are just glucose.

Huh? But Wiki says honey is 38.5% fructose. As to who is right (Wiki or Lustig) that’s above my pay grade.

But we know the Bible had to be lying about the land of milk and honey because all humans had before 1915 was milk and water! And if there was any such place, it should have been declared a toxic environment.

I realize I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m more afraid of the junk that goes into science than the junk that goes into food.

MORE: Sweet toxic nostalgia!