John_Yudkin_-_Pure_White_and_Deadly_revised_1986_OCR

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Who eats sugar, and how much? 8 Who eats sugar, and how much? People look at me quite incredulously when I tell them that there are now many parts of the world where the average person - man, woman and child - is eating more than 100 pounds of sugar a year - two pounds or more a week. But though this is true today, it has only rather recently become so and it still isn't true for all countries. In this chapter I want to tell you how sugar consumption has been changing, how much is being eaten in different coun, tries and by people of different ages, and how much of western man's consumption is ingested by way of different sorts of manufactured foods and drinks, along with the sugar to which people help themselves from the bowl at the table. Before going any further, I should emphasize that in this book I am talking about the sugar (sucrose) produced from the cane and beet. This is technically called centrifugal sugar. I am excluding sucrose produced from other sources such as the maple and the palm; the amounts are negligible and come to only I per cent or so of the total. I am also excluding milk sugar (lactose), as well as the sucrose and other sugars one consumes in fruit and vegetables. The reason here is also chiefly quantitative; the amounts of centrifugal sugar are much greater than those of the sucrose from other sources. In one of our studies, we found that adults ate about half of their total carbohydrate as starch, 35 per cent as centrifugal sucrose, 7 per cent as lactose and the remaIDing 8 per cent or so as the mixed sugars in fruits and vegetables - mostly glucose, fructose and sucrose. In the year 1850 world production of sugar was about 1 liz million tons. Forty years later it was more than 5 million tons, and by the turn of the century it was more than I I million tons. Except for a setback during each of the two world wars, production has continued to rise rapidly, so that it reached 35 million tons by 1950 and is now more than 100 million tons. Over the past 100 years there has been a 25-fold increase in world sugar production; allowing 36 for the increase in world population, this represents an increase in average consumption from 7 pounds a year to 45 pounds. The most extensive statistics of sugar production and consumption were collected 25 years ago in a report produced for the Food and Agriculture Organization ofthe United Nations. Although this is now a little out of date, I shall quote some of its findings because they still demonstrate many interesting features that are not easy to discover from more recent statistics. World sugar production million tonnes 1800 0·25 1850 1·5 1880 3·8 181}O 5.2 ll}OO II 1950 35 1970 70 1982 101 During the 20 years from 1938 to 1958, there was an increase in world production of many commodities. Among food items, cocoa increased by 20 per cent, milk by about 30 per cent, meat and food grains up to 50 per cent, but sugar production outstripped all of these with its enormous increase: 100 per cent over the 20 years. Between 1900 and 1957, consumption of sugar increased from an average of I I pounds a year to 34 pounds; by now, as I said, it is about 45 pounds. But the increase has differed in different countries. It has been most rapid in the countries that until recently had a low consumption. Before the last war, Italy's yearly average was less than 20 pounds; by 1970 it was more than 60 pounds. Those countries that already had a high consumption have had a smaller increase or none at all; in the United Kingdom there was an increase from about 100 pounds to 120 pounds, while in the United States there has been no change from the previous 102 pounds or so. It looks as if there is a limit of somewhat over 100 pounds a head a year at which all countries stop increasing their intake. The wealthier countries gradually achieved this high level by a slow and fairly steady increase over perhaps 200 37
Pure, White and Deadly years; some of the poorer countries are now achieving it very much more rapidly. The best statistics for anyone country over a long period are those for the UK. Just over 200 years ago we used to take 4 or 5 pounds of sugar (about 2 kg) a year; by the middle of the nineteenth century, this had increased five-fold to about 25 pounds a year; we now take Pounds 100 Average Sugar Consumption in UK Kilograms 50 :f 1 1 40 II) 1 1 OJ '';:; 1 1 ::l 1 1 -" 0 1 1 (ij 1 30 > 0 1 E 1 ~ 1 1 1 20 :01 ~I :5:1 ~I 321 ~I "I ;:1 ~I 10 ~I -gl ... 1 01 ,~I ~I LJ..I (1)1 1900 1950 2000 about 100 pounds a year. Over the whole 200 years we have increased our consumption 25-fold. To put this another way, 200 or so years ago we used to spend a whole year getting through the amount of sugar we now get through in two weeks. The apparent fall in the consumption of centrifugal sugar in the UK after about 1970 is almost exactly equalled by an increased consumption, largely in manufactured foods, of glucose and of small quantities of the recently introduced High Fructose Syrup. Total consumption of all three forms of sugar has hardly changed in the past 20 years or more. Who eats sugar, and how much? There are also some figures for other countries or populations. In Switzerland, average intake has increased ten-fold in the last 100 years. Consumption amongst Canadian Eskimos increased much more rapidly; in one area, it rose from 26 pounds to 104 pounds a year between 1959 and 1967. The consumption amongst the rural Zulu population in South Africa increased ten-fold in eleven years, from six pounds a year to 60 pounds a year between 1953 and 1964. German sugar consumption (per head) (West Germany only from 1950) kg/year 1825 2 1850 1880 3 8 1914 18 1939 26 1960 30 1970 1980 34 36 We have been looking at the way sugar consumption has been going up especially during the last 200 years or so, and also at the way sugar consumption differs in different countries - generally high in wealthy countries and low in poor countries. I should like to say a little more about diets in rich and poor countries because, although not directly related to sugar consumption, they do have a bearing on this, and they also give us a better picture of the way diets are affected by income. Let us look at the diets in different countries according to their average national income, and calculate how many calories were supplied by these diets, how much protein, fat and carbohydrate, and how much of the carbohydrate was made up of sugar on the one hand and of other components - chiefly starch - on the other hand. As you pass from the poorest to the wealthiest group of countries, you find an increase of about 50 per cent in the average number of calories in the diet, from about 2,000 calories a day to about 3,000. Protein increases by about 80 per cent from 50 grams to 90 grams a day, and fat increases about four-fold from 35 grams to 140 grams. The total amount of carbohydrate is much the same irrespective of 39
Page 1 and 2: WHY DO PEOPLE EAT SO MUCH SUGAR? WH
Page 3 and 4: Also by John Yudkin THIS SLIMMING B
Page 5 and 6: Acknowledgements Introduction Much
Page 7 and 8: Pure, White and Deadly enormous amo
Page 9 and 10: Pure, White and Deadly protein food
Page 11 and 12: Pure, White and Deadly vation of ce
Page 13 and 14: Pure, White and Deadly nutritional
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Page 19 and 20: Pure, White and Deadly 909 pups bor
Page 21 and 22: Pure, White and Deadly genetic chan
Page 23: Pure, White and Deadly sically harm
Page 27 and 28: ,Pure, White and Dead~ cuits betwee
Page 29 and 30: Pure, White and Deadly inducted int
Page 31 and 32: Pure, White and Deadly and particul
Page 33 and 34: Pure, White and Deadly absolutely p
Page 35 and 36: Pure, White and Deadly out to be. S
Page 37 and 38: Pure, White and DeadbJ diet that te
Page 39 and 40: Pure, White and Deadly More recent
Page 41 and 42: Pure, White and Deadly the change i
Page 43 and 44: Pure, White and Deadly about nutrit
Page 45 and 46: Pure, White and Deadly polyunsatura
Page 47 and 48: Pure, White and Deadly have your he
Page 49 and 50: Pure, White and Deadly to by Keys,
Page 51 and 52: Pure, White and Deadly any country,
Page 53 and 54: Eat sugar and see what happens 14 E
Page 55 and 56: Pure, White and Deadly the walls of
Page 57 and 58: Pure, White and Deadly in fasting b
Page 59 and 60: Pure, White and Deadly is reason to
Page 61 and 62: Pure, White and Deadly this point i
Page 63 and 64: Pure, White and Deadly causes both
Page 65 and 66: - - -------------- A pain in the mi
Page 67 and 68: Pure, White and Deadly made the gas
Page 69 and 70: 17 A host of diseases I now want to
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Page 73 and 74: Pure, White and Deadly therefore be
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Pure, White and Deadly would be o.
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18 Does sugar accelerate the life p
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Pure, White and Deadly nearly 2 inc
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Pure, White and Deadly will, I hope
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Pure, White and Deadly because peop
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Pure, White and Deadly some way cau
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Pure, White and Deadly implies that
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Attack is the best defence 21 Attac
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Pure, White and Deadly not agree. w
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Pure, White and Deadly The British
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Pure, White and Deadry and its role
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Pure, White and Deadly that the Ins
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Pure, White and Deadly that sugar i
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Pure, White and Deadly Chapter 6 Br
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Pure, White and Deadly Skin disease
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Index Index jaggery, 19 Kassen-Zahn
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