Sugar should be a “controlled substance”? Keep raving Mark Bittman!
“A strong statement by America’s doctor decrying this, and calling for control of what amounts to a controllable substance, might assure Regina Benjamin of a place in history equal to those of Burney, Terry and Koop.”
The Surgeon General’s job is to promote public health, advise the president and oversee the Commissioned Public Health Service. The PHS web site doesn’t talk much about what they do other than mentioned that they responded to Katrina and the Hatian earthquake. They had a picture of someone with lot’s of fruit salad on the uniform. Sounds like a makework job and this person is doing just that. Time for position elimination?
“Science has been politicized,” said Richard Carmona. Ya think?
The scary part is what they call “the best science” is really the politicized junkscience.
This is the same Carmona, by the way, who made fame when he said that the obesity crisis will dwarf 9-11 or any other terrorist attempt in history.
So, according to Bittman, our current Surgeon General is hoping to ensure a place in history and her name remembered for making sugar a controlled substance. With a century of credible and sound science having shown sweeteners to be safe and not the cause of any chronic disease, she will instead be remembered as another example of why the country could do without Surgeon Generals.
100% of the crabs you eat are converted to sugar and ultimately glucose. Your body runs on glucose. If you have diabetes then you need to be careful what you eat and especially pure sugar. If you do not have diabtetes then you do not need to have that same concern. The important thing is to eat a balanced diet that provides all your MDRs.
“The data linking excess refined sugar in food (especially in sugar-sweetened beverages) and disease is strong, and no one outside of the industry or its sphere of influence disputes it. More data is being produced all the time, and we all hear about it from a variety of sources.”
“More data is being produced all the time” can only mean that they DON’T HAVE PROOF yet. Indeed, this is the Holy Grail the food police have been searching for for decades.
There is no such link.
Do an internet search for “sugar doesn’t cause diabetes.” You will get thousands of hits. Search for “sugar causes diabetes,” and you will get thousands more, but, except for the food police sites, will discuss the MYTH that “sugar causes diabetes.”
I have tried to post some examples, but this site’s server won’t let me. I don’t like to quote sites without links, so you’ll have to do your own searches.
You will see things like, “A common delusion is that sugar causes diabetes.”
The notion that sugar consumption causes disease is exactly on par with the notion that CO2 is a pollutant. Many want it to be, but that doesn’t make it so.