Before anyone accuses me of being in the pay of the sugar lobby (as effectively happened to Nottingham University’s Professor Ian Macdonald, a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN), in the appallingly biased Channel 4 Dispatches TV programme last month), yes, we are probably eating to much sugar. But we are also eating too many other calorie-dense foods.
Binge on ‘dietary foods’
Despite the growth of front-of-pack nutrition labelling, some people will always eat too much sugar-rich food, while others will binge on ‘dietary foods’. Neither is meant to happen.
I’d suggest we are predisposed to like sweet things. They give us pleasure and, historically, have helped us avoid foods that are poisonous and often taste bitter. But sugar is not addictive! That’s just bad science and cheap headlines.
British Nutrition Foundation
If consumers ever needed good nutritional science to help them navigate the maze of conflicting (and often dubious) information they are bombarded with, it is now. As Professor Judy Buttriss, director general of the British Nutrition Foundation, points out in this month’s Food Ingredients Health and Nutrition, a supplement within Food Manufacture, the average intake of fibre another carbohydrate is too low!
And the fact that academics (of all persuasions) receive some of their funding from industry as well as many others sources to fund research is not news. Provided there is independence, openness and good governance, it's not an issue.
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