12/15/2023 0 Comments Conspire 7 little words![]() ![]() In 1983, the UK government issued advice that closely followed the American example. Doctors base their advice on them, food companies develop products to comply with them. The guidelines shaped the diets of hundreds of millions of people. ![]() In 1980, after long consultation with some of America’s most senior nutrition scientists, the US government issued its first Dietary Guidelines. On reading Yudkin’s introduction, he felt a shock of recognition. Eventually, he tracked down a copy after submitting a request to his university library. When Lustig returned to California, he searched for Pure, White and Deadly in bookstores and online, to no avail. Yudkin found himself fighting a rearguard action, and he was defeated. But by the time he wrote his book, the commanding heights of the field had been seized by proponents of the fat hypothesis. Yudkin led a diminishing band of dissenters who believed that sugar, not fat, was the more likely cause of maladies such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Its central tenet was that a healthy diet is a low-fat diet. When Yudkin was conducting his research into the effects of sugar, in the 1960s, a new nutritional orthodoxy was in the process of asserting itself. For at least the last three decades, the dietary arch-villain has been saturated fat. This represents a dramatic shift in priority. ![]() Sugar has become dietary enemy number one. In the UK, the chancellor George Osborne has announced a new tax on sugary drinks. In the US, the latest edition of the government’s official dietary guidelines includes a cap on sugar consumption. We read almost every week of new research into the deleterious effects of sugar on our bodies. But, unlike Yudkin, Lustig is backed by a prevailing wind. Lustig was certainly putting his academic reputation at risk when he embarked on a high-profile campaign against sugar. Perhaps the Australian scientist intended a friendly warning. He died, in 1995, a disappointed, largely forgotten man. Prominent nutritionists combined with the food industry to destroy his reputation, and his career never recovered. “If only a small fraction of what we know about the effects of sugar were to be revealed in relation to any other material used as a food additive,” wrote Yudkin, “that material would promptly be banned.” The book did well, but Yudkin paid a high price for it. ![]()
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