Notes on a sugar scandal

Eating food has been turned in an epidemic

2/3 of British adults are over weight and 1 in 4 are obese. Oficiilay categorsied as a dsiease.
It's happened so quickly.
On average people in Britain are 3 stone heavier than people used to be 50 years ago.
This increases the chances of a ost of related diseases.

A quarter of the population are doing battle with their weight.

We're not becoming lazier or greedier but food production is changing the way we are eating and our shape in the last 40 years
The fat we can't see is worrying. Changes in food have altered even those of us don't consider us over weight.
There is more fat in me than I might think. MRI scan reveals that fat is distributed inside the body.
4-5 litres of internal fat is in excess of the usual 2 litres of internal fat.
Thin outside can be misleading as to the fat on the inside. Invisible obesity. Fat deposits put a person at risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Not enough sleep and working logn hours are also contributors.

Fattening foods are available everywhere. The caveman in us has moved into the supermarket and tempted by all the delicious foods and the access to cheap foods.
We are being bombarded daily by the food industry to buy foods.
We are at battle with the war against food and losing the war against obesity.
In 40 years Britain has got fat - America in the 70's was dealing in political deals.
Torn apart by the Vietnamese war Nixon's America was in crisis. Prices were increasing. Nixon needed the support of housewives ad farmers.
He appointed Early Butt - Minister for agriculture in 1971

He was a shrewd academic and friend to the farmers.
Agriculture becomes a way of making a living - he said.
He had a vision to transform agriculture to mass procduction producing ccheap food on a massive scale.
Get big or get out was his motto
The death of the small holding and the birth of giant industrial farming
This mass farming was a lead in to obsesity.

George was taught about fence row to fence row farming. No land is ndproductive. Keep producing as much as possible.
It felt great at tht eim. It was the opportunity to prosper. The larger harvests became feed for the cheap beef pouring into supermarkets.
From 20 to 3000 acres George's farm grew - to grow more corn than ever had been grown before.
The more growin the more they sold - still though there was surplus.
But a new product was borne. Japanese scientists developed a product champoined by Butt. It changed everything
A process that turned corn into a cheap sweetener. A dubsitute for sugar called fructose. And farmers would become very rich.
It's gold in colour. Gold to the farmer.
The genius was the fortune was developed from the surplus - the waste to produce a brand new industrial sweetener. It transformed the American diet and ultimately it's waistline.
The number of calories went from 3200 in 1970's/late 80's to 3900. The cause of a great difficulty.

America's biggest football game and after Thanksgiving the biggest binge. IN one day US consumes 14000 tons of tortiall chips 4000 tons  guacamole, 1 1/4 billion chicken wings.
The great american meal fed on corn - bread made of corn wheat soda made with corn syprup.
The over production of corn in the 70's can be linked with the over consumption of food today.
Corn syrup spread into all processed foods.
It's greatest impact was being put into to soft drinkgs. The largest source of calories in the American diet.
Corn syrup replaced sugar - flowing into the blood sugar of America.

Cardello - director of coca cola - purchasing corn syrup.
It was an innovation at the time. Sugar costs were going up. Switching to corn syrup didn;t compromise the taste too much compared to the compelling econimic saving of corn syrup.
The taste equality was compromised for the high savings. There was not foresight of the obesity problem.
Centres for disease control didn;t strat mapping out obesity issues until 1985. The goal at the time was to mae the product ubiquitous. So all was god.
The savings caused a boom in profits and selling even more. Bigger bottles for the home. Large cups for fast food outlets.
The decisions were based on the increasing desires of the customers. Markters got more aggressive
350 cans a year to 600 per person. And America got fatter.
America's love affair with sweetened drinks grew.
Fructose is sweeter. But instead of less the soft rink companies used more. The sweeter they make it the more we buy.
Tha manufactureres deny there is an obesity problem due to soft drinks. Despite the evidence.
The evidence says that obesity is caused by peoploe consuming too many caloires and not getting enough exercise. Then there is a problem. There's a lot of work to establish causality. And nothing so far does that.
To demonise the soda companies - high fructose corn syrup loved the taste and the costs were low.
Serious consequnces though
1994 shows an increase in weight at the same time corn syrup use was spiralling out of control
Was corn syrup to blame?
Dr Schwarz studies the conversion of sugars inc corn syrup into fat.
Observing different effects on different parts of the body - he traced where in the body where the sugars are metabolised and converted into fat.
Ot was found that it contains one toxic chemical called fructose that is linked with fat.
It is in table sugar and fructose. Its in alost everything in anything sweet in the American diet and there's so much pf it it's almost poisonous. It s the quantity that makes it toxic.
Americans now eat 90 pounds of additive sugars per year.
Huge amounts of sugar going to the liver - has an impact on the body and disease
Total calorific intake is to blame according to the governmentes.

Fructose suppreses a vital hormone called lectin. It is the hormone that tells the brain you've had enouhg. But the suppression makes the brain think you are starving - leading to disease and addcition.
The sugar industry denies the claims that the ingredient can cause obesity.
Fructose is dricing obesity
In Britain we turned the same corner in the late 70's
Sugar was the ingredient in coca cola.
Advertising introducing snaking - sugary treats to eat at any time between meals.
Thios was frowed upon in the 70's but the food inudstry was working hard to change this image and rely less on hone cooking and found new times and places to eat.
The food industry6 moved food away from the home table and create a gap in the market.
They say they are just following a trend.
It's provied nutritious products that match the mew busy life styles.
The increase in snacking is something we continue not to focus on and it's a major deficiency. The food industry love it as it's a huge part of their profit.
It was the increase of sugar as well that occured. Lots of products weren't filling but nice.
A treat.
"Just enough"
The product was put into the moment.

Luxury desserts could be turned into frozen products. Millions then could buy it.
The tables were transformed - desserts were no loner for special occasions but now every day. processed foods arrived.
Mass production and frozen - no one knew what was in prepreared meals. Levels of salt and sugar consumption were rising
This was just the begininning
1974 - a new way of eating especially for children
McDonalds arrived.
Obesity statistics were really going up. We should have intervened earlier. But the data was very slow.

Britain were starting to put on weight. Noone knew why or evven cared.
Heart disease - what causes it sugar or fat?
Ansel Keyes claimed the answer to heart disease. Creating the conditions for obesity though.
K ration - 1200 calories in a compact box for soldiers in WW2 for sustenance during battle. It contained sugar products like chocolate beleiveing that sugar was energy. Keyes though fat alone caused heart disease.
1952 - Keyes took a sabatical and viewed the heart disease itself. He correlated the saturated fat diet as the culprit.
He spent the next 50 years attempting to prove himself right.
Fat was then widely accepted as the issue to fat and heart disease.
One loan voice contested him in 1972 - Pure white and deadly Yatkin. He though sugar was to blame for heart disease. But his views were ahead of their time.
Yatkins beleived that sugar was harmful and the exact opposite of Keyes view.
Yatkin pointed out the connection with fructose and this correlated with the biggest changes. He became an enemy with the sugar industry of course.
He thought they were subverting his ideas because it wasn't convenient to them.
His work was forgotten. Keyes won the battle.
Yatkins was discredited by numerous socities - as not enough data.
Sugar got off scot free. Greater amounts were consumed without any knowledge of the dangers.
Read Pure white and deadly. HIs discreditaiton was a bad service to him and society
His warnigns were ignored and we carried on eating. The industry developed more sweet foods to entice our already prepared appetites.
The focus now moves to the brain in studies to see how we react to sugar.

Observing the reaction in the brain to pictures and words of high sugar products - high calorie foods score highly.
One area in the brain the nucleus accumbens involved int he drive to reward and the frontal cortex which encosdes how rewardign food is.
It's a decding of obesity. Tastes and sounds of foods combine with our psychological make up. They integrate to whether we reach out to eat certain fods.
Seeing or smelling is woring on stimulating appetite.
The food industry wants to sell more food. The scientists want to beat obesity.
Food industry regulation - food is the most socially acceptable cue. It's everywhere.
Cue every moment when walking in the streets. The brain is constantly being activated byt the food cues everywhere.
Not even thinking about food but there are cues everywhere.
Hedonic response- highly pleasureable -momentary bliss. Highly hedonic food takes over the brain
Its often high in sugar, highly processed and so stimulating, it's over powering.

Dr Kessler suggesting thatt he pleasure for some is over powering. Not everyone but for some the brain is being hi-jacked. Recpetoirs are hard-wired to the emotonal core of the brain. The same circuits as in addiction. The industry denies that foods can cause people to be addicted.
Crabings may be different accoring to the food industry. There is a difference between liking and being addicted.
They didn't undertand the neuroscience but the food industy learnt what worked.

 Its not fair to tal about personal responsibility without considering corporate responsibility.
If right over eating is not down to greed. The food industry could have a crucial part in the epidemic.
The US Government had their own part in the 70's but they tried to fix it and made it worse.
George McGovern was set to change America's eating habits.
Dietary guidelines were developed- It went distrarously wrong.
Eating less fat, sugar and meat and salt. The food industry were incensed.
Recommendations caused a sugar lobbying to bury the evidence as false.
The sugar industry had to live with two myths - 1 that sugar was increasing in conusmption adn 2 that sugar was linked with obesity related deaths.
Their lobby worked. INstead reducing fat became the concession the food industry was prepared to make.
It was a pivotal moment. Hearings were held - resulting in fat being the problem and hit the entire industry - shelf after shelf of foods claiming be low fat and good for you.
A while new type of food was invented - low fat. It was a business opportunity - the problem was flavour though. Replicating the taste that fat made was the difficulty.
Fat tastes good ebcause it tends to stay in the mouth. Flavours dissolve into the fat so they reoccur.
Replacing fat needs a reformulating of the processing of foods.
It didn;t matter what you were putting in so long as reducing fat.
Fat was replaced with sugar.
If you put sugar in the taste is delightfult instead of like cardboard.
The lower fat potential was cancelled out by the increasing sugars in the processed foods.
People believed that you cold rink all the sugar products etc and wouldn';t get fat.
Sncakwells was a really succcesful product. Low fat so a snack people could eat.
An incredible launch and take off - when people ate the low fat products they belived you could eat boxes without any calorific effect. It became a stimuous to eat more
A tiumph for the prodect and dsitaster for the waistline.
If sugar is the cause then this was a disastrous thing to do.
Over the following 30 years the question of sugar as the problem was evident
Sugar was being questioned adn the sugar corporations were getting nervy.

The spotlight on sugar - powerful interests got together to defend it.
Some of the most powerful politicans ahd a crisis on their hands at the same time as the Iraq war.
The worlds health organisation wanted to change the use of sugar.
The sugar industry lobbyed and protested. They threatened the WHO to withdraw fudnign if they didn;t lighten up on their decision.
In Geneva the food industry showed how powerful they are.
BUt now the evience in indisputable and the industry are agreeing to take measures to reduce sugar in foods.
Food industry people are now cashing in on the now realised need to change from fats and sugars.
It's a dilemma for the food companies. Profits had been booming a the waistline also boomed.

The men who made us fat gave us sweeter food and two much of it.
Hidden calories - a disastrous legacy.
IN Briatin obesity costs the NHS over 4 billion pounds each year.
It is difficult to find moniosters who will agree about the obesity epidemic
The veidence shows it's not all the responsbility fo the inividual.

Notes on a sugar scandal

A class taste

Well what a day! All sorts of experiences to ponder and ask for guidance with ....
I always feel awkward and kind of clumsy when I meet with S. To me she seems so gracious and composed but also I think there is something held back. And then I become all sort of gushing and silly. I feel the child that's for sure when I'm with her and yet I'm old enough to be her mother.
And then whilst in the meeting I felt LARGE. Someone came over during our 5 minute break to remark on how tiny I am now. And E who I had met in my first weeks of being in FA also commented on how tiny I am. I felt the opposite. It's seems odd that I can have such an inaccurate sense of my physical self. When I've been LARGE I feel LARGE but don't see it fully until in a photograph or something. And now I'm slim once again I see LARGE, even in photographs. I was sitting in comparison yesterday.
As my sponsor was saying this morning I have this mental illness and a lot of it for me sits in self-hatred. I compare and despair as B says. And this insecurity and self-hatred means I operate in spiritual blindness. This is important to bring God into this today. God I need help to stay away from comparison with others.
I noticed that with some people I feel uneasy. It manifests in different ways. With N I feel that she is wary of me for some reason. She is almost over friendly and then distant both at the same time. I feel irritated by her for some reason. I' not sure what irritates me though. To stay out of my self-centredness I need to keep in mind her background and what might be going on for her. Of course I can project my ideas of what her issues might be onto her and that can make it worse. I know she had a relapse and returned having gained a lot of weight. When I've been bigger than other people who were once bigger than me I can have real jealousy and even hatred. It's of course hatred for myself really. So I wonder if I'm projecting that onto her. I have felt a difference in her from the friendly person I met. I have stopped calling her and she's stopped calling me. I will call her and say that I've noticed we speak less even though it was regularly anyway.
And with C I see a real defensiveness from her. She looks suspicious. I consider that her childhood in NI must have a real impact on relating with people and life  general. She can't be that old, she doesn't look that old but old enough to have had to live through some very difficult times. Probably even basic survival things. I was please that I was aware of my lack of desire to make contact with her - keep her at a distance because she is distant from me. So I said hello and reminded her who I was because I usually think no one will remember me. We chatted for a while and managed to establish a few things going on for her. She wants to return home and I learnt a little about her job, which she loves. I mentioned to B that I felt jealous of her. And when speaking to H this morning she said she often asks herself what it is she's jealous of in a person as it can be a realisation of things she wants to do. Some of my jealousy is often banal. I'm jealous that B might like C more than me. Or that others seem to like her despite my thinking of her as stand offish and suspicious. That;s when I think it would be important to step aside from my self and learn more about the person. And that's when I can bring to min that perhaps her environment has influenced the way she is. Maybe she's not suspicious at all but that's how it seems. She is very cautious about the people she has contact with. Now she is a little more familiar in the rooms perhaps she will be less threatened by other less frequent visitors. Maybe it's nothing like that at all. I would be interesting in knowing but I think that will take time. Interestingly for me the more someone is withdrawn or distant the more gushing I can be or completely ignore them.
With V i sensed a distance. However, by persevering and talking with her she has been more open. That's not my talking I hasten to add as she stated the other day how detached she realised she can be and is making a concerted effort to engage at a different level. I feel honoured that I am one of the person she has done that with this week.
So all these interactions - it's so fascinating. Then spending time with V. It was delightful that when I spoke with him on the phone and mentioned that I was visiting the Victoria Miro gallery to see the Grayson Perry tapestries, he asked if he could come along too. It was a really lovely afternoon. He is so at ease talking about all sorts of things. He was a little reluctant to talk about his family. He has decided to detach from them. His mother moved to Ghana a long time ago now. He is only in his mid 20's so he has had to fend for himself for a long time. He has no contact with his brothers. I wonder why? I had already felt as if I had pried too much as his entire demeanour altered when talking about these matters. So I backed off despite being intrigued to know more. i have to remind myself I'm not at work and also there is time to be light and breezy. So we were and there was much joviality between us.
I was really amazed at myself having taken us on the number 17 bus to Wharf Road, N1 but it was the N1C  bit that meant we were in the wrong place. Tra la la. We laughed but also I felt guilty and over remorseful. For goodness sake I made a mistake and it was a use of the internet that I didn't bother to check. Who would have thought there could be two Wharf Roads in London N1 even with the subtle difference that I didn't check. V was so gracious talking about the many times he's travelled about and got to a place without knowing where he was and to add to the problem no map either. But here we were generally in the right direction and with the wonder of an iPhone access to Maps app. It meant a little walk through to Angel and then a short bus trip. I enjoy travelling around London by bus, so much more interesting than by tube. Another short walk chatting about all sorts of things and presto! we arrived. Victoria Miro gallery, Wharf Road, Islington, London, N1. What a fantastic premises for a gallery. And Grayson Perry's tapestries were tremendous. Here are some rather poor photos as a taster ....

Unfortunately the photos of the Upper Class tapestries didn't come out clearly, well only two of them are really worth displaying. A real pity.

There are a number of things I'd like to know more about N.E.S.L - what does this stand for? It probably did say in the series. And the anchor appears in some way in each of the tapestries W.R.A.

It became clearer the ways in which the tapestries are influenced by the renaissance paintings as mentioned in the galleries description of the tapestries. As well of course as the inspiration Grayson has apparently taken from William Hogarth's The Rakes Progress. Which I have discovered is at the John Sloane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn Field. I of course now want to go there more urgently than ever. It's been something A and I have been discussing and G too.

Gosh there is so much detail it's difficult to even pin point some of the things I discussed yesterday whilst actually there. Something that was immediate to V was that the Upper Class seemed to be actually transversed with working class. He pointed out everything in the tapestry (and this is the one that I don't have an even half decent photo of) is what he knows to be working class. He said that it could be anywhere in London and then of course reading the scripture of the tapestry it became clear that he was right. The move through the classes is apparently an emulation of Tome Rakeford's journey into wealth, then loss then rebuilding of wealth and finally dying in despair and mental illness. Interesting. The funny thing is that the happiest tapestries were the working class ones. Despite all the buys-ness of them, they were bright and cheerful. The middle class tapestries appeared to be less jolly despite appearance and the upper class tapestries just seem spacious but empty space, not airy. The of course the last one showing hi dead in the gutter despite all his wealth. Gosh a very poignant tale. Is that how it is? Yes I guess for some there is that growth from nothing to enormous wealth and all the trappings but despair with it. The working classes maybe be clamouring for financial security but they are finding pleasure in more simple things. What happens to the thinkers though?

Well it's nearly AWOL time.

A way of life not absent without leave. It's funny really because it's quite the opposite from the absence, it's a real showing up for life. And yet every time I can think of it as absence.

I'm feeling hungry. I'm not sure if this is tiredness. or that I have so many things I need to do and don't want to do them - such as writing a bit more of the accreditation dissertation, tidying and cleaning, reading, walking LouLou. It's probably a complete mix of all of these things.

Oh and I want to call my dad too but have forgotten yet again to talk to anyone about this. I will call someone before I do it.

And then there was the texting with M this morning. I can seem to me that I get it very wrong with M so often. She tells me how she's feeling about things but with little compassion. Or maybe I receive it with little compassion. She is angry that I sent texts and emails asking how she is. She felt that the email was just another way of getting in and as if I'd ignored her text response. It seems to me as if she is confusing me with her mum. Would it be wrong to say such a thing. Well yes for the time being I think it is wrong to say such a thing. Instead I sent a string of words that were from my heart and also my hurt. I will include this text conversation in a separate Blog. Just for interest as it is important in working how to relate with people in the loving and caring way I desire to communicate. People matter to me and I want to convey that value in my actions and not just my words. As I have seen with Grayson Perry and with V and some other people.

I need to continue writing about this as it's important to get down I think.

So bye for now

Bliss

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