How sugar became a substance of abuse

“We are in an era – almost unique in world history – when in the United States, and a certain few other favoured countries, there is more food available than people can eat. Each food industry has to get up and fight for its place in the limited human stomach… It is for these reasons that I am unhappy about advertising which implies that sugar is in some unique sense the cause of obesity.”

That era was the early fifties and the person talking at the eighth general meeting of the American Society of Sugar Beet Technologists, in Denver, Colorado, was 52-year-old Dr Henry Bohn Hass, a specialist in organic chemistry who would in 1969 be awarded the gold medal of the American Institute of Chemists.

Almost seven decades ago, as food industries fought for their “place in the limited human stomach”, it was (sort of) decided that the dietary villain would be fat, while sugar would emerge as a kinder fuel for the body thanks to ‘studies’ backed-by-the-then-newly-formed Sugar Research Foundation.

In this film, ‘For the love of sugar’, we explore how added sugar slowly but surely made its way into our food, what effects it has on the body, and why is it so addictive. DM/ ML

MORE ON FOOD JUSTICE...

The sugar tax is working. Now double it

Food advertising: Beware the puffery

The Oily Trinity: Big food, fast food and proximity