Gary "Big Fat Lie" Taubes wrote a long feature for the NYT Magazine analyzing the claims made by UCSF childhood obesity expert Robert H. Lustig in his infamous lecture Sugar: The Bitter Truth , which has gotten about a million YouTube views (it's also had other exposure: I watched it last year on UC cable access while in LA).
Lustig claims that sugar is a "chronic toxin" -- a poison that will make you sick if you eat it for long enough -- and he blames it for everything from cancer to heart disease. Taubes traces the history of this theory about sugar through the past century, and concludes that while not conclusive, the evidence is worrying. I've tried to eliminate sugar from my diet with varying success since 2003, when I did a year of "strict Atkins" and lost 80 lbs, most of which I've kept off since by avoiding processed carbs where possible. I find that eating a little sugar (or high-carb food like bread) generally leads to cravings for a lot more, which means that slight slips tend to snowball.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Is sugar a poison? - Boing Boing
Author: Cory Doctorow
