me & her

But I LIKE Sugar!

Sigh.

I was all set to spend the evening playing Portal 2. I’m still going to get there, but not as soon as I had hoped, because John Gruber linked to this article earlier today:

Is Sugar Toxic?

Gruber says:

“It’s not often that a magazine article inspires me to change my life. This is one.”

Fine. Gruber is making a lifestyle change. I don’t really know if more than this one article went into it, because he doesn’t really go into any great detail, but I know the influence he wields, and I knew it was only a matter of time until tweets like this started to show up:

“That sugar article is scary. Want to make a change, but where do I start?”

I’d suggest starting with a little skepticism.

It amazes me that people will actively consider a drastic lifestyle change based solely on a plausible-sounding article. Maybe it’s my job, but I always, always, always wonder whether there’s a consensus, whether there’s a counterpoint, whether there’s any real science behind the science. And, of course, it’s just common sense to wonder how something like “sugar is a deadly toxin” flew under the radar for so long?

It took me five minutes to find this:

Sugar Isn’t Evil: A Rebuttal

The notion that sugar is evil and the only dietary consideration that matters is, in a word, humbug.

Why might that be?

We were born with a preference for sweet because that has fostered the survival of not only Homo sapiens, but mammals in general, for perhaps as long as there have been mammals. Breast milk — and I trust no one is foolhardy enough to suggest that breast milk is evil! — is a sugar-sweetened beverage.

Human breast milk is, in fact, as compared to the milk of many other mammals, an especially concentrated source of lactose, or milk sugar. It is sweeter than cow’s milk.

Most importantly:

If anything in our food is potentially addictive, it is sugar- in its various forms, and under its diverse aliases. This is where Lustig, Taubes, and I converge. An excess of sugar- fructose or any other- is harmful. That is what “excess” means. The dose makes the poison.

Therein lies the rub: Eating too much of anything is bad for you. Excess…is bad. With the right dose, water is poison. 

As dietary guidance, the vilification of one nutrient at a time has proven as flighty as hummingbirds, propelling us from one version of humbug to another. My advice is to grasp firmly your common sense, and stay grounded.

We’re always looking for an “aha” moment. “So that’s the problem! It was sugar all along!” Except when it was milk. Or when Atkins told us it was the carbs. (At which point you couldn’t go to a restaurant without being offered an Atkins-safe meal, but only if they licensed the Atkins brand.) Or when it was red meat. Or coffee and caffeine. Or eggs. Sodium? 

Eat a sensible amount of food. Balance your diet. Exercise more. Live life, though. Something’s going to kill you, and it’s probably something you haven’t even read a seven page article about.