On-Demand Supplier Webinar
Application note
Strengthen tortillas during manufacturing with gum systems
TIC gums
Experts and indutstry have said calls to regulate sugar in a similar way to alcohol and cigarettes 'naive' and 'ineffective'.
Calls for increased taxation and tighter regulation of sugar, to bring it into line with alcohol and cigarettes, have been branded ineffective, flawed, and naive, by academic experts and industry in Europe.
The commentary in leading scientific journal Nature discusses the global burden of chronic disease related to sugar consumption, and suggests the need to regulate certain dietary items. The authors of the commentary draw particular parallels between the health effects of sugar and that of alcohol and tobacco – arguing that ‘toxic’ sugar should be regulated in a similar manner.
Led by Professor Robert Lustig from the University of California, San Francisco, the commentators advocate introducing a tax on processed foods with added sugar, limiting sales during school hours and placing age limits on purchase. In addition, Lustig comments that sugar is more dangerous to health than saturated fat and salt – which the commentary refers to as dietary “bogeymen”.
They wrote: “Evolutionarily, sugar was available to our ancestors as fruit for only a few months a year (at harvest time), or as honey, which was guarded by bees. But in recent years, sugar has been added to nearly all processed foods, limiting consumer choice. Nature made sugar hard to get; man made it easy.”
UK trade group the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) said "demonising" food was unhelpful when it came to health policy: “The causes of these diseases are multi-factorial and demonising food components does not help consumers to build a realistic approach to their diet,” said Barbara Gallani, director of food safety and science at the FDF.
Providing perspective on the Nature commentary for FoodNavigator, Professor Jack Winkler, formerly of the Nutrition Policy Unit at London Metropolitan University, said whilst it is “significant ... that Nature chooses to give a prominent place to such an article,” he argued that the article itself is “the standard stuff by medics who are naive about policy.”
Tighter regulation
Increased regulation and taxation on products containing sugars and other ingredients linked with declines in public health – such as salt and certain fats – have been proposed many times before, with some European countries and US states brining in so called ‘sin taxes’ in recent times.
In the last year legislators across Europe have began to put additional taxes on foods thought to be unhealthy in an effort to combat rising obesity levels.
Authorities in Denmark, Hungary, Finland, and France have already introduced a tax on such items, whilst Belgium, Ireland, Romania and Sweden are said to be actively considering a levy.
However many food and beverage firms oppose the taxes, arguing that it is unfair and stigmatises products.
The UK NHS choices service said whilst it is generally accepted that added sugar or excessive sugar consumption is bad for health, “to what extent sugar is directly to blame for the rise in chronic disease and how much is due to other dietary components, such as saturated fat and salt, is open to debate.”
Ineffective solution?
Professor Winkler told this publication that Lugstig and his colleagues “are recommending a policy that they know will be ineffective” – noting that the commentary is narrow in diagnosis of the problem and proposes sugar regulations that it later admits will not work.
“They are like so many before them, good – if narrow – on identifying a problem, but poor on ideas about how to solve it,” argued Winkler.
“Worse even. They make sugar taxation their number one policy recommendation, before admitting at the end that it would not work,” he said.
The retired professor of nutrition policy added that the second proposed policy – to restrict the sales of sugary foods and drinks in schools – will not work either.
“Schoolchildren will simply buy what they want from shops on their way to school or on the way home,” he said, citing research that shows independent food purchasing by children begins at around age nine.
Also speaking with FoodNavigator, Professor Andrew Renwick, University of Southampton, said the commentary in Nature “considerably overstates certain aspects” of the science “and is naive in others – especially in comparisons with alcohol.”
However the former scientific advisor for the International Sweetener Association added that he was uncertain whether sugars would receive regulatory approval in the modern day environment.
“If it were to be introduced as a new ingredient today I doubt whether it would receive regulatory approval,” he said.
“For a start, it would be impossible to perform the high-dose safety tests (at more than 100-fold the human intake) that are the basis for the approval of low-calorie sweeteners,” he argued.
4 comments (Comments are now closed)
Experts slam calls to regulate sugar
Of course trade groups and food producers are against regulation and demonising their products: it means less sales and less gains. So was and is "Big Tobacco" against regulation, even though it was known for a long time tobacco forms addiction and in the end kills.
This article by Kelly Brownell is a must read: http://www.yaleruddcenter.org/resources/upload/docs/what/industry/FoodTobacco.pdf
Now Prof. Jack Winkler says he knows it (regulation) does not work. How does he know that?
When searching a bit on the internet, one finds he has been speaking on events sponsored by PepsiCo. Makes you think.
It should be made common knowledge that too much sugar is bad for our health (hence, balanced diets are good). When do you get too much sugar? If your way of living burns less calories than what you eat. So eating less calories and moving more are what almost everybody should do.
For those who do not want to do that or cannot do that, having made sure (by regulation) that the food stuff you buy in the supermarkets and grocery stores does not contain too much sugar is the next best option.
Regulation is necessary when markets do not work, for whatever reason. They can be not transparent, people are not sufficiently educated to use and understand all product information available, product information is incomplete or incorrect, people do not care (you cannot regulate that...), etc.
Report abuse
Posted by Hubert Linders
21 February 2012 | 14h49
Focus on Education and knowledge of healthy food and healthy lifestyle
Yes, we have the freedom to choose our food and that we should keep this right and freedom in any way! But we need more knowledge and education that consumers choose and buy the right food which is healthy for the body and mind and keeps people healthy the whole life! The daily access to fruits and vegetables should be made much easier!
Report abuse
Posted by nutriconsult
21 February 2012 | 09h11
Toxic sugar - I need a fix!
That's a very long comment by Mira Carlton. To put my comment in a nutshell - it's all about balance; We need carbohydrates in our diet along with fats, proteins, fibre, minerals and other micronutrients. They are all essential. The key to eating healthily is that almost any food can be eaten safely if it is part of a balanced diet. If one craves for a tasty sweet snack such as chocolate it is harmless, indeed beneficial, if eaten as part of a balanced diet. Legislating to exclude or control consumption of any food group because of bias on the part of a few individuals is just wrong. I can just see the alternative manufacture of Bootleg Mars Bars now!!!
Report abuse
Posted by Mike Pusey
15 February 2012 | 11h51
Some think sugar should be regulated like tobacco and alcohol, but could education work better?
ontrol is the name of the game.
Whether in business, politics, or our personal lives, whoever is in control is in charge, you could say, they have the power. Most of the time, those in control create rules and regulations concerning whatever it is they have control over. Oh, and associated consequences or punishments for those who do not follow their rules and regulations.
When it comes to your health, you want to be in control…don’t you? Do you want to be told what you can eat and what you can’t? What you should weigh or how much you need to exercise? Now, we will be first to say that we have a health crisis here in America and that there is a lot that needs to be done to get Americans moving towards a healthy future, but is government regulation really the answer?
The Proposal.
So here is what is being proposed. In a comment article published on February 1, 2012 in Nature authors Robert H. Lustig, Laura A. Schmidt and Claire D. Brindis argue that “added sweeteners [like sugar and HFCS] pose dangers to health that justify controlling them like alcohol.” They go on to say sugar is just as “toxic” for people as alcohol and tobacco, so the government should step in to curb its consumption. In a CBS news piece the authors are quoted as saying “Sugar meets the same criteria for regulation as alcohol, because it’s unavoidable, there’s potential for abuse, it’s toxic and it negatively impacts society.” They continue by saying that, “Sugar is everywhere, and people eat up to 500 calories per day in added sugar alone, Sugar acts on the same areas of the brain as alcohol and tobacco to encourage subsequent intake, and it’s toxic because research shows that sugar increases disease risk form factors other than added calories, such as when it disrupts metabolism… That’s why it’s time that the government steps in and regulates sugar in ways similar to tobacco and alcohol.” That includes taxes, age restrictions and other policies to control the distribution of sugar. “There has to be some sort of societal intervention. We cannot do it on our own because sugar is addictive. Personal intervention is necessary, but not sufficient.”
According to CBS news HealthPop, Dr. Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University, agrees that it’s time for policy changes, since many Americans take in roughly 25 percent of their daily calorie intake through sugar. Nestle when on to tell CBS news that she thinks regulation could eventually be possible, since many local governments are already enacting policies to curb sugar in schools or tax sodas. “If you have enough of those, the federal government can step in.”
Today it is sugar, but what comes next?
Ok, so we now have a clear picture of what is being proposed, and we all know sugar is bad for us or at least we hope we all do. In Naked Calories we reveal sugar’s numerous anti-nutrient, micronutrient robbing traits that can eventually lead to obesity. However, while most of us can agree on sugars dastardly existence, we need to think long and hard before we hand our freedom of choice concerning our food over to the government – don’t we? In the article sited above,they are comparing sugar [a carbohydrate] to alcohol and tobacco, but alcohol and tobacco are not foods. Here is the worst case scenario, first they say sugar is bad, and while most of us would usually stand up and give this a standing ovation, what happens when a year or two from now, government says – well, we are already regulating sugar a [bad] form of carbohydrate so why don’t we regulate saturated fat a [bad] form (according to some) of fat, or casein, according to Dr. Campbell of The China Study and Forks over knives (and others), a [bad] form of protein?
People who are looking to gain control always start with the obvious win. Sugar is an easy win. Even we, right now, feel very strange arguing against sugar regulation, but it is not because we are pro-sugar, it is because we are pro-choice! We agree that their needs to be an effective advertising and education program as to the dangers of sugar, but we cannot let them micronize the situation. Sugar is only one of the culprits out there robbing us of our health. We need to think on a larger more realistic and sustainable scale if we are going to get America’s health back on track.
Regulation or education?
Many point to the taxation on tobacco in Canada and its positive effect on reducing tobacco consumption, but that taxation came with a very effective advertising and education program. Are we trying to say that somehow taxation overcame the addictive nature of cigarettes, or could the education program have caused Canadians to rethink their habit and make a conscience choice to stop causing them selves and others harm? Most importantly, and we cannot stress this enough – tobacco is not food! Some people say, wow, this is great, finally the government is going to do something about this problem by taxing and put restrictions on high sugar foods – it’s about time. Even though sugar is found in many foods these days, can’t we, with a little effort, avoid these foods on our own without government intervention?
Government regulation of tobacco and alcohol is one thing, but government regulation of our food is not even in the same universe! We think its time for all of us, to start to take responsibility and control of our own health. There are many strong and intelligent voices in the nutrition world today that can be our guides through this learning process. The dietary philosophy you choose to follow is a personal choice and it should be yours and yours alone to make. There is simply too much special interest in government to effectively regulate our food without bias.
Your health is in your hands…for now.
So here is our bottom line. Our ability to chose which foods we eat and which ones we don’t may be one of the most important freedoms we have left. That is because our ability to be healthy solely depends on our ability to derive our essential macro and micronutrients from our foods. While we do not think that there is any intention by the government to use this regulation in a detrimental way, and we agree that less sugar consumption could do nothing but good for our society, it does open the door to future policies concerning certain types of fats and proteins that may not be so clear cut. What if instead of sugar, this was a regulation of red meat, dietary supplements, or a regulation against raising your child as a vegan or strict vegetarian? While there are those who may find pros and cons on each side of these issues, we as American citizens still have the right to choose for ourselves where we fall on these issues and act as we see fit.
Plato wrote the following line in his work “The Republic,” around 380 BC “Quis custodiet ispos custodies,” which translates to “Who shall watch the watchers themselves?” Food is not cotton, it’s not tobacco, it’s not gold or any other unessential commodity, it is food! Its what nourishes us, keeps us alive, and is what is supposed to keep us healthy. We urge you to think twice before giving away your right to choose the food you eat. Remember, the day we give away control of our food will be marked in history as the last day we had control over our own health.
www.caltonnutrition.com
Report abuse
Posted by mira calton, CN & jayson calton Phd
07 February 2012 | 15h02
Read all comments (4)