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N\()TJA STJGffiOLIC?
The nation cannotafford its health carebill and at last the crunch has come - there is a wsr against drugs, and public educationon the health dangersof cigarette smokingand alcoholare no longertoken. Yet theie is anotherpotential threat to health which is and the economicissues potiticatly evenmore sensitive A staplecommodity' more cloud.ed, Sugar. a marketer'sdelight . . . or a deadly sddiction? In this benchmarkstudy, William Vaydaexsminesthe disease. sugarconsumptionwith degenerative
People,for example, can quicklY develop a cravirlg for them, even become seriouslyaddicted,in spite of the fact that they serve no useful physiological function. Sugaraddiction is a very real possibility. Many animals, including humans, have a natural liking for sweet things and in the past could easily satisfy it by eating fruit and later, to a Iesser extent,honey. world Production In the mid 1800s, of sugarwas about one and a half million tons.Within 40 yearsit had risen to 6 million tons and by the turn of the century to more than 1l million tons. 70 By the mid 1970sit exceeded million tons! After allowing for the increasein world population. average 50 consumptionhas increased times. When we look at the increase in consumption of other common foods we find that the useofcocoawent up 20 per cent, that of milk around 30 Per cent and grains perhaPs50 Per cent during the same Period. When measuredagainstthe 500 per cent inContinued on next Page

ugar was once a rare sPiceand. fl all rare things, its use and \tile associl- tpossessionwere genet'all-vated with wealth. As late as the l8th century. European kings hired expert p a s t r y t c o o k so c r e a t e r a t h e r l a r g e t models of famous, often their own, castlesand ships out of spun sugar. These were prominently displayed to attest the splendourof each monarch. Sugarwas such a luxury that domestic sugarboxesused to be sold with lock and key. Sugaris different from other spices it however,because is a high sourceof calories. Sugar's first appeal to EuroPeans and rarity was preciselyits sweetness a and thus caused boom in slave-based sugar industries in the tropical corners of several empires. As availability inTogetherwith its creased, role changed. of breadand tea,it providedthe masses lgth century factory workers with a hot, tasty and filling soup. Unlike tea and other spiceshowever,the high calorie content of sugar eventually came to provide the Western world with around 20 percent oftheir total energy intake, without providing a single nutritional factor. There are many similarities between sugar, tobacco and alcohol.

glucose and -fructose, function of sugar,the dffirence between which links high evidence end the research

No. Austalian Ll'ellbeins 17,'86 85