There’s a scene in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” where !!!SPOILER ALERT!!!! Indy is in the cave with the knight surrounded by chalices and one is the famed Holy Grail that Jesus drank from at the Last Supper. Before Indy can explain to the knight what is happening,  the bad guy with his cohort comes in and starts trying to figure out which cup is the Holy Grail to take back to the Third Reich. When the baddie complains there are too many choices, the knight warns him:

“You must choose. But choose wisely, for as the true Grail will bring you life, a false one will take it from you.”

The bad guy was overwhelmed by all the different choices and he lets the expert “Elsa” choose for him. She hands him the biggest, most majestic, golden goblet out of the whole room.  He is ecstatic. Of course the most beautiful vessel must be the one that the “King of Kings” drank from.  So, he takes a drink from it and…

That scene pretty much sums up in my mind how we all got into this “sugar in everything” mess we find ourselves in right now. When the US was trying to find a path to a better, healthier, longer life – we choose poorly.

There’s a lot that goes into why we are consuming loads more sugar than we have before in history but if there was a flash point – that would be the 1977 McGovern Report or the first Dietary Guidelines for Americans (the people who put out the food pyramid).

To make a really long and complicated story short:

A congressional group was created to help the hunger/malnutrition issue some of the states were having back in the early/mid 60’s. What they wanted to figure out was what people needed to survive and thrive food wise. The plan was to then take these findings and use it to supplement the food assistance program. In essence, food that fell within this “healthy” guideline would be provided for people who could not afford food by the government.

Over the years as this committee did its “research” and politics started to play a part, people started to worry less about hunger and malnutrition (not a political hot topic) and more about  people dying from heart disease. This makes since from a politician’s point of view cause they can’t vote for you if they’re dead.

 

As this committee was going through their “discovery” period, the group started focusing on the highly popular (but extremely flawed) findings of Ancel Keys.

Keys published a study in 1970 called the “Seven Countries Study” which “showed” a collation between fat consumption and heart disease. His conclusion was that the more fat you ate, the more likely you were going to have heart disease. And right up there at the top of this study was the USA with the highest fat consumption and heart disease out of these seven counties. The study’s recommendation was to cut fat from your diet and eat more lean protein.

The media ate this up, the US government ate this up and the public ate this up as well. Everybody was touting about how a low fat diet can save you and your waistline. Never mind the fact that many of his peers argued with his findings especially since he started out with 22 countries originally in his study but when countries didn’t fit into his narrative (eating high amounts of fats but having low heart disease rates) he cut them out of the findings. Those nay sayers were pretty much drowned out because OHMYGODDEATHFATS!

Then in January 1977, Sen. George McGovern and his committee released the 1977 Dietary Guidelines for the United States that reinforced this “fat is bad” mantra. To give it credit, it did state that people needed to watch sugar intake as well but it was the fat everyone latched on to that was the villain in this story. If you think about it,that makes sense. “Fat” in our society brings up negative thoughts of the grotesque, bad, gluttonous, sloth, repulsive where as “sugar” is sweet, light, celebratory, the energy of life.

With the public’s growing want of low fat foods, the food industry responded by giving us what we wanted – good tasting, cheap, low fat foods. If you take out fat, you need to replace it so the food doesn’t taste like cardboard. That’s when sugar came in big time to the western diet. It was creeping up before due to technology & industry but the 1977 Guidelines open the floodgates.

Not only has there been a flood of “low fat/high sugar” foods over the past 40 years but countless diets, nutritional guidelines and the overall truthiness that if you eat a low fat diet and added some exercise, you can stay healthy and happy…

How has that worked out for us?

I’m not demonizing Keys, the McGovern Report, the food or sugar industry for that matter. They were all doing what they believed what was correct at the time. It just seems like there was/is a problem, we didn’t/don’t know what was/is causing it, we needed/need a solution and we wanted/want to validate our preconceived notions of what is “healthy” and “good”.

Is sugar bad for you? In my particular case, it is turning out to be that way. Or at least, it is not the benign substance as we have been brought up to believe. By correcting what has been considered a “healthy” diet for the past 40 years (high carb/low fat) and  going more “sugar free” in stead of “fat-free”, the positive results I have had in just three months is leading me to this conclusion.

Will going sugar free bring you the same or more positive results? I don’t know. As always, your mileage may differ.