Sugar tries to hush bad news

The music industry is a big fan of added sugar. Ranker lists 97 song titles containing the word: The Archies’ “Sugar, Sugar” comes in at No. 1; Beyonce’s “Sugar Mama” is the last on the list.

The sugar industry is equally enthusiastic about its product. There’s added sugar in around 68% of processed and packaged foods. Despite solid scientific info on how damaging added sugars are to your health — they contribute to diabetes, obesity, cardio woes, dementia, a lousy sex life, bodywide inflammation associated with arthritis, wrinkles and more — you still hear about supposedly science-based “reports” that push back against efforts to reduce added sugar consumption in our food chain.

Well, a new study reveals how Big Sugar manages to get these “research findings” into the news. Researchers looked at over 17,000 pages of recent emails between academics at U.S. universities and senior figures at an organization called the International Life Science Institute, or ILSI.

Available through Freedom of Information requests, the correspondence showed that this nonprofit, founded by a former Coca Cola vice president, is actually a tool for Big Sugar. As one email from ILSI leadership put it, the new U.S. guidelines bolstering child and adult education on limiting sugar intake are a “real disaster!”

So, until July 1, 2021, when mandates kick in to disclose added sugars on every nutrition label, be extra careful to avoid sugared-up foods. Def Leopard may sing “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” but don’t you do that to your beverages, snacks and meals.