Marketing Lies: There Is No Such Thing As “Healthy Sugar”

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Posted By skustes On April 23, 2009

One of my favorite whipping posts is back in the media. I came across this article in the NY Times a few weeks ago and thought it was interesting: Sugar Is Back on Food Labels, This Time as a Selling Point ^[1]. (You’ll need a login to access the article.)

Sugar, the nutritional pariah that dentists and dietitians have long reviled, is enjoying a second act, dressed up as a natural, healthful ingredient.

Am I the only one that’s disturbed by this? We’ve managed to demonize high-fructose corn syrup so much that sugar looks downright wholesome…but we know that high-fructose corn syrup is only marginally worse than sugar ^[2].

‘Sugar was the old devil, and high-fructose corn syrup is the new devil,’ said Marcia Mogelonsky, a senior analyst at Mintel International, a market-research company.

It reminds me of how the Center for Science in the Public Interest demonized healthy saturated fats. In response, manufacturers created trans fats, which we all know are far worse than saturated fat. Later, we realized how bad these man-made fats are. Oops…

Why Do We Believe It?

Simple; we want to believe it. We want to believe that we can “have our cake and eat it too”. That is, we want to think that we can get that sweet sensation without destroying our bodies. Unfortunately, it’s not true. Along with trans fats, sugar is the worst thing you can put in your body.

While honey and agave nectar may seem like better choices (and they are), the reality is that it’s all still sugar. Even these “natural” sweeteners ^[3] aren’t good for you in abundance.

We have a hard-wired drive for sweetness. Imagine you live in an environment where every calorie must first be found and then dug up or killed. Concentrated sources of sugar are a rarity, signified by that wonderful sweet taste. But these sources are rare, so when your tongue senses sugar, the brain urges you to eat more of this calorically-dense food. We are not so well-served by this trait in a world where sugar is cheap and abundant.

At least the cupcakes are warning you about their dark side. Photo credit: Rockamandy ^[4]

How Else Does Sugar Kill You?

For starters, it makes you age faster ^[5] and well, there’s nothing more obviously associated with death than aging.

“Thanks to this study, the link between the rise in age-related diseases and the over-consumption of sugar in today’s diet is clearer. Our research opens a door to new therapeutic strategies for fighting age-related diseases,” says Professor Rokeach.

Sugar is highly addictive ^[6], just in case you were unaware of that. Recall that sugar could be more addictive than cocaine ^[7].

Hungry rats that binge on sugar provoke a surge of dopamine in their brains. After a month, the structure of the brains of these rats adapts to increased dopamine levels, showing fewer of a certain type of dopamine receptor than they used to have and more opioid receptors. These dopamine and opioid systems are involved in motivation and reward, systems that control wanting and liking something. Similar changes also are seen in the brains of rats on cocaine and heroin.

Anyone that’s tried to kick the sugar habit knows that it is hard to do. The brain knows what it wants…it wants the rush from that hit of the white stuff. Rest assured that food manufacturers are doing everything they can to work this addictive ingredient into seemingly healthy foods:

From the tomato sauce on a Pizza Hut pie called ‘The Natural,’ to the just-released soda Pepsi Natural, some of the biggest players in the American food business have started, in the last few months, replacing high-fructose corn syrup with old-fashioned sugar.

ConAgra uses only sugar or honey in its new Healthy Choice All Natural frozen entrees. Kraft Foods recently removed the corn sweetener from its salad dressings, and is working on its Lunchables line of portable meals and snacks.

You Are Being Sold!

We need to realize that it’s all marketing! There’s nothing healthier about tomato sauce made with sugar versus tomato sauce made with high-fructose corn syrup, unless the overall amount of sugar decreases. But given that HFCS is actually sweeter than sugar, it’s more likely that foods replacing high-fructose corn syrup with sugar will have more to achieve the same taste. That means more sugar in your diet, more calories in your diet, more insulin in your bloodstream, and ultimately, more fat around your waist.

Just as they’ve done with butter, bacon, and eggs ^[8], marketers are constantly choosing one particular ingredient or substance to demonize. Then they present you with the perfect solution.

How Do We Get Through To People?

So we have an addictive substance that makes us age faster, that we clamor for more of, and that food manufacturers are more than happy to provide us. I’m not sure what it’s going to take to get people to take charge of their own health and dump these “healthy” processed foods from their diet.

We have a grassroots movement of sorts with all of us bloggers talking about health and fitness, but it’s just a drop in the bucket compared to the millions in marketing dollars convincing us that we can eat sweets, just as long as there’s no high-fructose corn syrup. Or telling us that Trix are healthy because they’re made with whole grains and fortified with the missing vitamins.