Letter to Robert H. Lustig, Laura A. Schmidt & Claire D. Brindis with regard to their article in the Scientific Journal of Nature titled Public health: The toxic truth about sugar…
Dear Mr. Lustig, Ms. Schmidt and Ms. Brindis,
In your thoughtful piece regarding “the toxic truth about sugar”, you state the obvious – and I would agree; the average Joe needs to be aware of the health risks in forever satisfying his sweet tooth… And I’m assuming you’d agree that lack of exercise contributes as well to the ills you’ve associated with sugar consumption*… Right?
We part ideologically however where you suggest government should control sweeteners like it does alcohol… For starters, we’d only be addressing part of the problem – i.e., you’d be regulating sweets but completely ignoring sweat… And if we allow government to penetrate that far into our personal decisions, or, more accurately, our options, where would it stop?
I.e: What if, ten years hence, we’ve achieved, through legislation, a 50% reduction in average Joe’s daily sugar intake, yet we see no marked improvement in his overall health… Wouldn’t intellectuals like yourselves then offer up the empirical evidence showing inertia to be the ultimate culprit? And wouldn’t you then, given that you clearly possess the audacity, propose that government impose restrictions on access to say televisions, game consoles and computers? Perhaps require that all home electronics be engineered to play for one hour, then shut down for two, 24/7? And of course they’d all have to be synchronized…
I say we leave it alone, and leave producers free to load up the sugar if that’s what the market demands… And that we leave folks free to choose what they and their children eat… We already allocate taxpayer money to teaching them to read, and requiring food manufacturers to label their goods with all the nutrition facts… Besides, we have bigger fish to fry (I mean bake, or broil, or boil)…
Sincerely,
Marty Mazorra
*P.s. I am guessing you mentioned exercise in your piece… I honestly didn’t read it, as I refuse to pay your $199 subscriber fee, or the one-time $32 to obtain your original article (not complaining; I’m a capitalist too)… I only caught the teaser on your site stating you advocate controlling sugar like alcohol… However I was able to locate and read a couple [supportive] articles citing your study…
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