Sugar, Sugar, And More Sugar

This is a repeat from April 2012 when the sugar thing and obesity moved into overdrive.  Like so many other things it took a long time to get going and only when it became impossible to ignore discussion.

The trouble was we all liked our sugars and we are averse to losing what we like.  I plead guilty.

Quote:

One of my closely guarded personal secrets, to be shared only with my nearest and dearest and anyone surfing the internet, is that for some time I have been partial to muesli.  Yes, I know, it puts me in the “health freak” marketing segment.

It all started as long ago as 1951 when I found myself halfway up a Swiss mountain and looking at what was on offer at the breakfast table.  It was not a meal that I could hope for at home or at any decent seaside boarding house.

The “filler” part of it was the mix that was muesli as it was then.  It was rarely found in England, one of those things like olive oil or spaghetti or some such that nice people did not talk about in public.

It was many years later before muesli was encountered again and with it the realisation that you could either buy it or make your own mix.  So many kinds were tried and many home mixes made from time to time.

They would all have sugar or some equivalent sweetener but then came the day when the growing man, horizontally rather than vertically, had to cut out the sweet stuff and resort to other flavours.  And it became back to making your own mix.

This was because when going to the shops and superstores it was almost impossible to find a mix without sugar or some equivalent sweetener.  The premium brands had fancier and “healthier” sweeteners but still carrying too great a whack of weight potential.

Event then the realisation that a lot more foods, many deemed “healthy” were also carrying a hefty portion of sugar or sweetener had not dawned.  This came only slowly when for other reasons we had to start checking out the content of all the food products we bought in detail.

There has been a good deal of attention paid to this recently as the obesity issue has become a major health concern.  The media now have major items in their health reports on many items carrying an unexpected heavy sugar load in content.

This is not the place to debate all the issues and the problems that have arisen and are not likely to away quickly.  There are now three generations born to the sweet stuff most of whom possibly cannot like foods without heavy and sweet flavours.

It was all so different and we all liked our candy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9nE2spOw_o

There was once a time when the tea break came up and we sat on the barrows with a pint mug of strong tea with a good four or five spoonfuls of refined sugar, or better, the best part of a can of condensed milk.

How times change.

Unquote.

The pop song clip came from 1969 with a world in turmoil and uncertainty.  Perhaps times do not change so much.