LEWISTON – Paul Jones has had some health problems, but what he doesn’t suffer from is a sweet tooth.
“I’ve not a sugar-holic, if that’s how you want to put it,” the 79-year-old said. “There’s no history of diabetes in my family or any of that. My doctors don’t even mention sugar.”
When the federal government released new dietary recommendations Thursday – added sugar should be limited to 10 percent of daily calories, they say – Jones didn’t get very worked up about it.
It was the same for the majority of people questioned across Lewiston-Auburn. Federal guidelines on sugar? Who cares?
Many of them suggested that with the health community constantly issuing new alerts – and constantly amending old ones – they were no longer inclined to pay attention.
The people who do pay attention, on the other hand, are all over it.
“I definitely keep aware of these things,” said Heidi Audet, of Greene.
Audet is a yoga instructor and a wellness educator so naturally, she’s up on all the latest nutritional news. When it comes to added sugar, she advises her clients on how to appease their cravings without compromising their health.
“You can can get the sweet taste,” Audet said, “without a lot of added sugar.”
Same with Hannah Otten, who was at work Thursday at Forage Market in Lewiston. Otten can talk all day long about the complications of too much sugar. She’ll tell you about metabolic syndrome, inflammation and various other maladies that come with an unhealthy lifestyle.
But only if you want to talk about it.
“I feel that people should be free to make their own decisions,” Otten said. “But I also think it’s a good idea to get good information out to people.”
When it comes to sugar, Otten didn’t grow up with a lot of it. Her mother is a nutritionist, as it turns out, who doesn’t mind sharing her thoughts on health.
“You could get a scientific lecture any time of the day if you wanted it,” Otten said.
Like Jones, Otten said having a sweet tooth was never much of a problem. She didn’t have much of it growing up and almost never has a yearning for it.
“If I have something with sugar,” she said, “it runs right through me. Those pleasure centers are activated, but I’m not satiated for long.”
Obama’s new dietary guidelines didn’t cause an uproar locally by any stretch of the imagination. But those who were paying attention had a bit to say.
“Refined sugar is bad for your health. Corn syrup is GMO and in almost everything passed off as food, especially beverages like soft drinks,” wrote Abe Kreworuka, in response to an online query. “This stuff does serious damage to your body, rots teeth, obesity and so on. Besides the chemical shit storm are ingredients added to make the consumer crave more… The reason the government is concerned is beyond me because they approved this in partnership with other corporations long ago.”
“One way to help the problem is to disallow soda, candy, and other junk food from being purchased with federal money (EBT),” suggested Nancy Townsend Johnson, of Dixfield. “Since many low income people also have tax subsidized healthcare, restricting junk food should also help with healthcare costs.”
Carey S. Clark, of Arrowsic, said that in the United Kingdom, the recommended amount of sugar is at about 20 grams per day. “Most people get that here in the USA in their first cup of coffee or juice in the am,” Clark said, “and they than proceed to eat sugar all day long, often without knowing it (sugar is needlessly in crackers, breads, dressings, sauces, etc… pretty much every processed food sold in the supermarket). Sugar causes inflammation in the body, which leads to illness. It acts on the dopamine receptors in the brain in pretty much the same way any addictive substance does – a google or facebook search will yield the brain scans that compare cocaine to sugar ingestion.”
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