Sweet Suicide is a 60-minute documentary produced in 2009 by Nancy Appleton, PhD, about the health dangers of sugar. Appleton is America's most well known anti-sugar expert and author of Lick the Sugar Habit, which is still selling strong after 30 years in print.
The DVD relies on testimonials from researchers, medical doctors, and individuals to make the toxic case about sugar, and this is the strongest, most persuasive and most interesting material. It loses punch when Appleton makes the claim that mainstream health organizations collectively suffer from agnosticism because they ignore important information about sugar. A more compelling and dangerous conclusion could be drawn. What if, for example, we're witnessing the closing of the American health mind where only one "politically correct" point of view is sought, tolerated, and communicated? I'm always struck by the similarity of the messages in the health newsletters published by our leading universities, and sometimes wonder if they're secretly written by the same person. The bottom line is that powerful and rich drug and food companies are controlling our health by controlling the messaging we hear through advertising and through their funding for research projects.
Sweet Suicide reminds us we are constantly being programmed to believe that "comfortably living with disease" is a desirable outcome to our health woes. Somewhere along the line we're forgetting that good health used to be defined as the absence of disease. Isn't prevention or curing of disease a preferable goal? Instead, we buy into the concept that healthiness depends on taking expensive drugs until our last breath on planet Earth.
The DVD also draws attention to the promotion of supposedly healthy products like Ensure (the adult nutritional drink), some yogurts, most fruit drinks, and power bars where sugar is the key ingredient. The average American has no idea how much sugar is being consumed on a daily basis. Even though sugar quantities are identified by grams on the nutrition label, how many people know that four grams is the equivalent of one teaspoon? The average breakfast drink has 24 grams or six teaspoons of sugar, and six teaspoons is too much for most people, especially children.
Article comments