How Much Sugar Are We Talking?

How much is too much?

How many rhetorical questions break the PatienceSphere?

I figure, with all the data now available to me, that more than one teaspoon of sugar a day is too much.

Too much for whom?

Again with the questions.

Too much for any living organism save, perhaps, bees, who don't consume what they carry, anyway.

I read somewhere that in early 17th-century England, the amount of sugar that was available on the whole island amounted to perhaps a three-pound bag. Sugar was more valuable than powdered diamonds.

Okay, you say: so was pepper. And you'd be right. But my point is, that up until the 18th or 19th centuries, the only sugar anyone ever got was sucked from the pistil of tiny wildflowers, snatched from beehives, or eaten in fruits.

There just was no other source of sugar.

This is an astounding thought, in light of what is available to us in the 21st century.

And now, you can consume what a denizen of 1650 consumed in a lifetime in one can of Coke. Strike that; in one can of Coke (about nine teaspoons of sugar) there is more sugar than anyone of the year 1650 could ever consume in their lifetimes. (I'm assuming that the average inhabitant of 1650 did NOT have access to a daily supply of fresh fruits).

At the risk of repeating received wisdom, because sugar is now the illness du jour, no one has a clue what the effect so much sugar consumption has on the human body. Any more than if suddenly, for whatever reason, gold powder became very cheap, and became the new major ingredient in all our foodstuffs.

Sure, gold is a mineral, and no one would seriously consider putting two teaspoons of it in their daily cup of coffee, but you see my point. If gold suddenly became as cheap as sugar, who knows what bizarre uses it would be put to?

So basically, the Human Being, starting from when—let's say 1945—is one huge guinea pig for the Great Sugar Experiment. Because, well, pre-1945, rationing. Blah blah blah.

So really, we have no idea what a lifetime of sugar consumption—and I'm not just talking a teaspoon here and there, but rather a pound of a mound here and there—will have on a living mammal.

Would you feed your dog 33 teaspoons of sugar per day? Why the fuck not? The most sugar consumed per capita on the planet is . . . Macedonia? But that is 160 pounds of sugar per year! That is TWELVE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY TEASPOONS OF SUGAR. That is THIRTY-THREE TEASPOONS OF SUGAR A DAY.

So let's get realistic. How much sugar are YOU consuming per day? Well, let's look at a typical food label. On a can of Coke, you'll see something like "Sucrose" or "Sucralose" or "High fructose corn syrup" or whatever: 39g.

How many teaspoons of actual sugar in 39g or these mystery sweeteners? About one teaspoon per four grams. So in one can of 39g Coke, there are about nine and a third teaspoons of sugar.

NINE AND A THIRD. How many, if any, do you put into your cup of coffee? Would you consider putting NINE AND A THIRD TEASPOONS OF SUGAR into your cup of coffee?

Thought not. But every time you have a soft drink—not just Coke, but MOST soft drinks—that is precisely what you're doing.

If you put 9.3 teaspoons of ANYTHING into your body at one time, it's pretty fair to say that you'd get sick quickly. Salt? Pepper? Parmesan cheese? Tabasco?

I rest my case. WHY would you put 9.3 teaspoons of, say, vanilla extract, onto your dessert? You'd be certifiable.

Yet every time you have a Coke, that is exactly what you do, with sugar.

Obviously, since you're just about to go to the fridge for a drink, I haven't gotten through that fucking thick skull of yours.

But I will. I will make you NEVER WANT TO SEE A SUGAR CUBE AGAIN IN YOUR FUCKING LIFE.

That is the purpose of this blog.

Nice to see you, too.