The Sugar/'ʃʊgɚ/Wars
Science can’t prove it and the industry denies/dɪ'nai/it, but Gary/ˈɡɛri/Taubes is convinced/kən'vɪnst/that the sweet stuff kills/kɪl/.
By Daniel/'dænjəl/Engber
“I hope that when you have read this book I shall have convinced you that sugar is really dangerous,” wrote John Yudkin in his foghorn/'fɔɡhɔrn/-sounding/'saʊndɪŋ/treatise/'tritɪs/on nutrition/nu'trɪʃən/from 1972, Pure, White and Deadly. Sugar’s rapid rise to prominence/'prɑmɪnəns/in the Western diet, starting in the mid-19th century, had coincided/ˌkoɪn'saɪd/with a sudden outbreak of heart disease/dɪ'ziz/, diabetes/ˌdaɪə'bitiz/, and obesity/oˈbisɪti/. Yudkin, one of the United Kingdom’s most prominent nutritionists/nuˈtrɪʃənɪst/at the time, believed that one had caused the other.
Then, as now, there was no decisive/dɪ'saɪsɪv/test of his idea—no perfect way to make the case that sugar kills. It’s practically/'præktɪkli/impossible to run randomized/'rændə,maizd/, controlled experiments on human diets/'daɪət/over many years, so the brief against sugar, like the case against any other single foodstuff, must be drawn from less reliable forms of testimony/'tɛstə'moni/: long-term correlations/ˌkɔrə'leʃən/, animal experiments, evolutionary claims/klem/, and expert judgments. In Pure/pjʊr/, White and Deadly, Yudkin offered all of these as “circumstantial/ˌsɝkəm'stænʃl/evidence rather than absolute proof” of his assertion/ə'sɝʃən/. But so many suspicious/sə'spɪʃəs/facts had already accumulated/ə'kjumjəlet/by 1972, he claimed, that it would be foolish to ignore them. Even based on circumstantial/ˌsɝkəm'stænʃl/evidence, readers should be convinced “beyond reasonable doubt” of sugar’s crime/kraɪm/against humanity/hjʊ'mænəti/.
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