Wellbeing

Where Sugar Hides

Sugar sits in almost every processed product, often under names that don’t sound like sugar: corn syrup, sucrose, glucose. What matters is the difference between the sugar in a piece of fruit – arriving with fibre, vitamins and minerals – and the added kind, which delivers calories and little else. Robert Lustig points out that fructose is processed in the liver much as alcohol is; Jessie Inchauspé describes how glucose spikes produce energy slumps and fresh hunger. What follows from this is not a list of prohibitions, but a trained eye.