That Sugar Film Page #2

and 24% from carbohydrates

like fresh vegetables.

And of course there is no refined sugar.

I currently weigh 76kg

with a waist circumference of 84cm.

My blood tests showed

a very healthy liver,

a very low level of triglyceride,

which is fat in the bloodstream,

and, thankfully, no sign of

insulin resistance or diabetes.

Overall, I rated slightly healthier

than the average Western male of my age.

The next step in the experiment

was to do a shop.

To calculate my 40 teaspoons,

I need to keep in mind that one teaspoon

equals roughly four grams of sugar.

But I also need a lesson

in the different types of sugar.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,

it's time to meet the sugar family.

When we eat certain foods,

they adhere to a rule.

They break down to glucose

which our body uses for fuel.

Breads, pasta, vegies and grain

all turn to glucose

to be used by our brain.

Ooh!

But also our cells and our organs, too.

So without any glucose

there would be no you.

Lactose is next,

and she's as smooth as silk.

She's the first sugar mammals have...

it's in their mother's milk.

You'll find it in cheese and

milk and tubs of yoghurt, too.

But take care if you're intolerant,

you'll be rushing to the loo.

Now, sucrose is the sugar

that all the fuss is about.

Some say it's dangerous

while others still have doubt.

Sucrose is the table sugar

we have in coffee or tea.

She's the sugar family's

sweet little daughter.

Or not, apparently.

Ooh.

Now, this table sugar, or sucrose,

is made up of two sugars.

It is 50% glucose, the head of

the family, plus 50% fructose.

Now, fructose may well be

the sugar family's

mischievous teenage son,

because in the past this

fructose was very, very rare.

It was found in fruit and vegies

and honey, if you dared.

But now we find it everywhere!

In so many foods we eat.

And you'll always know

if you're eating fructose

'cause it's the thing

that makes food sweet.

You see, people on this planet

are growing sicker every day,

and many scientists now believe

that fructose has a role to play.

- Hey, hey!

- The first load.

Why don't we make these

middle shelves the sugar zone?

- I love it.

- Here's some juicy juice.

- Juice boxes, babe.

- Yep.

Up&Go.

So, here are the rules

for my next 60 days.

I must consume 40 teaspoons

of sugar a day,

but they must be hidden sugars

found in commonly perceived

healthy foods and drinks.

So no soft drink, chocolate,

confectionary or ice-cream.

These 40 teaspoons of sugar

will consist of sucrose

and fructose specifically.

They can be added, like jam,

or naturally occurring,

like sultanas.

I must always choose low-fat foods

and maintain the same level

of exercise as I already do.

That's three laps of my garden

twice a week

and a 10-minute workout

on my homemade gym.

And by homemade, I mean homemade.

Tomorrow morning I start.

What are your feelings?

Uh...

I hope you're OK.

Darling, do we have a metric cup,

like, to measure size?

Yep.

Right, so, this Just Right tells me

that it's 12 grams of sugar

per serving, right?

So, that's...

Divided by four, that's roughly three...

three teaspoons of sugar per serving.

That's a recommended serving size

with three teaspoons of sugar.

Now, I don't know about you

but I'm a growing boy.

I'm gonna need

a little bit more of that.

That feels like a shot of Just Right.

Yeah, maybe 2.5.

OK, so, 2.5...

So, one was just under three

teaspoons, two is six teaspoons,

and the other half

is about 7.5 teaspoons of sugar,

just in that bowl.

And I haven't added the yoghurt yet.

Per serving there is 27 grams,

but a lot of that's gonna be

lactose, so I reckon 18 grams.

18 divided by 4 is just over 4.

So, four to my seven, so there's

11 teaspoons of sugar,

and then I've gotta add my juice.

I'm gonna put about 400 mils

of apple juice, that will do me.

There we're looking at nine

teaspoons, so this combined,

I'm looking at nearly

20 teaspoons to start the day.

Hey, David. How are you going?

Good. How are you?

Mate, I've just got a quick question.

We just were...

I just sort of had my first breakfast

and it got to about 20 teaspoons.

20 teaspoons?!

I almost couldn't believe it.

But I did all the maths

and it just seems ridiculous.

Mate, you're gonna have to be on a diet

for the rest of the day if

you're only allowed to have

20 teaspoons for the rest of the day.

That's what I mean!

I'll have to eat celery

for the rest of the day.

Just obscene.

When we were still foraging

and hunting and gathering

and trying to search for fruit

and things in our environment,

we needed to be highly attuned

to what sweetness there was,

because we really need the calories.

And of course now we bring with us

that ancient lust for sugar,

that ability to find even small amounts,

and it's a case where

we were looking for a little

but now we have too much.

And so the system,

in an evolutionary terms,

is not really set up to deal with

this sudden abundance

of highly refined sugar.

After just two days of the experiment

I was amazed at how easy it was

to get to 40 teaspoons

without eating any junk food.

I've just had a breakthrough as

to how we might be consuming

so much fructose.

I just bought these four apples.

Now, I know that if I tried

to eat these apples

I'd probably get through

two of them and I'd feel full.

The fibre in the fruit

would tell my body to stop,

it's had enough to eat.

But I wanna see what happens if

I can juice these four apples.

Right, so that's four apples.

That's the sugar from

four apples in one glass.

Now, one apple is about

four teaspoons of sugar,

so that's 16 teaspoons

of sugar in that glass.

See, nature has given us

this perfect little packet,

and it's got all the nutrients,

the fibre

that tells us when we're full,

and just the right amount

of sugar in this.

But what we do is

we invent a machine like this

which extracts only the sugar

and then we throw everything else away.

This high amount of sugar in juice,

and drinks in general,

was certainly the biggest

surprise of the first week.

Beverage tend to really create a rush,

what I kind of call a tsunami effect.

So you basically have

this huge wave of sugar

that gets to your liver.

And that has a lot of consequence.

It was now day 12

and time for my first weigh-in.

Moment of truth.

79.3. Huh?

- I'm about to cry.

- Why?

3.2 kilos.

- In 12 days?

- In 12 days.

And that's without one fizzy drink,

no ice-cream, no chocolate.

That is eating healthy food.

It's alarming. Alarming, alarming.

Debbie's alarm wasn't about

the amount of weight I had gained...

it was the fact that it was

all around my belly.

This is what's known as visceral fat.

I'm having a baby!

Here's a great example of it.

On this person,

the fat comes up as black.

You can see there is

a very small amount of fat

just under the skin, but lots of

visceral fat on the inside,

cramping the organs.

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