Author: Liz Dawes
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Last week the BBC showed “The Truth About Sugar”

In a nutshell: we eat too much of it, which raises blood glucose and causes: obesity; arterial damage; inflammation; heart disease; non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, not to mention all manner of other health issues, ad nauseam.

The programme’s subjects were various folk in poor health, who were faced with how much sugar they ate, the damage it was doing and the likely resulting health problems.  So far, so good and all worth highlighting since obesity costs the NHS somewhere near £800 million a year – but despite this I still found the programme fundamentally annoying.   Had they presented some ground breaking news about how vegetables give you a rare form of skin disease or fresh spring water contributes to cancer, I’d have sat up and listened, because let’s face it, that’d be news.

The BBC gave us nothing so earth shattering.  Instead, we learned that eating badly is bad for you. They pointed out to the woman who was microwaving ready meals every night that she might not have the healthiest habits known to man, and to the woman who ate chocolate for breakfast that she might want to think about the possibility that her impending diabetes wasn’t entirely inexplicable.  Well, as they say, no shit Sherlock.

Call me harsh, but is there anyone alive on the planet who doesn’t know that humans need actual food as opposed to ‘food-like substances’?  As each person was told of their health risks, the camera panned over misty-eyed shots of nearest-and-dearest, to the sound of the gentle weeping of the unhealthy who were faced with the unpalatable possibility of imminent demise.  I remained unmoved.  What do you think is going to happen to your body if you haven’t even looked at a vegetable for the best part of a decade?

Incidentally, this is not about fat or thin.  My sister can eat cake after cake and stays in pencil proportions.  I can’t even wink at an éclair without gaining 10lb.  That’s just the way we’re made – but we both know our carrots from our onions and have even been known to cook both.  I also reject the “just too busy” thing.  If you really can’t be bothered, open some pre-cooked lentils or empty a bag of salad on to the plate.  Voila!

Really, I applaud the BBC and anyone else who tries to help us eat better.  However, what we put in our mouths is, ultimately, our own choice.  We can all choose to put actual real food into our bodies. No one can sit in wide-eyed innocence on a mountain of deep-fried, processed carbohydrate and lay the blame of their ill health at someone else’s door.

Enough already.  Eat properly or get ill.