There’s a book from 1972 that’s been getting quite a bit of press recently.
‘Pure, White and Deadly’ by Professor John Yudkin was until fairly recently a consigned to history, out of print work that few would of heard of.
This changed in 2009 with a ground-breaking lecture called ‘Sugar: the Bitter Truth’ by Robert Lustig, professor of paediatric endocrinology at the University of California.
In the lecture (which has more 4.3 million views on YouTube) Lustig, hailed Yudkin’s work as ”prophetic”.
”Everything this man said in 1972 was the God’s honest truth and if you want to read a true prophecy you find this book… I’m telling you every single thing this guy said has come to pass. I’m in awe.”
Funnily enough Colin Ardron, one of our ninjas at Macc recently shared his experience of meeting Professor Yudkin:
“I applied to Queen Elizabeth College in 1963 and Prof. Yudkin was chief interviewer. They offered me a place. I didn’t get all the required A levels! I had travelled to London on a steam train which passed through the now closed line through Millers Dale. All I remember about the interview was how Prof. Yudkin put me, a terrified 17 yr old, at ease. I also remember how cold the train was (bad winter of ’63).”
Which I thought was a cool story 🙂
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In ‘Pure, White and Deadly’ Professor Yudkin questioned whether there was any causal link at all between fat and heart disease.
After all, he said, we had been eating substances like butter for centuries, while sugar, had, up until the 1850s, been something of a rare treat for most people.
”If only a small fraction of what we know about the effects of sugar were to be revealed in relation to any other material used as a food additive,” he wrote, ”that material would promptly be banned.”
In the 1970s, the food industry had seen an opportunity with the shift in focus to fat being ‘identified’ as the main cause of obesity and various diseases and conditions.
As a result, says Lustig, there was a concerted campaign by the food industry and several scientists to discredit Yudkin’s work.
The British Sugar Bureau put out a press release dismissing Yudkin’s claims as ”emotional assertions” and the World Sugar Research Organisation described his book as ”science fiction”.
Yudkin was ”uninvited” to international conferences. Others he organised were cancelled at the last minute, after pressure from sponsors, including, on one occasion, Coca-Cola.
The British Nutrition Foundation, one of whose sponsors was Tate & Lyle, never invited anyone from Yudkin’s internationally acclaimed department to sit on its committees.
And this ”propaganda” didn’t just affect Yudkin. By the end of the Seventies, he had been so discredited that few scientists dared publish anything negative about sugar for fear of being similarly attacked.
As a result, the low-fat industry, with its products laden with sugar, boomed.
The problem for Yudkin was that his theories weren’t really provable under the science of the time.
New research, from the 80s onwards, discovered how the sugars are metabolised in the liver while the glucose found in starches in metabolised by all cells.
And how excess strain on the liver from high sugar consumption leads to massively increased fat storage and a series of conditions often referred to as ‘metabolic syndrome’ which all modern research shows to be the biggest risk factor in diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
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As Lustig said, Yudkin’s work was “prophetic”.
Pretty much everything he claimed has either now been proved or is at least where the more progressive minds are leaning.
As Gandhi famously once said: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”.
If you, or someone else you know, still believes that dietary fat is the enemy, ‘Pure, White and Deadly’ should change your mind – get a copy here.
Remember as well, we’re not saying everyone needs to ‘cut out’ sugar.
We’re saying that if you’re going for low-fat (and therefore, usually, high sugar) food options in the belief that it will be good for your waistline and health, then you probably not going to get what you’re after.
Much love,
Jon ‘Sugar and Spice’ Hall and Matt ‘Frogs and snails and puppy dog tails’ Nicholson
P.S. Applications are still being taken for risk free trial for next month’s ‘Group Transformation Programme’ – myrise.co.uk/apply. The free find-out-more briefing meetings are next Monday and Tuesday.
P.P.S. Tomorrow I’m going to cover what to do if you like Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain.
P.P.P.S. You need to be at least my age (I entered my mid 30s today) to have any idea what that I mean by that 😉
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