The Secrets of Sugar

For many of us, sugar provides an instant feeling of warmth and comfort. We identify it as an essential component of great-tasting foods, and of blissful culinary gratification. Its presence is unavoidable, even in foods that promise higher levels of nutritional value. In many corners of the globe, the human desire for sugar seems unquenchable. In fact, one would be hard-pressed to find an addiction more commonplace than the one we experience for sugar. But it's an addiction that could be killing us in record numbers.

The documentary titled The Secrets of Sugar examines this addiction and its perilous impact on the well-being of our global society. Extensive research has pinpointed sugar's culpability in a number of our most common and life-threatening ailments, including high blood pressure, obesity, heart disease, cancer, diabetes and even Alzheimer's disease.

The weight-loss craze which began taking shape in the 1980s originated as an attack against fat. Yet, even in a climate where the public enjoys unprecedented access to low or no-fat foods, the rates of the damaging disease remain alarmingly high. "Which is worse: the sugar or the fat? The sugar, a thousand times over," asserts Dr Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist who serves as one of the film's key interview subjects. In his view, sugar is a poison and serves as a recipe for destruction for people of all ages. As a leading crusader against the dangers of sugar, Dr Lustig faces an uphill battle in altering existing practices within the food industry and educating an unsuspecting public who falls prey to their tactics.

According to the observations presented in The Secrets of Sugar, these tactics include ambiguous or misleading nutrition labels, fuzzy science, and mounting an advertising campaign unmatched in scale even by the tobacco industry.

Without a change in the public consciousness, the prevalence of sugar in our daily diets threatens to heighten disease epidemics to an even greater degree, and may eventually lead to the bankruptcy of the entire healthcare system within the United States and Canada. By exploring an issue that too often remains obscured, The Secrets of Sugar seeks to ignite a movement among its viewers to rectify this disturbing trend before it's too late.