| Tootsall: « Reply #6 on: Oct 15th, 2003, 1:03pm »
TrumpetMaster, I did you a disservice when I neglected to respond to your first premise that our ancestors did not eat tons of sugar. You are correct in that statement. However, did you know that a great many non-meat foods contain sugars of various types? We recognize that most (all?) fruits contain Fructose which, when combined with glucose (which our bodies need) forms the Sucrose molecule. Our ancestors have been eating fruit for some time! (I seem to recall something about an apple in a garden ... but that was perhaps before my time ).
Many root crops contain sugars of various types: carrots can contain upwards of 10% sucrose! Sugar beets (related to the "red beets") contain up to or in excess of 20% sucrose by weight (depending upon the growing conditions, varieties, etc.) Sugar cane is actually a grass. The place I work processes sugar beets...our sister factory processes raw cane sugar to produce "refined" (we call it "granulated") sugar and brown sugars. Sweet corn contains a high concentration of fructose (from which corn syrups are made).
Making sugar from beets was originated by Napoleon. He was a little upset that the British had control of "international trade" on the high seas which restricted how much cane sugar he could get into France (and thereby upsetting the French population who had developed a taste for sugar). So he directed his agriculture industry to start investigating the possibility of getting sugar out of crops that could be grown in France.
Anyway...if anyone has any questions they'd like to ask about sugar, how it's made, or what's in it I'd be pleased to respond here or in private message. As far as specific "diets" that promote various types of food restrictions are concerned, I'd "take the fifth". That should be between you and your personal physician. |