Sugar Blues

"I loved this book, but have come to the unhappy conclusion that some of the "facts" are false.

Page 109, history of scurvy as being related to sugar intake: "It was as if there had never been any explorers out there ahead of Queen Bess's men. How about the Vikings, the Phoenicians, and the sailors of the Far East?"
---Well, the Vikings barely left sight of land. When they traveled to what is now Canada long before Columbus, they went around the top of the Atlantic, so presumably had access to fresh food. The Phoenicians were in the Mediterranean - presumably also near land. And the reference to sailors of the Far East didn't turn up any long voyages in my hunt.

Page 112: The British navy "continued to flog scorbutical sailors for almost 50 years"
---I wasn't able to find any reference to flogging sailors to punish them for having scurvy, whether "prescribed as an appropriate remedy" for malingering or otherwise. The only similar reference I've found so far was to punish a sailor for not eating his sauerkraut, which was thought to keep them healthy.

This book is absolutely fascinating and mostly accurate, but unfortunately I'll probably have a slow time verifying the other parts I'm most interested in.

If you know errors here in this review, or other errors in this book, please comment - I'll read it eventually. Or, contribute to Wiki.

Thanks!"
~ Written on 2008-06-09

"If you want to know the ill effects of sugar. This book tells it like it is. Sugar Blues will give you every reason in the world to give up the "poison" called sugar. A book worth reading."
~ Written on 2008-06-01

"This is a good book with a good message. Nowadays, it is becoming more and more clear why sugar is bad for you. It is because of the fructose part of sucrose (sucrose is half fructose and half glucose). Excessive fructose is extremely unhealthy for many reasons - it raises uric acid, taxes the liver, raises triglycerides, causes insulin resistance - raising insulin levels in the long run. And it does this very fast in studies.

I eliminated sucrose and HCFS from my diet with the help of this book but it wasn't until I eliminated fruit juice, dried fruits and sweet fruits that my health really improved. The problem according to the latest research is mainly fructose.

Common HCFS and sucrose are very similar in that they are both about half fructose (HCFS usually is 55% fructose). The difference is that HCFS, being so cheap and stable, is added to everything, and portions are also much larger than in the past, so we are consuming more and more of it - getting that dose of fructose. In addition, we are bombarded with the messge to consume lots of fruits - yet, in many of the healthiest traditional diets studied, fruit consumption, if any, seems to be a very minor part of the diet.
"
~ Written on 2008-05-08

"You have to read a certain section of this sometimes boring narrative to get the awesome part - what giving up sugar CURED! I believe the author should have given the shocker first, then followed up with dry facts that the reader needs.

I've given copies of this book to five people who I care about!"
~ Written on 2008-05-07

"I found this a hard read and didn't understand really what was being discussed. Perhaps it's just the beginning of the book that is this way because I didn't make it past the first few chapters that deal with the history of sugar and generalizations made about the effects it had on history. "
~ Written on 2008-04-22