Doctors have been warning of the health risks from sugar for almost 400 years. Here’s how we still ended up consuming so much of it
On my daily trundle down my local high street, I’ve been marking the changes as shopfitters swoop in with pink or white or glittery shop furniture. Almost every new shop in this corner of north London seems to be a teen- and family-friendly cafe selling bubble tea, sweet fluffy pancakes, ice-creams or desserts with names such as “choco coma”. Sugar is cheap, so the shopkeepers need to sell a lot of treats to make it pay. Fortunately for their business model, but unfortunately for the nation’s health, Britain consumes twice as much sugar as it should.
I tut inwardly at these signs of our sugar addiction as I enter Sainsbury’s to stock up on baking ingredients: icing sugar for coffee cake, muscovado and caster sugar for that amazing caramelised apple cake recipe I’ve found; golden syrup and treacle for winter-friendly gingerbread.
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