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[narrator] The story of humans
is really a story of extraction.

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Take copper, which we learned to mine
and hammer into plows and tools,

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and mix with tin to make bronze.

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Or coal and petroleum,

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which allowed us to tame fire.

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But in order to shape the world,

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first we needed to survive it,

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and for that,
the most precious resource was this.

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Sugar,

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the closest thing we have to pure energy.

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Think of our ancestors.
They were hunters and gatherers.

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And for them, sugar was
one of the fastest sources of energy.

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So we evolved to crave sugar
and, when we found it, to eat it.

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[narrator] But they weren't eating
sugar like this.

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It was just found in other foods.

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Fruits and vegetables,
and tough stalks of sugarcane.

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It was over a thousand years ago
that some enterprising humans

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learned to extract the sugar
out of the sugarcane,

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evaporate it, crystallize it.

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[narrator] And turn it into an ingredient
that you could add to anything.

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And we did.

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[Long] Now we could get the white stuff
straight up whenever we wanted.

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Problem was,

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we still had the Neanderthal brain
and Neanderthal body

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now living in a tech 2.0,
sugar 5.0 environment.

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And our bodies and brains
can't keep up with that.

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[narrator] The calories that were once
vital to our survival

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are now a public health menace.

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[reporter] Sugar is responsible
for the high rates of obesity,

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diabetes, heart disease and cancer,
and should be regulated.

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Sugary drink consumption

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is a key driver of the obesity epidemic
in the United States.

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Sugar is addictive.

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We're literally
poisoning ourselves with sugar.

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[narrator] So scientists have been
on a quest

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to create something
that can do what sugar does.

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Give us that sweetness and pleasure,

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but without all the calories
we no longer need.

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We sometimes forget
that sugar is not just sweetness.

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Sugar is energy.

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Sugar is happiness.

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Sugar is mouthfeel.

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Sugar is many, many things in food

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and replacing it…

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I mean, can you replace the heart?

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[narrator] So can we satisfy
our deep, ancient craving for sugar

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without harming ourselves?

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Can we actually have our cake
and eat it too?

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[man 1] It's coated with golden sugar.

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[boy 1] Too good for leprechauns.

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[boy 2] Silly rabbit. Trix are for kids.

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[man 2] Sugar doesn’t have
any nutritional value whatsoever.

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I'd argue that you couldn’t
even call it a nutrient.

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[man 3] Some sugar is converted into fat.

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[man 4] He shouldn’t let candy and sweets
substitute for other foods.

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My tummy wants some yummy.

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[Russell] These are sugar sculptures.

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Elaborate scenes
constructed entirely of sugar,

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sometimes over 20 feet high,

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displayed at medieval royal banquets.

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They were known as subtleties,

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because they were
a subtle statement of wealth and power.

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But it wasn't that subtle.

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Sugar was really expensive and rare.

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That all changed
about 150 to 200 years ago,

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when we started being able
to distill beet sugar and cane sugar

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into very highly processed,
highly concentrated sugar.

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[Russell] It was no longer
a symbol of power.

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Sugar was an energy food
for health and strength.

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Physicians excitedly reported
on its unexpected stimulating properties.

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Fashionable ladies were encouraged
to sip sugary cordials,

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the only healthy beverage
that can be safely taken after cycling.

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And soldiers marveled
that it acted like a charm,

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relieving fatigue and quenching thirst.

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Nobody was looking
for something to replace sugar.

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It happened entirely by accident.

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One evening in 1878,

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a research chemist sat down for dinner,

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bit into a bread roll,
and tasted something sweet.

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It wasn't the bread.

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It was his fingers.

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He'd spilled a solution
all over his hands earlier that day.

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It was a coal tar derivative,
which we now know as saccharin,

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300 times sweeter than sugar
and zero calories,

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which would end up filling
those pink packets of Sweet'N Low.

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At the time, though, its biggest customers

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were diabetics and canners
looking for a cheap preservative.

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But then, Americans' consumption
of sugar started shooting up.

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It dipped during the world wars
when sugar was rationed,

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but quickly recovered.

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And Americans' waistlines shot up too,

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as did the number of heart attacks.

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By the 1960s,

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heart disease was responsible
for a third of all American deaths.

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Doctors started suspecting
that sugar might play a role,

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and lots of Americans
were looking to cut back.

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Fortunately,
lab safety still wasn’t that great,

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so scientists continued to stumble upon
new substances that could replace it.

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In the 1930s,
a drug researcher on a smoke break

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happened to taste his fingers
and discovered cyclamate,

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less sweet than saccharin,
but still sweeter than sugar,

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which gave us the first no-calorie soda.

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[announcer] Yes, there's a party
in every bottle of No-Cal,

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the first, the finest
sugar-free soft drink.

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[Russell] Then, in the 1960s,

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another drug researcher licked
his fingers and tasted something sweet.

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[interviewer] Does that happen a lot?

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Do scientists just forget
to wash their hands and lick them?

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[laughs] Not anymore.

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[Russell] But thanks to that guy,

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we got aspartame,
roughly the same calories as sugar,

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but 200 times sweeter,
so you needed much less.

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And then, in the 1970s,

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a scientist was working
on a compound of sugar and chlorine,

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and was reportedly asked to test it.

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He misheard and tasted it instead.

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The researcher survived,
and we got sucralose.

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Zero calories, unbelievably sweet,

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and marketed as the ultimate substitute.

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[man] Splenda brand sweetener.

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You can say sugar or you can say Splenda.

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[Russell] Artificial sweeteners
seemed like a magic trick.

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Thanks to the wonders of chemistry…

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[woman] You can enjoy all
these sweet sensations

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without all the calories.

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[Russell] Guilt-free pleasure.

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[man] Sounds just too good to be true.

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[Russell] For many, that did indeed
sound too good to be true.

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In a couple studies in the '60s and '70s,

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they gave rats bladder tumors,

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leading to a panic
that these sweeteners caused cancer.

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The US banned cyclamate,

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put a pause on approving aspartame,

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and made saccharin products
add a warning label

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saying it may be hazardous to your health.

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To many, sugar seemed like a safer option.

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And the sugar industry had done
a lot of damage control,

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claiming sugar was actually a diet food,

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the smart way to stay slim and trim.

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Anytime you were tempted to overeat,

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sugar could instantly curb your appetite

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because it was only 18 calories a teaspoon

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and all energy.

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This Domino ad even claimed
that three spoonfuls of sugar

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was less fattening than an apple.

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But while it might have fewer calories,
not all calories are created equal.

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When you eat an apple,
your blood sugar levels rise gently.

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[Long] You get the sugar,
but you also get it

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with fiber and water,
and a whole host of macronutrients.

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[Russell] Which takes a while to digest.

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But pure sugar is more instant energy,
followed by a crash,

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so you can actually
feel hungrier than you did before.

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And if you eat more and more,

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all that instant energy
can start to strain your body.

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That means your insulin responds
by staying chronically elevated as well.

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[Russell] Insulin is the hormone that
tells your body what to do with sugar,

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unlocking your cells
so they can use it as energy.

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And if they have enough,
you store the energy for later as fat.

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But if insulin is constantly
pumping through your body,

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your cells start becoming resistant to it
and eventually…

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The pancreas is pumping out
lots and lots of insulin,

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but the insulin's not working.

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That's when you get the type 2 diabetes.

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[Russell] Your cells can't get
the fuel they need.

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Unfortunately, this high insulin level

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is still working at some of the other jobs
insulin is supposed to do.

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And one of those is fat-making.

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[Russell] So it's easier to gain weight
and harder to lose it,

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and your blood sugar also builds up,

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which can damage
parts of your body, like your heart.

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Back in the '60s and '70s,
that wasn't well-known.

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We were getting
a lot of mixed messages on sugar,

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but we got one message very clearly.

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The culprit behind our scourge
of heart disease was saturated fat.

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The food industry responded

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with all kinds of products
labeled "fat-free"

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or "heart healthy."

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But when you take out fat,
you lose flavor.

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So, in many cases,

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companies added sugar in its place.

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But artificial sweeteners
were also recovering their reputation.

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00:10:03,269 --> 00:10:05,563
Study after study after study

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00:10:05,646 --> 00:10:08,983
hadn't found any evidence
that they cause cancer in humans.

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The rats in those earlier studies?

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They were given the equivalent
of hundreds of cans of diet soda a day.

186
00:10:17,033 --> 00:10:18,034
And also…

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Rats and mice aren't humans.

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[Russell] When Coca-Cola released
an aspartame-based soda in 1983,

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it was a landmark event.

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00:10:27,293 --> 00:10:29,712
[man] The world premiere of Diet Coke.

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♪ You’re gonna drink it
Just for the taste of it ♪

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[Russell] Within a decade, aspartame had
replaced over a billion pounds of sugar

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00:10:39,847 --> 00:10:42,016
in foods and drinks in the US.

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00:10:42,099 --> 00:10:46,062
But artificial sweeteners
weren't replacing sugar in our diet.

195
00:10:46,145 --> 00:10:48,731
They were largely an excuse
to eat more of it,

196
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and we'd figured out
even cheaper ways to make it,

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like out of corn.

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Sugar is now added to three-quarters
of packaged foods in the US,

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going by more than 60 different names.

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00:11:01,994 --> 00:11:04,038
[Long] Dextrose, fructose, sucrose,

201
00:11:04,121 --> 00:11:07,750
high-fructose corn syrup. Anything
that ends with “ose” is a form of sugar.

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00:11:07,833 --> 00:11:11,420
Or one of my favorite euphemisms
for sugar,

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00:11:11,504 --> 00:11:13,756
evaporated cane juice.

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00:11:13,839 --> 00:11:16,133
[Russell] There was no chance
artificial sweeteners

205
00:11:16,217 --> 00:11:18,803
were going to replace sugar
in all these foods.

206
00:11:18,886 --> 00:11:21,055
I think anybody who has tried
an artificial sweetener

207
00:11:21,138 --> 00:11:23,724
knows that we're not really
fooled by them.

208
00:11:23,808 --> 00:11:26,185
They don't taste exactly like sugar.

209
00:11:26,268 --> 00:11:28,979
No, I don't like the way that fake sugar,

210
00:11:29,063 --> 00:11:31,857
you know, leaves that taste in your mouth.

211
00:11:31,941 --> 00:11:34,193
-How bad is it?
-Sweetened chemically.

212
00:11:34,276 --> 00:11:36,737
Super sweet
that your mouth can’t really handle it.

213
00:11:38,322 --> 00:11:41,158
[man] I'm not a fan
of artificial sweeteners.

214
00:11:41,242 --> 00:11:43,536
I’ve had saccharin before
in sodas and chewing gum.

215
00:11:43,619 --> 00:11:47,373
It makes my mouth chalky and dry,
and needing to drink more water.

216
00:11:48,040 --> 00:11:52,169
[Russell] Pichet Ong has spent his career
trying to make desserts with less sugar,

217
00:11:52,253 --> 00:11:54,463
without ever compromising on taste.

218
00:11:54,547 --> 00:11:57,049
When I was consuming
the ones with aspartame,

219
00:11:57,133 --> 00:11:59,218
it also had a similar effect to me.

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It’s not quite, you know, natural tasting.

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00:12:03,347 --> 00:12:06,392
[Russell] A big part
of how sugar tastes is time.

222
00:12:06,475 --> 00:12:10,646
The time it takes for the sweetness
to peak after you take a bite,

223
00:12:10,730 --> 00:12:13,983
how long it lingers,
and how fast it declines.

224
00:12:14,608 --> 00:12:17,903
It's called temporal sweetness profile.

225
00:12:17,987 --> 00:12:19,947
This is how it looks for sugar.

226
00:12:20,030 --> 00:12:24,285
It peaks really fast
and disappears really fast.

227
00:12:24,368 --> 00:12:27,204
And this is how it looks for sucralose.

228
00:12:27,288 --> 00:12:29,623
The sweet taste comes on slower

229
00:12:29,707 --> 00:12:32,001
and takes its sweet time leaving.

230
00:12:32,710 --> 00:12:36,630
Aspartame hits even later
and loiters even longer.

231
00:12:37,381 --> 00:12:39,759
The difference is fractions of a second,

232
00:12:39,842 --> 00:12:42,845
but for our taste buds,
that's an eternity.

233
00:12:43,637 --> 00:12:46,223
And sugar is about
more than just sweetness.

234
00:12:46,307 --> 00:12:48,100
It makes icing glisten

235
00:12:48,184 --> 00:12:50,853
and cakes moist and fluffy.

236
00:12:50,936 --> 00:12:54,231
[Baniel] If you take
all the sugar out of a cake,

237
00:12:54,315 --> 00:12:57,318
the cake would come out like a pita bread.

238
00:12:57,401 --> 00:13:00,780
So the challenges are huge.

239
00:13:00,863 --> 00:13:04,617
The one sweetener that's worked
for me in many recipes is stevia.

240
00:13:04,700 --> 00:13:07,745
[Russell] Stevia is a natural
calorie-free sweetener.

241
00:13:07,828 --> 00:13:11,582
It comes from a South American plant,
and it can make a decent pudding.

242
00:13:12,166 --> 00:13:15,628
But the sweetness comes on
even later than artificial sweeteners

243
00:13:15,711 --> 00:13:19,507
and overstays its welcome,
revealing itself as fake.

244
00:13:20,549 --> 00:13:24,678
There is one sweetener
that tastes uncannily like sugar,

245
00:13:24,762 --> 00:13:26,889
just a little less intense.

246
00:13:26,972 --> 00:13:31,310
Allulose,
the rising star of sugar substitutes.

247
00:13:32,228 --> 00:13:34,104
Technically, it's a sugar,

248
00:13:34,188 --> 00:13:38,192
a rare kind found in tiny amounts
in foods like figs and raisins,

249
00:13:39,109 --> 00:13:41,737
but it doesn't act like sugar
in our bodies.

250
00:13:41,821 --> 00:13:45,825
We can't fully break it down,
which makes it nearly calorie-free.

251
00:13:46,408 --> 00:13:48,327
It performs well in the kitchen,

252
00:13:48,410 --> 00:13:50,663
and early studies suggest it's safe.

253
00:13:51,288 --> 00:13:55,084
But only a few producers make it.
Most countries haven't approved it yet.

254
00:13:56,293 --> 00:13:59,088
And it's priced like gourmet health food.

255
00:14:00,172 --> 00:14:02,842
And none of these sweeteners,
even allulose,

256
00:14:02,925 --> 00:14:05,928
can replace the most magical thing
about sugar.

257
00:14:07,513 --> 00:14:12,184
[Long] So sugar acts in the same part
of your brain as sex and addictive drugs.

258
00:14:12,268 --> 00:14:14,103
The reward zone of your brain.

259
00:14:14,186 --> 00:14:17,815
So you eat sugar, you've released
dopamine, you feel happier.

260
00:14:17,898 --> 00:14:20,943
[Russell] It isn't just hunger
that drives us to eat sugar.

261
00:14:21,443 --> 00:14:22,778
It's desire.

262
00:14:23,320 --> 00:14:25,489
That's why, even when we're full,

263
00:14:25,573 --> 00:14:28,701
we still perk up
when someone offers us dessert.

264
00:14:28,784 --> 00:14:29,952
[Baniel] Isn't that funny?

265
00:14:30,035 --> 00:14:32,746
We have a special space

266
00:14:32,830 --> 00:14:35,791
for the indulgent taste

267
00:14:35,875 --> 00:14:37,668
at the end of a meal.

268
00:14:38,502 --> 00:14:41,922
[Russell] One study found
that the reward zones of our brain

269
00:14:42,006 --> 00:14:45,926
only get activated
when sweetness comes with calories.

270
00:14:46,969 --> 00:14:50,014
If you want the pleasure,
you have to pay for it.

271
00:14:51,307 --> 00:14:54,268
The bitter truth is we can't mimic sugar,

272
00:14:54,351 --> 00:14:56,854
just leaving out the parts we don't like.

273
00:14:56,937 --> 00:14:59,565
So some people
are taking a different approach,

274
00:14:59,648 --> 00:15:02,818
trying to reinvent
the sugar crystal itself.

275
00:15:06,155 --> 00:15:08,824
In 2013, at age 95,

276
00:15:08,908 --> 00:15:12,494
Professor Avraham Baniel
was reflecting back on his life.

277
00:15:13,370 --> 00:15:17,791
He'd been an industrial chemist and worked
on many things over his long career.

278
00:15:17,875 --> 00:15:20,336
Extracting copper from desert sand,

279
00:15:20,419 --> 00:15:22,046
minerals from the Dead Sea,

280
00:15:22,129 --> 00:15:24,465
fertilizers, biofuels,

281
00:15:24,548 --> 00:15:26,300
carpet fiber, citric acid,

282
00:15:26,383 --> 00:15:28,761
and a long stint as a professor.

283
00:15:29,428 --> 00:15:32,681
And he remembered something
that happened a long time ago

284
00:15:32,765 --> 00:15:34,850
when he was a young man just starting out.

285
00:15:36,018 --> 00:15:37,853
The world was at war,

286
00:15:37,937 --> 00:15:40,397
and sugar was severely rationed.

287
00:15:40,481 --> 00:15:44,360
There was no sugar,
or hardly any sugar, to be had.

288
00:15:44,443 --> 00:15:46,904
[Russell] Professor Baniel
is Eran’s father.

289
00:15:47,571 --> 00:15:52,201
At the time, he was working near Haifa,
helping the war effort by making bombs.

290
00:15:52,868 --> 00:15:55,621
One day, he got a strange visit
from a friend's wife,

291
00:15:55,704 --> 00:15:57,873
who asked if he could get her some starch.

292
00:15:57,957 --> 00:16:00,834
[Baniel] My father said,
"Why do you want starch?"

293
00:16:00,918 --> 00:16:02,628
[Russell] It was a trick she knew.

294
00:16:02,711 --> 00:16:05,130
If you made a sticky pudding out of starch

295
00:16:05,214 --> 00:16:07,758
and then added
whatever little sugar you have,

296
00:16:07,841 --> 00:16:09,927
it would magically taste sweeter,

297
00:16:10,010 --> 00:16:12,179
as if it had a lot more sugar in it.

298
00:16:12,262 --> 00:16:13,973
[Baniel] So my father thought,

299
00:16:14,056 --> 00:16:16,558
"Funny. I must remember that."

300
00:16:16,642 --> 00:16:18,936
And, of course, he forgot all about it.

301
00:16:19,019 --> 00:16:22,189
[Russell] Until that fateful day in 2013,

302
00:16:22,272 --> 00:16:24,566
when it hit him like a revelation.

303
00:16:24,650 --> 00:16:28,445
So my father said,
"The only way to cut sugar

304
00:16:29,405 --> 00:16:32,241
is by using sugar in a different way."

305
00:16:34,243 --> 00:16:36,954
[Russell] You see,
sugar has a dirty secret.

306
00:16:37,037 --> 00:16:39,498
You don't actually taste most of it.

307
00:16:40,082 --> 00:16:41,875
When you take a bite of cake,

308
00:16:41,959 --> 00:16:44,461
the sugar crystals dissolve in your mouth,

309
00:16:44,545 --> 00:16:47,464
and the sugar molecules
go all over the place.

310
00:16:47,548 --> 00:16:51,135
Only a fraction of them
ever touch your taste buds.

311
00:16:51,218 --> 00:16:53,679
The rest? You just swallow it.

312
00:16:53,762 --> 00:16:56,557
It goes where you don't want it.

313
00:16:57,182 --> 00:17:00,060
[Russell] The reason starch
made pudding taste sweeter

314
00:17:00,144 --> 00:17:03,063
is that it coats your tongue
and makes it stickier,

315
00:17:03,147 --> 00:17:05,607
so more of the sugar hits your taste buds.

316
00:17:06,275 --> 00:17:09,611
Eran's dad thought
he had a more efficient solution,

317
00:17:09,695 --> 00:17:12,990
embedding something
into the sugar crystal itself,

318
00:17:13,073 --> 00:17:14,408
which would act like…

319
00:17:14,491 --> 00:17:17,911
[Baniel] A sponge for the sugar molecules.

320
00:17:17,995 --> 00:17:21,623
[Russell] Soaking them up
and creating a new kind of crystal

321
00:17:21,707 --> 00:17:24,543
containing giant clumps
of sugar molecules.

322
00:17:25,753 --> 00:17:29,048
So when you take a bite,
and the crystals dissolve,

323
00:17:29,131 --> 00:17:33,052
more of those molecules have a chance
to reach our sweet receptors.

324
00:17:34,219 --> 00:17:36,764
Eran was so convinced by his dad's idea,

325
00:17:36,847 --> 00:17:38,557
he started a company.

326
00:17:38,640 --> 00:17:40,267
DouxMatok.

327
00:17:40,350 --> 00:17:42,227
"Doux" is "sweet" in French,

328
00:17:42,311 --> 00:17:44,813
and "matok" is "sweet" in Hebrew.

329
00:17:44,897 --> 00:17:47,399
And "du" also means "double" in Hebrew.

330
00:17:47,483 --> 00:17:50,903
[Baniel] So "sweet sweet"
or "double sweet."

331
00:17:51,528 --> 00:17:53,363
[Russell] They discovered that silica,

332
00:17:53,447 --> 00:17:56,283
a common food additive,
was a great sponge.

333
00:17:56,867 --> 00:17:58,827
And the result was Incredo,

334
00:17:58,911 --> 00:18:01,080
nearly 100% sugar,

335
00:18:01,163 --> 00:18:04,708
but because we taste more of it,
we don't need to eat as much.

336
00:18:05,417 --> 00:18:07,419
It's got a lot of people excited.

337
00:18:07,503 --> 00:18:10,839
Time named it
one of the best inventions of 2020.

338
00:18:11,423 --> 00:18:13,425
But it has its limitations,

339
00:18:13,509 --> 00:18:15,302
namely water.

340
00:18:16,011 --> 00:18:20,516
With Incredo, the sugar and the silica
break apart as soon as they get wet.

341
00:18:20,599 --> 00:18:22,726
[Baniel] Boom! The couple is broken.

342
00:18:22,810 --> 00:18:25,562
Sugar on one side,
carrier on the other side.

343
00:18:25,646 --> 00:18:27,106
The miracle is gone.

344
00:18:28,190 --> 00:18:30,818
[Russell] Our bodies evolved
for this compound

345
00:18:30,901 --> 00:18:33,362
in ways that are hard to trick or hack,

346
00:18:34,196 --> 00:18:36,073
and that we still don't fully understand.

347
00:18:37,699 --> 00:18:39,868
But we keep learning more about sugar,

348
00:18:39,952 --> 00:18:43,330
and some common assumptions
are due for another update.

349
00:18:44,164 --> 00:18:45,457
In the 2000s,

350
00:18:45,541 --> 00:18:49,336
high-fructose corn syrup
was considered the most evil of sugars.

351
00:18:50,003 --> 00:18:52,131
It's been called "the Devil's candy,"

352
00:18:52,214 --> 00:18:55,509
a "sinister invention,"
and "the crack of sweeteners."

353
00:18:56,093 --> 00:18:58,137
But a lot of high-fructose corn syrup

354
00:18:58,220 --> 00:19:01,181
is basically the same
molecular structure as sugar.

355
00:19:01,265 --> 00:19:02,766
No better, no worse.

356
00:19:03,475 --> 00:19:05,394
Things like agave nectar and honey

357
00:19:05,477 --> 00:19:08,730
are widely seen as healthier
alternatives to sugar, but…

358
00:19:08,814 --> 00:19:13,152
The truth is, whether it's fructose,
sucrose, glucose, or the other forms,

359
00:19:13,235 --> 00:19:14,820
your body sees it as sugar.

360
00:19:15,404 --> 00:19:18,448
[Russell] Brown sugar has some
trace nutrients that white doesn't,

361
00:19:19,158 --> 00:19:21,201
but we're talking really trace.

362
00:19:22,161 --> 00:19:24,246
Raw sugar isn't better for you, either.

363
00:19:24,329 --> 00:19:26,540
It's not even really raw,

364
00:19:26,623 --> 00:19:28,792
just slightly less refined.

365
00:19:29,501 --> 00:19:31,003
And to be clear,

366
00:19:31,086 --> 00:19:34,298
artificial sweeteners
won't give you cancer.

367
00:19:34,882 --> 00:19:36,592
By the early 2000s,

368
00:19:36,675 --> 00:19:40,846
saccharin products were no longer
required to carry a warning label.

369
00:19:40,929 --> 00:19:43,390
Compared to a sugar-sweetened beverage,

370
00:19:43,473 --> 00:19:45,851
an aspartame-sweetened beverage

371
00:19:45,934 --> 00:19:48,812
is a much safer,

372
00:19:48,896 --> 00:19:50,439
healthier choice.

373
00:19:50,522 --> 00:19:51,565
And I

374
00:19:52,649 --> 00:19:55,235
will probably go to my grave saying that.

375
00:19:55,819 --> 00:19:57,571
[Russell] But recent studies also suggest

376
00:19:57,654 --> 00:20:00,657
that artificial sweeteners
aren't a great way to lose weight,

377
00:20:01,325 --> 00:20:05,495
possibly because they change
the composition of bacteria in our guts.

378
00:20:08,123 --> 00:20:10,834
The taste of sweet never comes for free,

379
00:20:10,918 --> 00:20:12,753
but there is some good news.

380
00:20:13,420 --> 00:20:18,008
Sugar actually isn't as bad for us
as we may have been led to believe.

381
00:20:18,842 --> 00:20:21,678
You may have heard
that sugar makes kids hyper,

382
00:20:21,762 --> 00:20:24,514
but that idea was based
on pretty weak data.

383
00:20:25,641 --> 00:20:27,809
Later studies couldn't find any evidence

384
00:20:27,893 --> 00:20:31,271
that sugar affects kids' behavior
or cognitive function.

385
00:20:31,980 --> 00:20:34,858
Very often these days,

386
00:20:34,942 --> 00:20:36,818
someone will say,

387
00:20:36,902 --> 00:20:39,696
“Sugar is the new tobacco,

388
00:20:40,280 --> 00:20:42,115
and we should banish it.”

389
00:20:42,199 --> 00:20:45,244
[Russell] You may have heard
that sugar's wildly addictive.

390
00:20:45,327 --> 00:20:47,829
The science is coming in now where we know

391
00:20:47,913 --> 00:20:51,083
that sugar is more addictive than cocaine.

392
00:20:51,166 --> 00:20:52,751
Eight times more addictive than cocaine.

393
00:20:52,834 --> 00:20:54,753
Addictive like heroin, rock cocaine.

394
00:20:54,836 --> 00:20:58,674
[Russell] But that evidence, once again,
comes from mice studies.

395
00:20:59,508 --> 00:21:02,052
If you had to pick
between sugar withdrawal

396
00:21:02,135 --> 00:21:03,929
and cocaine withdrawal,

397
00:21:04,012 --> 00:21:05,806
definitely pick sugar.

398
00:21:05,889 --> 00:21:08,850
[Stanhope] Clearly,
there's a greater level

399
00:21:08,934 --> 00:21:11,520
of addiction

400
00:21:11,603 --> 00:21:16,316
and physiological effect
with cocaine compared to the sugar.

401
00:21:20,862 --> 00:21:22,823
[Long] As I always say,
"Sugar isn't poison."

402
00:21:22,906 --> 00:21:24,533
"The dose makes the poison."

403
00:21:24,616 --> 00:21:26,618
A little bit of sugar is not the problem.

404
00:21:26,702 --> 00:21:30,122
It is the large, constant, chronic
quantities that create the problem.

405
00:21:30,205 --> 00:21:31,290
[Russell] In the US,

406
00:21:31,373 --> 00:21:35,627
sugar consumption has actually
been going down for the past two decades.

407
00:21:35,711 --> 00:21:40,841
But fast food and junk food consumption
is not going down.

408
00:21:40,924 --> 00:21:44,052
[Russell] So obesity rates
keep trending upwards.

409
00:21:44,136 --> 00:21:46,430
People are still eating

410
00:21:46,972 --> 00:21:51,768
horrifyingly little amounts
of fresh fruit and vegetable,

411
00:21:52,519 --> 00:21:54,896
whole grains, beans.

412
00:21:54,980 --> 00:21:56,690
Nobody eats beans.

413
00:21:57,983 --> 00:22:00,819
[Russell] We may never be able
to have our cake and eat it too.

414
00:22:01,528 --> 00:22:03,697
That's just not how cakes work.

415
00:22:04,239 --> 00:22:07,492
But we're getting closer
to making healthier cakes.

416
00:22:08,160 --> 00:22:10,954
On November 27th, 2020,

417
00:22:11,038 --> 00:22:15,042
Eran's father
celebrated his 102nd birthday.

418
00:22:15,125 --> 00:22:17,794
He's eating a brownie.

419
00:22:17,878 --> 00:22:20,922
The sugar was 35% reduced.

420
00:22:21,006 --> 00:22:22,591
I mean, he loved it.

421
00:22:22,674 --> 00:22:26,303
He was really beside himself
with happiness.

422
00:22:26,803 --> 00:22:29,181
Mazel tov!

423
00:22:29,264 --> 00:22:32,684
[Russell] We should all be aiming
for a more balanced diet

424
00:22:32,768 --> 00:22:34,936
without too much sugar.

425
00:22:35,020 --> 00:22:37,481
But declaring war on a single ingredient

426
00:22:37,564 --> 00:22:39,733
is a recipe for defeat.

427
00:22:39,816 --> 00:22:43,528
You're not going to stick
to any diet that makes you miserable.

428
00:22:44,279 --> 00:22:48,283
Dark chocolate, especially
dark chocolate bars with nuts in them.

429
00:22:48,367 --> 00:22:51,787
That, without a doubt,
is my most favorite.

430
00:22:52,621 --> 00:22:55,749
[Ong] It makes me feel
energetic and happy.

431
00:22:55,832 --> 00:22:57,084
When I go to bed at night,

432
00:22:57,167 --> 00:22:59,795
I will be thinking I can't wait
to wake up and have some dessert.

433
00:23:00,754 --> 00:23:04,424
We need to cut
the overconsumption of sugar.

434
00:23:04,508 --> 00:23:06,009
Absolutely.

435
00:23:06,093 --> 00:23:07,928
But the overconsumption,

436
00:23:08,512 --> 00:23:12,099
not the essential consumption of sugar.