SeeCalifornia.com

When you head to a fair or festival this summer, the temptations are everywhere. Cotton candy, kettle corn,  ice cream sprinkled with colorful sugar confetti, and lemonade in flavors that include strawberry and raspberry, all look and taste so sweet and delicious. The secret ingredient isn’t so mysterious–it’s sugar.

Americans are consuming more calories than we did in the 1950s, partially due to foods in which sweeteners are added to appeal to our tastebuds.  Our per capita consumption of sugar & corn syrup used in pizzas, beverages, snacks and everything under the sun has increased an additional 43 pounds, or 35% per year. Though sugar gets a bad rap, can it be good for you? Professor Peter Clifton from the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute says the health impacts of sugar may have been over-stated. He says there are no controlled studies showing that eating sugar causes high blood pressure or that cutting sugar alone reduces high blood pressure. Sugar is just another form of over-consumed calories, easily available and very palatable but no more metabolically deadly than starch or fat calories and certainly not equivalent to alcohol, according to him.  If you want to see what anti-sugar proponents say about it’s health effects,  read on..>