Starring: Damon Gameau
That Sugar Film
Director: Damon Gameau
Rating:4/5
At the start of this documentary- actor and filmmaker Damon Gameau has manged to remove any trace of sugar from his diet, he eats healthfully and consumes the recommended daily amount for his size and sex.
Then he decides after three years, to see what adding sugar into his diet will do to his body and his mind.
He takes 60 days out of his life, before his baby girl is born, to educate people on what these hidden sugars do to us and to make the best choices for his daughter when she arrives.
It's admirable that after working so hard to cleanse his system of sugar, he was willing to fill it full of impurities again all for the purpose of informing people of the dangers of this additive. It highlights, however, that many of us are putting ourselves through this experiment every day of our lives without even realising it. We have probably been doing it so long that the damage is far worse than what Damon did to himself in a mere 60 days.
The documentary starts off with a staggering statistic- 'if all products contain sugar were removed from the supermarket shelves- only 20% of the foods would be left'. Just let that sink in.
Sugar is in everything and it's cleverly disguised under other names we don't recognise as being sugar but are just different forms of the stuff.
It prompted me to look at the things in my kitchen cupboard and I was horrified by just how many of the sauces, pastes and flavourings have sugar in them.
This is a must see for everyone who relies on convenience foods. Seeing Damon put raw sugar on his food to emphasize just how many teaspoons there are in each of the products, really hits home how much we're consuming in a day. To add insult to injury- these are foods that are marked as 'low fat' or 'healthy'- Damon didn't consume any confectionary during the experiment- the sugar was only from seemingly 'good' food.
So many of us reach for these foods thinking we have no time to prepare them but if we knew the toll it was taking on our health we would find the time.
Watching this film has made me clean out my pantry of all things containing sugar and it's my aim to make things from scratch now so I know exactly what's going into the food I'm eating. I'm a recently turned vegan and I've been fooled into thinking that vegan convenience foods are healthy- but they fall into exactly the same trap as any other convince food- sugar is added to make them taste more palatable.
But we don't need it- Damon shows what happens inside the brain and the liver when we eat sugar in simplistic terms so it's easy to understand for those who find biology a bit mind boggling- like me.
What's really sad is at the start Damon is a man with a steady, positive outlook, clear skin and normal body weight. At the end his moods peak and trough at a rate of knots, he gets adult acne and he gains a stone in two months and that's just what we can observe. There are much worse things going on inside his body. He looks ill by the end and you get a clear sense of his eagerness to return to his normal healthy ways.
We all need to know what that feels like so we don't get tempted by the sugar cycle and the only way to have this clarity is to go cold turkey.
This documentary will shock you into making some pretty big changes where your eating and shopping habits are concerned- as the guy in the film says- just head right for the fresh fruit and veg area and ignore all the other aisles. There is sugar down each and every one of the others just lurking on the shelves waiting to give you diabetes, make you fat and mess with your mood.