Bob Harrison said:

> Thanks to James for presenting the sugar lobby point of view.

The "sugar lobby" cannot change basic chemistry any more than
the HFCS lobby, the artificial sweeteners lobby, or anyone else.

The great thing about chemical processes is that they are easy
to verify with one's own experiments.  One can line up cane sugar,
beet sugar, corn syrup, AND HONEY on a lab bench, run them through
the same set of chemical processes (simulating a mammal's digestive
processes), and end up with the same exact "simple sugars" at
the other end of the lab bench.  Similar experiments are common
entries in Junior High School science fairs, so this is not a complicated
thing.

Bottom line, glucose, fructose, and starches (like cellulose) are the
most abundant organic molecules in the biosphere.  Without them,
everything dies.  Eat too much of them, and you also die.  Eat the
"right" amounts, and you live a "normal" lifespan.  But you still die.

When you die, you decompose into nutrients that get converted by
plants into glucose, fructose, and starches, starting the cycle again
with new players.  It's called "life".  It has a beginning, a middle, and an
end for all participants.

  "It's too bad she won't live.
   But then again, who does?"
      (Gaff, in the film "Blade Runner")

> If  I believed that the use of refined sugar over a long period of time was not
> harmful I might have posted the same information as my friend James.

Anyone would agree that there are too many sugars in packaged foods,
but the bulk of the refined sugars added are not cane sugar.  Cane sugar
is simply "too costly" for companies that want to sell "food products" at
a profit.  In the US, corn syrup is the real "enemy", and in Europe, it is
beet sugar, if you want to point out "enemies".  To be even more specific,
the problem is packaged foods, and the whole concept of "convenience"
as applied to dining.

> The highest incidence of diabetes is in people which consume refined sugar.

...to EXCESS.  This is the key point.  There is quite a bit of subtle fraud on
nearly every package one can pick up at the grocery, and one of the biggest
problems is that "added sugars" are not clearly listed.  To illustrate how silly
things have become, any beekeeper can put the strictly true and perfectly legal
statement on their label saying "No Added Sugar".

> AVERAGE American  ingests  100 pounds of refinned sugar per year.

This is very true and very sad, but the term "refined sugar" includes more than
cane sugar. All sweeteners from "natural" sources (except honey and an obscure
leaf named "stevia") must be "refined" to concentrate the sweetness to a "useful" level.

Therefore, the term "refined sugar" applies to nearly all "natural" sweeteners.

> I would like to see the refined sugar and pure honey average use reversed.

It would be just as bad for health either way.  The only difference would be that
beekeepers would become the source of the "evil" rather than the growers and
processors of corn and beets.

> Ps. Please do not get me started on Apartame use in diet drinks.

The artificial stuff IS very scary, simply because there are so many
contradictory results coming from well-designed studies.

This is much more scary than glucose/fructose/sucrose/cellulose/carbohydrates,
where there is no disagreement about the biology or chemistry.

        jim