Cautions Regarding the Use of Sugar
While sugar is more digestible than starch, and is more rapidly utilized by the muscles when overworked, it can not be used by the ordinary healthy person in such unlimited quantities as starch. One investigator reports that foods containing one and one-third pounds of starch (equivalent to two and one-half pounds of bread or six pounds of potatoes) can be digested without difficulty during considerable periods of time. Another investigator observed that the use of two thirds that amount of sugar daily for some time disturbed his digestion very much. Of course, no generalization made from single cases is of great importance. A former paper called attention to the fact that sugar, being so readily absorbed, if it is eaten in large quantities, is taken into the blood faster than the liver can store it up, and it has to be disposed of at the expense of the secretory organs, which are in this way prepared for premature breakdown. The tendency of large quantities of sugar or sweets to ferment in the stomach was also referred to. The action of concentrated solutions as an irritant was also mentioned. In proof of this may be given the work of a German scientist, who found that a 5.7 per cent solution “reddened the mucous membrane; a 10 per cent solution made it dark red, indicating irritation; a 20 per cent solution caused the dog such distress that the experiment was carried no further.” Undoubtedly the use of sugar in concentrated form, as in candy, has a similar effect on the human stomach. There seems to be no proof that sugar to the amount of three ounces a day is injurious to the healthy, active adult, and the belief that it is injurious to the teeth seems to be without foundation, except as it is eaten in such quantities as to impair the digestive forces and lower the vitality. Starchy foods, which sometimes form lactic acid through the action of germs, are far more a menace to the teeth, as the sugar, being soluble, is necessarily washed out of the mouth by the saliva, while particles of starchy food may remain for some time in a decaying condition between the teeth. The negroes of the West Indies, who consume great quantities of sugar, are said to have the finest teeth in the world. From what has been said regarding the use of sweets in concentrated form, parents will recognize the folly of permitting children to use candy in anything but minute quantities, especially as many candies have coloring matter and other ingredients which are more harmful than the sugar. But children, being very active, require large amounts of carbohydrates. In what form shall it be given them? While on a milk diet, the child receives a considerable amount of milk-sugar, which is equivalent to cane-sugar in nutritive value, but is inferior in sweetening power. It seems, however, to be better adapted to the infant stomach than cane-sugar. On account of its slight sweetening power, children accustomed to use sweets sometimes refuse milk, and thus get an excess of carbohydrates with a deficiency of tissue-building material, which finally, if uncorrected, results disastrously to the child. Another thing to consider about the free use of sweets is the danger of establishing a capricious appetite, not satisfied with foods of mild flavor. Such an appetite is always a snare to its possessor, and is apt to be the precursor of a lifelong dyspepsia. For older people the tendency is also to use sweets, pastries, and puddings too freely, in place of simple articles of food. The soldier on a hard march and light rations can use large amounts of sugar with impunity, and the Canadian lumberman, exposed to severe work and rigorous weather, can dispose of amazing quantities of molasses and fat pork without difficulty, while the same persons taking a rest during the summer months will contract severe indigestion on such a diet.—Pacific Health Journal.