Dr. Robert Lustig is perhaps the most outspoken anti-sugar critic out there. His 90 minute video, Sugar: The Bitter Truth, has netted 3.2 million views on YouTube; his latest book Fat Chance, which, among other things, links sugar to obesity and chronic disease, is currently #68 on Amazon's Top 100 bestselling books.
On Monday, Lustig was a guest on KQED's Forum and even though he was fighting a bad cold, he was his usual passionate self on many things related to the American diet, especially sugar. Lustig believes sugar is such a dietary menace that it should be regulated, much the same way alcohol is regulated.
He rattled off a lot of numbers during his discussion with Forum host Michael Krasny.
Nearly one-half cup of sugar per day
"Our current sugar consumption is 22 teaspoons per day, on average ... for all of America," Lustig told Forum's audience. For reference, that's nearly one-half cup. "The American Heart Association put out a scientific statement in 2009 recommending that we reduce that to six teaspoons a day for women and nine teaspoons a day for men."