'Fed Up' With Sugar: Katie Couric's 10-Day Challenge

it's been called dangerous it's been called addictive and it's in almost everything we eat sugar tonight the food industry is up in arms over a controversial new movie accusing big food of peddling unhealthy sugar filled products especially to our kids and tonight this challenge could you go sugar-free for 10 days is that even possible I tried it and the results were surprising it is a controversial new entry into America's raging debate over obesity what if our whole approach to this epidemic has been dead wrong the new movie fed up says the country has gone way off course blaming obese people including children for their weight problem the message has been pushed on us it's your fault instead according to the movie the real problem is the food companies who load their products up with sugar which critics call dangerous and addictive sugar is poison diabetes heart disease lipid problems strokes cancer those diseases are being driven by sugar if a foreign nation we're doing that to our children we would defend our families years from now we're going to say I can't believe we let them get away with that according to the movie most Americans are hooked on sugar and truth be told I am one of them cookies cheesecake jellybeans they seduced me every time okay so I'll admit that I'm one of these kind of annoyingly healthy people I work out every day ate a lot of fruits and vegetables I don't smoke I don't drink I don't even drink caffeine I have one major vice and that is sugar so you can imagine my discomfort when my colleague Katie Couric who's the narrator and executive producer of fed up announce something called the fed up challenge ten days with no sugar I'm gonna start you're starting also she then went on Good Morning America and publicly roped me into it and Dan Harris of Nightline is going to be doing it with me thank you for that Katie so here are the rules of the challenge no soda or sweetened beverages that includes diet soda and juice no artificial sugars or sugar substitutes and no foods that have added sugar which includes not only my favorite desserts but to my surprise everything from yogurts to canned foods to spaghetti sauce okay so it's this Sunday night before Katie Couric's sugar-free Death March and I'm doing a last-minute binge pack of cookies sure enough the next day day one of the challenge I'm missing sugar already coming and everybody's having chocolate looks happy yes I'm having fruit fruit which has natural sugar is allowed under the rules of the challenge I'm not cheating I just want you to know this is unhappy baby my only consolation Katie is suffering too I'm feeling a little listless and lethargic yes I want a cookie you know I I think I missed the sugar I'm not going to lie as soon as you decide to cut out sugar you very quickly realize how hard it is to find any product that doesn't have sugar I looked at my super healthy bread to fix a piece of toast this morning and I was so bummed look one gram of sugar ahh everything has added sugar according to the movie even if the label doesn't say sugar don't be fooled there are 256 different names for sugar day 5 we bring dr. Mark Hyman featured in the movie way to a supermarkets you have to learn how to hunting gathers and it's your market and the best way to do that it's a stick around the edges of the supermarket so don't go down any of the aisles where all the processed foods are he says there are 600,000 food items in America and 80% have added sugar it's very simple if you read a label and there's an e greenie you can't pronounce don't recognize it's in Latin or it's not a real food put the food back on the shelf is there a barcode on this right is there nutrition facts on this right it's a little bit more work than just buying a frozen dinner but Hyman says the trick to going sugar-free is cooking your own meals we ate ourselves into this by eating junk food and we have to cook our way out of this problem so does this mean I could just bake lots of homemade cookies and cakes at home apparently not I love dessert yes you've taken that away from we think we love cookies we love Donuts we love cake but I've got news for you it's not love it's addiction on in animal studies they found that sugars eight times as addictive as cocaine when they put rats on an eating sugar and a little sugar bowl with liquid sugar and then they put them on an electric shock pad and they shock them while they're eating the sugar they keep eating the sugar even while they're getting shocked because it feels that good I'm the rat in this you are here the rat day seven my co-anchors on weekend GMA are openly taunting me you look like a tramp hands down the best thing I've ever had you guys are really good friends even if you happen to have nicer colleagues we all live in an ecosystem of near constant temptation bombarded by marketing messages especially kids on television and even in school in the movie Katie challenges former President Bill Clinton about why the government hasn't done more do you think the government is behind when it comes to helping Americans reduce their sugar intake yes I do why why are they talking that or why aren't they doing more I can't answer that as you might imagine the food industry has not taken kindly to this movie the grocery Manufacturers Association arguing that companies have aggressively reduced calories the childhood obesity has actually gone down in recent years and that the movie just plain gets the facts wrong still while critics may take issue with the movies quote vilification of one nutrient pretty much nobody argues that reducing sugar is a bad thing day nine and Dietary freedom is so close I can almost taste it I will admit that I am sleeping a lot better without all the sugar but the cravings have not diminished one bit in fact on my way home from work I pass all of these canta lysing desert places you feel deprived that felt a lot very angry at Katie this morning the day after the challenge ended I went on Good Morning America with Katie yeah stick with it you know I think I will stick with it with a few calculated sugar binges people have asked me did you cheat the truth is I did find a box of Swedish fish my wife had hidden away in the cabinet and to my great shame I had two of them but again I only had two of them we should say the grocery Manufacturers Association contacted us to say that fed up provides an inaccurate view of the packaged food industry and quote our companies have been trusted by generations to provide products that are safe nutritious affordable and well balanced fed up is in theaters right now

Channel: ABC News

Views: 383,470

Rating: 4.8518519 out of 5

Keywords: Challenge, Day, Katie Couric (Hall Of Fame Inductee), Sugar (Nutrient), Sugar, Diet, Fed Up, Obsession, Foods, Sweets, Katie Couric, Dan Harris, Nightline, ABC, ABCNews, News, US, Health

Id: 2ItIXmNBmkI

Length: 7min 38sec (458 seconds)

Published: Thu May 22 2014