Sugar rush: the roots of the addiction | FULL DOCUMENTARY

[Music] here is Remy burkhil who will be leading this investigation Remy's franco-american who was a careful and educated consumer and he loves to eat good morning have a Parry breast please to eat straight away that looks good we will be traveling with Remy through Europe and the United States clear understanding of how these industrial food Giants have conquered our senses with their disgustingly good grub [Music] Remy was raised on hamburgers and french fries in America the country where you can eat 24 7. [Music] when he arrived in France he fell in love with good food local markets and home-cooked meals for the past 25 years he has watched the junk food of his childhood Burgers soda and pizza to mention a few invade the tables of this old world we all know the truth it is bad for you to eat too much and to eat poorly you can get sick or Worse nearly 3 million people die each year from obesity related health problems we no longer eat what we need we eat what we like we stuff ourselves with bad food and go back for more why do we like it so much good in the beginning it was for the taste our ancestors ate to survive we on the other hand eat to satisfy our Cravings we no longer eat what we need we eat what we like if you want proof just look at these Americans queuing up this Temple of sugar to admire candy artwork [Music] [Music] just like them Remy loves sweets ice cream and cookies how did he fall into the cookie jar [Music] thank you for me has chosen to start his investigation on Halloween the Great American sugar holiday [Music] for the occasion he is going to see the person who helped educate his palette so this is my mother that evening children dressed up as monsters petition the neighbors for their share of candy it takes for me back to his own childhood and he is thrilled [Music] you had an issue about us eating too much sugar my job was to keep my children from being damaged by it and that this was serious stuff so I tried my best some children grow up and believe the same thing and others don't um what can I say [Applause] no we're all sugar addicts now anyway parents can try their hardest to teach healthy food habits but tough nuts like Remy will continue to swear by sweets and cream filled cakes this happens to be normal it is completely natural to light sugar but why [Music] after Washington and its tidal wave of candy Remy returns to France he travels to Dijon to the inra or the French National Institute of agricultural research [Music] thank you welcome to the Science Center for food and taste okay I'll follow you Sophie Nicklaus a researcher at inra studies the origins of taste according to her certain preferences are very obvious right from birth here for example we are trying to measure their preferences for basic tastes salty Bitter Sweet and acidic you can see evidence of clear preferences as early as three months the most common example is the virtually innate attraction to sweetness which incidentally happens to have strong pain killing properties in children pediatricians often make use of this effect to calm children when vaccinating them this strong preference for sugar exists from birth it is natural in the sense that it indicates the presence of energy in Foods at a time when food options were not unlimited as they are today it was essential to be able to pick out foods that would be the best sources of energy a sweet taste was a strong indicator of this energy it is natural for men to like sugar but also fat and salt man detects the calories that are required for his survival taste differs from country to Country this accounts for specific food traditions the French in their cheese the Chinese and their chicken feet and the British and their jelly for dessert foreign [Music] like to eat is no longer slowly simmered on the stove by our grandmothers but by the food industry who manufactures and transforms 80 of what we ingest [Music] mix salads to Meat and Fish dishes canned foods pizzas quiches cakes in the fresh dry or frozen aisles are all industrially produced in the past 10 years the number of industrially produced products has exploded in France the pre-prepared dishes in the fresh section have doubled in volume there are 281 yogurt product references alone [Music] with temptation in front of us 24 7 we eat more than we used to in 50 years our food bowl has gone from 2 200 calories to 3 000 calories today so how do you choose in this sea of products taste alone does not fill our shopping carts appearance touch smell they all come into play a battery of invisible tools are working on our senses and influencing our purchasing Behavior [Music] when we shop our choices aren't dictated by taste only the food industry has plenty of other tricks to influence our choices and make us buy more we're about to meet with Pierre shondong who is a specialist in food marketing he will help us decipher this [Music] here we are in the temple of consumption [Music] thank you [Music] I've come to see you because I'd like to understand more clearly how things work in the supermarket how does the food industry push us to buy more and more and what tricks are used on us consumers it starts as soon as you enter the store as consumers we know about advertising we know it is there to influence our choices we also know that price is a factor but for example even the simple decision of whether to take a basket or a cart makes a difference it is proven that if you opt for a basket and carry it close to your body like this you'll be encouraged to make purchases for yourself things that give you pleasure I'm going to treat myself and grab that chocolate bar on the other hand if you go for a cart you'll be pushing it in front of you it becomes a sort of barrier it helps us to resist temptation and motivates you to focus on fruits and vegetables today we're going to look at all the things in the store that influence our buying choices without us knowing [Music] [Laughter] [Music] when I get to the refrigerated section and look at the yogurts the desserts and all the selection is huge there's too much choice I panic it's just too much there used to be no more than a few different yogurts on the Shelf yes absolutely the explanation is simple if you constantly eat plain yogurt you will Tire of it more quickly and therefore consume less if you're offered a choice in terms of flavor packaging color Etc you will consume more and you won't tires easily the manufacturer's goal is to come back each year with new flavors or some new packaging to maintain novelty and make us consume forevermore here we have four yogurts or four opportunities to consume 125 grams of yogurt which contain about 100 calories here we have this yogurt to drink which is consumed like one yogurt except that it contains 500 milliliters that is equal to the four yogurts all together with about 500 calories but this will probably be consumed in one shot this is an example of being coerced into consuming more going from four small 125 gram yogurts to this big 500 milliliter bottle not to mention this bottle which is supposed to be the family size packaging although it is common to see teenagers drinking the whole thing down in a half hour as an afternoon snack [Music] these are pre-prepared dishes here we have ready-made dishes right across from the fresh fruits and vegetables it is intended to remind you that although you could peel and cook your own vegetables you can also just Reach Out grab a pre-prepared product and have the same meal right away at home right ready to cook all you do is pop it in the oven or microwave it's done the contrast with the fresh fruit and vegetables that need to be prepared no one even knows how to cook these things anymore the ready-made product is so much more practical and this is the best place in the store to emphasize this right here near the fresh food [Music] before that product gets put out on display the special Miracle recipe needs to be perfected the one that will keep you coming back again and again foreign [Music] the director of sensory Spectrum invites remain to her laboratory of sensory analysis this is where the feet of our food is decided before a product hits the market everything is tested texture acidity flavor today a strawberry yogurt is being put to the test of the lab technician's pallets okay sweet if you guys spit it out afterwards we would always tell you to spit it out okay how much of it is strawberry three two and a half the character of the strawberry is what how much for foreign you do this technicity also all your different programs are this technical right or even more technical everything for descriptive analysis is taken as detailed as possible okay so for sure we would probably also do appearance especially if it's being tested with consumers as well because they often react to the way things look way before they ever react to the way things taste and you do this like in your everyday lives do you so this I taste these things you're often asked when someone like your husband or your you know whoever you're dining with knows what you do and they'll say what is that weird thing in your food and you have to say do you really want to know those appearance and texture seem to be essential ingredients in the miracle recipe [Music] let's take the best-selling cookie Oreo which is as much cookie filled with cream Oreo is sold enough 100 countries and generates 1.5 billion dollars in turnover for its manufacturer craft food [Music] however research has shown that nutritional quality is not part of Oreo's makeup the cookie contains complex sugars fat barely seven percent coca and whey powder instead of milk but even when we know that we still come back for more why [Music] what's funny to me is is Oreo cookies which are one of my favorites what makes me want to eat those things what elements do you think that make us really want to come back to a food why is this so great yeah why is it so great why is it have an Oreo cookie to the texture variants it's got flavor interesting flavor combinations but it has the contrast between the creamy center and then the Crispy Crunchy outside and so you're biting into the cookie and unlike just having a plain sugar cookie where you have to do all the work to make it wet it down the fat is there to help you wet it down and then you're getting the vanilla sort of from the center and the chocolate from the outside coming together in the in the flavor and so it's a it's a very nice combination of a factor so the art of this is to develop flavor combinations and texture combinations that work together so that you're not left with this aftertaste or after feel or residue of stuff in your mouth so you have to have something that is palatable so between explain the word explain the word palatable just because palatable meaning that people will consume it and that it's actually edible and well liked by people so that they're uh craving it or or really like looking for it so let me take this back these are my cookies no one is able to resist the products tested by this taste Guru who leaves nothing up to chance even Remy fell into the Trap every year the food industry spends 3.5 billion dollars on Research carried out by Labs like sensory spectrum that would buy a whole lot of tap dancing lessons [Music] on top of the taste the texture the color and the shape of the packaging isn't there some other little extra some chemical formula some invisible ingredient that could account for our compulsive attraction to these chips pizza and chocolate bars [Music] Remy sets off for Yale University where Kelly Brownell studies the impact of poor eating on our organism [Music] well there was one at one point in human history if there had been food labels they would have had one thing on them it would have been whatever the food was and now there are 50 different chemicals lots of different sugars colorings flavorings preservatives and these things fool the brain the the human brain was never designed to handle this chemical Onslaught and so the the foods have been stripped of things like fiber that might have given you some sense of how much you've had and make you feel full and a lot of things have been added to them that maximize their sensory properties and they explode in this burst of sensation with flavor with smells with colors and you're entertained by the food in a lot of different ways and that maximizes the sales of the company but it also seems to maximize disease in many cases [Music] different substances there is one that stands out above all others sugar we have already seen that the consumer is naturally attracted to Sugar therefore Industrials gladly add it to everything in its many forms in the last 50 years sugar has become the star of the kitchen in the past 30 years its worldwide consumption has tripled [Music] remember the saying you are what you eat but today I'm on my way to Le Mans to meet Angelique the nutritionist the work is really interesting this morning she's teaching people how to read a product label nutritionist in London helps people understand and master the contents of their shopping carts she even gives classes in label reading for those who are really lost take this Savory buckwheat crap for example the label says the crepe contains water buckwheat flour and salt so far so good then there is the bechamel sauce that's where it starts to get complicated then wheat flour vegetable fat in the form of coconut oil which is a saturated fat then there's a wheat starch modified potato starch Which is far from natural and is metabolized by the body just like sugar then we have powdered milk dehydrated butter powder and Coca syrup what is glucose sugar that's not good is it I've skipped the milk proteins the spices and all the rest since we met I've stopped eating sugar that's very good is this something you eat let's look at the ingredients that's what we're here for right sugar do you put sugar in your vinaigrette after the practice comes the theory take a list of ingredients the shorter it is the better look for the presence of sugar in all of its forms okay definitely eat less fat less sugar less salt please avoid sugar and it's everywhere in everything fat was singled out because it was thought that fat made people gain weight it's not the only Factor you really must watch out for the sugar contained I was just telling Remy that in 1830 we had five kilos of sugar per person per year five is not that much foreign that is an average in 2010 we consumed 50 kilos of sugar per person this is why you must keep a watch out for sugar easier said than done the food industry has taught us to like sugar from day one [Music] is present in baby food from the earlier stages from four months onwards All Children's yogurts the pretty colored ones with the cute pictures contain sugar all children's food sugary breakfast cereals contain lots of sugar happy children with satisfied taste buds will come back for more foreign [Music] [Music] sugar from an early age what are the consequences later on in life can processed foods lead to addiction these sorts of questions are beginning to interest researchers around the world [Music] now we are back in America where Amy's about to share a cookie with Ashley Gearhart clinical psychologist at the University of Michigan [Music] actually I thought since we were talking about addictions and chocolate yeah perfect examples right there studies the relationship between food and addiction I'm personally pretty addicted to chocolate to sugar and things like that yeah and um I'm you know this is I wanted to talk about that what is an addiction a food addiction so um for example if you're going to take a coca leaf and you're gonna sip it in a tea or chew it you know it really has very little addictive potential people don't really get addicted to that but if you take it into a lab and you strip it down so it's much more potent and then you increase it so it really hits your blood and your brain really really fast you have cocaine and it becomes much more addictive so if you think of what we've done with our food in the last couple decades we've taken things like sugar and fat and salt that are already really rewarding and we've stripped them from their natural containers and we've increased the amounts that are in foods like this and so now these have such high amounts of sugar and fat and salt more than our bodies have ever been able to kind of man manage before and yes they really kind of spike your spike your brain get it go really going when you have that first bite of chocolate ah yes a little bit of chocolate see that one's got salt you see oh this one yeah so that's like the perfect trifecta of the sugar and the fat and the salt is fat sugar and salt tickle our pleasure centers can we actually say that these substances behave like drugs [Music] in 2008 during the course of an experiment a research team based in Bordeaux accidentally stumbled upon something unexpected we were not initially interested in Sugar our primary objective was to understand the neurobiology behind the cocaine addiction in order to do this we decided for the first time to offer the animals a choice between cocaine received intravenously which are highly addictive means of intake and a reward option that would be naturally ingested [Music] we chose a sugary beverage as the reward option [Music] to our surprise practically all the animals shied away from the cocaine in order to drink more and more sugar foreign man saves sugar is it having a drug-like effect on him [Music] scientists at the University of Oregon have decided to find out using brain imagery nice to meet you too are you ready for it yeah I'm right well I'm a little scared yeah everyone is a little bit nervous in the beginning but for me is about to undergo an MRI while drinking a chocolate milkshake the first time so I'm going to place the manifold right now in front of your mouth and I would like you to open your mouth right now how is that for you yeah you can embrace it right now yeah fine okay positioning test here oh my God Sonia Yokum MRI specialist will be today's waitress all right are you ready just do your best okay I'll do my best all right here we go foreign the zones of the brain that have been activated by Sugar begin to appear on the screen okay let's move on let's see what happens I want to see if I'm a real addict here that's where um lighting up uh yes you're definitely light up um there are some areas that we know that light up doing when you receive a very palatable food very like tasty food so here we definitely see cardaid activation right big reward area um let me see I was excited about it I enjoyed that I liked it a lot it's rewarding so basically you're saying I'm an addict right no not at all no I mean I can compare your brain image with someone that um is a real food addict and so there's a big difference okay this is you uh-huh and this is it's like an explosion of yeah so it's all over so it's a big difference like you she also shows reward activation but it's much bigger a lot more activation impressive but you when you say food addiction you say to you that exists it that exists yeah we ranges lights up so it's a lot more objective compared to the questionnaire for example if sugar activates the brain's reward zones just like a drug then it stands to reason that one could develop an addiction to sugar first you consume a bit of the substance then you abuse the substance and one day you can't live without it [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] in Paris food addicts get together in support groups this eating disorder group is called Overeaters Anonymous [Music] hi I'm Marie former compulsive eater [Music] I'm new to the program but I've been abstaining for 41 days I eat three balanced moderately sized meals and I don't eat in between yeah it isn't always easy but it is a new life for me lots of emotions rise to the surface and a lot of sadness because I think that food calm me down quite a bit the snacking calmed me down today I've eliminated all that and I have had to accept to go through some tough times sometimes I miss food certain foods I obsess about sweets what I wanted to say is that I can't stay clean I eat even if I'm not hungry just because it's in front of me because I can because someone in a shop offers me a taste and I get such pleasure out of it this may sound incredible but I prefer eating to sex people say to me eat an apple I'm sorry but I have absolutely no desire to eat an apple I wanna sugar high I'm on something that gives me a boost because I can't live without it thanks for listening if we can all potentially become addicted to food how should we feel about the manufacturers of all this processed food [Music] it's time for an appointment with a French addiction specialist Dr William Lowenstein [Music] the goal of those who work in the food industry is to sell not to save Humanity of course this industry has figured out exactly what pushes us to go from moderate consumption to abuse and finally to a dictionary yes there are certain substances that we can wonder about from this perspective such as sugar salt fatty acids those substances that are more addictive than others these Industrials just like drug dealers need to develop customer loyalty so yes they focus on salt sugar fatty acids even colors to hook their customers who we see is patience [Music] do food manufacturers know that sugar is addictive are they junk food dealers do they scheme to push us to buy more and more of their products Remy would have liked to have asked them directly but none of them accepted his request for a meeting however due to Alternative Communications priorities unfortunately we will not be able to Grant your request for a filmed interview Nestle but also craft Unilever and a known each group would rather refrain from commenting hell are they hiding this silence is not only appalling more importantly it is harmful to us because this is a public health issue we're talking about [Music] [Applause] 1.4 billion human beings are overweight that number is higher than world hunger there are now 5 million obese people walking this planet the figure that has doubled over one generation [Music] pounds of the cause of many illnesses such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease the problem is so serious and widespread that the United Nations has begun to get involved in Geneva at the United Nations Human Rights Council remia's meeting with Olivia De shooter United Nations special reporter on the right to food Mr deschutta's job is to make countries aware of this public health issue [Music] your Excellency today I'm calling upon each nation's sense of responsibility we can no longer allow ourselves to be satisfied by the food industry's empty declarations a systemic problem requires systemic Solutions but the solutions are slow in coming our goal is to mobilize governments on this issue I believe that no government will act until public opinion expresses impatience and protests against the lack of governmental action in fighting this plague to modern society diabetes cancer and cardiovascular disease weigh heavily on National budgets particularly in light of the increasing number of victims of these illnesses my role is to counteract the pressure exerted by the food industry to maintain the status quo the fight against obesity and excess weight must become a political issue just like climate change did a few years back what policy should be implemented to fight against obesity [Music] governments are slow to impose regulations on the industry [Music] yet simple and efficient systems to inform consumers do in fact exist but the food industry refuses to set them up hi Remy Burkle Monique nice to meet you welcome to the book manikuian director general of the European Consumers Union has been fighting to get Brussels to acquire traffic light symbols on all food packaging Monica can you explain the traffic light idea to us please it works like traffic lights in the street a red light means stop this contains lots of sugar the green light means this is okay to eat and the orange light indicates that the product has a high fat content unfortunately the system applied by the European legislature is not this one he implemented a much more complicated one that is difficult to understand for the consumer and not very visible on the packaging why did the Euro deputies vote against your proposed system they were under an enormous amount of pressure from the food industry history and the murder of Consultants invaded the European Parliament the issue was overlobbied certain Euro deputies even complained there was huge pressure and threats of job cuts and delocalization were used as leverage some say that one billion euros was spent on counter research to block the adoption of a traffic-like warning system whereas this is the one that would Orient the consumer towards healthier food options I thought this system was in use elsewhere yes it is used voluntarily in Germany and it exists in Spain and Portugal so all in all certain supermarkets that value their customers consider this warning system useful and have decided to adopt it on their own so why isn't it applied throughout Europe yes why is that do you have the answer I think that the food industry is afraid of change it is scared that a system will be forced upon it and that the consumer will begin to understand what he is eating it's not so easy to properly inform the consumer manufacturers prefer to emphasize aspects of their products that are beneficial to our health but apparently many of these advertising slogans are just for show the food industry spends a lot of money on Advertising that claims their products are good for your health are these claims true what is sure is that there are way too many that are not founded but the products are still on the market the consumer is therefore misled into believing certain things about a product's features in fact the European commission has started to clean up these product claims out of 2 000 requests for health-related product claims 80 were rejected those manufacturers will have to remove all the packaging and advertising featuring these claims let me give you some examples of claims deemed unfounded as of December taurine can no longer be featured as an ingredient that improves your physical and mental ability green tea will no longer claim to reduce blood pressure and royal jelly will not pretend to reinforce the immune system foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] that was just the impression I got from the commercial I thought it had some health benefits it clearly doesn't in 2012 Ferrero was found guilty of false advertising and had to pay three million dollars in Damages to Nutella consumers [Music] in France we're not accustomed to these kinds of lawsuits Remy is going to interview William Borden a corporate lawyer do you think that over the next decade we will see lawsuits against food industrial groups in France each person each consumer is in theory free to decide what he consumes in what way and how often however it does seem plausible that these Industrials might one day face legal actions in the event that they have knowingly concealed from the consumer the intentional presence of certain ingredients in their products that are known to generate addictive behavior we contacted them several times in France in the United States and in the Netherlands no one accepted to meet us the stakes are high the more these companies communicate on their virtues the better they become in perfecting dissimulation strategies it will become practically impossible to identify find access proof foreign [Music] suits have yet been filed and the problem with obesity continues to progress the cost to society is increasing Jacqueline director of risk management at the National Health Insurance Bureau for the salt region spends his days analyzing this problem what we're seeing today in France is a major increase in chronic diseases 16 million people are affected in France 7 million have high blood pressure 2 million are diabetic obesity and excess weight is exploding 33 of the population is overweight 18 is clinically obese these conditions are the preamble to all chronic disease what does LTI mean long-term illness this is both an economic and a public health issue the cost to ensure the average person like you or me is roughly 1 000 Euros a year this includes normal Health expenses and treatments checkups eyes teeth Etc the average long-term illness person costs over 7 000 Euros a year if that segment of the population continues to increase geometrically at some point we will only be able to reimburse treatment for people with long-term illness at the expense of all others in France excess weight and obesity could cost our national health system 10 billion euros per year in the United States this plea costs 147 billion dollars in 2008 alone what can be done [Music] this issue must take on the political nature that is what is happening right now in America in fact the first lady herself has taken on the task third let's move programs disturbingly obvious reintroduce gym class in schools and vegetables in the cafeteria menus Michelle Obama's goal is to eradicate this problem within one generation in a country where one out of three adults is obese [Music] in Europe some countries have adopted more radical methods when me is meeting with Christo sheldonmous a Euro Deputy from Denmark for the past two years her country has been taxing everything that contains too much sugar or fat do you think the tax is efficient to actually tackle the problems of obesity and bad eating habits I believe in using economic tools to change Behavior but maybe we could do it in another way than we did it in Denmark but but I believe that unhealthy products should be more expensive and healthy products should be less expensive I believe in using these kind of tools but it must never ever stand alone we need to use other tools as well in order to help the citizens to become more healthy how do the big Agro companies respond to this tax do they like it not like it and what do they do they hated it definitely they were not happy at all of course they were against why didn't the aggro companies like this tax first of all they would earn less money because we are in a situation with the crisis and they fear that this tax would have the impact that people would buy less fatty products and of course that was one of the things we wanted to because of the health issue but they feared loss of income they don't like involvement they don't like government involvement no they want they want this to be voluntary and they wanted it to to be over many years to to implement a new kind of tax if we should have it at all [Music] in France attacks was also introduced but only on sugary beverages it will generate 240 million euros for the state the food industry does not like the taste of this but it remains up to them first and foremost to step up to the plate and balance out the contents of our food [Music] have you ever heard of a woman named Ellie Krieger a chef you don't watch the Food Network no thank you [Music] here in this outdoor Market in New York on a lovely autumn day remese meeting with Ellie Krieger who hosts a program on the Food Network [Music] hello in her opinion there is only one thing that can make the industry move have you been involved I mean do you think the big food companies do you think they are actually going in that direction or they're just doing it for cosmetically publicity music which is what's happening in France frankly the bottom line is the dollar right it's money so if they're making money selling healthy products they're going to make more healthy products if they're not making money selling healthy products they're not going to sell more healthy products it's quite simple in that regard I think and so it's our responsibility with our dollar to vote with that dollar okay on that one end on the other end we need to make healthy food accessible so rather than letting big um big Ag and big business dominate the food scene foreign [Music] wants to interview Joan gusso one of the first nutritionists to have sounded the alarm over 40 years ago [Music] at over 80 years old Joan continues to grow her own vegetables 30 miles outside of New York and to warn us about the feelings of our food system [Music] thank you know there were 800 items in the supermarket when I was born I mean there wasn't this it all came after World War II and uh all this proliferation of products I was just horrified you know all those breakfast cereals are with marshmallows and stuff in them all that crap there was just so much stuff that that was not food as far as I was concerned and I remember talking about the fact that here we were selling we were selling to Children a diet which we knew we would have to tell adults not to eat so why were we doing that and of course those are the children that are now the adults that are now having diabetes and heart disease and all this stuff and obesity as a result of that I mean what what did we think was going to happen you know how do you demonize the big food companies because they're only out to make profits they don't really care about your health and then not your doctor they're saying it's your personal responsibility to control yourself how do you feel about that well this is this is the this is the Dilemma we've created by created a society in which we say quote free choice is the most important thing and of course what we've done is created society in which people really don't have free choice at all I mean it's not free choice to have 60 000 items in the supermarket to choose among that's not free choice because free choice implies full information to be effective at all you have to be quite radical you have to say don't buy it at all don't don't shop around the edges of the store that is quite radical considering it is hard to fill your refrigerator without going to a supermarket but faced with these multiplying health problems we can regain control over what is in our plates we can force the food industry to reformulate its products and not simply wait for legislation to be adopted [Music] I tried to kick the junk food Habit to stop eating hamburgers so now I'm eating these things just touching these vegetables makes you feel healthier [Music] you can also do it because it tastes good it's that simple [Music]

Channel: SLICE Full Doc

Views: 192,248

Keywords: documentary, free documentary, raw

Id: zlQCwNp9yvc

Length: 50min 24sec (3024 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 09 2023