An Important Food

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 52, 11 July 1930, Page 35

An Important Food

_ Sugar and Its Uses GENERATION ago, says an American physician, sugar and sweets. of all sorts were absoiutely taboo on the training tables of athletes. Now the coaches find that they can bulld and shape up their men quicker, with less dangér of breakdown or staling, on a diet rich in sugar, sweet fruits and ice cream than they ever could on the old rigid unbalancel, almost. sugar-free diets. Sugar is one of the three great pillars of the dietetic temple, meat, sugarstarch and fat, and the greatest of the three. The crimes and delingencies biajned upon sugar simmér down to the}claims that it "makes the teeth ache" ; and, if eaten just beforé a meal, it sometimes destroys the appetite for that méal before sufficient calories havé been absorbed. Also, its taste is so attractive that children may devour it in excess. _ As a matter of fact, sugar in itself never affects a clean, healthy tooth, though it will sometimes make the nerve of a decayed one jump. Here sugar is responsible for warning the’ owner of the tooth that it needs skilled. attention before it becomes.so bad: that it has to. be extracted. weet -Both of the other supposed ill-effects of sugar can be avoided by decréeing a forbidden season for sugar and sweets, during which none may be taken, beginning one hour before the next meal Moreover, if children are given liberal and intelligently balanced amounts of sugar at thelr meals as desserts and in fruits they will never develop that irresistible, unreasonable craving for sweets. ‘Growing children, who. have less storage than adults, as well as being much more active, really need a small refill in mid-morning and mid-after-noon, so as to carry them comfortably through to the next important meal, A piece of bread and butter with sugar, or, better still, with jam or jelly, will fill the bill, as also will a glass of oranegade, some fresh fruit or an ice-cream cone. In another and quite different field sugar is also proving most useful. Surgeons find it very valuable in preventing some of the unpleasant after-effects of chloroform and ether. They first tried it as a preventive. of severe vomiting after an operation and found ‘that if a sugar-glocuse-solution was given just before the patient left the operating table, vomiting was almost completely prevented in a large pereentgge of cases. and the distressing . thirgt.often so bitterly complained of was almost entirely avoided.