Sweet Poison Review

David Gillespie was 40kg overweight, lethargic, sleep-deprived and the father of four, with twins on the way. He knew he needed to lose weight fast, but he had run out of diets – all had failed. After doing some reading on evolution (why weren’t our forebears fat?), David cut sugar – specifically fructose – from his diet.

He immediately started to lose weight, and kept it off. Slim, trim and fired up, David set out to look at the connection between sugar, our soaring obesity rates and some of the more worrying diseases of the twenty-first century, and discovered some startling facts in the process.

Sugar was once such a rare resource that nature decided we didn’t need an off-switch – in other words, we can keep eating sugar without feeling full.

• In the space of 150 years, we have gone from eating no added sugar to more than a kilogram a week.

• You would need to run 7km every day of your life just to not put on weight as a result of eating thatmuch sugar.

• Two decades ago 1 in 14 adult Australians were obese; that figure is now 1 in 5.

• The ‘natural’ sugar in one glass of unsweetened fruit juice per day for a year is enough to add just over 2.5kg your waistline.

• The more sugar we eat, the more we want. Food manufacturers exploit our sugar addiction by lacing it through ‘non-sweet’ products, such as bread, sauces, soups and cereals.

Above is an extract from Sweet Poison

I have recently read the book. I found it very informative and it taught me a lot. Just the blurb hooked me - I wanted to find out why sugar was making us fat.

Sweet Poison, written by David Gillespie, is a book about a man's journey with quitting sugar. In the book, he shows his journey, explains why sugar (mainly fructose) is killing us, he includes many detailed diagrams and tops it off with how we can quit the addiction and live longer, happier lives.

In his book, there is a lot of scientific and statistical diagrams. They visually show what he is talking about. They also make it much more attractive to the eye as there aren't just blocks of info without any pictures.

He also explains the harms of drinking sugar. We drink sugar in fruit juices, soft drinks and even alcohol. He explains why tooth decay happens when we drink sugar and why the bacteria like a flowing stream of sugary goodness. He explains why even drinking diet drinks it better for you even though they contain artificial sweeteners. His information appears to be partly from scientific research, as well as his personal experience which, in my opinion, is what the perfect book should comprise of.

One of the downsides to the book is the amount of scientific names and references he uses. Yes, he explains the process well, but he could repeat all those weird names and abbreviations less as this just was so confusing to the average human.

Another slight downside (it probably doesn't matter to you) is where there is a picture/diagram, the writing is cut off, so you are in mid-sentence while looking at a picture/diagram and then you have to turn the page to finish the sentence. It probably doesn't matter but it annoyed me a lot.

I really like the way he describes sugar - an addiction that we are not aware of. This made me think. I realize that we have been addicted from birth. Our brains started wanting more and more sugar as we evolved and as the sugar industry boomed, we were fed more and more sugar, leading to un-heard-of diseases like type 2 diabetes and premature heart disease.

Overall, this book is a real eye opener. It reveals all those secrets and facts that the big brands don't want you to know. I definitely recommend reading the book. It changed my perspective on our diet and evolution.

I will continue reading the sequels and possibly post some of his fructose-free recipes for you guys to make and eat. See you next time!