Please Pass the Sugar

Do you indulge your sweet tooth despite medical warnings to the contrary? Then perhaps you were born in the wrong century.

The 1850 out of print, "Miss beecher's domestic receiptbook: designed as a supplement to her Treatise on domestic economy," refers to the experiments a certain Dr. Pereira performed on dietary health.

Dr. Pereira debunks the myth that sugar is unhealthy in moderation or even bad for one's teeth. Dr. Pereira claims this falsehood was begun by frugal housewives. Sugar was expensive, so these women didn't want their children craving it.

In reality, Dr. Pereira said, sugar is "readily digested by a healthy stomach." The fact that "mother's milk" contains an abundance of it is, for Dr. Pereira, proof enough that sugar was meant to be part of every child's basic diet.

Only when consumed in large quanties or mixed with artificial colorings, nuts, or "oily substances" was sugar harmful. "A stick or two of pure candy, eaten with crackers or bread, never would injure any healthy child," the book said.

Do you agree or disagree?