A rainy Saturday afternoon. Kid’s soccer cancelled.
‘Really,’ I scoffed. ‘A film about sugar?’
I’ll sit through any movie. It’s like a gig, there’s always something you take away.
But sugar?
The premise: Aussie Actor Damon Gameau decided to eliminate refined sugar from his diet. Not the typical sugars we know will kill you – cheeseburgers, chips and sundaes – but the hidden buggers in yoghurts, cereals and fruit juice. ‘You see some of these products in the supermarket with a sunset on them,’ he says. ‘Or words like Mother Nature and a bee and a flower or something. And people believe it.’
Gameau consumed the typical Australian’s 40 teaspoons of sugar a day, kept up his exercise routine, the same kilojoule intake of his typical diet and only ate foods perceived to be healthy. The result? He put on weight, lost energy and craved endless sugary hits. But can a film change behaviour? Afterwards, my niece handed me her fruit juice and threw her M’n’Ms in the bin. As we left our seats I inhaled buttery popcorn and chocolate covered ice cream cones at the ticket counter.
‘Guess you’re not selling too much confectionary this week?’ I asked the usher.
‘Nothing,’ he replied.
And this morning my daughter wanted nothing on her porridge but milk.
Job done, Mr Gameau.
