We weren’t so sure, until we came across a passage in Michael Pollan’s latest book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. In the book, we learned that refined sugar became an affordable commodity in the late 19th century. By the end of that century, fully one sixth of calories in the English diet came from sugar. Armed with the knowledge that sugar is half fructose, the book contains the following footnote:
Fructose is metabolized differently from glucose; the body doesn’t respond to it by producing insulin to convey it into cells to be used as energy. Rather, it is metabolized in the liver, which turns it first into glucose and then, if there is no call for glucose, into triglycerides — fat. (more…)
