March 3, 2017 • 52 mins
Everyone knows sugar in excessive amounts can have damaging effects on your health -- but just how bad is it, and why do people in the US still consume so much? Join the guys as they delve into the strange story of the decades-long sugar conspiracy.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,
(00:24):
and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt
Randmamma ding Dong. Yeah, my name's no. They call me Ben.
You are you and you're the most important part of
this show. Thanks for dropping by two stuff that they
don't want you to know. It's really good to see you.
I'm really sorry about that, randol Emma day. I was
just trying something new. I was good. I was talking.
(00:44):
I was talking to to him or her that is listening.
Come on, oh my bad to all of them, wait,
look at me and making it all about me. You've
got a song in your heart. My friends, hut it out.
We are we are asked. We contain multitudes, according to
Walt Whitman, and we're not any of us a single
(01:06):
solitary thing. But due to the nature of today's episode,
we do want to establish at the beginning that we
are not doctors. This is true. No, m d here
at least know any I'm not a physician's assistant, not
in our end. Uh yeah, well I guess we should
amend that because your KNOWL is a music doctor. I'm
(01:30):
a doctor of funk. Yeah, and that's not even true,
and that's a MAT's a love doctor, doctor of love. Well,
you know we're gonna leave it there, man, But seriously,
this is not medical advice. This is, however, a pretty
scary story, and it starts off so sweetly. Today we're
talking about sugar. We're gonna tell it to you completely.
(01:54):
So maybe we could talk about some of our personal experiences.
Are you guys fans of eats sweet things? I used
to be much more so, but in my cantankerous old age,
I feel like I have sort of soured to the sweet.
I'm much more of a savory guy. Back before my
house stuff works days, mountain dew was my lifeblood with
(02:16):
the monster days after that, right, uh yeah, monster without sugar. Though,
I've never been a sugary energy drink person, but the
mountain dew, my god, I don't. I don't particularly eat
sweet things. I used to love soda. That was the
one exception, and the I'm sure my dentist is grateful
for that. But the the one thing that I always
(02:36):
found weird in social situations is if someone offers you
a piece of cake because it's somebody else's birthday, you're
kind of obligated to at least take a piece. And
that would be the only time to have his sweet
because people were with the soft rules of society obligating
me to do it. You know, I just said all
that stuff, and last night I was at a farmer's
market and bought a big old piece of Jeremy sue. Yeah.
(03:00):
That's mostly coffee, though, see every once in a while,
mostly coffee. You gotta reward yourself, I feel. I feel
that every once in a while. Yeah. And so we
all in the United States and abroad, we all continually
run into sweet things, right, and the basis of those
sweet things most of the time is sugar. But what
(03:22):
is sugar? Why? It's a simple carbohydrate, Ben, It's responsible
for that sweet taste in all those foods that you
daily beloved. Why is it called a carbohydrate, Matt, Well, simple,
it's because it's got a carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Well,
it's like it's like in terms of calories. So one
(03:43):
teaspoon of white sugar has about sixteen calories, about four
per gram, and it gives you that quick boom, that snap,
that snap crack, that rama Lama ding dog, that Ramo
Lama ding dogs. It worked. Uh. It gives you that
quick dose of inner g so your body can process
in your body process it faster than complex carbohydrates or proteins.
(04:06):
But friends and neighbors be aware if you eat too
much sugar, the excess energy may be stored as fat.
Remember that part because it's very important later. But sugar
isn't just a sweetener, right, It's also a super useful preservative. So,
for example, sugar helps to hinder the growth of bacteria
(04:26):
in jam um. It can also be used as a
bulking agent or an additive to food that gives certain
kinds of textures um, and sometimes even it's added to
accelerate fermentation or to change the boiling or freezing point
of a particular dish. You want to talk about fermentation. Uh,
(04:47):
we gotta get into beer really fast. I had no
idea how much sugar was in beer. Oh yeah, yeah,
until i I've really got into I p A s
for a little bit there. And there was a list
that came out in I think twenty three team maybe
that was looking at specifically the big Foot Sierra Nevada beer,
which was one of my favorites. And the thing, it
(05:09):
was like eating a slice of cake every every beer
you had. That's true. Even the beer that is advertised
as light will have a higher high have a level
of sugar involved. That might surprise people, because that's how
you make it right, right fermentation. So when we hear
the word sugar, most of us probably think of table sugar.
(05:32):
You know that white stuff. Yeah, yeah, the crystalline, insanely
sweet thing we buy a grocery stores. But the truth
is there are multiple kinds of sugars. We have a
couple of examples here too. Fruittoast. The stuff is found
in all kinds of fruits. You can find it in
honey as well. My personal favorite galactose because it sounds
like it comes from space, and that's actually found in
(05:56):
milk and also dairy products. And then there's good old glucoast,
which find it honey, fruits and vegetables. It is a
good friend of fructose, that old glucose. You also got
lactose again coming from milks. You can also find or
you can also make this from glucose and galactose, which
is fun. Then you have maltose or maltos found in
(06:18):
barley malt sucrose, which is made up of glucose and
fructos and found in plants, and the last, but not least,
the absolute best, zilos found in wood or straw. Why
do you like that one? Because it's zilos. It's not
like a transformer or something. Yeah, why are you a
zilos supremacist? Now? Yes? Besides, besides beets and sugarcane, sugar
(06:45):
can also be derived from honey and a lot of
fruits like dates or coconuts, uh, and tree SAPs can
also be sources of sugar. And this table sugar stuff,
let's just call it grocery stores sugar. Uh, it's it's
called sucrose, and it comes from sugar beets or sugar cane,
and sucros appears and all these other plants too, along
with some of the other people you heard from our
(07:06):
greatest hits just a second ago. Glucose and fructos, and
it's actually in every plant since sugar and oxygen or
products of photosynthesis. But unlike sugar beets and sugarcane, a
lot of other plants don't produce sucros in a large
enough quantity to harvest, so it's more like a trace.
So the sugar we're going to discuss today is mostly
(07:29):
going to be derived from those sugar beets and that
sugar cane, which is probably the one you may have
heard of the most. That's when I think of sugar,
I think of sugar cane. Um, And I'm not really
sure why. I don't know what pop culture reference taught
me about sugar cane as a kid. Well, there's a
sonic youth song called sugar cane. Maybe lack of sugar cane.
(07:49):
I'm standing in the rain, very nice, so so thank
you know. Um. So, these sugar beets are grown throughout
the world, in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, parts of
North Africa, and South America. Than sugarcane, on the other hand,
you need a tropical climate, you need semi tropical climates,
something that's nice and warm and wet, and it's grown
(08:11):
in the southern United States, South America, Africa, South Asia,
and also the South Pacific. Hold on, hold on, okay,
let's stop this train for one second. We would be
remiss if we didn't mention something that I know you're
thinking about already. Ladies, and gentlemen. High fructose corn syrup HFCs,
as its name applies. This stuff comes from corn spoiler,
(08:36):
not sugarcane or beats. Was creating the nineteen sixties and
it's an additive now found in so many processed foods,
including a boatload of sodas. It's become popular for food
manufacturers because it's cheaper than the table sugar. It's also
pretty controversial because people believe it contributes to obesity and
that the body treats this mix of this specific of
(09:00):
fructose mix differently. So yeah, yeah, and you'll hear are
all kinds of stuff about it. If you go to
the sugar lobby, they're going to tell you that it's
essentially glucose with a little more fructose than regular corn syrup. Yeah.
I think the mixes like fifty five uh fructose to
(09:23):
glucose something like that, and then regular corn syrups almost
all glucose. Right, Yeah, it's not when they say, hi,
they just need more than half exactly. So we have
all we have this wealth of sugars, its wealth of
sweet opportunities. How much do we eat in the US?
Funny you should ask that I have a stat right,
(09:44):
here in front of me. The per capita consumption of
refined sugar in the United States of America has swung
between twenty seven and forty six kilograms sixty and a
hundred and one pounds, respectively in the last forty years.
According to data from the United States, and eight, people
(10:07):
were consuming over sixty pounds of added sugar per year.
And this does not include fruit juices, which as we know,
contains its own. Yeah, and today the US is the
number one sugar consumer. And these recent statistics, just to
give a sense of perspective over time, indicate that the
(10:27):
average person consumes about a hundred and twenty six point
four grams daily. Uh. This can fluctuate over time, and
we should probably make a note about the danger of averages.
This country is huge. It's we're talking about a population
of almost three hundred and twenty million people, uh, three
(10:48):
eighteen point nine as. But when we have a sample
size that large, what that means is depend on the
methodology of this average. That means it could be someone
who just somehow eats a negligible amount of sugar all year,
and maybe someone who eats six times the daily dosage
(11:09):
every single day. You know, yeah, because if if we
look at the caloric intake of a hundred and twenty
six point four grams of sugar, it's roughly five hundred
and five. I mean, this is gonna be a little off.
Let's say over five hundred calories per day of just sugar.
It's crazy, man. And you can find some great statistics
on sugar consumption in the US as well as sugar
(11:32):
consumption in the rest of the world. So if we
take that other number, a hundred and twenty six point
four grams per day in the United States, the next
runner up would be Germany with a hundred and two
point nine grams, so still still pretty high up there.
And then if we go down to the bottom, uh,
(11:52):
in India, for instance, people will have only five point
one grams of sugar per day. So there's a lot
of variants here across across the world. But when you
get closer, closer to the twist here, how much should
we eat? Great question? Well, the World Health Organization has
(12:14):
some opinions. Uh. They recommend that you have less than
ten percent of your total energy intake from free sugars.
It's the equivalent to about fifty grams around twelve level
teaspoons for a person of healthy body weight consuming about
two thousand calories a day, but ideally it should be
less than five and you have additional health benefits. This
(12:36):
is tricky because a lot of stuff that you don't
think would have a lot of sugar in it is
just inundated with this. And fifty grams yes a day. Yes,
that's like a pile. That's like a massive mountain of sugar.
(12:57):
If you think about it visually, yeah, it is, But
then you think about how much we're actually eating. Six
is the average grahams. I mean, that's it's insane, probably
largely because if it's maybe it's preservative qualities. So like
if you like microwave meals, for example, it's got sugar
in it because and you wouldn't think that my lasagna
(13:17):
would have sugar in it, but it's in there because
it's helping to preserve the frozen food. Well. Yeah, and
and specifically the who was talking about free sugars here,
that phrase free sugars is very important. We're not talking
about fruits, We're not talking at anything that has naturally
occurring sugars. Um it's sugars that's added in a production
right right, added the food or drinks by the manufacturer
(13:37):
or the cook, or even the consumer, because you know,
to each their own when it comes to eating habits,
a lot of people will just pour sugar and stuff.
I'm sure you gotta take that coffee, black man. It's
the only way. Yes. According to the American Heart Association,
a maximumount of added sugars you should eat per day
are for men, a d and fifty calories per day.
(13:58):
That's thirty seven point five grams or nine teaspoons. Okay,
not too bad. For women, it's a hundred calories per
day or five grams six teaspoons. We've been talking about
a lot of numbers here, so let's put all these
numbers into perspective. And all I love that you pointed
out that is a pile if you imagine it visually.
So one twelve ounce can of coke Coca Cola, for instance,
(14:22):
contains a hundred and forty calories from sugar. A regular
Snickers bar, regular size contains a hundred and twenty calories
from sugar. God, so one soda a day if you're
a dude, according to the American Heart Association, already put
you like close to your limit. That's so upsetting to me.
(14:45):
I think, you know what. I think. That's why after
working here, I stopped drinking sugary sodas. Yeah, that was
a big deal for me. Um. I just switched to
uh soda water like Lacroix or sam Pella Greena or whatever,
and um satisfied my craving for the bubbles. I really
like the bubbles. I find it very refreshing. But I
(15:07):
just literally don't drink soda ever. Maybe I rarely go
to a fast food restaurant. I might get a coke
with my fries and mom burger, but I mean maybe
twice a month. Yeah, I also used to drink it
quite frequently. But I'm I'm glad that I'm I had
an amicable breakup with soda. We're still friends, you know,
(15:28):
we might might hang out once a month or something,
but we're not gonna live together anymore. Yeah, I've got
a really bad relationship with aspart team. Now all the
other the weird one. What is it's uh zylatl zilatol. Yes, though,
and this is without even touching on artificial sweeteners. We
(15:49):
want to give you these numbers just from these various
types of sugar, not even counting artificial sweeteners. And I'm
glad you're pointed that out, Matt, because we want to
paint the picture of just how popular this substance is,
how um, how much it permeates the the food market,
especially in the US, but in other places as well.
(16:09):
How do we get to the place that we are currently,
So glad you asked, and we're going to talk about
that right after a quick word from our sponsor. Once
upon a time, more than five thousand years ago, Polynesians
(16:30):
used sugarcane as a sweetener, and the substance eventually made
it to India, and from India it spread westward, aided
by pillaging and trade that came with the conquest of
Darius the Persian Emperor and Alexander the Great, who overthrew
the Persian Empire and who, by the way, died when
he was only thirty two. So let's fast forward to Fote.
(16:54):
Crystal Bald Cologne, otherwise known street named Christopher Columbus, brought
sugarcane to the Caribbean and it was a perfect environment
for growing this crop. The ferral ground led to the
development of a massive sugarcane industry in what they called
the New World. Over the next few centuries, plantations sprouted
up throughout the Caribbean, the West Indies, and South America,
(17:18):
and they were fueling sugar. They were also fuelling the
slave trade. These two trades were inextricably intertwined. During these years,
sugar finally became cheap enough to be accessible to most Europeans,
and until then it had been considered a luxury. And
do you know what they called it? White gold? For real,
(17:40):
they called it white gold. That's what the British colonists
called it. And it was the engine of the slave
trade and brought millions of millions of people from Africa
to the America's beginning in the early sixteenth century. Like
think like fifteen oh five. And this means that the
history of every nation in the Caribbean, much of South America,
and parts of the southern United States have been forever
(18:01):
shaped by sugarcane plantations that were started as cash crops
by European superpowers. Now it's crazy to think about how
much money was generated here for the owners of these
companies that were producing it, the the different farm owners.
There's a lot of money going around, and that profit
(18:21):
was so significant that it may have even actually helped
America achieve independence from Great Britain because it allowed money
to buy the stuff that's required to start a war.
You know, I have in my head this this idea
that if if there was a way to do it
without just atrocious chattel slavery, it would be kind of
(18:42):
cool to have your profession as sugar tycoon. You know
those exist, don't they? They do? They do in the
present day. What's the what's the massive company. There's there's
a huge company against crazy subsidies in the US. It's
the one that's in all the stores, the grocery store
(19:03):
sugar that we always talk about. Is it Dixie, Dixie Dixie.
There's gotta be a tycoon at the end of that tunnel. Yeah,
it's Dixie Sugar. There's I'm sure there are other has
been they're out there. Yeah, the big bag. Yeah, you know,
look for the look for it in the big bag.
(19:23):
Dixie sugar is the old blood Preshatol sugar. That look
for it in the giant bag. For it in the
giant bag. From seventeen fifteen, there were near constant wars
consuming much of Europe. British naval blockades forced Europe to
look for an alternative to cane sugar. The eventual solution
(19:44):
they found was the sugar beat, and since this period,
Europe has gotten much of its sugar from beats. So
let's look at it today. Despite the evidence that too
much sugar can have damaging and dilatorious effects, it remains
immensely popular around the globe. We are literally, on a
primal level, wired to love this stuff. Uh, you know,
(20:06):
our ancestors or even things you came before us. Uh.
You naturally associate uh, sweet sensation or taste with something
being safe to eat. Yeah. Yeah, if it's bitter, you
don't want to eat it. If it's sweet, that means
the bugs are probably attracted to it and they eat
it right that it isn't that kind of how it
(20:27):
went exactly. So here's some examples of the bad things
that can happen related to sugar intake. First, let's start
with diabetes. As twenty nine point one million people or
nine point three percent of the US population of diabetes
and that's diagnosed undiagnosed would say eight point one million people,
(20:50):
and about a third of the people who have diabetes
are undiagnosed obesity. This is a stereotype that comes into
play with the us UH, which if you're not, if
you haven't ever visited here, I promise you it's it's
a pretty cool place. You'll you'll have fun. It's great.
Not all the stereotypes are true. More than two thirds,
(21:10):
or sixty eight point eight percent of adults are considered
by the government to be qualified as either overweight or obese.
Um more than one third, thirty five point seven percent
of adults are considered to be obese. And then you
can see you can see the stats here. One of
the biggest killers of any American, regardless of genetic history,
(21:35):
creed age, etcetera, is heart disease. It is the leading
cause of death for both men and women in this country,
about one in every four deaths, and it's the most
common type of heart diseases coronary heart disease c h
d UH. In two thousand fourteen, it killed about three
d sixty five thousand people in this country. Someone has
(21:59):
a heart attack every forty two seconds, and each minute
someone dies from a heart disease related events. And of
course cavities curse you soda geez. So this is this
is bad. Sugar is bad, Sugar is is leading to
this stuff. Sugar definitely plays a role. It would be
(22:19):
irresponsible for us to put everything at the feet of sure,
but it definitely, it definitely plays role. And now our
question is just how bad is this stuff? And how
did we start eating so much of it? Can I
say it? Ben? Can I? Here's where it gets you
(22:39):
do it? You do it. That's where it gets crazy.
In September of three, doctors released a paper in the
Journal of the American Medical Association, or, since we're fans
of acronyms, jamma jambo, so yes so jamma this This
(23:00):
paper was called Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research
colon a historical analysis of internal industry documents, and this
paper revealed frightening evidence of a cover up. Not a
conspiracy theory, oh, friends and neighbors know, a real life conspiracy.
Finally got one right. Here's what happened. So there was
(23:25):
evidence that sugar had had a role to play in
c HD coronary heart disease. We know it now, but
other people knew it back in the nineteen fifties. The
industry and the people that they were paying to research,
knew it, and things were not looking so good for
(23:45):
the sugar manufacturers. The science showed that what they were
selling and the way they were selling it was potentially
very dangerous. So they took action. They came clean and
told the public that they would be responsible, and they
would they would work with the f d A to
restrict unreasonable amounts of sugar. I'm kidding. Instead, they they
(24:08):
had a trade organization that was called get this, the
Sugar Research Foundation. Sounds legit? Yeah. What did they do? Well?
They they went ahead and paid a group of three
Harvard scientists the equivalent of about fifty thousand dollars in
today's dollars, which is not a bad salary to publish
a review of research on sugar in nineteen sixty seven
(24:30):
looking at sugar, fat and heart disease. How do these
all go together? And what are the causes? What are
the what types of cholesterol are affected? Right? And we
can also we should explain uh review of research is
sort of an anthology kind of thing. They collect different
papers that have been written on a subject or a
(24:53):
group of subjects or theme. The studies used in this
review of research were hand picked by the Sugar Research Foundation,
and they also, through their influence, had an article published
in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. They sponsored
this article. It was a literature review that singled out
(25:15):
fat and cholesterol as the causes of c H d uh,
And they also downplayed evidence that sucros consumption was playing role.
They were They were like, ah, you gotta watch out,
it was fats. And they did not disclose that they
sponsored this. Yeah, that's one of the big things. They
also set the objective, so they pretty much told the
(25:38):
researchers what they were going to find, you know what
I mean? And they yeah, And they got drafts that
they worked over and had editorial influence on, and the
whole thing happened undercover. Essentially, what they end up producing
was somewhere between a hit piece and an advertisement in
an insiduous way. So then just a clarify, is this
(26:01):
something along the lines of a lobby spot on? Well,
that's uh, that's a great it's a great point. So
let's say that the three of us are sugar tycoons. Yes,
perfect just took a different path in life, and now
here we are instead of smoking cigars, we all suck
on lollipops. Yep, yep, right, we all have very bright
(26:22):
colored suits. I think I would go for a Willy
Wonka vibe the original movie adaptation, not the not the
new one. I'm going full penguin. You're going full penguin.
Where are you going to? No? I DoLS love us,
wear my cities, swear cities. You're the everyday tech, every
(26:42):
day sugar tech. Perfect. Well, the three of us say, well,
we need some we we will have power in numbers
and we will join uh. We will join our finances
to fund a trade organization that will represent us. And
this trade organization can do lobbying on our behalf with legislatures,
(27:04):
you know, like here are if we want favorable tax
breaks in a district, if we want uh some consideration
or uh special prices on loans for building infrastructure. It's
not necessarily a bad thing, but as potential to be very,
very damaging. But how does a a group such as
(27:25):
ours get in such cahoots with what's supposed to be
an independent review like the the Jama money money. Yes,
throw money at it. Because this goes back to some
of the stuff we discussed with Edward Bernese What Bernese
did that was so brilliant was he realized that if
(27:46):
people thought they were getting unbiased medical advice, then they
would be more likely to follow it than they would
the instructions of of a transparent ad Right, it's insidious,
it's a bait and switch, and it worked really well,
arguably works today. So the sugar industry kept going. They
(28:09):
didn't just do this one paper. They didn't do just
this one area. They sponsored a research program in the
sixties and into the seventies that continually cast doubt about
the hazards of sucros like, oh, sugars, I mean, okay,
don't eat too much sugar. But guys, really that's the
dangerous one here, that's the problem here. Yeah, the sugar
(28:31):
industry I'm reading from uh that link bend the sugar
industry and coronary heart disease research paper. Uh. The industry
would spend six thousand dollars at the time, which is
now five point three million dollars to teach people, quote
who had never had a course in biochemistry, that sugar
is what keeps every human being alive with energy to
(28:54):
face our daily problems. It just sounds so happy, but
pepena step with sugar. And and ultimately what they're doing
is they're they're fighting for market share, right, And when
you think about market share, I'm going to use the
video game example right now. Consoles there would be the Xbox,
the PlayStation, the what the Nintendo Switch, Yeah, the Nintendo Switch,
(29:17):
and a bunch of other ones console non console games
like on a PC or something or mac. But each
of those has a certain percent of the market share. Right. Well,
in this case, for these sugar industry people, their market
share is what people put in their bodies as food, right,
and the entirety of food. And so by reducing or
(29:38):
making you afraid of fat, they're going to increase overall
the market share of the food overall, which is crazy
to think about. And this is not this is not
to say that consuming excessive amounts of fat is good
for you, not necessarily. Let's also not forget the old
food pyramid, which the tippy tip tip top contains ats, oils,
(30:00):
and confectionery or that's what they're calling it now, which
would be sugar. So if they're in a battle with
the minds of the public in terms of like, well,
I can only have a little of of fats or sugar.
Which one do I perceive as being better or worse
for me? Which one am I going to choose? So
that's it's like a it's a psychological battle wherein these
(30:24):
sugar folks are hoping that you will choose sugar because
it's perceived to be less harmful, and fat sort of
gets the gets thrown to the bus. And then as
we know over time, if fats been determined to be
there are good fats and there are facts that are
good to have as part of your diet um and
then you know, I think it becomes out on top, yes,
(30:48):
will said, and in great point bringing in the food pyramid,
which could be it's a podcast all its so, And
I think when we get to that, uh, where are we?
We're telling you the story of something that actually happened,
like no ifs ands or butts, no allegations, no rumors.
(31:09):
People planned in in a sweet, smoky back room two
beguile and mislead the u S public and they did
so successfully. So where does this leave us down? We'll
tell you after a word from our sponsor. First off,
(31:35):
you might be wondering, hey, Matt ha been he know
what happened to the the SRF, the s RF, Well,
it hit the fan, ben it hit uh, it hit
the name fan. Because that trade group is still around
today under a different name. It's called the Sugar Association.
(31:56):
They have a fancy website. If you're interested, go check
it out. Um, there's lots of information in there. Yeah,
you checked it out. I did to spend a little
too much time on there today and I wanted a donut.
And here's the other thing. It's bigger than sugar. And
it's bigger than a single historical incident, right, And I'm
(32:18):
not casting any aspersion on the current Sugar Association because
we don't I don't have, you know, evidence to do that.
And I'm sure that the same people who are working
there in the sixties, I'm gonna go ahead and say
that they're not working there now in probably correct, probably correct.
I feel safe with that one. But why is it
(32:38):
bigger than sugar. It's bigger than sugar because private food
manufacturers continue to influence nutrition guidelines today, and it's happening now,
perhaps more than you think. So be very careful when
you hear those new alarmist pieces about what's good or
what's bad for you. We've joked about it before. It
seems like every week, every month there's some sort of
(32:59):
cycle of coffee'll make you live longer and be smarter
when you're elderly, or coffee will kill you somehow, right,
I like the ones about tequila, all right, we'll just
leave that one there. No, Apparently, like you know, you
can see studies about saying like a glass of wine
is good for your heart, or like now they're saying
tequila is good for you. I hadn't heard this one.
(33:22):
I'm gonna have to go buy a bottle. I guess, yeah,
for your health, very health conscious. Yeah, And then it
can apply also to sodas, right, beverage manufacturers, it can
apply to um pork manufacturers. It's it's kind of tough
to see to to figure out if food where this
(33:45):
would not apply. You know, yeah, I cannot find one.
And just thinking about all the different kinds of berries.
They are great for you, but they do have a
lot of naturally occurring sugar, right, which is fine, And
that's is that ultimately the best the best process to
take is if you hear, oh uh, like, what's a
(34:08):
random vegetable m M artichoke. Oh, it turns out that
artichokes give you these vast superior powers of hearing or whatever.
Sweet right, or if you hear something that's that's very bad,
Like is all cancer related to consuming cheese? It's Those
(34:29):
are both pretty unrealistic, cartoonish headlines. But the point is
your best processes, that is, to take that and before
you share it around with people, before you start going
to throw out all your cheesets or by all the
artichokes in your town, figure out who wrote it. Do
that old fakes. Turns out that thing I said about
(34:51):
tequila not not true, not true? Really yeah, snope says
mostly faults. Wait wait, so partially true. Also artichoke is
a flowers. Oh boy, well that just makes the headline
even more cartoonish. So the answers you find might surprise you.
(35:16):
There might be a situation where you see a very strange,
sort of anonymous sounding block name blas a name where
we go, oh, all right, well this was according you know,
this is according to the the Committee for the Committee
for Accuracy in Grain Related Health. And then you do
(35:37):
some searching on them and you go, oh, they're owned
by uh, you know, as some rival to cheese. It's right,
they're owned by like Horrible Red and Backer. But the
the point here is that this stuff, the stuff can
have the appearance of unbiased quantitative data, and it's not
(36:00):
always true. I have to ask you, guys, what do
you think about the state of I guess, the state
of mass produced food here in the US. That's what
I wanted to talk about. I feel like we're at
this weird point in history in this country where we
are pushing back towards manufactured foods. Not that we're not
purchasing them anymore or consuming them. We are pushing back
(36:23):
with the organic movement and trying to move away from
this kind of stuff. But it's unfortunately, it feels like
to me, at least, something that can't truly come to
fruition because we have so many humans that we need
to feed, so many animals we need to feed to
feed the humans, and we're going to have to continue
to process this stuff. And sugar is a pretty ideal
(36:45):
source of calories. I mean, it really is. If you
just need to get calories and energy to move and function,
then it seems like it's a no brainer that we
need sugar and we should keep eating it and talking
about this makes me wonder how many times we've said
the word sugar in this episode And does anybody else
have a craving now that we've spent this long examining this, Uh, sugar, sugar, sugar, honey, honey,
(37:16):
I'm done. I thought that was good. How it was
How did the riff go that we were doing earlier?
Baby boom boom boom. Sure, fantastic, guys. Uh. The the
point here, of course, is is not to vilify sugar,
and yes, what these people did in the sixties and seventies,
(37:38):
for this particular instance, we're in the wrong. Uh. The
point is just to just to do our best to
be aware of this stuff, and it can be challenging.
You know, we live in a place where a lot
of very large companies have bought up a bunch of things.
You know, you might be surprised how many seemingly different
(37:59):
products sen your local grocery store are ultimately owned by
one corporation. Right, even products that seem to compete. This
amount of influence and power can be leveraged in unexpected
and surprising ways. I think I'm going to Uh, I might,
I don't know, I might drink a soda. Don't do it,
(38:21):
You're right. What what you what you can do right
now is go to sugar dot org and look at
the member companies and you can find yourself a whole
list here of sugar tycoons. We've got Domino Sugar, which
is now I guess the American Sugar Refining Incorporated. There's
Amalgamated Sugar Company. Is Imperial Sugar on that? Imperial Sugar
(38:44):
is most definitely on here. Remember that insane fire at
the Imperial Sugar Refinery and Savannah that UM sent a
bunch of people to burn unit like it was a
whole disaster sugar dust, and it created all kinds of
new interest and regulations about sugar manufacturing because apparently sugar
(39:05):
dust is incredibly flammable and it can collect on eaves
and beams in the building and there it's combustible. So
one little poof and it can, you know, be all
over UM. So this is two eight. I was working
for Georgia Public Radio at the time, and the most
advanced burned unit in the area was in Augusta, UM,
(39:28):
where I was based, and so we covered that story
pretty extensively. It was it was a big, huge, huge deal. Man.
I mean, I'm sorry, I'm just looking at it online.
UM check it out. It's called the two thousand eight
Georgia Sugar Refinery Explosion. And this concludes our episode, but
of course not our show. We hope that you enjoyed
(39:49):
what we explored today. We also hope that if you
want to learn more about sugar, you avail yourself of
our parent website, how Stuff Works, which has a pretty
pretty solid article on how sugar works. There's also stuff
in there about how fruit toast corn syrup works. But
there's a whole branching set of articles you can get to.
(40:12):
You are invited officially, ladies and gentlemen, to fall down
a sugar rabbit hole with us, as well as to
the other podcast our sister and brother podcasts that exist
here at how Stuff Works. And I also like to
take this opportunity to plug a new podcast that friend
of the show, Lauren Vogelbaum has been on talking about
diamonds um is on now called food Stuff that just
(40:35):
launched today that the day that we're recording this Wednesday,
March the first. Uh. Their first episode is about champagne
and sparkling wine and uh, it's pretty cool stuff. Yes,
check it out. They'll also have some videos coming out.
And you know what, that Diamond episode holds up, It
really does. It holds up in a frightening and terrifying
(40:57):
And I just have to quickly mention that Annie is
also on this pretty sir, Annie, who worked on stuff
Mom never told you for its entirety, She's now on
this show behind the mic. Yeah, like me, making the
jump from producer to performer. Yes, but she's a paid
actor already, so she's gonna be awesome. And we think
(41:17):
that if you like our show, you will love this one.
So check us out. Check it out food Stuff. You
can find it wherever you find our podcast, and let
us know what you think. They're also pretty cool people.
If you have an idea for an episode they should
cover in the future right in let him know. There's
a lot of weird food stuff out there. There is
uh And speaking of listener mail, I think it's time
(41:39):
for shut at Conners. Our first shout out comes from
Lorenzo from Sweden. He says, Hey, I'm listening to your
podcast while I work. So here's a story that they
don't want you to know. And it's alchemy related the
anatomical machines of San serv San Servo Chapel. Never heard
of this. These things exist and are exhibited in Naples, Italy.
(42:03):
If you visit this chapel in the underground chamber they're located. Uh.
Probably the most famous anatomical machines. Either these are not
early robots or something similar. They are skeletons of a
man and woman in an upright position. The artery and
vein systems are almost in perfect condition. Just want to
really quick This sounds like what's the human exhibit? The
(42:26):
human bodies? Bodies bodies. Yeah, that's what I'm already seeing
in my head. Um, these machines were made by the
doctor Giuseppe Salermo of Palermo under the direction of this
other guy. With the discovery of deeds and notes, it's
possible that these things were created in seventeen sixty three
or sixty four. That is a long time ago. What
(42:47):
makes it even more interesting interesting is that until now
scientists have no idea which procedures or materials were used
to make these things. Um to obtain such an exceptional
preservation of the circulatory system, and he's left a place
where we can go and learn more about it. That's yeah,
I'm gonna go check that out as soon. I'm gonna
(43:08):
go check that out. And I already feel the rabbit
hole opening. Their mystery is a foot, and thank you
for right in and learn. Our next shout out, this
one is a This one's a little bit long, but
I'm so I'm gonna read selected parts of it if
that's cool. Our second shout out today is a little
bit longer. I'm going to read just some excerpts of it.
(43:29):
From night Bringer two thousand. Night Bringer two thousand says,
I just finished listening to your did the US abandoned
soldiers in Vietnam War episode and reminded me of a
story I heard from a friend of the family that
was in Vietnam. Prompted me to write in was the
part where you discussed the possibility that perhaps some soldiers
were left behind because release or return home could implicate
(43:50):
the US being involved in war crimes. To me, this
seems plausible for some individuals who didn't return home based
on the story I'm about to share. And he says
he granted, it's only here safe for him, but he
believes that this person was telling the truth, and here's
the story. At one point during his service in Vietnam,
as they were pushing inland, they were in a valley.
(44:11):
At the top of the inland side of the valley
was a village that they were tasked with securing. Because
the dense jungle terrain and the defending Vietnamese had an
elevation advantage their unit, the U. S unit, was having
a lot of difficulty even progressing towards the village, let
alone securing it. They tried for several days but were
unable to gain any ground, and finally the officer in
charge conceded that they weren't going to secure the village
(44:33):
without additional help. He made a call to his superiors
informing him of the situation. Was told assistance would be
sent and that they would need to hold the ground
for a couple more days. After a few days, they
get word that helicopters are coming and they need to
secure landing zone. When the helicopters arrived, only a small
squad of six to eight soldiers get out. His friend
(44:54):
doesn't know if these are Navy Seals, Delta Force Force
Recon or some other special forces unit. He's a whose
they might have even been mercenaries, but they were definitely
not regular infantry. They weren't wearing fatigues, they didn't have
name tags, they did not identify nor introduce themselves. They
only talked briefly to the highest ranking officer in the area.
So they're talking about you know, the soldiers were understandably
(45:18):
upset because they thought, how are these six to eight
guys going to help us? And then one of the
Special Forces guys overhears the overhears the folks arguing about it,
and he walks over and interjects with a comment along
the lines of you guys have been here what two weeks,
and you couldn't take this hill. So they have to
fly our asses out there to cover you and do
(45:38):
your job. We're going to take this hill and one
night and then you guys are going to feel real
extra stupid, and he walks away. Fast forward. Once it
starts getting dark, these Special Forces guys are packing it
in to go, he says. Once it's start, they all
disappear into the jungle and what becomes an otherwise uneventful night.
The next morning is daylight's dawning. They come walking down
(45:59):
the hill into camp. They tell the first group of infantrymen,
the village is yours now. These guys were pretty confused
because they hadn't heard a single shot the night before.
The Special Ops guys go report to the commanding officer. Uh.
The commanding officer tells them to pack up and proceed
to the village. They're expected and resistance, so they're easing
their way up to the hill carefully. No resistance to
the village once they got there was silent. It appeared empty,
(46:22):
he said. A lot of guys were confused, wondering if
the villagers had just happened to choose to abandon the
village that previous evening. As they started sweeping the village,
they were checking huts, and they found the village was
not empty or abandoned at all, he said. As they
went from hut to hut, they found the villagers, the
entire village, men, women, and children all dead. It appeared
(46:42):
that most, if not all, died from knife wounds, with
a lot of them having slashed throats, and many of
them still in their beds. He doesn't know exactly what
happened that night, but the thought and talk amongst the
regular infantrymen is that the Special Forces guys must have
silently killed the guards and then went from hut to
hut and killed the villagers while they were sleeping. He
said there were many of dozens of people in the village,
(47:03):
all of them dead after single night and not a
shot heard. He said, this is the most disturbing thing
he's ever seen, and then he'll never forget it. So wow.
So this is talking about a war crime, and this
is why, according to night Bringer two thousand, he believes
it's completely plausible that some people would have been left
(47:25):
behind if they were compromised in the execution of an
operation like this. This is scary, scary stuff. Thank you
for writing to a s Nightbringer and folks say, I
know that one was a little bit longer than normal,
but try to edit it a little for time, and
we think it's an important story. So pretty grizzly, I'll
(47:48):
say that. And on a to end, on a slightly
less gruesome note, we have a shout out from Stephen
or Stefan from Melbourne, Australia. He says, Hi, guys, a
massive fan of the show, absolutely love it. Request a
shout out to my girlfriend Chris Chrystalla. Chrystalla, what do
you think Chrystalla, we hope we got it right. Stephen
(48:09):
or Stefan shout out, gosh, we're really butchering this one.
Um I would love to hear more episodes on the
following topics UFOs and aliens check w W two Nazi
conspiracies would love to do that, such as the Nazi
bell ship. Are you aware of that one? Then? Oh? Yes,
this is the idea of this. This is the idea
that the Nazi Party discovered uh an energy that essentially
(48:34):
changed the rules of gravity, and that it was a
bell shaped object that was either used to produce this
or was itself the vehicle Nazi Bell. Interesting. And then
finally one that we've been talking about a lot lately,
ghosts and paranormal activity. Um I would say chances are
good to get something on every single one of those
(48:55):
at some point this year. Yeah, we haven't done a
full Nazi bell when we did magic, No, we didn't.
We haven't done audio podcasts on any of this stuff.
We haven't have we here, we're gonna go back through.
We're gonna do all this stuff. You're gonna love it.
Stefan and Chrystala shout out Crystala, Stephen Stefun, thank you
(49:15):
so much for writing in with those excellent topic recommendations
and I can't believe that we forgot to do those.
It's great and this concludes. Gosh, how cool is it
that there are people in Melbourne listening to us? It
pretty cool. Thank you. We appreciate your time. I'd love
to go visit there sometime. Absolutely, So if you want
(49:37):
to write to us, you have anything to share, a comment,
an opinion about something, or a story you'd like to
weave that maybe we'll say on the show, or something
your fellow listeners need to know. Then you can find
us on Facebook. You can find us on Twitter. You
can find us on Instagram where Conspiracy Stuff at the
first two, Conspiracy Stuff Show at the third one, and
(49:59):
you can check out every single audio episode that Noel,
Matt and I have ever done on our website Deep
Breath stuff. They don't want you to know dot com Boom,
you got it, hey, and this is you know. We're
gonna keep doing this until we get to April. But
guess what we are will be performing live in New
York City on April eight this year. It is so
(50:21):
hard not to just yell, New York City. I know
it's a Saturday, it's an early show. It's at one pm,
and it's in Brooklyn at the Bell House. Is in
the name of the bar and venue, not related to
the Nazi Bell that's correct. If you go to NYC
podfest dot com right now, you can get tickets. They're
only twelve dollars. If you show up in Brooklyn like
(50:45):
that day, it'll be fifteen dollars. So I'd say purchase,
purchase them in advance. And uh, it's also selling out
according to the promoter. But maybe that's just smoke. I
don't know. I hope we can get in. Do you
think we might not be able to get into our
own shows? That would be a to obummer. That would
be hilarious. By the way, that show is with Majority Report,
which is another podcast and radio show. And who's who's
(51:08):
gonna be with here? Oh? Just a little person by
the name of Janine Garofalo from Wet Hot American Summer
Hey Man. Yeah, as you know, stand up comedy and
was in a Mystery Man Mystery along with Tom Waits.
I had a massive crush on Janine in the nineties.
Sames um we gotta keep it cool though. Guys. Okay, yeah,
(51:30):
everybody play cool, don't embarrass me. Yes, you can see us. Uh.
We have so many questions out ending Will you meet
the guys in New York? Will we be able to
behave and not turn into fanboys around childhood crushes? Will
we be back next week? Spoiler alert? The answer is yes.
(51:54):
See and in the meantime, if you want to contact us,
but you don't play the social meet your rigamarole game,
then you can email us directly. We are conspiracy at
how stuff works dot com.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,
(00:24):
and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt
Randmamma ding Dong. Yeah, my name's no. They call me Ben.
You are you and you're the most important part of
this show. Thanks for dropping by two stuff that they
don't want you to know. It's really good to see you.
I'm really sorry about that, randol Emma day. I was
just trying something new. I was good. I was talking.
(00:44):
I was talking to to him or her that is listening.
Come on, oh my bad to all of them, wait,
look at me and making it all about me. You've
got a song in your heart. My friends, hut it out.
We are we are asked. We contain multitudes, according to
Walt Whitman, and we're not any of us a single
(01:06):
solitary thing. But due to the nature of today's episode,
we do want to establish at the beginning that we
are not doctors. This is true. No, m d here
at least know any I'm not a physician's assistant, not
in our end. Uh yeah, well I guess we should
amend that because your KNOWL is a music doctor. I'm
(01:30):
a doctor of funk. Yeah, and that's not even true,
and that's a MAT's a love doctor, doctor of love. Well,
you know we're gonna leave it there, man, But seriously,
this is not medical advice. This is, however, a pretty
scary story, and it starts off so sweetly. Today we're
talking about sugar. We're gonna tell it to you completely.
(01:54):
So maybe we could talk about some of our personal experiences.
Are you guys fans of eats sweet things? I used
to be much more so, but in my cantankerous old age,
I feel like I have sort of soured to the sweet.
I'm much more of a savory guy. Back before my
house stuff works days, mountain dew was my lifeblood with
(02:16):
the monster days after that, right, uh yeah, monster without sugar. Though,
I've never been a sugary energy drink person, but the
mountain dew, my god, I don't. I don't particularly eat
sweet things. I used to love soda. That was the
one exception, and the I'm sure my dentist is grateful
for that. But the the one thing that I always
(02:36):
found weird in social situations is if someone offers you
a piece of cake because it's somebody else's birthday, you're
kind of obligated to at least take a piece. And
that would be the only time to have his sweet
because people were with the soft rules of society obligating
me to do it. You know, I just said all
that stuff, and last night I was at a farmer's
market and bought a big old piece of Jeremy sue. Yeah.
(03:00):
That's mostly coffee, though, see every once in a while,
mostly coffee. You gotta reward yourself, I feel. I feel
that every once in a while. Yeah. And so we
all in the United States and abroad, we all continually
run into sweet things, right, and the basis of those
sweet things most of the time is sugar. But what
(03:22):
is sugar? Why? It's a simple carbohydrate, Ben, It's responsible
for that sweet taste in all those foods that you
daily beloved. Why is it called a carbohydrate, Matt, Well, simple,
it's because it's got a carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Well,
it's like it's like in terms of calories. So one
(03:43):
teaspoon of white sugar has about sixteen calories, about four
per gram, and it gives you that quick boom, that snap,
that snap crack, that rama Lama ding dog, that Ramo
Lama ding dogs. It worked. Uh. It gives you that
quick dose of inner g so your body can process
in your body process it faster than complex carbohydrates or proteins.
(04:06):
But friends and neighbors be aware if you eat too
much sugar, the excess energy may be stored as fat.
Remember that part because it's very important later. But sugar
isn't just a sweetener, right, It's also a super useful preservative. So,
for example, sugar helps to hinder the growth of bacteria
(04:26):
in jam um. It can also be used as a
bulking agent or an additive to food that gives certain
kinds of textures um, and sometimes even it's added to
accelerate fermentation or to change the boiling or freezing point
of a particular dish. You want to talk about fermentation. Uh,
(04:47):
we gotta get into beer really fast. I had no
idea how much sugar was in beer. Oh yeah, yeah,
until i I've really got into I p A s
for a little bit there. And there was a list
that came out in I think twenty three team maybe
that was looking at specifically the big Foot Sierra Nevada beer,
which was one of my favorites. And the thing, it
(05:09):
was like eating a slice of cake every every beer
you had. That's true. Even the beer that is advertised
as light will have a higher high have a level
of sugar involved. That might surprise people, because that's how
you make it right, right fermentation. So when we hear
the word sugar, most of us probably think of table sugar.
(05:32):
You know that white stuff. Yeah, yeah, the crystalline, insanely
sweet thing we buy a grocery stores. But the truth
is there are multiple kinds of sugars. We have a
couple of examples here too. Fruittoast. The stuff is found
in all kinds of fruits. You can find it in
honey as well. My personal favorite galactose because it sounds
like it comes from space, and that's actually found in
(05:56):
milk and also dairy products. And then there's good old glucoast,
which find it honey, fruits and vegetables. It is a
good friend of fructose, that old glucose. You also got
lactose again coming from milks. You can also find or
you can also make this from glucose and galactose, which
is fun. Then you have maltose or maltos found in
(06:18):
barley malt sucrose, which is made up of glucose and
fructos and found in plants, and the last, but not least,
the absolute best, zilos found in wood or straw. Why
do you like that one? Because it's zilos. It's not
like a transformer or something. Yeah, why are you a
zilos supremacist? Now? Yes? Besides, besides beets and sugarcane, sugar
(06:45):
can also be derived from honey and a lot of
fruits like dates or coconuts, uh, and tree SAPs can
also be sources of sugar. And this table sugar stuff,
let's just call it grocery stores sugar. Uh, it's it's
called sucrose, and it comes from sugar beets or sugar cane,
and sucros appears and all these other plants too, along
with some of the other people you heard from our
(07:06):
greatest hits just a second ago. Glucose and fructos, and
it's actually in every plant since sugar and oxygen or
products of photosynthesis. But unlike sugar beets and sugarcane, a
lot of other plants don't produce sucros in a large
enough quantity to harvest, so it's more like a trace.
So the sugar we're going to discuss today is mostly
(07:29):
going to be derived from those sugar beets and that
sugar cane, which is probably the one you may have
heard of the most. That's when I think of sugar,
I think of sugar cane. Um, And I'm not really
sure why. I don't know what pop culture reference taught
me about sugar cane as a kid. Well, there's a
sonic youth song called sugar cane. Maybe lack of sugar cane.
(07:49):
I'm standing in the rain, very nice, so so thank
you know. Um. So, these sugar beets are grown throughout
the world, in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, parts of
North Africa, and South America. Than sugarcane, on the other hand,
you need a tropical climate, you need semi tropical climates,
something that's nice and warm and wet, and it's grown
(08:11):
in the southern United States, South America, Africa, South Asia,
and also the South Pacific. Hold on, hold on, okay,
let's stop this train for one second. We would be
remiss if we didn't mention something that I know you're
thinking about already. Ladies, and gentlemen. High fructose corn syrup HFCs,
as its name applies. This stuff comes from corn spoiler,
(08:36):
not sugarcane or beats. Was creating the nineteen sixties and
it's an additive now found in so many processed foods,
including a boatload of sodas. It's become popular for food
manufacturers because it's cheaper than the table sugar. It's also
pretty controversial because people believe it contributes to obesity and
that the body treats this mix of this specific of
(09:00):
fructose mix differently. So yeah, yeah, and you'll hear are
all kinds of stuff about it. If you go to
the sugar lobby, they're going to tell you that it's
essentially glucose with a little more fructose than regular corn syrup. Yeah.
I think the mixes like fifty five uh fructose to
(09:23):
glucose something like that, and then regular corn syrups almost
all glucose. Right, Yeah, it's not when they say, hi,
they just need more than half exactly. So we have
all we have this wealth of sugars, its wealth of
sweet opportunities. How much do we eat in the US?
Funny you should ask that I have a stat right,
(09:44):
here in front of me. The per capita consumption of
refined sugar in the United States of America has swung
between twenty seven and forty six kilograms sixty and a
hundred and one pounds, respectively in the last forty years.
According to data from the United States, and eight, people
(10:07):
were consuming over sixty pounds of added sugar per year.
And this does not include fruit juices, which as we know,
contains its own. Yeah, and today the US is the
number one sugar consumer. And these recent statistics, just to
give a sense of perspective over time, indicate that the
(10:27):
average person consumes about a hundred and twenty six point
four grams daily. Uh. This can fluctuate over time, and
we should probably make a note about the danger of averages.
This country is huge. It's we're talking about a population
of almost three hundred and twenty million people, uh, three
(10:48):
eighteen point nine as. But when we have a sample
size that large, what that means is depend on the
methodology of this average. That means it could be someone
who just somehow eats a negligible amount of sugar all year,
and maybe someone who eats six times the daily dosage
(11:09):
every single day. You know, yeah, because if if we
look at the caloric intake of a hundred and twenty
six point four grams of sugar, it's roughly five hundred
and five. I mean, this is gonna be a little off.
Let's say over five hundred calories per day of just sugar.
It's crazy, man. And you can find some great statistics
on sugar consumption in the US as well as sugar
(11:32):
consumption in the rest of the world. So if we
take that other number, a hundred and twenty six point
four grams per day in the United States, the next
runner up would be Germany with a hundred and two
point nine grams, so still still pretty high up there.
And then if we go down to the bottom, uh,
(11:52):
in India, for instance, people will have only five point
one grams of sugar per day. So there's a lot
of variants here across across the world. But when you
get closer, closer to the twist here, how much should
we eat? Great question? Well, the World Health Organization has
(12:14):
some opinions. Uh. They recommend that you have less than
ten percent of your total energy intake from free sugars.
It's the equivalent to about fifty grams around twelve level
teaspoons for a person of healthy body weight consuming about
two thousand calories a day, but ideally it should be
less than five and you have additional health benefits. This
(12:36):
is tricky because a lot of stuff that you don't
think would have a lot of sugar in it is
just inundated with this. And fifty grams yes a day. Yes,
that's like a pile. That's like a massive mountain of sugar.
(12:57):
If you think about it visually, yeah, it is, But
then you think about how much we're actually eating. Six
is the average grahams. I mean, that's it's insane, probably
largely because if it's maybe it's preservative qualities. So like
if you like microwave meals, for example, it's got sugar
in it because and you wouldn't think that my lasagna
(13:17):
would have sugar in it, but it's in there because
it's helping to preserve the frozen food. Well. Yeah, and
and specifically the who was talking about free sugars here,
that phrase free sugars is very important. We're not talking
about fruits, We're not talking at anything that has naturally
occurring sugars. Um it's sugars that's added in a production
right right, added the food or drinks by the manufacturer
(13:37):
or the cook, or even the consumer, because you know,
to each their own when it comes to eating habits,
a lot of people will just pour sugar and stuff.
I'm sure you gotta take that coffee, black man. It's
the only way. Yes. According to the American Heart Association,
a maximumount of added sugars you should eat per day
are for men, a d and fifty calories per day.
(13:58):
That's thirty seven point five grams or nine teaspoons. Okay,
not too bad. For women, it's a hundred calories per
day or five grams six teaspoons. We've been talking about
a lot of numbers here, so let's put all these
numbers into perspective. And all I love that you pointed
out that is a pile if you imagine it visually.
So one twelve ounce can of coke Coca Cola, for instance,
(14:22):
contains a hundred and forty calories from sugar. A regular
Snickers bar, regular size contains a hundred and twenty calories
from sugar. God, so one soda a day if you're
a dude, according to the American Heart Association, already put
you like close to your limit. That's so upsetting to me.
(14:45):
I think, you know what. I think. That's why after
working here, I stopped drinking sugary sodas. Yeah, that was
a big deal for me. Um. I just switched to
uh soda water like Lacroix or sam Pella Greena or whatever,
and um satisfied my craving for the bubbles. I really
like the bubbles. I find it very refreshing. But I
(15:07):
just literally don't drink soda ever. Maybe I rarely go
to a fast food restaurant. I might get a coke
with my fries and mom burger, but I mean maybe
twice a month. Yeah, I also used to drink it
quite frequently. But I'm I'm glad that I'm I had
an amicable breakup with soda. We're still friends, you know,
(15:28):
we might might hang out once a month or something,
but we're not gonna live together anymore. Yeah, I've got
a really bad relationship with aspart team. Now all the
other the weird one. What is it's uh zylatl zilatol. Yes, though,
and this is without even touching on artificial sweeteners. We
(15:49):
want to give you these numbers just from these various
types of sugar, not even counting artificial sweeteners. And I'm
glad you're pointed that out, Matt, because we want to
paint the picture of just how popular this substance is,
how um, how much it permeates the the food market,
especially in the US, but in other places as well.
(16:09):
How do we get to the place that we are currently,
So glad you asked, and we're going to talk about
that right after a quick word from our sponsor. Once
upon a time, more than five thousand years ago, Polynesians
(16:30):
used sugarcane as a sweetener, and the substance eventually made
it to India, and from India it spread westward, aided
by pillaging and trade that came with the conquest of
Darius the Persian Emperor and Alexander the Great, who overthrew
the Persian Empire and who, by the way, died when
he was only thirty two. So let's fast forward to Fote.
(16:54):
Crystal Bald Cologne, otherwise known street named Christopher Columbus, brought
sugarcane to the Caribbean and it was a perfect environment
for growing this crop. The ferral ground led to the
development of a massive sugarcane industry in what they called
the New World. Over the next few centuries, plantations sprouted
up throughout the Caribbean, the West Indies, and South America,
(17:18):
and they were fueling sugar. They were also fuelling the
slave trade. These two trades were inextricably intertwined. During these years,
sugar finally became cheap enough to be accessible to most Europeans,
and until then it had been considered a luxury. And
do you know what they called it? White gold? For real,
(17:40):
they called it white gold. That's what the British colonists
called it. And it was the engine of the slave
trade and brought millions of millions of people from Africa
to the America's beginning in the early sixteenth century. Like
think like fifteen oh five. And this means that the
history of every nation in the Caribbean, much of South America,
and parts of the southern United States have been forever
(18:01):
shaped by sugarcane plantations that were started as cash crops
by European superpowers. Now it's crazy to think about how
much money was generated here for the owners of these
companies that were producing it, the the different farm owners.
There's a lot of money going around, and that profit
(18:21):
was so significant that it may have even actually helped
America achieve independence from Great Britain because it allowed money
to buy the stuff that's required to start a war.
You know, I have in my head this this idea
that if if there was a way to do it
without just atrocious chattel slavery, it would be kind of
(18:42):
cool to have your profession as sugar tycoon. You know
those exist, don't they? They do? They do in the
present day. What's the what's the massive company. There's there's
a huge company against crazy subsidies in the US. It's
the one that's in all the stores, the grocery store
(19:03):
sugar that we always talk about. Is it Dixie, Dixie Dixie.
There's gotta be a tycoon at the end of that tunnel. Yeah,
it's Dixie Sugar. There's I'm sure there are other has
been they're out there. Yeah, the big bag. Yeah, you know,
look for the look for it in the big bag.
(19:23):
Dixie sugar is the old blood Preshatol sugar. That look
for it in the giant bag. For it in the
giant bag. From seventeen fifteen, there were near constant wars
consuming much of Europe. British naval blockades forced Europe to
look for an alternative to cane sugar. The eventual solution
(19:44):
they found was the sugar beat, and since this period,
Europe has gotten much of its sugar from beats. So
let's look at it today. Despite the evidence that too
much sugar can have damaging and dilatorious effects, it remains
immensely popular around the globe. We are literally, on a
primal level, wired to love this stuff. Uh, you know,
(20:06):
our ancestors or even things you came before us. Uh.
You naturally associate uh, sweet sensation or taste with something
being safe to eat. Yeah. Yeah, if it's bitter, you
don't want to eat it. If it's sweet, that means
the bugs are probably attracted to it and they eat
it right that it isn't that kind of how it
(20:27):
went exactly. So here's some examples of the bad things
that can happen related to sugar intake. First, let's start
with diabetes. As twenty nine point one million people or
nine point three percent of the US population of diabetes
and that's diagnosed undiagnosed would say eight point one million people,
(20:50):
and about a third of the people who have diabetes
are undiagnosed obesity. This is a stereotype that comes into
play with the us UH, which if you're not, if
you haven't ever visited here, I promise you it's it's
a pretty cool place. You'll you'll have fun. It's great.
Not all the stereotypes are true. More than two thirds,
(21:10):
or sixty eight point eight percent of adults are considered
by the government to be qualified as either overweight or obese.
Um more than one third, thirty five point seven percent
of adults are considered to be obese. And then you
can see you can see the stats here. One of
the biggest killers of any American, regardless of genetic history,
(21:35):
creed age, etcetera, is heart disease. It is the leading
cause of death for both men and women in this country,
about one in every four deaths, and it's the most
common type of heart diseases coronary heart disease c h
d UH. In two thousand fourteen, it killed about three
d sixty five thousand people in this country. Someone has
(21:59):
a heart attack every forty two seconds, and each minute
someone dies from a heart disease related events. And of
course cavities curse you soda geez. So this is this
is bad. Sugar is bad, Sugar is is leading to
this stuff. Sugar definitely plays a role. It would be
(22:19):
irresponsible for us to put everything at the feet of sure,
but it definitely, it definitely plays role. And now our
question is just how bad is this stuff? And how
did we start eating so much of it? Can I
say it? Ben? Can I? Here's where it gets you
(22:39):
do it? You do it. That's where it gets crazy.
In September of three, doctors released a paper in the
Journal of the American Medical Association, or, since we're fans
of acronyms, jamma jambo, so yes so jamma this This
(23:00):
paper was called Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease Research
colon a historical analysis of internal industry documents, and this
paper revealed frightening evidence of a cover up. Not a
conspiracy theory, oh, friends and neighbors know, a real life conspiracy.
Finally got one right. Here's what happened. So there was
(23:25):
evidence that sugar had had a role to play in
c HD coronary heart disease. We know it now, but
other people knew it back in the nineteen fifties. The
industry and the people that they were paying to research,
knew it, and things were not looking so good for
(23:45):
the sugar manufacturers. The science showed that what they were
selling and the way they were selling it was potentially
very dangerous. So they took action. They came clean and
told the public that they would be responsible, and they
would they would work with the f d A to
restrict unreasonable amounts of sugar. I'm kidding. Instead, they they
(24:08):
had a trade organization that was called get this, the
Sugar Research Foundation. Sounds legit? Yeah. What did they do? Well?
They they went ahead and paid a group of three
Harvard scientists the equivalent of about fifty thousand dollars in
today's dollars, which is not a bad salary to publish
a review of research on sugar in nineteen sixty seven
(24:30):
looking at sugar, fat and heart disease. How do these
all go together? And what are the causes? What are
the what types of cholesterol are affected? Right? And we
can also we should explain uh review of research is
sort of an anthology kind of thing. They collect different
papers that have been written on a subject or a
(24:53):
group of subjects or theme. The studies used in this
review of research were hand picked by the Sugar Research Foundation,
and they also, through their influence, had an article published
in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. They sponsored
this article. It was a literature review that singled out
(25:15):
fat and cholesterol as the causes of c H d uh,
And they also downplayed evidence that sucros consumption was playing role.
They were They were like, ah, you gotta watch out,
it was fats. And they did not disclose that they
sponsored this. Yeah, that's one of the big things. They
also set the objective, so they pretty much told the
(25:38):
researchers what they were going to find, you know what
I mean? And they yeah, And they got drafts that
they worked over and had editorial influence on, and the
whole thing happened undercover. Essentially, what they end up producing
was somewhere between a hit piece and an advertisement in
an insiduous way. So then just a clarify, is this
(26:01):
something along the lines of a lobby spot on? Well,
that's uh, that's a great it's a great point. So
let's say that the three of us are sugar tycoons. Yes,
perfect just took a different path in life, and now
here we are instead of smoking cigars, we all suck
on lollipops. Yep, yep, right, we all have very bright
(26:22):
colored suits. I think I would go for a Willy
Wonka vibe the original movie adaptation, not the not the
new one. I'm going full penguin. You're going full penguin.
Where are you going to? No? I DoLS love us,
wear my cities, swear cities. You're the everyday tech, every
(26:42):
day sugar tech. Perfect. Well, the three of us say, well,
we need some we we will have power in numbers
and we will join uh. We will join our finances
to fund a trade organization that will represent us. And
this trade organization can do lobbying on our behalf with legislatures,
(27:04):
you know, like here are if we want favorable tax
breaks in a district, if we want uh some consideration
or uh special prices on loans for building infrastructure. It's
not necessarily a bad thing, but as potential to be very,
very damaging. But how does a a group such as
(27:25):
ours get in such cahoots with what's supposed to be
an independent review like the the Jama money money. Yes,
throw money at it. Because this goes back to some
of the stuff we discussed with Edward Bernese What Bernese
did that was so brilliant was he realized that if
(27:46):
people thought they were getting unbiased medical advice, then they
would be more likely to follow it than they would
the instructions of of a transparent ad Right, it's insidious,
it's a bait and switch, and it worked really well,
arguably works today. So the sugar industry kept going. They
(28:09):
didn't just do this one paper. They didn't do just
this one area. They sponsored a research program in the
sixties and into the seventies that continually cast doubt about
the hazards of sucros like, oh, sugars, I mean, okay,
don't eat too much sugar. But guys, really that's the
dangerous one here, that's the problem here. Yeah, the sugar
(28:31):
industry I'm reading from uh that link bend the sugar
industry and coronary heart disease research paper. Uh. The industry
would spend six thousand dollars at the time, which is
now five point three million dollars to teach people, quote
who had never had a course in biochemistry, that sugar
is what keeps every human being alive with energy to
(28:54):
face our daily problems. It just sounds so happy, but
pepena step with sugar. And and ultimately what they're doing
is they're they're fighting for market share, right, And when
you think about market share, I'm going to use the
video game example right now. Consoles there would be the Xbox,
the PlayStation, the what the Nintendo Switch, Yeah, the Nintendo Switch,
(29:17):
and a bunch of other ones console non console games
like on a PC or something or mac. But each
of those has a certain percent of the market share. Right. Well,
in this case, for these sugar industry people, their market
share is what people put in their bodies as food, right,
and the entirety of food. And so by reducing or
(29:38):
making you afraid of fat, they're going to increase overall
the market share of the food overall, which is crazy
to think about. And this is not this is not
to say that consuming excessive amounts of fat is good
for you, not necessarily. Let's also not forget the old
food pyramid, which the tippy tip tip top contains ats, oils,
(30:00):
and confectionery or that's what they're calling it now, which
would be sugar. So if they're in a battle with
the minds of the public in terms of like, well,
I can only have a little of of fats or sugar.
Which one do I perceive as being better or worse
for me? Which one am I going to choose? So
that's it's like a it's a psychological battle wherein these
(30:24):
sugar folks are hoping that you will choose sugar because
it's perceived to be less harmful, and fat sort of
gets the gets thrown to the bus. And then as
we know over time, if fats been determined to be
there are good fats and there are facts that are
good to have as part of your diet um and
then you know, I think it becomes out on top, yes,
(30:48):
will said, and in great point bringing in the food pyramid,
which could be it's a podcast all its so, And
I think when we get to that, uh, where are we?
We're telling you the story of something that actually happened,
like no ifs ands or butts, no allegations, no rumors.
(31:09):
People planned in in a sweet, smoky back room two
beguile and mislead the u S public and they did
so successfully. So where does this leave us down? We'll
tell you after a word from our sponsor. First off,
(31:35):
you might be wondering, hey, Matt ha been he know
what happened to the the SRF, the s RF, Well,
it hit the fan, ben it hit uh, it hit
the name fan. Because that trade group is still around
today under a different name. It's called the Sugar Association.
(31:56):
They have a fancy website. If you're interested, go check
it out. Um, there's lots of information in there. Yeah,
you checked it out. I did to spend a little
too much time on there today and I wanted a donut.
And here's the other thing. It's bigger than sugar. And
it's bigger than a single historical incident, right, And I'm
(32:18):
not casting any aspersion on the current Sugar Association because
we don't I don't have, you know, evidence to do that.
And I'm sure that the same people who are working
there in the sixties, I'm gonna go ahead and say
that they're not working there now in probably correct, probably correct.
I feel safe with that one. But why is it
(32:38):
bigger than sugar. It's bigger than sugar because private food
manufacturers continue to influence nutrition guidelines today, and it's happening now,
perhaps more than you think. So be very careful when
you hear those new alarmist pieces about what's good or
what's bad for you. We've joked about it before. It
seems like every week, every month there's some sort of
(32:59):
cycle of coffee'll make you live longer and be smarter
when you're elderly, or coffee will kill you somehow, right,
I like the ones about tequila, all right, we'll just
leave that one there. No, Apparently, like you know, you
can see studies about saying like a glass of wine
is good for your heart, or like now they're saying
tequila is good for you. I hadn't heard this one.
(33:22):
I'm gonna have to go buy a bottle. I guess, yeah,
for your health, very health conscious. Yeah, And then it
can apply also to sodas, right, beverage manufacturers, it can
apply to um pork manufacturers. It's it's kind of tough
to see to to figure out if food where this
(33:45):
would not apply. You know, yeah, I cannot find one.
And just thinking about all the different kinds of berries.
They are great for you, but they do have a
lot of naturally occurring sugar, right, which is fine, And
that's is that ultimately the best the best process to
take is if you hear, oh uh, like, what's a
(34:08):
random vegetable m M artichoke. Oh, it turns out that
artichokes give you these vast superior powers of hearing or whatever.
Sweet right, or if you hear something that's that's very bad,
Like is all cancer related to consuming cheese? It's Those
(34:29):
are both pretty unrealistic, cartoonish headlines. But the point is
your best processes, that is, to take that and before
you share it around with people, before you start going
to throw out all your cheesets or by all the
artichokes in your town, figure out who wrote it. Do
that old fakes. Turns out that thing I said about
(34:51):
tequila not not true, not true? Really yeah, snope says
mostly faults. Wait wait, so partially true. Also artichoke is
a flowers. Oh boy, well that just makes the headline
even more cartoonish. So the answers you find might surprise you.
(35:16):
There might be a situation where you see a very strange,
sort of anonymous sounding block name blas a name where
we go, oh, all right, well this was according you know,
this is according to the the Committee for the Committee
for Accuracy in Grain Related Health. And then you do
(35:37):
some searching on them and you go, oh, they're owned
by uh, you know, as some rival to cheese. It's right,
they're owned by like Horrible Red and Backer. But the
the point here is that this stuff, the stuff can
have the appearance of unbiased quantitative data, and it's not
(36:00):
always true. I have to ask you, guys, what do
you think about the state of I guess, the state
of mass produced food here in the US. That's what
I wanted to talk about. I feel like we're at
this weird point in history in this country where we
are pushing back towards manufactured foods. Not that we're not
purchasing them anymore or consuming them. We are pushing back
(36:23):
with the organic movement and trying to move away from
this kind of stuff. But it's unfortunately, it feels like
to me, at least, something that can't truly come to
fruition because we have so many humans that we need
to feed, so many animals we need to feed to
feed the humans, and we're going to have to continue
to process this stuff. And sugar is a pretty ideal
(36:45):
source of calories. I mean, it really is. If you
just need to get calories and energy to move and function,
then it seems like it's a no brainer that we
need sugar and we should keep eating it and talking
about this makes me wonder how many times we've said
the word sugar in this episode And does anybody else
have a craving now that we've spent this long examining this, Uh, sugar, sugar, sugar, honey, honey,
(37:16):
I'm done. I thought that was good. How it was
How did the riff go that we were doing earlier?
Baby boom boom boom. Sure, fantastic, guys. Uh. The the
point here, of course, is is not to vilify sugar,
and yes, what these people did in the sixties and seventies,
(37:38):
for this particular instance, we're in the wrong. Uh. The
point is just to just to do our best to
be aware of this stuff, and it can be challenging.
You know, we live in a place where a lot
of very large companies have bought up a bunch of things.
You know, you might be surprised how many seemingly different
(37:59):
products sen your local grocery store are ultimately owned by
one corporation. Right, even products that seem to compete. This
amount of influence and power can be leveraged in unexpected
and surprising ways. I think I'm going to Uh, I might,
I don't know, I might drink a soda. Don't do it,
(38:21):
You're right. What what you what you can do right
now is go to sugar dot org and look at
the member companies and you can find yourself a whole
list here of sugar tycoons. We've got Domino Sugar, which
is now I guess the American Sugar Refining Incorporated. There's
Amalgamated Sugar Company. Is Imperial Sugar on that? Imperial Sugar
(38:44):
is most definitely on here. Remember that insane fire at
the Imperial Sugar Refinery and Savannah that UM sent a
bunch of people to burn unit like it was a
whole disaster sugar dust, and it created all kinds of
new interest and regulations about sugar manufacturing because apparently sugar
(39:05):
dust is incredibly flammable and it can collect on eaves
and beams in the building and there it's combustible. So
one little poof and it can, you know, be all
over UM. So this is two eight. I was working
for Georgia Public Radio at the time, and the most
advanced burned unit in the area was in Augusta, UM,
(39:28):
where I was based, and so we covered that story
pretty extensively. It was it was a big, huge, huge deal. Man.
I mean, I'm sorry, I'm just looking at it online.
UM check it out. It's called the two thousand eight
Georgia Sugar Refinery Explosion. And this concludes our episode, but
of course not our show. We hope that you enjoyed
(39:49):
what we explored today. We also hope that if you
want to learn more about sugar, you avail yourself of
our parent website, how Stuff Works, which has a pretty
pretty solid article on how sugar works. There's also stuff
in there about how fruit toast corn syrup works. But
there's a whole branching set of articles you can get to.
(40:12):
You are invited officially, ladies and gentlemen, to fall down
a sugar rabbit hole with us, as well as to
the other podcast our sister and brother podcasts that exist
here at how Stuff Works. And I also like to
take this opportunity to plug a new podcast that friend
of the show, Lauren Vogelbaum has been on talking about
diamonds um is on now called food Stuff that just
(40:35):
launched today that the day that we're recording this Wednesday,
March the first. Uh. Their first episode is about champagne
and sparkling wine and uh, it's pretty cool stuff. Yes,
check it out. They'll also have some videos coming out.
And you know what, that Diamond episode holds up, It
really does. It holds up in a frightening and terrifying
(40:57):
And I just have to quickly mention that Annie is
also on this pretty sir, Annie, who worked on stuff
Mom never told you for its entirety, She's now on
this show behind the mic. Yeah, like me, making the
jump from producer to performer. Yes, but she's a paid
actor already, so she's gonna be awesome. And we think
(41:17):
that if you like our show, you will love this one.
So check us out. Check it out food Stuff. You
can find it wherever you find our podcast, and let
us know what you think. They're also pretty cool people.
If you have an idea for an episode they should
cover in the future right in let him know. There's
a lot of weird food stuff out there. There is
uh And speaking of listener mail, I think it's time
(41:39):
for shut at Conners. Our first shout out comes from
Lorenzo from Sweden. He says, Hey, I'm listening to your
podcast while I work. So here's a story that they
don't want you to know. And it's alchemy related the
anatomical machines of San serv San Servo Chapel. Never heard
of this. These things exist and are exhibited in Naples, Italy.
(42:03):
If you visit this chapel in the underground chamber they're located. Uh.
Probably the most famous anatomical machines. Either these are not
early robots or something similar. They are skeletons of a
man and woman in an upright position. The artery and
vein systems are almost in perfect condition. Just want to
really quick This sounds like what's the human exhibit? The
(42:26):
human bodies? Bodies bodies. Yeah, that's what I'm already seeing
in my head. Um, these machines were made by the
doctor Giuseppe Salermo of Palermo under the direction of this
other guy. With the discovery of deeds and notes, it's
possible that these things were created in seventeen sixty three
or sixty four. That is a long time ago. What
(42:47):
makes it even more interesting interesting is that until now
scientists have no idea which procedures or materials were used
to make these things. Um to obtain such an exceptional
preservation of the circulatory system, and he's left a place
where we can go and learn more about it. That's yeah,
I'm gonna go check that out as soon. I'm gonna
(43:08):
go check that out. And I already feel the rabbit
hole opening. Their mystery is a foot, and thank you
for right in and learn. Our next shout out, this
one is a This one's a little bit long, but
I'm so I'm gonna read selected parts of it if
that's cool. Our second shout out today is a little
bit longer. I'm going to read just some excerpts of it.
(43:29):
From night Bringer two thousand. Night Bringer two thousand says,
I just finished listening to your did the US abandoned
soldiers in Vietnam War episode and reminded me of a
story I heard from a friend of the family that
was in Vietnam. Prompted me to write in was the
part where you discussed the possibility that perhaps some soldiers
were left behind because release or return home could implicate
(43:50):
the US being involved in war crimes. To me, this
seems plausible for some individuals who didn't return home based
on the story I'm about to share. And he says
he granted, it's only here safe for him, but he
believes that this person was telling the truth, and here's
the story. At one point during his service in Vietnam,
as they were pushing inland, they were in a valley.
(44:11):
At the top of the inland side of the valley
was a village that they were tasked with securing. Because
the dense jungle terrain and the defending Vietnamese had an
elevation advantage their unit, the U. S unit, was having
a lot of difficulty even progressing towards the village, let
alone securing it. They tried for several days but were
unable to gain any ground, and finally the officer in
charge conceded that they weren't going to secure the village
(44:33):
without additional help. He made a call to his superiors
informing him of the situation. Was told assistance would be
sent and that they would need to hold the ground
for a couple more days. After a few days, they
get word that helicopters are coming and they need to
secure landing zone. When the helicopters arrived, only a small
squad of six to eight soldiers get out. His friend
(44:54):
doesn't know if these are Navy Seals, Delta Force Force
Recon or some other special forces unit. He's a whose
they might have even been mercenaries, but they were definitely
not regular infantry. They weren't wearing fatigues, they didn't have
name tags, they did not identify nor introduce themselves. They
only talked briefly to the highest ranking officer in the area.
So they're talking about you know, the soldiers were understandably
(45:18):
upset because they thought, how are these six to eight
guys going to help us? And then one of the
Special Forces guys overhears the overhears the folks arguing about it,
and he walks over and interjects with a comment along
the lines of you guys have been here what two weeks,
and you couldn't take this hill. So they have to
fly our asses out there to cover you and do
(45:38):
your job. We're going to take this hill and one
night and then you guys are going to feel real
extra stupid, and he walks away. Fast forward. Once it
starts getting dark, these Special Forces guys are packing it
in to go, he says. Once it's start, they all
disappear into the jungle and what becomes an otherwise uneventful night.
The next morning is daylight's dawning. They come walking down
(45:59):
the hill into camp. They tell the first group of infantrymen,
the village is yours now. These guys were pretty confused
because they hadn't heard a single shot the night before.
The Special Ops guys go report to the commanding officer. Uh.
The commanding officer tells them to pack up and proceed
to the village. They're expected and resistance, so they're easing
their way up to the hill carefully. No resistance to
the village once they got there was silent. It appeared empty,
(46:22):
he said. A lot of guys were confused, wondering if
the villagers had just happened to choose to abandon the
village that previous evening. As they started sweeping the village,
they were checking huts, and they found the village was
not empty or abandoned at all, he said. As they
went from hut to hut, they found the villagers, the
entire village, men, women, and children all dead. It appeared
(46:42):
that most, if not all, died from knife wounds, with
a lot of them having slashed throats, and many of
them still in their beds. He doesn't know exactly what
happened that night, but the thought and talk amongst the
regular infantrymen is that the Special Forces guys must have
silently killed the guards and then went from hut to
hut and killed the villagers while they were sleeping. He
said there were many of dozens of people in the village,
(47:03):
all of them dead after single night and not a
shot heard. He said, this is the most disturbing thing
he's ever seen, and then he'll never forget it. So wow.
So this is talking about a war crime, and this
is why, according to night Bringer two thousand, he believes
it's completely plausible that some people would have been left
(47:25):
behind if they were compromised in the execution of an
operation like this. This is scary, scary stuff. Thank you
for writing to a s Nightbringer and folks say, I
know that one was a little bit longer than normal,
but try to edit it a little for time, and
we think it's an important story. So pretty grizzly, I'll
(47:48):
say that. And on a to end, on a slightly
less gruesome note, we have a shout out from Stephen
or Stefan from Melbourne, Australia. He says, Hi, guys, a
massive fan of the show, absolutely love it. Request a
shout out to my girlfriend Chris Chrystalla. Chrystalla, what do
you think Chrystalla, we hope we got it right. Stephen
(48:09):
or Stefan shout out, gosh, we're really butchering this one.
Um I would love to hear more episodes on the
following topics UFOs and aliens check w W two Nazi
conspiracies would love to do that, such as the Nazi
bell ship. Are you aware of that one? Then? Oh? Yes,
this is the idea of this. This is the idea
that the Nazi Party discovered uh an energy that essentially
(48:34):
changed the rules of gravity, and that it was a
bell shaped object that was either used to produce this
or was itself the vehicle Nazi Bell. Interesting. And then
finally one that we've been talking about a lot lately,
ghosts and paranormal activity. Um I would say chances are
good to get something on every single one of those
(48:55):
at some point this year. Yeah, we haven't done a
full Nazi bell when we did magic, No, we didn't.
We haven't done audio podcasts on any of this stuff.
We haven't have we here, we're gonna go back through.
We're gonna do all this stuff. You're gonna love it.
Stefan and Chrystala shout out Crystala, Stephen Stefun, thank you
(49:15):
so much for writing in with those excellent topic recommendations
and I can't believe that we forgot to do those.
It's great and this concludes. Gosh, how cool is it
that there are people in Melbourne listening to us? It
pretty cool. Thank you. We appreciate your time. I'd love
to go visit there sometime. Absolutely, So if you want
(49:37):
to write to us, you have anything to share, a comment,
an opinion about something, or a story you'd like to
weave that maybe we'll say on the show, or something
your fellow listeners need to know. Then you can find
us on Facebook. You can find us on Twitter. You
can find us on Instagram where Conspiracy Stuff at the
first two, Conspiracy Stuff Show at the third one, and
(49:59):
you can check out every single audio episode that Noel,
Matt and I have ever done on our website Deep
Breath stuff. They don't want you to know dot com Boom,
you got it, hey, and this is you know. We're
gonna keep doing this until we get to April. But
guess what we are will be performing live in New
York City on April eight this year. It is so
(50:21):
hard not to just yell, New York City. I know
it's a Saturday, it's an early show. It's at one pm,
and it's in Brooklyn at the Bell House. Is in
the name of the bar and venue, not related to
the Nazi Bell that's correct. If you go to NYC
podfest dot com right now, you can get tickets. They're
only twelve dollars. If you show up in Brooklyn like
(50:45):
that day, it'll be fifteen dollars. So I'd say purchase,
purchase them in advance. And uh, it's also selling out
according to the promoter. But maybe that's just smoke. I
don't know. I hope we can get in. Do you
think we might not be able to get into our
own shows? That would be a to obummer. That would
be hilarious. By the way, that show is with Majority Report,
which is another podcast and radio show. And who's who's
(51:08):
gonna be with here? Oh? Just a little person by
the name of Janine Garofalo from Wet Hot American Summer
Hey Man. Yeah, as you know, stand up comedy and
was in a Mystery Man Mystery along with Tom Waits.
I had a massive crush on Janine in the nineties.
Sames um we gotta keep it cool though. Guys. Okay, yeah,
(51:30):
everybody play cool, don't embarrass me. Yes, you can see us. Uh.
We have so many questions out ending Will you meet
the guys in New York? Will we be able to
behave and not turn into fanboys around childhood crushes? Will
we be back next week? Spoiler alert? The answer is yes.
(51:54):
See and in the meantime, if you want to contact us,
but you don't play the social meet your rigamarole game,
then you can email us directly. We are conspiracy at
how stuff works dot com.
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