“That Sugar Film” Documentary Review

                                              Picture courtesy of That Sugar Film

This film is showing starting on July 31 on demand and in select theaters from Samuel Goldwyn Films.  I got a chance to watch the film ahead of time before the release. Below is a brief synopsis of the film as well as my thoughts.

The film was very eye opening with the amount of sugar we eat on a daily basis (and it’s pretty gross how much!) Hugh Jackman makes an appearance (never a bad thing in my opinion!) and the film has some light hearted humor as well.

The film follows the main character, Damon, who basically used to eat a lot of “sugar and pizza” as well as cigarettes, but then fell in love with his girlfriend who was into healthy eating. He then changed his diet to all healthy eating and cut out refined sugar. He has a baby on the way with this woman, and he wants to know if sugar is really as bad as it seems. So, he does an experiment but RE adding sugar back into his diet, with 40 tsp of sugar per day to match the “Australian averages”, WITHOUT eating things that are known as “sugary”, such as candy. For example, he’s eating sugar with hidden sugar, such as “healthy” low fat yogurt which is actually loaded with sugar.

He has to keep all other factors the same, such as the amount he exercises.

Within 12 days, the main character already gained weight, and all around his stomach specifically. He does some pretty comical things to eat the required sugar intake, which was rather hilarious at his reactions. He displays not only physical, but physiological and psychological changes and adverse effects as well.

After his 60 day run, he had some pretty bad results with his liver, blood work, mentality, as well as weight changes. Damon notes he was eating the same amount of calories beforehand as he was with his high sugar diet, however, still gained weight. I think this is alarming, but also have to take into account water weight here. Carbo-HYDRATE, so water weight gain comes with sugar and carbs that are ingested. His diet was relatively higher in fat as opposed to carbs beforehand, so that is something important to note. However, you can see a rather large change in his physical appearance, which is alarming as well.

Overall, a very interesting documentary, and worth a watch. It was not boring at all, and the information was presented in a fun manner. Read your labels, peeps!!! Those food companies WILL trick you to thinking their product is healthy so you will buy it. Buyer, beware!

I was able to watch this for free. This is an unbiased review.