Laurie David Is 'Fed Up'

In 2006, activist Laurie David escalated the global warming conversation as a producer of the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Now she's teamed up with our own Katie Couric to co-executive produce, Fed Up, which shines a spotlight on the food industry and the link between processed, sugary foods, and the rise in disease. “Even if you think you know a lot about food, there is so much that will surprise you,” David says. “By midcentury, one in three people are going to have diabetes. This is the first generation of children that will be living a shorter life span than their parents.”

So what’s the good news? “It is all preventable,” says David. “We want to arm people with information so that they have a shot at a healthy future.” Her documentary, which hit theaters a few weeks ago, aims to teach people about the astonishing amount of sugar that’s in processed foods, even in those you don’t expect— everything from bread to yogurt to cereal to juice.

David, who’s quick to point out she’s not a doctor before talking about what she’s learned, doesn’t believe that you have to go cold turkey on sugar. “There is a safe amount you can consume,” she says. “For an average woman, it’s about seven to eight teaspoons per day.” It only becomes a problem when you go over that limit. “It gets stored as fat which leads to metabolic diseases including obesity and cancer; sugar causes cancer cells,” she says. According to Fed Up, people are consuming an average of 22 teaspoons, over three times the healthy amount. Sugar, by the way, includes everything from apple juice to Skittles. “All sugar is the same, once you eat it, it’s metabolized the same,” David says. “It’s a myth that some sugars are better than others.”

So what are you supposed to do about it? Cook your own food, says David. “People want to believe labels, but most of them aren’t trustworthy,” she claims. “If you don’t make the food yourself, it’s going to have more sugar than you’d ever add. Strangers and corporations don’t care about your health, they care about selling products.”

Photo: Will Cotton