sugar lumps portrait one use

If you think leading the Shrink Reduction Taskforce for the East Midlands is a tough gig, try being a disaccharide for a day or two. My ambitions have always been humble - maybe to adorn a bowl of cornflakes or perhaps play a cameo role on one of Nigella’s succulent buns - but all that lies in (golden) shreds.

For this I have to thank George Freeman, MP for Mid Norfolk Digital and junior minister for life sciences, which is where the reiki and Hopi ear candle sectors are no doubt regulated. Freeman has a bit of excess time on his hands out there on the Broads, what with him not having any sisters or anything. But declaring me public enemy no. 1 is a tad rich all the same, at least all the while Joanna Blythman is still outside Holloway.

Evidently the member for turnips hasn’t heard of cigarettes or alcohol, or even road traffic. Which in 2013 accounted for 79,700, 8,416 and 1,713 UK deaths respectively. Just sayin’.

Now it’s true that recent government statistics have pointed to a link between trade in white powder and premature mortality. But I suspect the fact that the government in question was Mexico’s may not be entirely irrelevant here.

It didn’t take long for the life-is-a-health-risk brigade to jump on the bandwagon. With everyone bored of hearing CASH bang on about salt (little wonder, unlike me my saline cousin is not at all refined) the tediously patronising pressure group has redefined itself as a sort of unwanted public conscience.

So to help them, here’s the science bit. A little bit of sugar is nice. Too much sugar makes you fat. So some is good, and too much is bad. A bit like taxation really.

Now, bacon, on the other hand…