Sugar's Back

 When it comes to food, there’s been a big national movement toward returning to the way things used to be done. Farmers are bringing their produce to farmer’s markets in record numbers, consumers have been soured on processed foods…reaching for all natural instead…and now, artificial sweetners such as aspertame are being rejected as a rising tide of people want real sugar to sweeten their diet. This is great for Idaho because of our sugar beet crop and Mark Duffin, Executive Director of the Idaho Sugarbeet Growers Association fills us in. “We’re seeing a move towards consumers wanting their sweeteners to be natural and your main natural sweeteners are sugar and honey and sugar is by far the biggest. There’s a national campaign going on right now by PepsiCo to use their new sugar containing products, it’s called Pepsi Throwback and Mountain Dew throwback which is a throwback to the times when they used sugar to sweeten it.”

 And directly asking consumers about preferences is revealing.

 (Duffin) “Through the Sugar Association we’ve done some national polling and we’ve found that the two things most consumers want in their sweeteners is all natural and low calorie. Although the artificial sweeteners have tried to paint it as high calorie, it’s actually just 15 calories a teaspoon. When consumers understand that they’re comfortable using sugar as their sweetener of choice.”