2018 Sweetener Systems Conference
Presentation: Reducing Added Sugars: Will it Reverse the Trend towards Overweight & Obesity?
Speaker: John S. White, President and Founder, WHITE Technical Research
Dr. John S. White is president and founder of WHITE Technical Research, an international consulting firm located in Argenta IL USA, serving the food and beverage industry since 1994.
He received a B.A. in biology in 1973 from the University of California at San Diego and a Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1978 from the University of Utah. He served joint appointments as Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Dr. White worked in food industry research and management for 13 years, developing a specialization in nutritive (caloric) sweeteners. He is one of the foremost experts on fructose, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and sucrose, the result of 37 years of research on the production, functionality, applications, consumption and metabolism of these sweeteners.
Two of his research papers, “High Fructose Corn Syrup: What it is and what it ain’t” and “Challenging the fructose hypothesis: New perspectives on fructose consumption and metabolism,” are among the top 5% of all research papers ever tracked by Altimetric Attention Scores in numbers of journal citations, readers and social media mentions.
He serves as scientific consultant to the Corn Refiners Association and enjoys present and past affiliations with the American Chemical Society (Washington, DC), the American Society for Nutrition (Bethesda, MD), the Institute of Food Technologists (Chicago, IL), the American Council on Science and Health (Washington, DC), the International Life Sciences Institute (Washington, DC), and the Calorie Control Council (Atlanta, GA).
In another world, John plays cornet and leads the Sidewalk Stompers, a traditional jazz and Dixieland band that has been a fixture in Central Illinois for the past 25 years.
Contact information:
8895 Hickory Hills Drive, Argenta, Illinois 62501 USA
E-mail: white.tech.res@gmail.com
Presentation: Reducing Added Sugars: Will it Reverse the Trend towards Overweight & Obesity?
Added sugars have been enjoyed for millennia. They add enjoyment to meals, while providing energy and improving the palatability and functionality of foods. Added sugars have recently come under intense pressure, being promoted by health critics and agencies as singularly responsible for the current crisis of obesity and related diseases. From this pressure have emerged ingredient-specific public health policies and product-specific taxes, aimed at curbing consumption of added sugars. But is it reasonable to expect a reduction in added sugars to reverse the upward trend in overweight/obesity? This presentation will review the strength of scientific evidence against added sugars and the likelihood that regulatory policy and taxation efforts will be successful.
