The Age newspaper loves Greens policies, but hates the Greens

This blog entry is a letter that I sent to the Age newspaper this morning, objecting to the newspaper's coverage of the Greens on the previous Saturday. For overseas readers: the Melbourne Age has always been a progressive newspaper but struggles to maintain its role under the current management of its owners, Fairfax Media.

Last year the ALP government failed to get its legislation for an emissions trading scheme (ETS) through the upper house. The scheme was never popular with progressives but was even worse after amendments made following negotiations with the main conservative opposition (the government refused the Greens suggestion of a carbon tax).

With an election due around November this year, the ALP has shelved any reintroduction of the ETS until 2013. Two columnists in Saturday's Age managed to have a go at the Greens for opposing the legislation in the Senate.

I’m writing a general letter of objection to the coverage of the Greens and their policies on global warming in the Age of Saturday 1 May 2010, but also directed at the two columnists concerned, Tony Wright and Ross Gittins. Tony Wright’s column appeared in the Insight section of the paper and Ross Gittins’s appeared in the Business Day section (the business commentators seem to be Fairfax rather than Age journalists – this in no way lets the Age off the hook). For the record, I’m not a Greens member but I support and vote for the Greens.

It’s fascinating that the only direct endorsement of the Greens’ carbon tax proposal is not only buried in the business section of that edition, in Paddy Manning’s column, but seems to have produced a flurry of opposing opinion by other columnists (a spurious attempt at ABC-style ‘balance’?). Manning’s endorsement is also months after the fact – I’m not objecting to the views of this columnist, but to the Age’s willingness to publish a point of view that supports evidence-based policy only when that support is given far too late to matter.

In contrast, the coverage of the Greens in the columns by Gittins and Wright would have conspiracy theorists who fear anti-Greens censorship tearing up their Age subscriptions. It seems that the Age wants to have it both ways: present itself as a progressive paper by criticising government and opposition policies; then trashing, or more usually ignoring, the one party that offers a clear alternative. The ethos seems to be: ensure business as usual while enabling readers to feel vindicated in their anger about the complete inability of the large parties to pursue policies that are genuinely in the national interest.

The media is part of this deterioration in our democratic process. One of the problems is that journalists such as Wright and Gittins have taken on, to some extent, the twisted mindset of politicians. According to this mindset, there are two realities: what’s actually going on in the world; and the need to create an impression of government activity and relevance through spin. This second, alternative reality, born of the Canberra hothouse, is considered by the politicians to be far more important than actual reality, and is one of the major reasons the Labor government has failed to move effectively on just about every issue it has tried to tackle.

Unfortunately, some journalists also come to view this alternative reality as far more important than the real world. It is certainly much more beguiling, because it’s far easier to commentate a never-ending football match than to take a strong stand on matters such as democracy, human rights and social justice.

Take Wright’s column. He starts off in the real world, by giving an impassioned description of a recent Catalyst program that highlighted the effects of global warming on Antarctica’s ice sheet. He then turns his attention to government and opposition behaviour towards climate change, bemoaning the fact that ‘hardly anyone seemed to give a stuff’.

It would be logical for Wright to support the policies of the party that has done far more than either of the larger ones to both alert Australians to the true extent of the dangers of global warming, and to offer policies and targets that actually square up with the science and set us on the road to a renewable energy industry. But in his upside-down version of reality, the version he’s absorbed from the political spin-merchants, the leader of this party, Bob Brown, is an irrelevant ideologue. And the only one left with real integrity is the man who, at the time when the government’s climate change policy was being negotiated, made what was already a dog of an emissions trading scheme even worse – Malcolm Turnbull:

Bob Brown’s Greens … well, they just kept being the Greens, complaining that the government hadn’t taken their proposals seriously, which is another way of saying that they had played themselves out of the equation.

About the only politician of simple integrity still standing was Malcolm Turnbull.

This is outrageous. In implying that Bob Brown lacks integrity, Wright is denouncing one of the few politicians in the federal parliament who actually has any. (Brown’s opposition to unfair increases to parliamentary salaries is just one example.)

In contrast, Turnbull’s principles in relation to the ETS, principles which Wright lauds to the skies, were based on ensuring that the coal industry continued to flourish in Australia till kingdom come.

It’s disappointing for a reader to feel she is more cluey than the paper’s national affairs editor. The ETS (both pre- and post-Coalition versions) was a dog because:

• it offered compensation to polluters, doing the opposite of what an ETS should do, which is to encourage alternative energy, not to enable ‘business as usual’. The Age itself has reported that most of the compensation specified in the ETS legislation was unnecessary

• it locked in, for the long term, both this compensation and a low emissions reduction target, with the distinct possibility that if the government increased the pathetic 5 per cent target, it would be liable for a commensurate increase in compensation to the polluting industries

• the 5 per cent was a furphy anyway, because much of the reduction would have been obtained from investment in overseas carbon sinks

• the 5 per cent was an absolute target, discouraging citizens from making their own changes – for example, if I had switched my electricity supply to green energy, that would have increased my electricity provider’s ability to pollute elsewhere

• no one understood it!

Eminent climate scientists agreed that the ETS would be useless, as the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Wright knows that the Greens were never merely naysayers, but offered a positive alternative, a carbon tax that might have squeaked through the Senate with the support of at least one of the two renegade Liberals and Nick Xenophon. Wasn’t the carbon tax option preferable to what’s happened now, with any action on carbon emissions being shelved till 2013?

This style of commentary illustrates the dangers of political commentators having the main say on climate change in the mainstream media. If the Age is to be relevant it needs to have a qualified science writer weighing up the parties’ climate change policies, not glorified football commentators like Wright.

Let’s now turn to Gittins. He makes an astounding claim in his column, yet doesn’t even attempt to back it up:

But why did the Greens pretend that 5 per cent was nothing when they must have known it wasn’t true? Because it didn’t suit the line they were running. It proves that the ever-virtuous Greens as [sic] just as capable of lying with statistics as the mainstream parties are.

Gittins produces no evidence to ‘prove’ that the Greens are ‘lying with statistics’ – he simply makes the assertion.

In considering the 5 per cent target too low, the Greens were merely listening to the climate scientists. The 5 per cent target has absolutely no relevance to climate science.

Similarly, Gittins seems to think that judging emissions reductions using per capita (head of population) measures would be a good thing. This is simply ludicrous because it would make targets meaningless as far as the actual climate is concerned. (In fact, the pollies would love it if they could use such standards to measure reductions in emissions, especially given Australia’s increasing population, and a couple have tried to do this.)

Again, it’s all about politics, not reality. Tony and Ross, isn’t ‘the greatest moral, environmental, economic and scientific challenge of our time’ worth more than a 5 per cent emissions reduction (on 2000 levels, by the way) and a bag of gold to the big polluters?

A newspaper in which the ‘ever virtuous’ Greens are treated with contempt because they’re more truthful, and the coal-friendly, Machiavellian Turnbull magically becomes ‘the only politician of simple integrity still standing’ may be terminally endangering its reputation as a progressive force.

It’s a shame, because the Age could be building strong customer loyalty based on an unswerving progressive vision, and on a genuine interest in engaging with its readers, rather like the UK’s Guardian. Instead, it seems almost entirely concerned with the advertising revenue it receives from the large parties. Many readers have already migrated online to sites like Crikey and New Matilda in response to the Age’s inability to respond adequately to the slow dismantling of democracy that Howard began and that Rudd has continued to engineer.

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The home front

Last week was a time of a gigantic ‘autumn clean’ that left this blogger so exhausted she has not had to provide the usual excuses for her normally excessive telly-watching.

The clean-up was occasioned by a triple whammy: an annual property inspection by the property manager (usually presaging some kind of rental hike), a visit by a painter to give a quote on the ceilings (fear of the owners prettying the place up in order to sell it, and no, he wasn’t planning a postmodern version of the Sistine Chapel) and most serious of all, the owners themselves, asking politely (it’s their legal right of course) if they could come and have a sticky beak.

It was on for one and all. Well, not entirely. I didn’t clean the windows, and I didn’t dust the tiny horizontal surfaces that abound in this impossibly high-maintenance ‘villa’ (why have only one ledge on the skirting boards when you can have three!).

I damp-dusted everything else though, and rubbed grime off a series of cupboard walls and doors. But the most debilitating job was the garden. With a back and front yard, as well as a driveway, it’s a lot of work to keep it looking reasonably neat. The whole place is really too much for one person, and especially this person, who doesn’t have a lot of energy to spare at the best of times.

( I would be remiss here if I didn’t acknowledge that my dad actually provided mowing services gratis and even returned the next day to dispose of an unfortunate dead rat on the driveway that had somehow escaped both our notice – not a good look if left there for the owners to discover.)

The way I cope with the maintenance requirements of this place is to have a list of jobs that I work my way through but am always behind on. Thus, I am never living in total disarray and yet never basking in the sweet order that my obsessive personality adores.

Except for the last few days, of course. As I dragged myself around in deep physical exhaustion I was able to enjoy the sense of being ‘looked after’ – by me! Of course the house will slowly descend into its normal interim state of semi-dirty tidiness, but until then I’m enjoying the fresh aura of clean.

Even if I had the energy I don’t think I have the will to keep this level of maintenance up, but now I understand why people pay to have these services performed. I’ve also come to the conclusion that the results of zealous domestic work – this sense of being looked after and the visual effects of cleanness – are a compensation for living in unrenovated housing, and of course a way of exercising control over the space.

My mother was obsessive about housework. There was no question that it came first. I internalised this very early, and received her unalloyed approval only when I tried to help her in her endless quest against mess; how welcome were her happiness and attention on the rare occasions I felt motivated to ‘clean the kitchen’ after the evening dishes, removing the conglomeration of administration and junk that endlessly migrated to the kitchen table and benches.

Much of that mess would have been my father’s. He’s a hoarder, and I am only now beginning to appreciate the scale of the battle she has fought with his encroaching, largely paper-based chaos for decades. She’s been physically somewhat debilitated in the last few years, and it breaks my heart in a way that is no doubt excessive to see that his watercolour painting, small political battles and admin tasks now encroach on the dining room and sunroom of their house (his ‘study’ is so chock-full of boxes and papers that he can’t do anything in there besides use the computer).

In my twenties I was able to tolerate short-term messiness, as long as it was created by me and not an overly busy housemate. However, prolonged and extreme untidiness, I now realise, has always spelled chaos to me. I had a friend in primary school, T, whose parents were literary. The two front rooms were relatively tidy, but T’s parents were cheerfully oblivious to the accretions of long-term mess that beset the rest of the place. I once galvanised T and one of her younger brothers to join me in a clean-up of her bedroom; the strongest memory I have of this episode is determinedly sweeping marble after marble from under one of the beds.

Seven years ago I flooded my flat and ended up moving back to live with my parents for over a year, much to the chagrin of my mother. During this time her approach to housework became evident; I remember her once literally sweeping around my feet as I stood in the jarrah-floored sunroom. It seemed to me at the time that she would have loved to sweep me away.

Post-visit relief

After all that elbow grease, the house inspection went almost impossibly smoothly. The owners are an elderly woman and her husband, and the flat has been in the family for decades – the wife’s father bought the three adjoining flats new, and left one to each of his children. I knew all this already, but found out from the wife that the development, one of a small minority of art deco styled buildings in the area, was built in 1937.

I was very curious about who the first-ever tenants were, as I imagined them as some proto-yuppie couple moving into what would then have been a stylish ultra-modern apartment (the kitchen has a wonderful fold-out ironing board, complete with what appears to be original floral ironing board cover, that would have been cutting edge circa 1937). But the owner had no idea who they were, as she would have been only around six when the place was first tenanted.

Anyway, I’d only ever met the husband before, not the wife. The property manager turned up breathless at my door as the couple came up behind her, the wife helped along by her husband, the pair having inexplicably caught the tram. ‘She’s blind, you know’, said the property manager. As well as immediately obliterating my fantasy of this all-powerful landlord and inciting my compassion, the irony could not escape me – much of my cleaning had probably been unnecessary.

However, the husband and the PM both went away to have a good look through. It became clear that the only appropriate thing to do was to sit the owner down in the loungeroom and chat to her – she wasn’t interested in accompanying her husband on the inspection, and she was tired after the tram ride. She was frail and very cluey, with a guttural voice and a strong Australian accent.

I felt for her, because her blindness, seemingly acquired in later life, clearly annoyed her. As they were leaving her husband grabbed her arm and moved in the direction of the large spare room over the hallway. ‘There’s a front bedroom over here’, he said jovially. ‘Come on, I’ll show it to you.’

‘What’s the point?’ she responded angrily. ‘I can’t see anything!’

I have now got over my pathological fear of the landlords, and the whole episode did not suggest imminent sale to me, or a rental hike out of the ordinary. Also, the tattered ceilings are to be plastered and painted if an insurance claim goes through. So I think it’s safe to judge the visit a success!

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Reluctant lover of Big Love

I wrote this blog entry while the third series of Big Love was still playing in Australia, and then got caught up with writing about diet and food intolerance, so it’s a bit out of date. But I couldn’t stand to hang onto for another year so have decided to give it an airing now.

I have a big but in some ways reluctant love for the HBO television series Big Love.

This long-running drama series centres on polygamist Bill Henrickson and his three wives, Barb, Nicki and Margene. The family live in three neighbouring houses in a suburb in Salt Lake City, Utah, with their numerous offspring.

Bill and his wives are renegade fundamentalist Mormons who have adopted polygamy because they believe that producing as many children as possible will increase their favour with their ‘heavenly father’ in the afterlife.

With a fifth series in the pipeline and seemingly as popular as ever, the show details the never-ending dramas as Bill tries to financially care for his large family while hiding his polygamy from the world. There are also the tensions cooked up at Juniper Creek, the rural compound housing an oppressive Mormon sect that Bill and Nicki grew up in and are still entangled with. Dynamics among the three wives, the criminality of Roman, the patriarch of Juniper Creek, and the endless obstacles to Bill’s business ambitions are complicating factors.

I watch the show for the drama, but find myself wanting the family to ‘make it’ and stay together because they obviously gain strength from the deep bonds they’ve developed (in plural marriages, it seems, the women are married to each other as well, but as sisters rather than lovers, which of course begs its own questions).

The show is honest in its portrayal of human dilemmas, including sexual dilemmas, while also being, in its own way, conservative. Each of the personal conflicts ultimately gets resolved, although they may continue for several episodes and even from one series to the next (although I can only speak for what I’ve seen so far, and I’ve just reached the end of the third series, whereas the fourth has recently been screened in the US, and seems to herald some changes). But the resolution always occurs because the character concerned decides for themselves that they are going to ‘behave’. They make a choice based on their feelings of love and of belonging to the family group.

And that’s why the show is ultimately a fantasy – the characters must always make this conservative decision for the series to continue. In real life such intelligent, complex characters might well end up separating and living their lives on new and broader canvases. Or, as many women in polygamous marriages must do, they might simply continue with the status quo even if they were basically unhappy. The relationship conflicts in Big Love give a nod to realism (even if the interiors are usually preternaturally clean and ordered, and even if Margene looks impossibly fresh-faced despite having three toddlers to look after) but the never-endingly peaceable resolutions don’t (again, this may have changed in the fourth series).

Not only that, but the show goes to great pains to portray Bill’s plural marriage as one that is relatively enlightened. We know that not all polygamous marriages are as equitable as Bill’s, and deeply inequitable and often criminally abusive marriages take place on the Juniper Creek compound, sometimes between elderly men and teenage girls. Some of the wives on the compound are portrayed as living restricted lives of deep unhappiness.

In contrast, the individuals in Bill’s plural marriage are always free to leave if they choose – the only catch is that staying involves accepting the ‘principle’, which means having as many children as possible. That’s part of the show’s cleverness – the members of this marriage are portrayed as ordinary people in a very challenging situation. This impression is reinforced by the back story, in which Bill and Barb, the first wife, originally had a conventional marriage before deciding to embark on polygamy in order to live the principle and keep reproducing. Also, it’s constantly emphasised that Bill is in love with each of his three wives.

The makers of this series have been ludicrously clever in their ability to pitch it to a range of audiences. Mormons are a tiny minority in the USA, making up only 1.7 per cent of the total population, and probably mostly object to the show; but Big Love is likely to appeal to a wide swathe of non-Mormons who are religious in some way. According to Wikipedia, in 2008, 76 per cent of Americans identified as Christian; Protestants made up 51.6 per cent of the population, that is, they were a majority of the country’s population. Meanwhile, 3.9 per cent were part of non-Christian religious communities; this figure included Muslims and Jews.

The members of Bill’s marriage make huge sacrifices to maintain their complex arrangement. I’d imagine that many conservative Christians, and perhaps even Muslims and Orthodox Jews, might enjoy watching the show to receive affirmation for the sacrifices they themselves make for their religion, such as abstaining from alcohol, not using contraception, or marrying young to avoid having sex before marriage.

But the show’s target market is wider than that. Women who watch this show may think ‘There but for the grace of God go I’. But some men may watch it because they like the fantasy of having three wives. That relates to what I think could be another reason for the show’s attractiveness. Given the in-between status of this family, sitting somewhere between the oppressive world of Juniper Creek and the uncomprehending secular world from which they must hide their illegal arrangement, their situation has glaring similarities with much more progressive forms of polyamory. Surely this would be part of the subliminal appeal of the series?

Genuine polyamory has to hide in the USA just as polygamy does. An interesting documentary shown on Australian television last year featured an arrangement between a man and two women living together, all of whom were in love with each other – in other words, there were three sexual relationships going on. One of the women was a lawyer and she had to hide the nature of her relationship in her workplace, just as do the characters in Big Love.

But the interdependence that characterises the adult family members (when they’re not warring with each other) also reminds me of the first share house I lived in, a communal arrangement in which we ate and shopped together, and had a food kitty and a cleaning roster.

Communal share houses can have polyamorous undertones (mine certainly did) but don’t rely on polyamory as a structure for the relationships of the members. They offer a different version of adulthood from the one that involves breaking away from one’s family of origin by living in an adult sexual relationship. Share houses allow a form of adult cooperation that helps young people to separate from the family, but also enables a great sense of autonomy and freedom for those not yet ready to form lasting ties (of course, share houses may also involve established couples, and the arrangement may give rise to new relationships). And yes, share houses are, like polyamory, difficult to get right.

I think there’s something similar between this kind of arrangement and the way the family in Big Love are housed: the family live in three adjoining houses but are always in and out of each other’s homes.

The share house model is very much evident in the way the show is marketed. The youngest wife, Margene, has a blog in which she talks frankly (ie bitches) about the goings-on in the family. (The comments from viewers that appear on this blog suggest that some at least have trouble distinguishing fiction from real life).

These echoes of the share house no doubt help to explain why the show also appeals to a lefty feminist like me. But I think it may be the very lack of political correctness that is the clincher. I enjoy the drama of the continuing conflicts, but can ultimately blame the Mormon lifestyle for causing the conflicts in the first place, thereby avoiding the need to feel guilty about the show’s political unsoundness. I get to have my self-righteous cake and eat it too.

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Cold House Blues

The weather has been on the turn in Melbourne. Summer promised to last forever, but we’ve been plunged into overcast days and freezing nights. As soon as autumn arrives, my home resembles an Antarctic station where the heating has broken down.

Although it’s double brick, which means you have a few days grace before any violent temperature change registers, once it does you’re at its mercy.

This house has everything set up for shivering, in particular large-ish rooms, glass-and-timber double doors in the loungeroom, high ceilings and not a scrap of insulation.

Sometimes it’s actually warmer outside the house than in.

The one consolation is the gas heater in the lounge. It’s fairly ancient, but it does do an initial heat-up of the loungeroom pretty well, even though I know that once July strikes it just won’t win the battle against the cold, no matter how loud and determined its rattle becomes.

I had to really persuade myself to turn the loungeroom heater on this early in autumn. The weather bureau was promising a few 25-degree days towards the end of the week, so it seemed indulgent.

As soon as the heater goes on, the wet clothes come in. During the winter my loungeroom loses its ambience and becomes a de facto clothes dryer. I have a large selection of clothes airers of various sizes that become a fixture in the lounge.

I have a large electric heater for my office, but I’m just not ready to turn that on yet; here, my green instincts line up perfectly with my stinginess and my relative poverty. The heater is a 2400 watt-er, and it also heats the space up well, but in April? I’ll shiver for another couple of weeks, thanks very much.

But heaters on or off, the whole house is cold, and the cold is an alien presence, an enemy that is forever chasing me. The only way to beat the cold is to literally run away from it. I must keep moving, keep thinking about what I’m doing, what I’m planning to do next, refuse to give in to it.

This is the part of winter I find most challenging – I have to summon up a new sense of discipline and a proactive approach while my body just wants to hibernate. Don’t stay too long in the shower; don’t lounge on the floor in front of the heater when there are things you need to do; don’t tackle the dishes too late in the evening because the kitchen will be freezing; move the clothes around to ensure they’re drying. Keep your plan for the day in mind.

This sounds so simple, but yesterday, when cold and looming clouds descended suddenly (it’s warmed up a bit today) I was at a loss. Work was scarce, I felt low and really needed to get out of the house. But I couldn’t bring myself to. The weather felt oppressive, and I felt trapped and unprepared for it.

Recently I found myself thinking about buying myself one of those wearable blankets, for telly watching at least. They may not be exactly flattering but at least they’re comfortable. I looked at a website selling these (I’m not going to provide the link – they don’t need me to help their advertising!) and they are similar in shape to a monk’s robe, giving the wearer a sage-like appearance, while the video ad would have you believe that keeping warm by simply wearing several layers of clothes was never an option – which is pretty much what I’m doing.

One glance at those things suggests that they’d be dead easy to make, even with an existing blanket – in fact one made from a wool blanket would probably be warmer. I’ve also seen TV advertisements for quilted pyjamas, a bit like wearable doonas.

But I don’t think a wearable blanket or doona would work for me anyway as it’s simply another layer – they’d have to have an inbuilt electric blanket to get my temperature beyond the icy. What I’d really like is one of those electrical heated throw rugs – now you’re talking!

During my search on the net I did find something that offered low-tech artificial warmth that’s wearable – a scarf with a neck section and hand pockets that are filled with rice and flax seed. You heat the scarf in a microwave and wear it around the house. Sounds very comforting but I think you’d also need something for the legs.

But I am one of those people who feel the cold to an extraordinary degree. I sometimes go to the house of a friend to watch a DVD on his big plasma screen. The trouble is he’s just the opposite of me when it comes to temperature, and would often cheerfully strip off to his undies, given half a chance, in a temperature that to me is merely temperate.

We now have the drill under control for all but the warmest nights – he leaves out a mohair rug and a cotton blanket, both of which I drape around me as I settle down to enjoy the movie. I also bring a shawl to drape around my shoulders, and – yes, I’m going to admit it – thick woollen socks! Well, at least it stops us bickering about turning on the gas heater.

Still, while I might complain, I do sleep better in winter, partly because the light does not break through yonder window until much later, so my overzealous pineal gland calms down a bit.

(Note – after a lovely sunny interlude the weather got cold again and I felt compelled to add to this little entry.)

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Sins of Omission and Sins of Commission: My Not-So-Beautiful Flingette

I look forward to Easter because it’s like Christmas without the angst. The weather’s normally mild in Melbourne, the streets blessedly bare and silent, there are films in cinemas waiting to be seen. If I’m working I enjoy the break; if not, I suspend the feelings of guilt and envy that crop up during these times. I haven’t eaten chocolate for so long now that I’m almost oblivious to the foil-wrapped ubiquity of the Easter Bunny’s offerings. It doesn’t matter to me that everyone else is enjoying a chocolate feast (she says with not a tad of defensiveness).

As this Easter approached I was on the tailend of a rare flingette, with the Gentleman I wrote about months ago. We ‘bumped into each other’ on the naughty website again, and this time there would be no mucking around with the niceties. It was a strange experience, and a bit sad. I don’t regret it; but, as usual, this kind of limited encounter makes me acutely aware of what I don’t have, and what so many others do – a real relationship.

It was intense in its own way, but, ever slow on the uptake, it took me ages to realise that he – the co-flinger – was even more emotionally cut off than I was. I still have no idea what he thought of me – I didn’t receive one compliment from him, but then again, I don’t think I gave him one. We both held off any kind of self-disclosure, and approached the fling as if it was a series of one-night stands. Which in effect it was.

In fact, what I’ve come to realise is that he showed me something a bit disconcerting about myself.

At first his lack of questions about my life, and his lack of demand that we meet socially beforehand, simply seemed too convenient and lucky for words. (It was also a huge relief that he didn’t want to stay the night – I don’t sleep well alone, but with someone else in the bed the night’s a total write-off.)

I didn’t have to tell him about my food allergies, the circumstances of me working from home – he fitted in with my limitations, he fitted around me. It seemed a god-given gift to be able to just have the fling without him wanting to get under my skin, so to speak.

He was easier with this kind of arrangement than anyone I’ve ever known. As if that was the only way things ever were. As if this was how everyone conducted their sexual lives, impersonally, just getting on with it, and a polite chat afterwards to show that you had digested your food before getting up from the table.

But after the second meeting I realised that he hadn’t ever kissed me, not even a peck. I knew there must be a particular reason for that, that it wasn’t accidental. I asked him why on the third and last occasion, and he laughed in an embarrassed way, as if to say, ‘I knew this would come up sooner or later.’ He then confessed that he actually enjoyed the idea of the whole thing being totally anonymous. Not kissing me was a way to keep that fantasy alive, at least partially.

He had outplayed me. Asking for emotional space, for a level of the impersonal, I had received everything I’d wanted – and more.

But this revealed something about me, too – if he was a player, so was I. If I was uncomfortable with this level of emotional distance, then why had I picked him up on a website designed to facilitate just that? I'd never thought about myself as a player before, as someone who had sex for recreation. I’ve embarked on all my encounters with a search for love being part of the hidden agenda, even if the person concerned had no chance of fulfilling that particular brief. Of course I did the same thing with him, even against probability, but that’s certainly not how I acted.

It’s not that I have anything against sex as recreation; it’s just that experience tells me it’s impossible. Sex is an energy exchange, no matter how impersonally it’s carried out.

But I don’t think what I did was wrong either. I needed to do it, and even though I’m sad about not being in a relationship, I’m a lot less resentful and angry about it. Any kind of sexual oasis can have benefits that last far longer than the actual experience. I did have a good time, after all.

Yet his lack of self-consciousness amazes me even now. I can still picture him sitting cross-legged on the bed as I undress. It’s our second ‘encounter’.

‘It’s always awkward the second time’, I say. ‘The first time you’ve got nothing to lose, and later on you’ve gotten to know someone, but this interim period’s difficult.’

He looks mildly wondering, mildly curious, as if that kind of awkwardness is totally foreign to him.

‘So how do you get over it?’ he asks.

‘You don’t. You just have to live through it.’

Of course it couldn’t have continued to be casual indefinitely and after that particular, second episode, I was wondering if it could be something more, something long-term-ish, even if perennially low-key. But there were a few niggling issues (the not-kissing being one of them), and the crunch came at the following meeting.

We were sitting companionably on the couch afterwards, he was munching on shortbread and we were having quite a cosy chat about politics – intense political discussions were one of the things we had in common. Until ...

He was telling me about how BP had had backed a coup in Azerbaijan that overthrew the democratically elected government. I made a stock remark about BP probably being one of the companies funding the stream of climate denialism that’s now flooding the internet, not to mention the mainstream media.

He stared at me.

‘Oh no’, I said, smiling. ‘Are you …? Do you …?’

‘When scientists are disagreeing on a major issue, it’s time to step back and look at it objectively.’

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He was, of all things, a Denier. To put it more politely, a climate sceptic.

Polite and urbane as we were both trying to be, we discussed it for a while longer, as I yawned exhaustedly. Secretly, though, I had, I hate to say, more or less dismissed him.

I know that that’s hopelessly judgemental, and judgementalism is one of my major faults. What I was judging was his seeming inability to judge his own sources of information. It’s not that he wasn’t reading up and investigating and finding out for himself – clearly he was. It’s just that, if he’d come to the conclusion that human-made climate change was a crock, he was clearly going to dodgy sources to get his information. It was this lack of discrimination about the quality of sources that made me question his – well, his ability to discriminate.

In my defence, I also sensed a determination to hold onto his views similar in strength to mine. There was no way I was going to argue him out of this position, even if I did have decades of peer-reviewed climate science on my side. My scientific knowledge is as tiny as the problem of climate change is grave.

I couldn’t help thinking it was the sort of dilemma that the comedy show Seinfeld would have dealt with if it had continued into the noughties. Picture Elaine entering Jerry’s apartment for the umpteenth time, looking decidedly dejected as he holds the door open for her.

‘How did your big date go?’ he asks in his offhand way.

‘It’s over.’

‘Over? But you’ve only just met him!’

‘He was a climate change sceptic.’

Despite this outcome, I still enjoyed Easter. It is after all the season of the blob, the festival of doing nothing, a time for the worship of sloth. In fact, Good Friday is the day of the year that it’s easier for me to slack off than any other day. It’s almost impossible to be productive on that day, but for me it seems downright sinful.

The air is so still. Everything’s come to a halt. The busy street I live on is quiet. Luckily I had prepared myself for this urge to languor. The evening before I’d been trawling around neighbouring suburbs at the Holy Thursday equivalent of peak hour (much less frenetic than usual) looking forlornly for a video store. The tiny corner one I usually go to, a five-minute drive from my place, had mysteriously closed, with a sad For Sale sign on the door. I hate that kind of change – when some tiny piece of your life disappears and you have to figure out how to replace it.

Blankness was calling, the world was closing in on itself, and I was going to need distraction. I finally figured out there was a video store even closer to me in the other direction, and when I finally made it there the place was buzzing with the uncultured young.

And what a depressing little place it was. Video stores are always a bit that way with their dirty white shelves and cheap nylon carpet and relentless fluoros. This place was particularly soul-destroying on an Easter Thursday because it had the most limited selection I’ve ever seen – a slew of cheap-and-nasty action movies and unfunny-looking rom coms that clearly never made it to the big screen, in Australia at least, their blarey, cartoonish visuals screaming out their lack of real content.

I managed to grab a couple of thrillers, my favourite genre, and after watching one on Friday afternoon I wept through the mushy but emotionally grown-up Young Victoria. How lucky Victoria was to find a lover she was nuts about, who also happened to be incredibly geopolitically convenient (he was the nephew of King Leopold of Belgium). Where was my Albert, or even my Albertina? Either would do.

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Heroes and villains: food intolerance, hypoglycemia, candida and the Failsafe diet – Part 3 of 3

Please note: the following shouldn’t be taken as medical advice. It’s simply what I’ve gleaned, and in other cases am guessing because of a lack of accessible information concerning health issues I’m currently facing. If anyone has any relevant information that they think would be useful, please send it to me.

In my last entry I described the Failsafe diet, which was developed for children with physical and behavioural problems caused by intolerances to human-made and natural food chemicals. While I’m a great fan of the diet and Sue Dengate’s website, with my own long history of hypoglycemia I was disturbed that the possible role of sugar in contributing to behavioural problems was being dismissed out of hand. I was also concerned that a controversial medical diagnosis, the so-called ‘leaky gut’ and its associations with yeast overgrowth, was also being dismissed.

With cane sugar (sucrose) no longer a culprit for most Failsafers, what seems like an unhealthy degree of tolerance for sugary foods has developed in the food companies that have sprung up to respond to the needs of children with allergies and food intolerances, as well as more specifically Failsafers and their families. So, as well as using my own experience as an argument for the existence of hypoglycemia, I decided to look at what else was ‘wrong’ with sugar, even if it wasn’t the main culprit in conditions like ADD.

Is sugar good for anybody, especially kids?

Sucrose does occur naturally in fruits along with fructose, but table sugar isn’t really a natural food. Although it comes from sugar cane or sugar beet, it’s extremely concentrated and processed. Our bodies were built to ingest sugars in the form of complex carbohydrates, such as those occurring in fruit and vegetables.

In the small amount of research I did on sugar, I discovered a few interesting things. The main one was that processed sugars rather than fat are now said to be the cause of obesity; the latter has increased in the US during a period when carbohydrate consumption has been going up and the consumption of fat has been going down. Thus, low-fat diets are not necessarily the answer. Sugar has also been shown to be a physically addictive substance that has chemical effects on the brain.

In addition, processed sugar, and, importantly, other forms of concentrated sweetness, have been linked with coronary heart disease; dietary sugar and salt have been linked with the development of cataracts; and one study has found that a diet with a high amount of sugars and carbohydrate ‘may increase the risk of pancreatic cancer in women who already have an underlying degree of insulin resistance’.

But, rather than be a total killjoy and recommend that everyone give up sugar, it does seem, from my very limited knowledge, that there’s some truth to what Dengate says about it: both children and adults are better eating sugar as a dessert than in the form of fizzy soft drinks.

I’d go further and say that homemade desserts and sweet foods are the best way of eating it, and that junk food containing cane sugar or fructose should be avoided.

Fructose, a different form of concentrated sugar made from fruit, seems to be particularly problematic in processed food, even for those without a genetic intolerance. It seems that much of the junk food that is causing obesity in America is sweetened not with sucrose but with corn syrup, a highly processed form of fructose that is cheaper to produce than sucrose, much sweeter and even more harmful; some scientists believe that the body processes it differently from cane sugar and that it’s more likely to cause obesity. ‘Crystallised fructose’ is, apparently, just as bad.

In fact, ‘sugar-sweetened beverages’, which commonly include corn syrup (ie fructose), have been linked with ‘an increased risk of gout, hypertension, and diabetes’, although it’s not clear whether the fructose is directly causing these conditions.

I do think that kids who are benefiting from the Failsafe diet but still aren’t totally well should be taken off all forms of concentrated sugar for a few weeks to see if they improve further. And, partly because of its addictive qualities, I think all kids should only have sugar in their diet in a very restricted way. (In my family, of course, that ain’t going to happen in a million centuries!) As I’ve said, this isn’t medical advice, but just my opinion.

The food intolerance industry

There are a number of websites offering allergy-friendly foods for beleaguered parents; in fact there seems to be a whole industry encouraging children with food allergies and intolerances to eat as normatively as possible. Unfortunately some of the products on offer seem remarkably close to standard junk food.

This website offers coconut ice, chocolate pudding mix and ‘blackberry crunch’ complete with tapioca flour and cane sugar. Meanwhile, this website offers allergy-friendly two-minute noodles. Admittedly these foods are for children with relatively limited allergies and food intolerances, but the Failsafers still get colourless lollies, carob sticks with cane sugar and ‘maggots’ made from puffed brown rice, cane sugar and canola oil. What happened to Failsafers only eating unprocessed food? And why do these companies encourage sick kids to eat heaps of sugar?

The unsavoury fact is that all processing changes the composition of food. As a hypoglycemic (for the moment, anyway!) I react to plain rice crackers made from brown rice without a trace of sugar.

I’m being very cynical here, but it’s obviously easier for the food industry to deal with low-amine and low-salicylate foods (the Failsafe diet) than it is for them to deal with a hypoglycemia or candida diet. In the latter diet especially, you really do have to eat mainly whole foods. But on a diet low in natural food chemicals you can eat plenty of sugar, thus boosting the food industry’s profits.

Of course, all children need treats, and it’s easy for me to pontificate – I’ve observed my sisters using food treats to bribe their kids to be good, and I can’t say that if I was in the same situation I would never do that. Any parent struggling with trying to get an ill child to eat a restricted diet probably welcomes these foods, and I’d assume they’d be a godsend for special occasions.

But common sense tells me that if a kid is reacting to many food chemicals, then unprocessed food with a minimum of concentrated sweetness would be the way to go, at least until the child’s system had had a chance to start healing.

Links between hypoglycemia and food intolerance – a shaky hypothesis based partly on my experience

Let’s assume that hypoglycemia can exist as a separate issue, at least in adults with food intolerances, although perhaps not in the majority of cases. What is the relationship between the two? Where does the whole thing begin?

It was very difficult to find useful information on the web regarding this question. This website by a parent of child with reactive hypoglycemia provides lots of worthwhile information and is keen to promote hypoglycemia as a distinct health issue, but makes no reference that I could find to food intolerance. The Australian-based Hypoglycemia Association does acknowledge food allergies and intolerances, but its information is fairly out of date.

The adrenal connection

Because of my own issues I’m most interested in adrenal fatigue and leaky gut as causes of hypoglycemia. It was extremely difficult to find worthwhile info on the web that linked food intolerance and allergy with adrenal fatigue and leaky gut. I’m convinced there are connections, and some websites seemed to acknowledge that there are, but they weren’t all that authoritative.

When your adrenals are fatigued, you don’t produce enough cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone that has balancing effects on blood sugar, which is why adrenal fatigue can be linked with hypoglycemia. But it’s also involved in helping the body deal with allergies, regulating ‘immune response’ and ‘anti-inflammatory actions’.

This suggests that if you’re under stress for a long time you may be more susceptible to allergies. Some people are genetically unable to cope with food proteins such as gluten and/or casein (a protein in milk). However, food intolerances can also develop.

In leaky gut syndrome the lining of the intestine supposedly becomes damaged, making it possible for tiny pieces of undigested food, toxins, parasites and waste to penetrate the lining, causing the immune system to respond by creating antibodies. This then results in symptoms of food intolerance.

This website says that, according to Dr Sherry Rogers MD, ‘The leaky gut can cause food allergy, and food allergy can cause the leaky gut’. In the case of gluten, ‘gluten sensitivity inflames the gut to the degree that the body will make antibodies to intestinal bacteria and chemical additives in food’. [This is confusing: possibly Rogers is talking about food intolerance when she says ‘the leaky gut can cause food allergy’.]

This medical doctor concurs, claiming that adrenals themselves can be affected by food allergies.

One interpretation of this is: you start off with a fixed allergy with a genetic component (say to gluten or casein) and, perhaps by consuming the allergen, end up with a leaky gut, which then results in all sorts of food intolerances you didn’t have before (eg to food chemicals such as amines and salicylates).

Perhaps at the same time you may be stressing out your adrenals as they struggle to deal with the gluten or other allergen you’re ingesting. And then the adrenals will be less able to cope with the food intolerances you’re developing (if it’s not actually directly contributing to their development). You may also develop reactive hypoglycemia. Perhaps you’ve also got some exterior stresses as well, which are putting even more pressure on your adrenals.

This scientific article suggests that pollen allergy can induce anxiety (which would then presumably have an unwelcome effect on the adrenal system).

This source, not a very scientific one admittedly, seems to suggest that the exterior stress can actually cause a leaky gut via the adrenals, without the further complication of a genetic allergy:

When we are under physical, emotional, or environmental stress it triggers cortisol, a stress hormone to be released. Cortisol raises blood sugar which feeds bad gut bacteria, yeast and other pathogens causing an overgrowth. When the intestinal flora gets out of balance it causes symptoms of gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhoea, and indigestion.

And this scientific article suggests that children are susceptible to stress just as adults are. It finds that environmental stresses in children can contribute to their developing allergies, but that the children who do so may have a particular allergy-inducing response to stress in the first place. (Again I’m not absolutely sure whether the author is talking about genuine allergies here or food intolerances, which seem to be much more variable.)

One possible reading of the Failsafe diet is that once you give up food chemicals, this takes the pressure off the adrenals and they can perform properly, therefore eliminating hypoglycemia.

But if the leaky gut theory were correct, surely you would need to eliminate concentrated sugar for a while (and perhaps fermented foods?) to allow the lining of the intestine to recover.

Children and sugar

The study, cited in my last entry, that seemed to prove that cane sugar played no role in behavioural problems was done on children. Perhaps, for most children, taking pressure off the adrenals by removing intolerances is enough. Yet excessive sugar, inadequate nutrition and use of antibiotics are all considered to be contributing factors in leaky gut. Children’s immune systems also have to deal with the effects of pollution, dust, pollens, pesticides etc. Perhaps a few children do develop a ‘leaky gut’, and need a rest from sugar until the condition resolves.

I grew up with an undiagnosed lactose (or casein) intolerance and a possible undiagnosed gluten intolerance. This could have contributed to a leaky gut. Once you feed sugar into a leaky gut you may be contributing to a yeast overgrowth and causing hypoglycemia.

Perhaps the leaky gut led to the sensitivities to amines and salicylates that I seem to have developed. And maybe that was one reason why I never got better on the candida diet: I was ignoring the amine/salicylate problem.

I’ve finally snagged an appointment with an allergist, and will ask them if it’s possible to take a test for adrenal function – if not, they may be able to refer me to someone. But in the meantime I’ve researched some ways I can support my adrenals. They’re incredibly simple really:

Exercise
Daily meditation
Vitamin C
Vitamin B
Magnesium

Other options are supplements of cortisol and a hormone called DHEA, both of which have been used experimentally to treat adrenal fatigue. But I reluctantly let go of the idea of taking them as they seemed to be unsafe.

I’m not blaming Dengate. I’m incredibly grateful for her website, which has allowed me to get rid of my hives, given me extra clarity about my food issues and encouraged me to go to a conventional allergist for the first time in my life.

It just annoys me that the issue of hypoglycemia is being blindsided, by the food intolerance ‘industry’ as a whole, when there is already so much ignorance about it. There needs to be more research about the links between adrenal fatigue, food intolerance, reactive hypoglycemia, and food addiction; or the research that has been done needs to be explained so that it’s understandable to the average person.

So, as so often occurs in my blog entries, I’m left with a series of questions rather than answers:

What role does fructose intolerance pay in reactive hypoglycemia? Does the role vary depending on whether the fructose intolerance is hereditary?

What role does leaky gut play in reactive hypoglycemia?

Can food intolerance co-exist with a reactive hypoglycemia problem?

Is there a connection between fructose intolerance and leaky gut?

To what extent is food addiction a symptom of hypoglycemia?

If food intolerance can mimic hypoglycemia rather than causing it, as Dengate suggests, can that mimicking itself cause sugar addiction?

Are processed foods inherently more physically addictive than non-processed foods, targetting the reward centres in the brain? Can concentrated sweetness have this effect too, regardless of the chemical make-up of the sweetness (eg Diet Coke)?

What connections are there between the development of food intolerance and the overeating of processed foods?

And when will Blogger enable users to easily insert bullet points? Surely it can't be that hard? (Sorry, may be slightly off topic!)

And, for good measure, here are some useful links on food intolerance and related issues:

SalicylateSensitivity.com

Plant Poisons and Rotten Stuff Community

Environmental Illness Resource

(but this website doesn’t seem to have any info on Failsafe and amine/salicylate intolerance)

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Heroes and villains: food intolerance, hypoglycemia, candida and the Failsafe diet – Part 2 of 3

In my last entry I gave a rundown of my food intolerance problem. In this entry I’ll talk about the Failsafe diet, designed primarily for children with food allergies and sensitivities, and the unexpected discovery about hypoglycemia that my search for information about food intolerance on the internet led to. (This entry is way too long anyway so I’ve steered clear of discussing the role of food in causing or worsening psychiatric problems, a highly relevant issue given the usual flavour of my blog.)

It’s very common now for conditions that affect children such as autism, ADD and asthma to be attributed to food intolerance and allergies. That much I expected. What I wasn’t expecting was the extent to which reactions to refined sugar have been discredited as a contributing factor in these conditions. The hypoglycemic and anti-candida diets are out, and the Failsafe diet is in.

The Failsafe diet is based on the finding that many children suffer from intolerances to particular chemicals in food. These chemicals may be artificial or natural and include additives, in particular food colourings, flavourings, and flavour enhancers, as well as chemicals that occur naturally in foods, such as amines and salicylates (these aren’t the only natural chemicals that can cause grief, but they seem to be the most common).

The diet also acknowledges that children and adults may suffer a range of allergies along with their food intolerances, such as allergies to soy, egg, gluten, dairy, and peanuts. (The difference between food allergy and food intolerance is explained here).

The Failsafe diet avoids all harmful food chemicals. To say it’s a welcome development is an understatement. It was actually devised in Australia, at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, as a more up-to-date version of the US-devised Feingold diet, and has great scientific credibility.

The website of Sue Dengate, an advocate for the Failsafe diet who has researched and authored books on food intolerance and the diet, seems to have by far the most comprehensive information on Failsafe on the web.

The website has a wealth of useful free information about the diet. It is full of testimonies by relieved parents whose previously ill, inattentive, insomniac and appallingly behaved children (often it’s a case of more than one problem) are now themselves again.

However, the website includes an assertion that could be controversial if the problem it refers to were better known. It appears to dispute the existence of ideopathic reactive hypoglycemia as a cause of behavioural problems in children (ideopathic is a fancy word doctors use when they haven’t a clue what causes something).

What is hypoglycemia?

Symptoms of reactive hypoglycemia include irritability, headaches, and mental confusion, and it’s also been linked with panic attacks, depression and anxiety.

It's a condition whose actual process doesn’t seem to be entirely clear, or perhaps it has differing causes. The amount of glucose in the blood becomes low for everybody several hours after eating. Hypoglycemia is related to the hormones adrenaline and cortisol, which the body produces at this time to prevent the blood sugar becoming dangerously low.

Hypoglycemics may produce too little cortisol, which is associated with underactive adrenal glands. Apparently, the symptoms of shakiness, poor memory and so on are a reaction to the adrenaline that is produced as a back up. Poorly functioning adrenals have been associated with food sensitivities. But the central question is: what is the ultimate culprit – the adrenals or the food sensitivities?

Stress has been shown to be a major cause of hypoglycemia. This also suggests that it's relates to adrenal functioning, as long-term stress puts pressure on the adrenals.

Earlier descriptions of hypoglycemia focused on the pancreas and claimed that in hypoglycemics it produced too much insulin as a response to the glucose in the blood, shifting the glucose into the cells and causing a sudden drop in blood sugar. It’s been said that the level of sugar in the blood is not necessarily the problem, but the speed at which the level gets lower.

However, I deliberately haven’t called this condition ‘low blood sugar’ ( a common term) because it wasn’t clear to me after a very basic internet research that the blood sugar of hypoglycemics becomes lower than that of non-hypoglycemics; certainly the blood glucose test has been discredited as a diagnostic tool.

Reactive hypoglycemia should not be confused with hypoglycemic reactions from diabetes, or hypoglycemia caused by serious conditions such as Graves disease and pancreatitis.

Early diets to combat hypoglycemia focused on removing concentrated sugar from the diet and emphasised complex carbohydrates (eg using brown instead of white rice). Following a brief ascension as a fad diagnosis, this condition is all too often routinely ignored by doctors. It seems that research is being done on it, particularly in the case of children, but in my experience that research hasn’t trickled down to GPs.

It’s unfortunate that a condition linked to food intolerance in some way is in fact the province not of allergists but of endocrinologists. The failure to find a cure for another condition that straddles more than one specialty – rosacea – indicates the neglect that can occur when more than one branch of medicine is involved.

What is candida?

More recently, hypoglycemia has been linked with candidiasis, the overgrowth of candida, a fungus, in the digestive system. While yeast overgrowth in areas such as the genitals (thrush) is recognised and treatable, the existence of candida overgrowth in the digestive system as a condition has remained controversial.

Also scientifically unproven are the supposedly associated symptoms of this overgrowth, such as fatigue, and the anti-candida diet to combat these symptoms. Like the hypoglycemia diet, the anti-candida diet removes sugar and emphasises whole foods but it goes much further, also excluding all foods that might contain mould, including fermented foods and drinks (eg conventional bread, beer) as well as aged foods such as cheese and processed meats. The theory is that you literally starve the yeast overgrowth in the gut. Like the Failsafe and hypoglycemic diets, the anti-candida diet acknowledges that some sufferers might also have allergies and intolerances, for example to gluten and dairy.

Candidiasis is linked to so-called leaky gut syndrome, in which damage to the bowel lining is seen as both a cause and effect of hypoglycemia and ever-worsening food intolerance. Wikipedia puts the status of this diagnosis beautifully:

While many practitioners maintain that leaky gut syndrome is a bona fide medical condition, the area of ‘gut problems’ lies between conventional and alternative medicine, and includes other diagnoses such as small bowel bacterial overgrowth syndrome or small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), and yeast syndrome or systemic candidiasis, and remains controversial and scientifically unsettled.

Disputing the role of sugar

Dengate (and perhaps the developers of the Failsafe diet) disputes both low blood sugar and candida as causes of unexplained symptoms. The website makes the unequivocal assertion that ‘Contrary to popular belief, sugar does not cause children's behaviour problems’.

It goes on to say:

When mothers swear their children are ‘sugar addicts’ whose behaviour is affected by sugar, they are generally surprised on going failsafe to find that their children are actually reacting to salicylates. Sugar craving can be a salicylate-induced reaction.

Similarly, feeling tired, weak and shaky can be a delayed reaction to food chemicals such as salicylates, rather than hypoglycemia.

This is a breathtaking claim. Dengate seems to be saying that food intolerances only mimic hypoglycemic symptoms rather than causing them.

Yet hypoglycemia itself is certainly a distinct phenomenon, even if it is caused or worsened by food intolerance.

Indeed, the website itself admits this elsewhere, seeming to suggest that sugar can play some role in behaviour if ingested on an empty stomach:

It is best to eat sugar as part of a balanced meal (e.g. in a dessert) rather than in drinks or treats on an empty stomach when it can affect blood sugar levels.

Even if we admit that it may not be blood sugar levels that are the problem but the body’s reaction to low blood sugar, why do some people exhibit these symptoms and not others? All this suggests to me the possibility that some children react to their food intolerances with hypoglycemic symptoms and some don’t (ie they have other symptoms). If that’s the case, surely those children with hypoglycemic symptoms should be taken off sugar for a while because it might put extra stress on an already oversensitised system, even if the sugar wasn’t the original culprit?

And does this mean that that if I continue on my low-salicylate, low-amine diet, eventually my system will right itself? (At this point in my diet it’s impossible to say whether I am ‘losing’ what Dengate believes is faux hypoglycemia, but at the moment I would not experiment with cane sugar in, as they say, a ‘pink fit’.)

The claim that sugar is not the villain it has been assumed to be does seem to be borne out by some evidence.

According to the website, a study that successively fed children three different types of sweeteners without their knowledge – sucrose (cane sugar), aspartame (an artifical sweetener) and and saccharin (as a placebo) – found that regardless of the type of sweetener, the children’s behaviour was unchanged.

The study took place over a nine-week period in which the children were fed a diet that changed each week, with the sweetener used in the food being changed every three weeks. Half the children in the study were chosen because they were believed by their parents to have problems with sugar.

However, the emotional language used to describe this study (‘definitive multimillion dollar study’) belies the reality. It used only 48 children, and no children were fed no sweetener at all. The anti-candida diet, unproven as it is, says that all forms of refined sugar exacerbate candida, including sorbitol.

What would have happened if the researchers had withdrawn concentrated sweetness completely from the diets of a control group? Perhaps nothing, but such an addition would have enhanced the efficacy of the study.

One reason why the website supports cane sugar may be that the Failsafe diet warns against artificial sweeteners, which have not been proven safe; in fact some of these sweeteners seem to act like poisons.

And to be fair, the website emphasises that the Failsafe diet should consist of unprocessed foods. Dengate has researched food additives and Australian labelling laws, and it seems that few processed foods are actually safe.

The website also provides information about a form of intolerance affecting some Failsafers: fructose malabsorption. Fructose is a natural sugar derived from fruit, and it’s now added to processed foods instead of cane sugar, for example in the form of corn syrup. Fructose malabsorption can occur alone or in conjunction with other food intolerances.

Too much fructose can affect the most hardy, but it causes all sorts of digestive problems for the intolerant. Fructose occurs in some vegetables as well as fruit, and the solution is to eat only fruits and vegetables with low fructose, and no processed foods containing fructose.

Finally, if Dengate is correct, it’s feasible that some people with food intolerances would show some improvement if they followed the anti-candida diet even if that diet were a crock, because it removes all processed foods. It does allow fresh fruit, however.

My experience

Reactive hypoglycemia is said to have many possible causes. One of these is adrenal exhaustion. My hypoglycemia became worse after I had a ‘breakdown’ (an unfashionable word now) at the age of 21, when my adrenals would have been under an enormous amount of stress. Quite possibly intolerance to amines and salicylates and reactive hypoglycemia exacerbated each other.

When I look back at my food history, giving up most cane sugar at the age of 21 or so had a marked effect, although at the time I was ignorant, like most people, about amines and salicylates. During the period of withdrawing from concentrated sugar I could hardly get out of bed. Sugar acted for me like a drug; but whether everyone giving up sugar would have had a similar reaction, or only people with reactive hypoglycemia, is something I can’t be sure about. However, for reasons unclear at the time I never completely ‘stabilised’, that is, felt normally clear-headed and energetic. And I haven’t since. So Dengate’s assertion is, to say the least, interesting to me.

However, before the diagnosis and before I drastically reduced cane sugar in my diet (I didn’t fully succeed in giving it up for at least three years), I do remember experiencing these occasional, awful feelings of a kind of cognitive emptiness, a sense of vacancy, and I’ve never felt that degree of vagueness and disorientation since giving up cane sugar. My sugar problem still seems a separate issue to me, even if it is at least partially caused by food sensitivities.

To complicate things further, I went to Europe at the age of 23 for five months, developed a full-blown eating disorder and shivered in freezing, mouldy rooms. This period saw a worsening of both my sugar and food sensitivities, and I’ve always associated it with the development or worsening of some kind of candida problem, or at least a sensitivity to mould.

So, despite my interest in Dengate’s assertion, my completely uneducated guess would be that a proportion, perhaps only a tiny proportion, of children with food intolerance might also have hypoglycemia or candidiasis as a separate problem; and if even these were related to food sensitivities, giving up all kinds of concentrated sugar mightn’t be a bad idea for these children, at least for a while until their systems had time to recover from their food intolerances.

There’s a common sense element here: some of the symptoms of ADD, such as vagueness and poor concentration, are also classic hypoglycemic symptoms. If the Failsafe diet doesn’t completely cure the problem, mightn’t it be worth finding out if the child has a separate sugar or candida problem? (You would need a few weeks to check this because the body becomes physically addicted to sugar, and there would be a period of withdrawal.)

But in this case, computer definitely says no. Dengate again: ‘It is counterproductive to try to combine failsafe eating with a candida diet’. Elsewhere on the site, she asserts that a thrush problem ‘does not mean you need to eliminate sugar and yeast. The so-called candida diet is not scientifically proven’.

That puts me between a rock and a hard place. At the moment my diet is extremely strict, and I’m now doing what the website warns against, which is combining Failsafe with anti-candida (this is making finding a suitable calcium supplement, um, interesting). But I’ve done nothing to remove salicylates from non-food products. The website warns:

As perfumed toiletries, cosmetics, airfresheners, scent sprayers and household cleaners mostly used by women have become increasingly pervasive and over-fragranced, they can push you over your salicylate limit.

I can’t help wondering if removing non-dietary sources of salicylates would help my hypoglycemia.

What worries me is that ideopathic hypoglycemia is already ignored by so much of the medical profession – the Failsafe diet will just make this worse.

Whew! In my final entry on this topic I’ll ask whether sugar is good for anybody, take a horrified look at the allergy food industry and present a very shaky, unscientific hypo-hypothesis about the links between reactive hypoglycemia and food intolerance.

See also Heroes and Villains Part 1 and Heroes and Villains Part 3.

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