A fourth-generation sugarcane farmer has admitted he avoids eating the product he grows for health reasons.
Don Murday, whose ancestors have been far north Queensland growers since 1883, said he avoided any foods that contained sugar.
‘I don’t have sugar, except if it’s in the alcohol that I drink, but I’ve made a choice, probably four years ago for health reasons, to cut sugar out of my diet and I can do that easily,’ he told the ABC’s Four Corners program.
A fourth-generation sugarcane farmer has admitted he avoids eating the product he grows for health reasons.
Don Murday, whose ancestors have been far north Queensland growers since 1883, said he avoided any foods that contained sugar
The farmer from Mossman, northwest of Cairns, who is also president of the Australian Cane Farmers Association, joked beef farmers would be too shy to admit they shunned red meat.
‘Yeah. Well, if I was a beef farmer, I wouldn’t be saying that,’ he said with a smile.
With 30 per cent of Australian adults now classified as obese, based on their body mass index, Don Murday said he was concerned about the high sugar content in soft drinks.
‘I produce sugar. I’m not the one who’s actually abusing sugar, by loading up soft drinks and other things,’ he said.
‘I produce sugar in the hope that it’s consumed responsibly and moderately.
‘Growing up, to have a Coca-Cola was a treat. You didn’t drink Coca-Cola all day.’
The farmer made the call for a sensible diet as the ABC investigated how the Australian Beverages Council was lobbying the federal government to refrain from introducing a U.K.-style sugar tax to combat Australia’s obesity crisis.
Dr Gary Fettke, an orthopaedic surgeon in the Tasmanian city of Launceston, said amputating the leg of a diabetic was the worst part of his job.
‘When you have to amputate someone’s leg, it is one of the most awful operations that I do, and I’ve never enjoyed it,’ he said.
‘The sound of cutting through someone’s bone and having to put the leg into the bucket doesn’t leave you.
‘That’s it. I can say it’s one operation I hate doing more than anything.’
Dr Fettke encountered fierce opposition from the Dietitians Association of Australia when he advised his patients to reduce their sugar intake with a series of pamphlets.
Dr Gary Fettke (right with a patient), an orthopaedic surgeon in the Tasmanian city of Launceston, said amputating the leg of a diabetic was the worst part of his job
‘As it turns out, what I was advising is completely now in lines with the recommendations of the World Health Organisation,’ he said.
‘So I gave that handout to my patients, and that’s when the trouble started.’
The Dietitians Association president Philip Juffs said Dr Fettke had gone beyond his scope of expertise.
‘It’s about the scope of that advice,’ he said.
‘Dietitians are there, you know, they are the trained professionals in nutrition.
‘Just like doctors are the professionals in medicine, dietitians are there to be the experts in nutrition.’