A decade after he tackled the dire state of Britain’s school dinners, Jamie Oliver is back on the campaign trail.
This time, he's investigating the contribution sugar is making to rising global health problems such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
Rates of Type 2 diabetes have risen in the UK by 60% in the last decade, while obesity has long been considered a nation-wide epidemic, with around 60% of adults and 30% of children being obese or overweight.
In his latest show, Jamie's Sugar Rush, the TV chef meets some of the people affected by the conditions, one of whom, is Julian.
Julian suffers from Type 2 diabetes and has recently had one of his feet amputated.
"I didn't know I had diabetes until a couple of my toes had gone gangrenous and got infected," he says in the preview clip above.
"I thought: 'this couldn't happen to me surely', but it did."
Around 7,000 people per year in the UK are having amputations as a result of diabetes - that's a staggering 135 each week.
Jamie Oliver
Later in the show, Jamie meets consultant dentist Richard Porter at St George’s Hospital in London, who frequently has to remove milk and adult teeth from children under the age of 10, some of whom end up with dentures.
Jamie watches as the dentist removes six-year-old Mario’s decayed teeth. He’s one of 26,000 primary school children admitted to hospital because of rotten teeth every year in Britain.
"Sugar is the biggest source of children going to hospital in the country. The numbers are enormous, they’re terrifying and it’s the biggest pressing problem we have," Richard says.
"We are red light flashing…the demand for our services, particularly children’s teeth, is absolutely overwhelming."
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The World Health Organisation currently recommends a maximum daily intake of 15 teaspoons of sugar per day for men and 12 teaspoons for women.
But the government’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition recommends a daily limit of just seven teaspoons of sugar.
Yet in the programme, Jamie discovers that some Brits are consuming as many as 40 teaspoons of sugar each day.
Unfortunately, many of us may be consuming more sugar than we intend to.
Jamie enlists the help of dietitian Lucy Jones to find out how much sugar we could be unknowingly consuming in "healthy-looking" foods such as breakfast cereal, low fat yoghurt, soup, bread, flavoured water and ready-made sauces.
In a day’s worth of average meals, the pair find 36 teaspoons of sugar - five times what UK experts now say we should be having.
Clearly, something needs to change and Jamie thinks a "sugary drinks tax" could be the answer.
Getting the government to agree may be his biggest challenge to date.
Jamie's Sugar Rush is on Channel 4 on 3 September at 9pm.
