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The Sugar Conspiracy

theguardian.com

81–90 of 362 posts

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#81
post #62

It is sad to see how we are going from fat phobia to carb phobia, repeating the same mistakes 50 years later. I have genetic metabolic disease and I have thought about this many times. My conclusion is simple enough: Eat real food, ignore the macros, listen to your body and adapt your food intake accordingly. Paul Jaminet's diet [1] is the closest I have found to fit this idea. [1] http://perfecthealthdiet.com/

What is real food?

I disagree strongly. Eating shouldn't make you tired. I could eat 2 1/3 pound greasy cheeseburgers with toppings but if I skip the buns, I feel like I ate nothing.

There is something legitimate to intermittent fasting, ketogenic diets, avoiding refined carbs, avoiding bread etc.

I have a serious disease that is thought to prevented by ketogenic diets. And I think there's an equal chance I got the disease from refined carbs as anything else.

I also know many so-called experts in this field (MDs) and they know nothing; and worse they do not want to know anything.

My conclusion is simple: just don't eat bread or drink any sugary drinks.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#82
30 years ago people had to be proactive and smart enough to gain information. Now people have to be proactive and smart enough to distinguish between sound and unfounded (aka bullshit) information.

From that point of view not that much changed really.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#83
When I was taking nutritional chemistry in the late 70's the idea that serum cholesterol had little to do with consumed cholesterol was something our professor repeated over and over again. The next 40 years I heard the opposite over and over again. Now people are finally accepting this fact.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very very powerful thing that most of us forget when we start reading all the conflicting evidence about carbs / sugar / fat: You can experiment on yourself for free! Obviously this won't prove how everyone's body works. But it will teach you something very powerful about how your own body works. Go off sugar for 3 months, make your mind and do it, and note the changes in your organism. Or go off carbs totally for…

Except your kidneys excrete more electrolytes and water, and it can take weaks to adapt, and theoritically some people will never fully adapt. I would have to drink 1 gram of warm saltwater and my headache would instantly go away. So how you feel is deceptive. If I would drink a Vanilla Latte at Starbucks now, I would get a serious headache...

>So how you feel is deceptive.

Well, yeah you are right. At some point you will have to read and educate yourself a bit to try and guess what is happening to your body.

But as a rule of thumb if you stick to a no sugar habit for 3 months your headaches should not last for more than a few weeks, if they don't subside and you keep feeling "unhealthy" obviously its time to get medical advice, but I argue the same would be true if you were to keep to a sugar heavy "current normal" sort of diet.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#85
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lactose that's a component of milk, or added sucrose/HFCS? As I understand it, food manufacturers are going away from sugar a little. Sucralose provides a similar sweetness at no additional calories and with a longer shelf life.

Which is still the wrong way to go, I feel. We're now replacing the (newly introduced) refined sugars with even newer artificial sweeteners. I really don't look forward to hearing about them in another 40 years. Stop sweetening. Period. There's a lot more to flavour than just sweet, and the sooner we can revive our taste for other flavours, the better our children will be.

I agree we don't need sweet food. I gave up carbs and everything tastes better. I don't use artificial sweeteners at all. Of course low carb may turn out to be harmful. Who knows. I feel better =, have lost some weight and my blood sugar and a1c is in the great range.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#86
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I do the other way around! 5 days fast, 2 days eating. I think a 2 day fast is a bit harsh; you 'pay' the price of hunder the first day, but only have one day really of 'benefiting' from it... In my case if I have to do it, I'd rather pay the price the first day, then keep the momentum. Also the third/fourth day there is a payout as you get a nice 'mental high'... And blimey, the friday evening you can eat any…

With most 5:2 diets, you are not supposed to fast two consecutive days. Non the less 2:5 sounds cool; please come back to report your experience! :)

Oh I've been doing it for years! As soon as I notice the waistline expanding, or I feel like a bit of 'detox', I try to schedule myself on a week where the fridge isn't too full of nice and/or perishable things, and I have a good mean on sunday night.

Then it's occasional fruit juice in the morning (bit of an energy boost) and coffee only until the friday.

It's a lot easier than it sounds, the 'key' thing is preparation; pick a week were you don't have a lot of 'social' to do, or any heavy physical things planned, and near empty fridge is good; instruction to the family not to decide to cook your favorite meal during the week and so forth.

Otherwise it's as reported; hunger on the first day mostly, then nothing; you get a bit of a metallic taste in the mouth, but tolerable... You get what I only can describe as a 'high' on the third/fourth day.

I lose roughly 1Kg a /day/ with that method, so if you do it once every quarter or so, that's largely enough to make up for some the odd chrismas/party/easter and so on :-)

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#87
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With most 5:2 diets, you are not supposed to fast two consecutive days. Non the less 2:5 sounds cool; please come back to report your experience! :)

Oh I've been doing it for years! As soon as I notice the waistline expanding, or I feel like a bit of 'detox', I try to schedule myself on a week where the fridge isn't too full of nice and/or perishable things, and I have a good mean on sunday night. Then it's occasional fruit juice in the morning (bit of an energy boost) and coffee only until the friday. It's a lot easier than it sounds, the 'key' thing is preparat…

I'm not informed on this topic - but isn't this dangerous? I mean, if your numbers are correct, an average adult loses 6% of their bodyweight doing this over 5 days. How does this affect your productivity and sleep?

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#89

"We replaced steak and sausages with pasta and rice, butter with margarine, eggs with muesli. But we still grew fatter" Check mueslis and the sugar most of them contains. It's _horrible_. I try buying a no sugar muesli once in a while - within regular european supermarkets, it's next to impossible!

Really? I find it in the UK (Tesco) quite readily. Tastes extremely bland though (like eating uncooked porridge oats) which might explain its unpopularity.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony of you starting your rebuttal with an ad hominem attack is pretty amusing. Expecially in reponse to an article that talks at length about others in nutritional science using ad hominem attacks as a primary form of defence against dissident arguments.

It may seem like an attack, but you can also consider it fair comment as he is an expert tell us that sugar causes weight gain, when he himself is obese for many years now. How can you both be an expert on weightloss and obese at the same time?

I can think of plenty of reasons: he might not care (or care enough to change his life style to the degree necessary). He might have a disease that causes it. Or maybe he doesn't know how to get slim, but still knows that reducing fat is not the answer.
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