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The Sugar Conspiracy

theguardian.com

121–130 of 362 posts

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#121
post #94

Jack Lalanne (American fitness guru) stated "If man made it, don't eat it". I recall reading that and scratching my head at the sheer number of food products that encompassed. I thought it a rather presumptuous statement. Five years later and after many books and articles on nutrition I now fully agree with him. When I hit the grocery store I skip the middle aisles and head straight for the fish and meat counter or t…

>If man made it, don't eat it That's way too simple. It's a kind of naturalistic fallacy as applied to food. If you think your produce area is where you should be getting your calories (not disagreeing), it fails the "if man made it, don't eat it" test spectacularly. Basically everything you see there has been shaped by man. A (stunning) example: one species of plant, brassica oleracea, has been selectively (i.e., ar…

> it fails the "if man made it, don't eat it" test spectacularly. Basically everything you see there has been shaped by man. A (stunning) example: one species of plant, brassica oleracea, has been selectively (i.e., artificially) bred to produce a wide range of different cultivars including, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, broccoli, kohlrabi, brussel sprouts, and more. NONE of these produce items are "natural."

You're overthinking this. "Is this food packaged and processed with preservatives, a list of 40 ingredients, and has a shelf life of 6 months to 5 years? Then I'm not buying it. Is it meat or product? It's ok." This is referring pretty specifically to Franken-foods, not GMOs (which I too think are a great idea, and essentially optimizing our agricultural practices over the last 20,000-whatever years).

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#122
post #106
post #94

Jack Lalanne (American fitness guru) stated "If man made it, don't eat it". I recall reading that and scratching my head at the sheer number of food products that encompassed. I thought it a rather presumptuous statement. Five years later and after many books and articles on nutrition I now fully agree with him. When I hit the grocery store I skip the middle aisles and head straight for the fish and meat counter or t…

> My only (dietary) vices are coffee and the odd glass of wine (both very much man made). I don't think I'd consider either of those man-made in the sense of being heavily processed: coffee is simply roasted coffee beans with hot water poured over, and wine is pressed grape juice allowed to ferment.

Coffee beans are fermented first.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#123

Very interesting how people can all subscribe to an orthodoxy for so long, ignoring evidence to the contrary. Max Planck: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

I think this is one of the worst thing about humans as a generation. If everyone accepted scientific evidence and research as the truth as soon as it was available I believe we would evolve much faster.

That is an incredibly poor understanding of science.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#124
post #107

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…

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on this, just describing my own experience (which may be subjective/biased/completely misinterpreted by me). If you're mostly sedentary in a first-world country, going off sugar/carbs-dominated diet brings your insulin sensitivity to its natural levels (which, very probably, it hasn't been since the moment you started eating adult food). For me this had the amazing effect of becoming mor…

Can you go into more detail about what a regular western diet is and how your new diet differs?

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#125
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflammation and plaque on your artery walls are two different things. Also, sources of saturated fats such as meat and dairy cause inflammation.

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2010/01/13/ajcn.2009...

The problem with that study is that it is observational and was set up to fail. Metabolic ward and interventional studies still show that if you eat more saturated fats, your cholesterol increases. For example, if you add 30g of butter to your diet every day, your cholesterol will go up. Sorry for breaking it to you.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#126

One diet that reflects these findings and is tested personally is "5:2 fast diet, proposed by M. Mosley. This method really is effective in reducing the ill effects of modern food and lifestyle and is easy to turn into normal weekly behavior pattern. https://thefastdiet.co.uk/

That sounds like a typical fad diet. What differentiates it, and what evidence do they have for their claims?

The companion documentary (Eat, Fast, and Live Longer) is worth watching - https://vimeo.com/50912488

Personal note: I've been following this diet since Jan 1. I also run ~ 70 miles/week. I've run 3 of my best marathons this year and lost 5 stubborn lbs (145 -> 140, I'm 5'8"). There are other styles of intermittent fasting. I'm enjoying this way of eating.

Aside, a related BBC/Horizon documentary I saw years ago flipped the question of obesity on its head and asked: Why Are Thin People Not Fat?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1hbPXooB1U

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#127

> Despite requests, he cited no examples of her unprofessional behaviour. The vitriol poured over Teicholz is rarely dispensed to Gary Taubes, though they make fundamentally similar arguments. I wonder why more women don't want to go into science.

Yes, that made me sad too. As the father of a girl, I'm often discouraged when I see how angry some men get when women (and only women) disagree with them, regardless of tone or substance.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#128

the healthy diet.. lots of vegetables, fatty meats, rice for carbs, and no addded sugars, and nothing you see in bakeries ( ie no breads etc) and virtually no pasta.

Why is rice OK, but pasta isn't?

If pasta is cooked al dente (why would you cook it any other way?!), the glycemic index will be lower than that of white or brown rice - this means it impacts your blood glucose levels less.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#129
post #94

Jack Lalanne (American fitness guru) stated "If man made it, don't eat it". I recall reading that and scratching my head at the sheer number of food products that encompassed. I thought it a rather presumptuous statement. Five years later and after many books and articles on nutrition I now fully agree with him. When I hit the grocery store I skip the middle aisles and head straight for the fish and meat counter or t…

"When I hit the grocery store I skip the middle aisles and head straight for the fish and meat counter"

Those pretty packages of meat are just as much "man made" as the foods you demonize. If you want to eat meat, I suggest hunting and only using your teeth and hands (claws?) to kill your prey and to eat the meat raw; gotta eat all of it too, no picking and choosing what parts you want either.

"If you want to eat that cupcake or enjoy that cold glass of beer be sure to exercise it off."

This is HORRIBLE advice. Treating exercise like a punishment for enjoying food is like a one-way ticket to Eating Disorder Town. Diet and exercise are important, but they should be used to compliment each other and not to negate being bad at the other.

Re: The Sugar Conspiracy

#130
post #54
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is my understanding that your reply is the reasonable state of affairs. Do you have some "canonical", go-to link that makes your claim approachable to ordinary people? Say parents?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2716748/ http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v67/n8/full/ejcn2013116a....

Ketogenic diets increase all-cause mortality

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20820038

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22850317

http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(15)0...

and make you gain weight http://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-finds...

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