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Princeton researchers find that HFCS prompts considerably more weight gain

princeton.edu

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Re: Princeton researchers find that HFCS prompts considerably more weight gain

#31

Post by nas »

yanowitz wrote: post #10

This is further confirmation of a well-known phenomenon. If you want to watch a long presentation on what's going on, check this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM Short version: Fructose is metabolized by your liver, results in a lot of nasty byproducts, your liver stores the excess energy as fat, etc.

That doesn't explain why HFCS should be worse that sucrose. It contains about the same about of fructose and according to Dr. Lustig the bound is very easy for the body to break.

Regarding "The Bitter Truth", it's amazing to me that the fact that fructose is processed by the liver is not widely known. How could the medical community not know this for so long?

Re: Princeton researchers find that HFCS prompts considerably more weight gain

#32

Post by axiom »

Um, wasn't that kind of the point of corn subsidies?

It really wasn't that long ago when the biggest problem in the lower class wasn't being too fat, but rather being too thin.

Certainly this is a cause for concern, but keep in mind that there are worse things than having too much fat and too much leisure time.

Re: Princeton researchers find that HFCS prompts considerably more weight gain

#33

Post by illumin8 »

elblanco wrote: post #18

I notice that if I have lots of HFCS items I suffer from semi-diabetic type symptoms if I go too long without food: an urgent desire to eat, cold sweats, the shakes, blurry vision, etc. It's usually not too bad, but sometimes can pretty much take me out of commission. For years, before I figured out it was HFCS, I tried to deal with it by constantly eating which made me very heavy. About a year ago I figured it out a…

It's easy to remove HFCS from your diet: Just eat whole foods. You really don't want all the chemicals in processed foods anyway. If you just eat fresh vegetables, fruits, meats, and whole grains you won't ever have to worry about what's hidden in the ingredients because there is only one ingredient: whatever you cooked.

I know, easier said than done, especially since it requires a little cooking, but I'm seriously surprised by the amount of people I see at work saying "I can never lose weight" - then I see them in the break room at lunch nuking a pakaged frozen dinner. Just stop, ask yourself "did my grandma eat this?" If the answer is no, then don't eat it. This is actually a great question to ask because it doesn't matter what culture you are from. People two generations ago didn't have access to food made in factories. It was all fresh from a farm, and it was good for us.

Re: Princeton researchers find that HFCS prompts considerably more weight gain

#34

Post by msluyter »

Having lost a lot of weight on a paleo-ish diet, I don't find this surprising. A related note: fruit, while generally considered good for you, also has a lot of sugar/fructose. In particular, the process of selective breeding has made fruits like bananas ever sweeter, much more so that our primitive ancestors would have encountered. Now I consider most of it (aside from berries) in the same category as candy.

Re: Princeton researchers find that HFCS prompts considerably more weight gain

#35

Post by illumin8 »

e1ven wrote: post #26
zackattack wrote: post #23

Can someone in the know please express their opinion on the raw food lifestyle? If you're going to dismiss it as ridiculous I'd like you to back up your claims with at the very least strong personal anecdotal evidence, e.g., "I feel extremely happy and energetic, yet I eat tons of meat and cheese." I'm reading a book that suggests that cooking food results in the denaturing of proteins, digestive enzymes, and other n…

I've lost quite a bit of weight over the last two months by following a very low-carb diet (Under 20G / day), and I've never felt more energetic. I've been eating lots of heavily processed meats and cheeses every day- Keilbasa, Havarti, Cheddar, and Summer Sausages. Even during the first week, I felt more awake and alert than I had eating a carb-heavy diet. A carb-heavy lunch left me dragging a bit in the afternoon,…

What's your cholesterol like? I imagine it's pretty bad, eating mostly meats and cheeses.

You can eat carbs, just eat good ones. Good ones being whole grains and legumes, not ground wheat flour. Stay away from pasta and breads (except sprouted wheat berry bread is ok), eat real good carbs like steel cut oats, buckwheat, quinoah, wild rice, brown rice, etc, along with fresh vegetables and fruits.

The carb heavy lunch leaves you dragging because you're eating bad carbs which are quickly metabolized into sugar in your blood, causing an insulin reaction and subsequent crash shortly later.

Re: Princeton researchers find that HFCS prompts considerably more weight gain

#36

Post by timcederman »

msluyter wrote: post #34

Having lost a lot of weight on a paleo-ish diet, I don't find this surprising. A related note: fruit, while generally considered good for you, also has a lot of sugar/fructose. In particular, the process of selective breeding has made fruits like bananas ever sweeter, much more so that our primitive ancestors would have encountered. Now I consider most of it (aside from berries) in the same category as candy.

Selective breeding of bananas? Culinary bananas are sterile and grown exclusively from cuttings. Also, the Cavendish is a lot less sweet than the previous banana of choice, the Gros Michel (which was sadly not as fungus resistant).

Re: Princeton researchers find that HFCS prompts considerably more weight gain

#37

Post by illumin8 »

maxharris wrote: post #27
zackattack wrote: post #23

Can someone in the know please express their opinion on the raw food lifestyle? If you're going to dismiss it as ridiculous I'd like you to back up your claims with at the very least strong personal anecdotal evidence, e.g., "I feel extremely happy and energetic, yet I eat tons of meat and cheese." I'm reading a book that suggests that cooking food results in the denaturing of proteins, digestive enzymes, and other n…

I've been eating mostly raw food for about a year, and I love it. My diet so far has consisted of blue-rare steak (all you need to do to be safe is to sear the edges and sides to kill E. coli that has gotten onto the meat during butchering. I learned this in my microbiology class!) [You have to watch out about things like steak sauce - read the labels, and you'll find out that almost all of them have sugar in them. S…

Interesting. Paleo diet has the right foods in it, but I suspect you're not gaining anything by not cooking your meats (except possible food poisoning). As others have said, cooking just denatures proteins, which is similar to what your stomach does anyway.

Re: Princeton researchers find that HFCS prompts considerably more weight gain

#38

Post by carbocation »

zasz wrote: post #28
zackattack wrote: post #23

Can someone in the know please express their opinion on the raw food lifestyle? If you're going to dismiss it as ridiculous I'd like you to back up your claims with at the very least strong personal anecdotal evidence, e.g., "I feel extremely happy and energetic, yet I eat tons of meat and cheese." I'm reading a book that suggests that cooking food results in the denaturing of proteins, digestive enzymes, and other n…

Your book sounds like BS to me. Yes, cooking does denature proteins. Think of an egg before and after you boil it. On the other hand, it seems unlikely to me that the hydrochloric acid in your stomach doesn't also denature the hell out of proteins. In fact, your body probably has to denature proteins to get at the amino acids in them so it can build the precise proteins it needs.

This is correct. With perhaps a few exceptions, your body is not in the business of absorbing whole proteins. Trypsin is one of the enzymes used to reduce peptides (protein fragments) into even smaller blocks (often down to amino acids). So yeah, whether or not that protein is denatured before your duodenum, it sure as hell will be afterwards.

At least, so one hopes.

Re: Princeton researchers find that HFCS prompts considerably more weight gain

#39

Post by fleitz »

zackattack wrote: post #23

Can someone in the know please express their opinion on the raw food lifestyle? If you're going to dismiss it as ridiculous I'd like you to back up your claims with at the very least strong personal anecdotal evidence, e.g., "I feel extremely happy and energetic, yet I eat tons of meat and cheese." I'm reading a book that suggests that cooking food results in the denaturing of proteins, digestive enzymes, and other n…

Cooking food increases bio-availability of nutrients while decreasing the amount of nutrients present in food.

Cooking food is believed to be one of the important factors that led to increased brain size in sapiens as it increased bio-availability of nutrients. Whether that increase is still relevant given the total availability food in modern society is debatable.

These are general statements, in specific foods it may be preferable not to cook them. Certain foods such as chicken & pork should probably always be cooked.

The basic premise is this, if you are going to eat 1 carrot you will get more nutrients from it being cooked. The real question is whether it is better to eat 1 cooked carrot or two uncooked carrots. Our ancestors didn't have the luxury of having two carrots available so cooking was much preferable.

Re: Princeton researchers find that HFCS prompts considerably more weight gain

#40

Post by paulbaumgart »

msluyter wrote: post #34

Having lost a lot of weight on a paleo-ish diet, I don't find this surprising. A related note: fruit, while generally considered good for you, also has a lot of sugar/fructose. In particular, the process of selective breeding has made fruits like bananas ever sweeter, much more so that our primitive ancestors would have encountered. Now I consider most of it (aside from berries) in the same category as candy.

UCSF's Dr. Lustig disagrees with that assessment. According to him, the fiber in fruit counteracts the negative effects of the fructose: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
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