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How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

nytimes.com

21–30 of 623 posts

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#21
post #9

This quote from the article is a great one: "It was a very smart thing the sugar industry did because review papers, especially if you get them published in a very prominent journal, tend to shape the overall scientific discussion" Has the acceptance policy for prominent journals improved that we're sure this is not happening now? I have suspicions that this is likely still happening more frequently then we might exp…

The basic issue is that reviews are just looking for glaring problems in the presentation. To really test an article one has to replicate the experiment from the ground up. And these days thats damn hard and expensive to do.

For the typical reviewer, replication is probably downright impossible.

http://www.nature.com/news/1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid-on-...

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#22
post #14

When in fact nothing can be blamed but our overconsumption of almost everything but vegetables and fruits. I eat about 70% from my calories in carbs (some are refined), but it's just 2500kcal calories per day. I'm pretty sure the fact that average US citizen eats 3500kcal daily has more to do with anything than what particular ingredient one eats. edit: some irrational unscientific and anegdotal statements require me…

I think that fruits have an issue too. The fruit we get today has been bred to contain a lot more sugar than they did originally. I'm not convinced that lots of fruit all the time is as good for you as it ought to be.

There hasn't been a study showing that calorie controlled fruit diet will cause you any harm (except potential malnutrition if fruit selection is not as varied).

Just like excessive consumption of protein (but with a calorie cap) in healthy people shows no harm, or similar studies on healthy, physically active people.

Diet is just a part of a healthy lifestyle and a huge variety of diets can be healthy. This blaming of particular ingredient or macronutrients is unscientific, I as a skeptic dislike it very much.

Fruits are rich in fiber which slows down the absorption of their more "potent" sugars, not to mention that digestion of that fiber is far more taxing than digestion of something else.

Of course, if I were to eat excessive amount of calories it's quite probable I'd get the same symptoms as those people consuming the equivalent in refined sugars.

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#23

It took almost 50 years to starting to debunk health issues created by Sugar. It took decades to accept the health issues created by Lead and Asbestos. Sometime I wonder if chemicals from bottled water, radiation from Cellular/Wifi/Bluetooth pose health risks and we will find it out decades later.

There are a lot of unknowns. Chances are it's not going to be Bluetooth, but some toothpaste additive, cellphone case sealant, or something else nobody really thought about that we are going to look back and cringe.

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#24
post #14

When in fact nothing can be blamed but our overconsumption of almost everything but vegetables and fruits. I eat about 70% from my calories in carbs (some are refined), but it's just 2500kcal calories per day. I'm pretty sure the fact that average US citizen eats 3500kcal daily has more to do with anything than what particular ingredient one eats. edit: some irrational unscientific and anegdotal statements require me…

I think that fruits have an issue too. The fruit we get today has been bred to contain a lot more sugar than they did originally. I'm not convinced that lots of fruit all the time is as good for you as it ought to be.

and don't forget about vegetables, I swear every year carrots get sweeter and sweeter, it feels with some carrot cultivars they are nearly as sweet as corn used to be (now corn often just tastes like candy basically to me, some varieties I can't stomach due to them tasting way too sweet)

note I do not eat any sugar or sweeteners and haven't for years, so maybe that's why I am more sensitive to this

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#26
post #8

RIP: British Scientist John Yudkin - The man who tried to warn us about the perils of sugar.. Source(s) : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/diet/10634081... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yudkin Edit: Lest we not forget his arch-enemy Ancel Keys

Another good discussion of Yudkin's work and how it was received: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-co...

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#27

The documentary "Fed Up" is about sugar and was the first time I was made aware there is no daily RDA % for sugar on nutrition labels. They just have the grams. They lobbied very hard to make it that way, because having "4700%" for a daily RDA wouldn't look very good!

True, but there is carb count and percentages on labels and it is not hard to figure out that something that is 4700% your daily limit for carbs is not something you should be eating.

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#28

When in fact nothing can be blamed but our overconsumption of almost everything but vegetables and fruits. I eat about 70% from my calories in carbs (some are refined), but it's just 2500kcal calories per day. I'm pretty sure the fact that average US citizen eats 3500kcal daily has more to do with anything than what particular ingredient one eats. edit: some irrational unscientific and anegdotal statements require me…

this is almost certainly wrong. (That nothing can be blamed.) I can't eat much sugar for medical reasons, so that means that entire aisles are basically unavailable to me. things like cereals, cookies, cakes, lots of delicious stuff. But there is something or someone (or some process or some state of affairs) to blame here.

Because check it out: stevia is delicious, and with splenda and all sorts of other zero-calorie artificial sweetener choices (going back to saccharine) it would be trivial to make almost all of those food choices in varieties that are artificially sweetened. what do you want to bet that the high fructose corn syrup or sugar industry has a say in directing the conversation that leads to these foods simply not existing? They literally don't exist in supermarkets: you make them at home.

why the fuck would an expensive premium food like this - https://www.specialk.com/en_US/products/protein-cereal.html have 20% by weight in sugar! Generally speaking what I've just linked is a great food, and it's premium and expensive and for those who are very health-conscious. It hardly has any calories, converting by multiplying the suggested serving by 3, it has only 360 calories in 100 grams, which contains 30g of protein (so that if you further multiply by three to get to your daily intake, you get to 90g of protein, enough for just about anyone, reaching only 1080 calories - so it seems great to me. you could literally consider this diet food.)

But it has 21 grams of sugar in those 100 grams. (I happened to find someone weighing 100 grams of cereal, though a denser one - here is what that looks like: http://blog.belm.com/wp-content/uploads/cerealpannacotta1.jp... -- * EDIT: also found someone who happened to weigh 20 grams of sugar, this is what that looks like: http://alcademics.typepad.com/.a/6a00e553b3da20883401a3fb659... (that's about 5 cubes of sugar.)).

Why does it have 21% by weight sugar! Why not use an artificial sweetener? Like, it's not even an option.

You can't really find stevia alternatives. The third ingredient in what I just linked was Sugar. Here is someone asking them to include stevia: https://community.kelloggs.com/kelloggs/topics/special-k-pro...

Like, what gives?

I realize that stevia might be expensive compared with sugar, but some people would likely pay for that. You can't get foods made that way though, unless you make it yourself.

why is that? There is someone to blame here. It's a dichotomy: you eat the 21 grams of sugar, or you don't eat the 100 grams of Special K Protein. It's not about overconsumption: it's about a lack of choice. Why doesn't the artificial-sweetener version exist, at all? There is something, or someone (or an abstract economic process, or something) to blame here. While "blaming" an economic process (or a lack of FDA mandate, or ... whatever) might sound bitter due to the phrasing, we can still ask what leads to this state of affairs. I don't usually like to play the "blame game" or put things in those terms, but in this case, I'm missing out on a lot of foods, so yes, I'll do it. If Coca Cola can do it, and get it everywhere, why can't dessert "foods" like oreos or breakfast cereal, do it? They simply don't exist in artificially sweetened versions. Why not?

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#29
post #23

It took almost 50 years to starting to debunk health issues created by Sugar. It took decades to accept the health issues created by Lead and Asbestos. Sometime I wonder if chemicals from bottled water, radiation from Cellular/Wifi/Bluetooth pose health risks and we will find it out decades later.

There are a lot of unknowns. Chances are it's not going to be Bluetooth, but some toothpaste additive, cellphone case sealant, or something else nobody really thought about that we are going to look back and cringe.

For instance, For a long time diesel has promoted in Europe as greener than petrol. This is soon to change, because: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/27/diesel-engine-fum...

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#30
post #14

When in fact nothing can be blamed but our overconsumption of almost everything but vegetables and fruits. I eat about 70% from my calories in carbs (some are refined), but it's just 2500kcal calories per day. I'm pretty sure the fact that average US citizen eats 3500kcal daily has more to do with anything than what particular ingredient one eats. edit: some irrational unscientific and anegdotal statements require me…

I think that fruits have an issue too. The fruit we get today has been bred to contain a lot more sugar than they did originally. I'm not convinced that lots of fruit all the time is as good for you as it ought to be.

I agree. People always spam the "eat fruits and veggies" meme but come on, what is in fruit? Sugar and some fiber, maybe some vitamins. You are still just eating useless sugar. Let's not delude ourselves that fruits somehow contribute to fulfilling daily macros in a significant way. I consider them a treat, not a staple.
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