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How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

nytimes.com

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Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#61

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

timewarrior wrote: post #13

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.

I think it's more likely that the behavioral patterns created by our constant engagement to mobile devices will carry more adverse effects to our mental and physical health than any mobile device radiation.

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#62

Post by aswanson »

balabaster wrote: post #47
aswanson wrote: post #33

The documents show that a trade group called the Sugar Research Foundation, known today as the Sugar Association, paid three Harvard scientists the equivalent of about $50,000 in today’s dollars to publish a 1967 review of sugar, fat and heart research. The studies used in the review were handpicked by the sugar group, and the article, which was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, minimized…

You forgot your sarcasm tag, most people will miss it ;)

Done, thanks.

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#63

Post by maxxxxx »

brandon272 wrote: post #32
fastoptimizer wrote: post #4

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 one aspect of sugar and fat that I find confusing. Is sugar in and of itself bad? If I like to eat sugar but am otherwise healthy (healthy weight, plenty of fruits and vegetables, plenty of exercise, etc.), am I still damaging my cardiovascular system?

Sugar in itself is not necessarily bad in moderation. But the "normal" diet contains way too much and this makes it bad.

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#64

Post by hx87 »

MrMullen wrote: post #27
redwards510 wrote: post #18

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.

There is an RDA for carbohydrates, but:

1) It's way too high

2) It doesn't have a sublimit for sugar, so you can get 99% RDA of carbohydrates from sugar and the guidelines will tell you that's fine.

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#65

Post by Dylan16807 »

jly wrote: post #20

I think after the last few years of these kinds of things coming out, the takeaway is pretty simple: be fairly sceptical of 'advice' coming out of large governing bodies and instead just be sensible. Don't eat too much food. Limit processed foods. Eat lots of fruit and vegetables. Eat a large variety of foods. Be active. These rudimentary guidelines are clearly difficult for a lot of people to follow, but I think it'…

The massive gulf in healthiness between fruit and fruit juice is not intuitive at all.

The most important question by far is how to eat less, and the answer is very complex.

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#66

Post by abainbridge »

jly wrote: post #20

I think after the last few years of these kinds of things coming out, the takeaway is pretty simple: be fairly sceptical of 'advice' coming out of large governing bodies and instead just be sensible. Don't eat too much food. Limit processed foods. Eat lots of fruit and vegetables. Eat a large variety of foods. Be active. These rudimentary guidelines are clearly difficult for a lot of people to follow, but I think it'…

Yeah. But humans haven't had fresh fruit available all year round until recently. Similarly, there was never a wide range of foods available. I'm not sure we've got enough evidence to say that changing our diet to include lots of fruit and a wide variety of foods is safe. The encouragement to do this is coming from large governing bodies.

I'm off to eat nothing but turnips for a year and get scurvy :-)

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#67

Post by fastoptimizer »

romanr wrote: post #52
brandon272 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one aspect of sugar and fat that I find confusing. Is sugar in and of itself bad? If I like to eat sugar but am otherwise healthy (healthy weight, plenty of fruits and vegetables, plenty of exercise, etc.), am I still damaging my cardiovascular system?

Sugar is poison. Search YouTube for Lustig lecture video.

Lustig is unfortunately a scientific crackpot. His lecture has many untruthful statements (like those about Japanese) and puts blame mostly on fructose.

As much as fructose does cause some interesting metabolic problems, unlike glucose, it still cannot be characterized as unhealthy (because the very Japanese he praises eat a lot of fructose and the studies are done on fructose extracts which can't even be reproduced with equivalent fruits in fructose amounts).

He makes equivalent claims to those made by Campbell in his China study that casein from milk causes cancer - of course it does if it's 20 freaking percent of your caloric intake (which is practically impossible to consume long-term).

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#68

Post by hx87 »

fastoptimizer wrote: post #7
kentor wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then the question is why do they eat 3500kcal? The hypothesis is that sugar does not make people feel full whereas fat does, so they eat more. A calorie is not a calorie.

> The hypothesis is that sugar does not make people feel full whereas fat does, so they eat more. They still eat about 1500kcal of fat and protein - of which I eat about half the amount. If you were really talking about feeling full, nothing makes you feel more full than a belly and guts filled with lovely starch/fiber from fruits and vegetables, which an average US eats little if not any.

I can easily get full from starchy/fibrous foods, but then I feel hungry again 1 hour later. Fat/protein rich foods, in contrast, keep me full for 4-8 hours.

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#69

Post by DougWebb »

timewarrior wrote: post #41
Retric wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agreed! But we cannot ignore potential visible risks while worrying about unknown risks. I use organic/natural exclusively. Try to model my life closed to simple ingredients people used more than 100 years back. I also diversify things I consume. Someone once posted on HN: His grandpa told him everything is poison, so use everything in moderation. I really liked this recommendation. However it is very difficult to pr…

Many of the "simple ingredients" that people used 100 years ago aren't really available anymore, at least not in the US. That would somewhat true even with traditional breeding and cultivation, but over the past 100 years we've greatly improved our understanding of how breeding works, the rate that we can modify plants and animals, and with GMOs we now have a lot of direct control over the outcome. We just don't have the same plants and animals that we had 100 years ago anymore.

You say you stick to organic/natural. Well, it's all "natural", even GMOs, if you're eating plant and animal products directly. (Eg: stay away from additives and highly processed foods.) "Organic" is a bit tougher; you want it to mean that the plants and animals were raised without getting stuffed with chemicals and antibiotics, but there's a lot of wiggle room there because 'food' is made up of chemicals, and many foods and chemicals have some antibiotic properties.

In the end, if you're not growing the plants and breeding the animals yourself you don't really know if the "organic" label on them means what you want it to mean. And except for heirloom varieties, (and maybe even those) the plants and animals you're raising are still the product of the past 100 years of breeding, which usually focused on attributes other than making them healthy to eat.

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#70

Post by balabaster »

Follow the money and you will find the motive for what you're being told. There is a reason you're being told what you are and don't believe that it's for your own good. These industries and agencies don't care about what's good for you, they are self serving and only care about what's good for them. You're just the vessel supplying the cash they're after.
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