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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

#131

Post by logfromblammo »

sosuke wrote: post #39
amist wrote: post #3

What about the fat industry? Didn't they have enough money to pay for scientists to shift the blame to sugar?

I believe there isn't a fat industry, can you imagine manufacturing fat? Paid for by the Fat for America Industry.

What? Where do you think soybean, corn, Canola/rapeseed, peanut, cottonseed, sunflower, safflower, olive, coconut, and palm oils come from?

Animal fats are rather expensive in comparison, but I can also buy pork lard, beef suet, and butter rather easily.

The problem there might just be fragmentation. Growers of cane and beets (and sorghum, too, I guess) have basically just one major homogenized end product: refined sucrose. There are a few related products, like molasses, brown sugar, and confectioners' sugar, and the stuff like bagasse, that tends not to be seen by consumers, but refined sucrose is the moneymaker. Corn growers can also side with the sugar lobby thanks to corn syrup and high-fructose corn syrup.

There's definitely an industry ($800M/year?), but it isn't one that has a great common marketing association around, to collect dues and pitch catchy slogans that play well on television and radio.

The soy and Canola/rapeseed growers might come together to promote B20 biodiesel, though, while simultaneously bashing palm oil plantations. I can't currently imagine anyone trying to convince me to eat more fats and oils in my diet, at the expense of sugars. Low-carb is still largely seen as an irresponsible, unhealthy, fad diet in the mainstream.

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#132

Post by logicallee »

saint_fiasco wrote: post #75
logicallee wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-calori…

When cooking, sometimes the taste of the ingredients isn't everything. Have you ever forgotten to put salt to something you were cooking, and then tried to add salt after cooking to correct it? It doesn't taste the same because in addition to just tasting salty, the salt was supposed to participate in some chemical reaction while it was being cooked. Artificial sweeteners taste like sugar, but they lack its other che…

certainly. I imagine the Coca Cola company put a ton of research into formulating Coke Zero and getting it accepted as well.

I'm not saying it's a simple substitution. But it's certainly possible, since there are home recipe versions. Nobody asked for parity - it doesn't have to taste the same.

But I'm already talking about a food - Protein Special K - that I expect to already taste like crap compared with some pure sweetness like Honey Nut Cheerios or Cinnamon Toast Crunch. We're talkking about why even a food that does not have to meet as high a standard, that is literally a diet food for fitness-conscious people, still includes 20% sugar by weight?

So while I get what you're saying, it's still a perplexing state of affairs. It's not as though SOME of the cereals came in stevia versions, and some didn't. None of them do. Doesn't exist.

It's possible, it's easy - you can make it at home. It's not available.

And we have an example from the Coca Cola company and its diet coke / coke zero, which are great products, of getting the marketing and other parts right. You can get it everywhere, even McDonald's.

I'm not asking why there isn't a "diet big mac" that has 0 calories -- clearly an impossible goal.

I'm asking why entire aisles, such as the cookie aisles, breakfast cereal aisles, cake aisles, have no product choices, despite this being possible, with artificial sweeteners or stevia (at any price or in limited availability).

It just doesn't make sense. There is something/someone/some state of affairs, to blame here, and the fact that it's not a simple substitution isn't it. I don't need every product to come in a stevia version. But none of them do. This is perplexing, weird, and tells me that there is something/someone/etc to blame. Because you can look up recipes and see that it's easy. When I put artificial sweetener on my oats, I'm literally doing it at home. But no oat mix comes with that. I have to mix it myself. And this is true along many product categories.

Why? There is something fishy here. There is something/someone/some economic process/some state of affairs to blame.

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#133

Post by PieterH »

muzster wrote: 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

My mother (1973, Edinburgh) bought "Pure, White, and Deadly," and we all read it. I was ten or so. Yudkin attacked white flour, white (processed) fat, and above all white sugar. It made perfect sense to us all, and cutting back on sugar became a slow, yet consistent part of our lifestyle. We never ate that much anyhow. I stopped eating sugar entirely at 15. I still recall the book's cover.

Edit: it took me a lot longer to cut fruit juice from our diet. I was so convinced by that "natural" label. Until I realized my daughter, who'd drank a lot of juice growing up, was addicted to sugar. Then we cut it out. My other kids, not addicted. I was fooled for so long...

The sugar industry has a lot to answer for. It is IMO comparable to the tobacco industry's suppression of cancer studies. Yet worse, because the effects of high-sugar diets are doing more damage, to more people, and last generations.

Think of the hundreds of millions of children who have eaten high sugar diets since they were babies... lifelong damage to their health. A hundred years of damage, these executives and corrupt scientists caused.

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#134

Post by martinko »

LordHumungous wrote: post #127

On the other hand, I think the low carb/keto people have taken the pendulum too far in the other direction. A lot of research seems to suggest that a plant based diet heavy on whole fruits, vegetables, grains, and nuts is healthier than one consisting of animal fats and protein. It makes sense when you look at the diets of the healthiest people on Earth. Just because excess processed sugar is bad for you doe not mean…

Low carb and keto is consistent with a vergatable, plant and especially nut diet.

> Whole fruits

What are whole fruits and why do you feel fruits of any kind are healthy? The levels of sugars in them are unnatural - neither oranges nor apples have historically been as sweet as they are now.

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#135

Post by stepanhruda »

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…

So much wealth lost so 3 people can get $50k...

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#136

Post by djsumdog »

gtrubetskoy wrote: post #125
muzster wrote: 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

Along with Robert Atkins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Atkins_(nutritionist)

If you ask people to this day, they'll say Atkins died of his own diet. That was actually a total lie run by Harpers magazine. They corrected the mistake in the following edition, but the damage had been done.

Although there is little evidence to support it, the running conspiracy theory is that PR people in various arms of the food industry paid for that article.

Edit: Adkins died because he slipped on a piece of ice during a snow storm and cracked his skull.

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#137

Post by okreallywtf »

logicallee wrote: post #28
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 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-calori…

To be honest, I don't like the taste of stevia. It tastes a lot like other sugar substitutes (like aspartame) to me. That being said, I've had it used in cooking (without knowing it) and thought it tasted OK. Maybe in commercial foods they make it taste more like existing sugar substitutes because thats what is expected by people who already seek out sugar free foods?

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#138

Post by hammock »

acconrad wrote: post #99
graham1776 wrote: post #25

My wife and I rewatch the obligatory Lustig lecture about once a month to re-anger ourselves at sugar. Nothing motivates like a bit of biochemistry mixed in with political intrigue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

The problem is Lustig is on the far end of the spectrum on anti-sugar. No added sugars? Sure, I buy that. Labelling fructose as a poison simply because it is directly metabolized in the liver is stretch. I'm not going to worry that my kids are eating berries because of their fructose content.

In nature, fructose is almost always found in conjuction with fiber. For example, fruits and vegetables. This combination of sugar and fiber tempers the impact on the body. In contrast, many processed foods have added sugar and reduced fiber content.

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#139

Post by pharrington »

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.

Fortunately we completely understand light; if you actually wonder about radio and want to bring it out of the realm of mystery potentially hiding dark magic, learn some basic quantum mechanics. As to what you ingest, learn how its made and understand the basic chemistry of the end product. No label gives insight into that, its just alot of research.

Sure, systematic disinformation campaigns are real, but in 2016 those don't eliminate the also very real and verifiable scientific knowledge.

Re: How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

#140

Post by brianwawok »

logicallee wrote: post #95
brianwawok wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't move from sugar to fake sugar. Move from sugar to other flavors. Using fake sugar is like a diet, and diets don't last. Lifestyle changes do. Like making every thing you eat not need to be sweet.

not true. you can drink diet coke or coke zero for decades and nothing bad will happen. why do you want to tell me not to eat dessert foods like american cereals for breakfast, or oreos, in some artificially-flavored version. you're simply wrong that this would make my change in lifestyle "not last." I'm not even overweight.

Ultimately I only care insofar as I will be in the hook for your medical bills in 20 years. It's your body.
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