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Was there ever really a “sugar conspiracy”?

science.sciencemag.org

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Re: Was there ever really a “sugar conspiracy”?

#71

Post by eeZah7Ux »

esailija wrote: post #54
gerardnll wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you take sweet ultraprocessed food since your a baby. Then, children don't like veggies.

Plain vegetables are not palatable because they have very little nutritional value, like saw dust. If you were as rewarded for eating vegetables as you are for foods with actual nutritional value you would quickly be malnourished. If you ate a vegetable only meal you wouldn't even absorb the fat soluble vitamins from them because they don't have any fat. In the wild where the immediate pressure is on getting enough c…

No. Our sense of taste is far from good at measuring nutritional value.

It's simply good enough for humanity to survive without having to evolve a more accurate taste organ.

Re: Was there ever really a “sugar conspiracy”?

#72

Post by JohnCohorn »

keymone wrote: post #51
Arn_Thor wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We enjoy the taste of sweetness because it tends in nature to indicate that the thing we're eating contains a lot of energy, such as fruits and sweet vegetables. And we underestimate how finely attuned this sense is. Chew on wheat for a little bit and it will begin to taste sweet as the starch breaks down in your mouth and turns into sugar. Sugar is ridiculously sweet. Anyone who's laid off sweets for a few weeks or…

> it will begin to taste sweet as the starch breaks down in your mouth and turns into sugar are you sure about this? wheat doesn't have any fructose, and it's the fructose in sugar that gives it sweetness. glucose is taste-neutral.

Glucose is _not_ taste-neutral. Just less sweet than table sugar. Grab a bag of dextrose from AMZN and try it.

Re: Was there ever really a “sugar conspiracy”?

#73

Post by keymone »

JohnCohorn wrote: post #72
keymone wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it will begin to taste sweet as the starch breaks down in your mouth and turns into sugar are you sure about this? wheat doesn't have any fructose, and it's the fructose in sugar that gives it sweetness. glucose is taste-neutral.

Glucose is _not_ taste-neutral. Just less sweet than table sugar. Grab a bag of dextrose from AMZN and try it.

you're right, thanks

Re: Was there ever really a “sugar conspiracy”?

#74

Post by rurban »

Valmar wrote: post #7
Tomte wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you focus exclusively on calories? You could even ask why 300 calories of tar should be worse for you than 300 calories of apples. The reason is the many other effects stuff has, besides their nutritional stats.

300 calories of glucose is going to be far healthier than 300 calories of fructose, because of how they are metabolized by the body.

You mean obviously the other way round. It's the typical US/UK propaganda. Frucose doesn't go directly into blood as glucose (the basic energy form) and galactose (-> milk).

Wikipedia: "The European Food Safety Authority stated that fructose is preferable over sucrose and glucose in sugar-sweetened foods and beverages because of its lower effect on postprandial blood sugar levels". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose

"Fructose is often recommended for diabetics because it does not trigger the production of insulin by pancreatic β cells, probably because β cells have low levels of GLUT5, although the net effect for both diabetics and non-diabetics is debated. Fructose has a low glycemic index of 19 ± 2, compared with 100 for glucose and 68 ± 5 for sucrose. Fructose is also 73% sweeter than sucrose at room temperature, so diabetics can use less of it. Studies show that fructose consumed before a meal may even lessen the glycemic response of the meal. Fructose-sweetened food and beverage products cause less of a rise in blood glucose levels than do those manufactured with sucrose or glucose."

Re: Was there ever really a “sugar conspiracy”?

#75

Post by rurban »

Valmar wrote: post #57
gerardnll wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When we say "sugar is bad" we refer to the 'simple sugars' found in ultraprocessed foods, not the slow absorption ones.

Fructose is unhealthy... but glucose is healthy. How they are metabolized is key. :)

Wrong, see above

Re: Was there ever really a “sugar conspiracy”?

#76

Post by ghusbands »

Rainymood wrote: post #55

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Personally, I conjured up the following hypothesis and think it might be somewhat correct. Note that I am not a biologist/nutritionist (I'm an applied mathematician) so bear with me. What I claim is the following: > The less some kind of food wants to be eaten, the healthier it is. For example, fruit wants to be eaten (hence its sweet) to reproduce and spread it seeds. Verdict?…

Getting the liver of polar bears is particularly tricky. And it will kill you. As will any number of hard-to-extract things. Turning a correlation from a series of facile observations into a rule rarely ends well.

Re: Was there ever really a “sugar conspiracy”?

#77

Post by iamt2 »

John_KZ wrote: post #17

The industry maliciously amplifies our innate tendency to find a "one-fits-all" solution. The bogeyman used to be fat, now it's sugar. Soon, people will realize that getting 90% of your caloric intake from protein powders is bad, the industry will get ahold of the new trend, and they'll start going back to "healthy carbs" or something stupid like that, and people will forget the meat rush of the 2010s and move onto s…

> Interpretations vary, but giving up on fruit or grain and starch is obviously not part of it.

For typical genetics, this is true. However, I've yet to find any sources that show prevention and/or reversal of Type 2 that holds over 5+ years that includes a significant (>20g) of net daily carbs from fruit, grain and/or starches. I'm not alone, but in a definite minority of people who control their Type 2 through only diet and exercise, not even metformin, but all of our diets, while varied, have one characteristic in common: we restrict net carbs to various degrees, many at 20-50g net daily.

If you know how Type 2 diabetics like myself can keep our condition reversed while adding grains, starches and fruits in greater quantities, then please shoot a pointer my way. My plants intake these days is limited to very low carb green leafy vegetables like Romaine hearts.

Re: Was there ever really a “sugar conspiracy”?

#78

Post by cup-of-tea »

John_KZ wrote: post #17

The industry maliciously amplifies our innate tendency to find a "one-fits-all" solution. The bogeyman used to be fat, now it's sugar. Soon, people will realize that getting 90% of your caloric intake from protein powders is bad, the industry will get ahold of the new trend, and they'll start going back to "healthy carbs" or something stupid like that, and people will forget the meat rush of the 2010s and move onto s…

More generally I think it's a tendancy for many people to only support binary decision making. This is why many democracies end up with two party systems and everything is just good or bad. So when it comes to food: fat bad, sugar bad, fibre good, etc. Of course, when you actually observe a healthy population such as that of France or Italy, they break all of these stupidly simple rules.

It seems to be that the most important factor of all is simply total calorific input. No, not input minus output, just input. If you consume fewer calories you will live longer and be at lower risk for many diseases. Of course, that does not mean "calories bad", though.

Re: Was there ever really a “sugar conspiracy”?

#79

Post by [deleted] »

keymone wrote: post #70
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>all the flours and starches are for all intents and purposes sugar Only if you look at the most refined and treated flours. Overly refined and bleached flour is obviously not great nutritionally, as with all processed foods. Even just unbleached wheat flour is significantly better, and whole grain types are much better, plenty of fiber and vitamins/minerals. I hope you're not claiming a good wholegrain mixed-grain s…

> I hope you're not claiming a good wholegrain mixed-grain sourdough bread is the same as eating white sugar. no, it's the same as eating 33% of that weight in white sugar, but of course ymmv https://www.eatthismuch.com/food/view/sourdough-whole-grain-...

[deleted]

Re: Was there ever really a “sugar conspiracy”?

#80

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Valmar wrote: post #58
sgift wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> extracted coconut oil is as bad as butter So, it's great as there's no evidence that butter is bad.

I wonder... how common was heart disease before saturated fats were demonized, and ultra-processed plant oils were pushed as the "healthier" alternative? What about after?

The problem with that claim is that you have to go back decades, where general quality of life was different, life expectancy was lower and the causes of death were different - or harder to assess. as this chart shows, average life expectancy has gone up from 50 to 75 in the past 50 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#/media/File:Li..., while this page (http://www.fauxpress.com/kimball/med/heart/h2/coronaryd.htm) indicates most heart disease only starts to show up after the age of 50.

So yeah, a bit hard to assess combined with higher life expectancy. Not impossible though, I'm sure there's good research out there.

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