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Was there ever really a “sugar conspiracy”?

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

#101

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.

>Getting the liver of polar bears is particularly tricky. And it will kill you.

Interesting. Consider my view partially changed. I did not know that the liver of polar bears is toxic to humans. I say this because I eat a lot of offal (liver, heart, stomach, etc.) and thought all offal was safe for human consumption, guess not.

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

#102
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> This is why many democracies end up with two party systems Are two party systems really worldwide phenomenom enough to claim it is people issue? I thought it is consequence of American constitution or appears in counties with constitutions based on American one.

It's a global phenomenon wherever people use first-past-the-post voting methods, it's pretty inevitable from there according to Duverger's law

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law

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

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Getting the liver of polar bears is particularly tricky. And it will kill you. Interesting. Consider my view partially changed. I did not know that the liver of polar bears is toxic to humans. I say this because I eat a lot of offal (liver, heart, stomach, etc.) and thought all offal was safe for human consumption, guess not.

The BSE crisis rather changed people's opinions on offal as well.

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

#104

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?…

> The less some kind of food wants to be eaten, the healthier it is.

Usually plants that "don't want to be eaten" express this through actual toxicity. Mushrooms are the obvious example but there are plenty of plants with parts normally considered toxic and inedible.

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

#105
post #41
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…

> The industry maliciously amplifies our innate tendency to find a "one-fits-all" solution. The bogeyman used to be fat, now it's sugar. That isn't a fad though, that is progress. > Soon, people will realize that getting 90% of your caloric intake from protein powders is bad This is obviously already true. You would get protein poisoning very quickly long before you hit your TDEE. > the industry will get ahold of the…

> sugars or white flour won't come back as your main caloric source through any reputable study. Mark my words.

People forget. Or are influenced to forget. In the 1800s it was common sense that bread and grain led to weight gain. Lobbyists and non-so-reputable doctors changed the entire narrative. This grain centric food pyramid lasted until 2005.

A reputable study != permanent influence

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

#106
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…

Yes! a while back I had a consolation with a NHS specialist renal dietician and asked about lo salt versions of food /condiments. They sniffed and said the low salt movement has been very well marketed but what they don't tell you is the "shit" they put in to food to replace the salt - which is actually worse than salt - same with these low fat spreads

>They sniffed and said the low salt movement has been very well marketed but what they don't tell you is the "shit" they put in to food to replace the salt - which is actually worse than salt - same with these low fat spreads

I'm eternally annoyed by statements like these:

Low salt diet is bad because it is replaced by things worse than salt.

Low sugar diet is bad because artificial sweeteners are worse.

Low fat diet is bad because replacing them with carbs is worse.

Gluten free diets are bad because the substitutes are full of artificial, weight gaining stuff.

Butter alternatives/margarine are bad because their replaced by unhealthy low fat spreads (e.g. full of partially hydrogenated oils until recently).

All of these statements are wrong. You can always get any of these without the harmful substitutes. People who want to eat healthy can do any of the above diets without the worse alternatives. I myself went on a low sodium diet once, and I did not buy stuff with junk in them to substitute. Not even KCl.

You can get healthy butter alternatives.

These arguments usually show a giant leap in the logical process. These are false dichotomies. Yet way too many people I know believe these arguments. My guess is: Most of them are accepting of the arguments because it is convenience - not because the claims are true. It gives them a license to continue on unhealthy diets.

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

#107
post #14
post #10

The statements "sugar is bad", "fat is bad", "fat is good" are all equally simplistic and misleading. Fruits are high in naturally-occurring sugars and they are among the healthiest things you can eat. Turns out that nutrition is a pretty complicated science, and there existing various political and special interests influencing the science doesn't help. It's 2018 and I don't think there's even remotely a scientific…

While it is tricky with fats, sugar is never good for you (unless some genetic disease where you die if you don’t consume sugar?). Fruits are to various degrees beneficial but not in unlimited amounts. Fruits also don’t have a lot of sugar, see the watermelon comment in the other thread. The problem with sugar is how easy it is in our diets to consume ridiculous amounts of it and how nobody understands that even a li…

> Fruits are to various degrees beneficial but not in unlimited amounts.

You cannot eat too much fruit.

https://nutritionfacts.org/2017/02/23/can-you-eat-too-much-f...

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

#108
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…

>The industry maliciously amplifies our innate tendency to find a "one-fits-all" solution. The bogeyman used to be fat, now it's sugar.

I would argue nutrition is a solved problem but certainly I will acknowledge that is controversial.

What is not controversial though is that Type 2 diabeties, which used to be called adult onset diabetes, wasn’t diagnosed in children 30 years ago and now over 1 million have it, and 100% of those cases are preventable through diet (many cases even reversible through diet and exercise).

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

#109
The song "sugar conspiracy theory" is one of my favorites on the arcade game "pump it up" because it taught me that I can eat pretty much anything I want if I play that game for a couple hours a day. I get a 75 calorie last year rainbow twist after I play that song. I've lost 40lbs in 3 months.

My point is, a sedentary lifestyle is the cause of most of our health problems and beyond that, various nutrition science will have a much larger effect. I'm on the zone diet, but I eat lots of nuts and fruit.

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

#110
post #15

Refined sugar and processed fatsare bad, naturally occuring fats like coconut oil have been lumped together with other fats as bad due to bad science

If you're in the US or Europe, you don't have access to fresh coconuts. The oil you buy comes from far away (do you even know from where?), was processed under God knows what conditions, likely melted and resolidified several times as it changed hands in transit, only to sit in a store for who knows how long and what corners they cut. And this is healthier than eating locally-produced oils that your body is more gene…

You can get cold pressed coconut oil which isn't processed as much at all, also:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42608071

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