Is it time to treat sugar like smoking? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#51

Post by bunderbunder » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:23 PM UTC

darkpuma wrote: post #15

ex3ndr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is banned in Russia, zero effect.

That it doesn't work in Russia is far from proof that it couldn't work elsewhere. Edit: Prohibition on advertising is not prohibition on alcohol. I reject the relevance of this suggested equivalency. There is no risk of organized crime getting supercharged by a prohibition on alcohol advertisements .

{ "Advertising increases demand for a product.", "Banning advertising does not reduce demand for a product." }

I think you really do gotta pick one there, because each implies the other's opposite.

You don't really even need two different studies to demonstrate "demand is higher in the presence of advertising" and "demand is lower in the absence of advertising". It's mathematically impossible to experimentally demonstrate one without also demonstrating the other.

Not entirely sure where I'm going with this. But I would say that failure to prove that a group of people responds to advertising is not the same thing as proving that a group of people does not respond to advertising. So, if we really have demonstrated that banning advertising didn't have an effect on demand for alcohol in Russia, we'd expect to also see that alcohol companies don't even want to advertise their products in Russia, because they know it would just be wasting money. Do we see that?

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#52

Post by will_brown » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:23 PM UTC

conceptme wrote: post #21

s33n wrote: post #13

Is there much difference between sugar and refined carbs like white bread?

No the body will convert all sugars / carbs the same. The only difference is how fast it will get in your blood.

Not all sugar is actually processed by the body the same though.

Fructose gets processed in the liver whereas glucose goes into the blood stream triggering insulin response.

Other very fine points are glycemic index, for example a low glycemic index food breakdown to glucose, bypassing the liver, but is absorbed into the bloodstream relatively slowly for glucose and minimizes the insulin spike/response promoting more stable blood sugar levels.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#53

Post by darkpuma » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:23 PM UTC

mantas wrote: post #25

darkpuma wrote: post #9

That's simply not going to happen because there is no "second hand sugar" scenario. Even alcohol, which is incredibly destructive to third parties by any measure (domestic abuse, drunk driving, etc), hasn't successfully been publicly vilified to the same extent as smoking.

Sugar addict in next plane seat in long haul flight is definitely "second hand sugar". Some people being addicted to sugar makes food makers add sugar where it's not needed or increase it's quantity a lot. So you have harder time limiting your sugar input.

> "Sugar addict in next plane seat in long haul flight is definitely "second hand sugar".

What? How? They can as much sugar as they like, none of it is getting into me. No airline has ever force-fed me sugar.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#54

Post by ponyous » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:24 PM UTC

swsieber wrote: post #31

ex3ndr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is banned in Russia, zero effect.

Then it should be fine to ban it, right?

No. Bureaucracy hell is bad as well. The least amount of rules that can keep us on the sane path the better.

I'm for ban, but I can't even find any sources saying it had no effect (or the opposite). Anyone can help?

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#55

Post by rleigh » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:24 PM UTC

kyriakos wrote: post #39

esailija wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sugar is 50% glucose 50% fructose while white bread is only long chains of glucose, unless sugar was added to it too (only a thing in the US AFAIK).

Sugar is needed for yeast to raise the dough. It's common everywhere not in the US alone. I'm in Europe and most bread has sugar added during preparation. Small amounts but still sugar.

It's less than one flat teaspoon per loaf, and most of that is metabolised by the yeast. You can do without it, but it takes much longer to rise.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#56

Post by cuddlecake » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:25 PM UTC

ddorian43 wrote: post #40

teamski wrote: post #34

haha deleted

So you're on keto ?

I think keto is even lower on carbs. At most 20-30g per day (only nuts and vegetables, basically).

But, obviously, like 99% of people, the parent poster lacks the willpower to do that. wink wink

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#57

Post by jsty » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:25 PM UTC

elorant wrote: post #37

umvi wrote: post #2

How about we start treating alcohol like smoking? For example ban alcohol advertising like we have with tobacco and I bet society would improve in a lot of unforeseen ways (besides the obvious reduction in alcohol related deaths and diseases and family issues).

Thanks but no thanks. I'm a moderate consumer of wine and I just love it. It's good for health, it supplements food in a great way, it rarely gets you drunk and it tastes great. Sure, if you can't hold your liquor eventually it will kill but so will do everything you eat or drink if you consume it in great quantities.

Would limiting alcohol advertising really have that dramatic an effect on the 'good' wine market? I can't recall the last time I bought a decent bottle of wine because it was advertised.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#58

Post by _bxg1 » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:25 PM UTC

It'd be much harder than cigarettes to define and enforce, and more prone to loopholes. What's a "sugary food"? Grams of sugar? They'd just sell fun-sized. Percentage mass? That could impact fruit. Added sugar? What is "non-added sugar"? Specific product categories like soda and candy? They'd just walk the line with things like "sweetened sparkling water".

I support the idea in principle, and I hope they figure out a way to define it, but it'll be hard.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#59

Post by esailija » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:25 PM UTC

kyriakos wrote: post #39

esailija wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sugar is 50% glucose 50% fructose while white bread is only long chains of glucose, unless sugar was added to it too (only a thing in the US AFAIK).

Sugar is needed for yeast to raise the dough. It's common everywhere not in the US alone. I'm in Europe and most bread has sugar added during preparation. Small amounts but still sugar.

Ok, of the carbs in white bread here there is 0.6% sugar. That's completely negligible and now what I'm referring to at all. I am talking about added sugar where it will be 10-20% of the carbs in the white "bread" (I consider that pastry :D).

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#60

Post by gregmac » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 6:25 PM UTC

I started eating keto over a year ago, and found that I totally lost my appetite for sugary and other carb-based foods, so have just kept it up.

One thing that was eye opening to me was from paying close attention to food labels. I used to try to mostly eat "healthy", so I'd tend to buy the "low calorie" options. What surprised me was how basically they just substitute fat for sugar. Ceasar dressing normal has 1g carbs and 4g fat per Tbsp (45 cal), but low calorie is 4g carbs and 1.5g fat per Tbsp (30 cal). This adds up, and I think I was actually eating a pretty unhealthy balance of macronutrients (fat/protein/carbs) while thinking I was eating healthy, despite my BMI slowly creeping up over a decade to being middle of "overweight" (I'm now in the middle of "normal" range, just from changing my diet).

Well I think treating sugar like smoking is far too extreme, I do think the demonization of fat along with the addition of excess sugar to "healthy" food options is a terrible combination, and that needs to end.