Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 261 posts

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#181

Post by lisper »

Mirioron wrote: post #162
lisper wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Complex carbs are chains of glucose. Sugar has fructose which is much worse for you than glucose (assuming you are not diabetic of course).

But they do contain the same amount of calories per gram, so obesity is unaffected.

That’s only true if you eat the same quantity of both. The other problem with sugar is that it doesn’t satisfy hunger as effectively as starch so you typically end up consuming more of it. The best bang for the caloric buck in terms of hunger satiation is actually fat and protein.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#182

Post by RandomInteger4 »

No, it's not. This is ridiculous.

Sugar is bad in large quantities, but there's no such thing as second hand sugar consumption, which is the main reason why anybody wanted to regulate smoking, since nobody wants to get lung cancer from working in a place where everyone else is doing something harmful.

What we need to do with regard to sugar is get people to have some got dang self control, which starts with proper education K-12 and decent menus for school lunches.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#184

Post by Zarath »

bunderbunder wrote: post #51
darkpuma wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 demons…

Advertising redistributes demand.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#185

Post by jniedrauer »

1123581321 wrote: post #167
jniedrauer wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it should be made clear that we simply don't know enough about keto yet to call it "healthy." More healthy than sugar over-consumption? Almost certainly. I will say that it allowed me to cut to under 10% bodyfat with almost no effort, so for that I think it is a valuable tool. But I also found that I was not making progress in my athletic hobbies until I stopped eating keto. My progress visibly accelerated af…

What kind of diet did you switch to when you moved away from keto?

Mainly whole foods. Almost entirely vegan. Quinoa, beans, fresh vegetables, whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, avocados, olive oil, are my staples.

But I think the specific diet isn't that important. Cutting out the processed foods and high glycemic index sugars is the most important part.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#186

Post by josteink »

In my younger, smoking years, when the anti-smoking lobby grew stronger and managed to land more and more restrictions on smoking, to the degree that you almost felt like a leper...

I remember telling my anti-smoking, chocolate-eating friends “you know one day they will come for you too, right?”

That sure didn’t take long. Let’s see how they feel about it this time around.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#187

Post by Creationer »

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).

I've lived in countries with extremely liberal alcohol laws: low taxes, liberal advertising, 24/7 availability, drinking allowed on the street.

I've lived in others where Alcohol advertising is banned, availability is limited to Government-run stores at certain times, and the taxes are very high.

Binge drinking and general abuse seemed to be much higher in the latter. Particularly people seemed to get drunk before leaving the house, or used drugs, since both were cheaper than buying alcohol at a venue.

If anything is going to be restricted in the form of tax or advertising, hard spirits should bear the brunt instead of beer and wine. It might also make sense to loosen up taxes at licensed venues, which are controlled environments with trained bartenders and security.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#188

Post by nindalf »

jniedrauer wrote: post #128
gregmac wrote: post #60

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 car…

I think it should be made clear that we simply don't know enough about keto yet to call it "healthy." More healthy than sugar over-consumption? Almost certainly. I will say that it allowed me to cut to under 10% bodyfat with almost no effort, so for that I think it is a valuable tool. But I also found that I was not making progress in my athletic hobbies until I stopped eating keto. My progress visibly accelerated af…

I can echo this. I'm on keto right now and I have no trouble for most of the day. What troubles me is strenuous activity. I can still do it, but I take longer to recover. If I'm lifting, I rest twice as long between sets. I went for a run today that shouldn't normally give me trouble but I was knackered by the uphill stretches.

I don't mind much. I feel healthy, I'm losing weight and my mind feels focused the entire day.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#189

Post by nikkwong »

Mirioron wrote: post #143
jmull wrote: post #41

FYI: This article is referring to requiring sugary products to use plain packaging: > ...suggested sweets, snacks and sugary drinks should be wrapped in plain packaging to make them less appealing, given the excess consumption of the sweet stuff (I think some of the responses here are assuming the question is about treating sugar like smoking in other respects.)

I think people are afraid of a slippery slope. Legislation is almost always done in a slippery slope manner - at first you limit things a little and wait until people accept it. After a while you limit some more, then some more and then some more. You can do whatever you want with sugar, but it's not going to solve the obesity problem. Not only are carbs one of the few macro nutrients we can digest, they're also in p…

I don't know about this. For example in many countries around the world cigarettes are now put in unattractive packages but not banned outright.

To get very meta, the argument that regulation is a slippery slope, is itself a slippery slope. As in, I think the fear that government is going to continually encroach upon our freedoms until we live in a police state is misguided. This is the argument that big industry uses to exploit workers, cheat on taxes, spew their externalities over the environment, etc etc.

What we should really aim for is a democracy in which well-minded and level headed politicians work to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Perverse incentives aside, I think if that were really the goal, you'd get some level of regulatory balance that was neither too loose nor too restrictive.

Re: Is it time to treat sugar like smoking?

#190

Post by raziel2701 »

anchpop wrote: post #173
Mirioron wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people are afraid of a slippery slope. Legislation is almost always done in a slippery slope manner - at first you limit things a little and wait until people accept it. After a while you limit some more, then some more and then some more. You can do whatever you want with sugar, but it's not going to solve the obesity problem. Not only are carbs one of the few macro nutrients we can digest, they're also in p…

What do you think will solve the obesity problem? People weren't obese like they are now 100 years ago. Something must have changed

Serving sizes have increased. Fat has been removed from a lot of dairy foods and replaced with extra carbohydrates. Sugar is unnecessarily added to bread. People work a lot and commute a lot and don't feel like putting in time to cook when they can just stop by the drive thru. A lot of cities are very car-centric and people walk less or bike less. We are very stressed and eating a pizza feels good man, a slight relief from our terrible lives. Our jobs are very sedentary, take 8 hours of our time, drive home, eat, go to sleep, wake up, do it again.

Snacks are mostly carbohydrates: bagels, donuts, chips, chocolate, granolas. It's hard to eat healthy, you have to make it yourself, but that costs time and effort, which you don't have much of because we work a lot.

It takes a conscious effort to say no to all of these delicious things, and that's hard to sustain.

I think the environment we've created is setting us up for failure in the sense that the easiest and most available options for us in food and jobs, are not good for us in the long run.

I'm gonna go take a walk.

Post reply on HN