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John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

smh.com.au

121–130 of 248 posts

Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#121

Parents really need to stop giving this poison to their children. All birthday parties & events geared towards kids has this poison as the main attraction. And don't get me started on breakfast cereals....

Who are you to say my kids can't eat Arsenic Flakes or Lead-frosted Crunchies?

Evolution is on his side. We often have a sweet tooth, but rarely an Arsenic tooth.

That said, I do believe sugars should be consumed in moderation.

Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#122
post #61

More info. Anti-sugar: http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3821440.htm Anti-anti-sugar: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3888657.htm The whole thing strikes me as quite sensationalist, and I suspect that digging into the research would affirm the cholesterol heart disease link. For now, I'll trust the scientific consensus over these crackpot types.

Week old accounts with no prior comments shouldn't be allowed to use hot button words like "crackpot". They should probably include IP addresses in their comments as well.

At least some of the anti-sugar types are certified crackpots: http://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/lundell.html

I hope my account is old enough for your liking. :)

Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#123
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey man, calories-in, calories-out! Calorie-is-a-calorie! Sugar is fine! All in moderation! Heroin is fine, all in moderation!

Heroin is fine, all in moderation! In fact, numerous studies have found exactly this.

I'm sure that both sugar and heroin are fine in moderation.

The problem is that moderate consumption of either is known to cause overconsumption.

So, perhaps not so fine in an environment of abundance.

Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#124
post #19

Lustig could no doubt write some great posts here about growth hacking and selling your product, but if there's one thing he's proven about nutrition, it's that he's no one to be taken seriously when talking about it. One taste of what Joe Public doesn't see in his unintended hyperbole is here: http://sweetenerstudies.com/sites/default/files/resources/fi... Blaming sugar for everything is no better than what the fat-…

> As long as people only understand nutrition in terms of reductionist extremes, "alternative" diets are going to continue being a bad joke that achieves little more than inflating the ego and bank balance of people like Lustig . That is demonstrably false both in the laboratory but more importantly in massive amounts of anecdotal experience by regular folks. Go read some fitness and diet forums, you think all those…

Plenty of people lost weight on low fat diets too when those were the hot shit a decade or two ago.

The problem with fad diets is that most of those people gain their weight back after the initial enthusiasm fades.

Without long-term (decades) follow up, it's impossible to distinguish the effect of a particular diet from the impact of simply being on a diet of any kind--which typically induces much closer attentiveness to calories and nutrition, at least in the beginning.

Also, Internet forums are hardly a random sampling.

Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#125
post #18

I'm getting sick of this ignorant sugar alarmism. Sugar is not the culprit behind all the diseases listed in the article. Obesity is [5] [6]. Unless of course you're talking about cavities. Then not brushing your teeth is the culprit. The reason sugar gets such a bad rep is that high-sugar foods tend to be less-filling and lead to overeating [1]. Stay at a healthy weight by controlling caloric consumption [2]. The ar…

You're right, but the extremely low visibility of wonderful resources like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM (and the articles it's based on, even in the medical research community) make "pulling in the other direction" (even if it's just as wrong) a good course of action for achieving a properly balanced view of the scientific facts.

Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#126
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Precisely. Experiment: eat 500 calories of sugar (ice cream, soda, candy). Wait 15-20 minutes, how hungry are you? Now, eat 500 calories of fat (heavy cream, bacon, pork belly, etc). Wait 15-20 minutes, how hungry are you? I've done this experiment a few times now, and without fail, I crave more food after the sugar and can't eat another bite after the fat.

I can confirm that from my own experience. I lost 20kg in 6 months. Yes I restricted my calorie intake. But how I did that? By controlling my appetite with avoiding carbs especially sugar. Ketogenic diet is powerful tool for restricting calorie intake.

Lustig is primarily concerned with fructose (and sucrose, which quickly metabolizes into a 50-50 mix of fructose and glucose).

Carbs in general (ones that metabolize mostly into glucose) have been widely available for a long time. They are also processed in a more "normal" way than fructose.

It might still be a good idea to reduce carbs, but I'm skeptical that the ketogenic diet is healthy.

Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which is both true and irrelevant, because the system that governs calories in and calories out is a complex control loop. When it's working correctly, weight is effortlessly maintained within a narrow range thanks to compensating adjustments in appetite and, to a lesser extent, metabolism. What evidence leads you to believe this? There's no prima facie reason to believe evolution has adapted mammals to a glut of f…

a bear is a perfect example of an mammal that uses its insulin response during glut times to store fat. 1. gain weight during the summer by eating high sugar, high starch, high calorie foods such as fruit, berries, roots, honey/insects, and as much whole fatty fish as it can get its hands on for a super high calorie kick. it HAS to gain weight in the summer, and does so easily on that diet. 2. during the winter it hi…

Um. Bears don't have a glut in the summer. They eat everything they can and some still die from not getting enough. A glut is when there is so much food that you can eat more than is healthy. You don't see bears passing up salmon saying, nah, I had enough.

Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#128
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sugar is not the culprit behind all the diseases listed in the article. Obesity is And sugar is culprit behind overeating and obesity.

Precisely. Experiment: eat 500 calories of sugar (ice cream, soda, candy). Wait 15-20 minutes, how hungry are you? Now, eat 500 calories of fat (heavy cream, bacon, pork belly, etc). Wait 15-20 minutes, how hungry are you? I've done this experiment a few times now, and without fail, I crave more food after the sugar and can't eat another bite after the fat.

Here's another experiment. Eat 500 calories of 50% fat, 50% sugar. For example, ice cream. You'll feel much hungrier than both a fat and sugar only diet. It's fat and sugar combined that cause obesity problems.

Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#129

Parents really need to stop giving this poison to their children. All birthday parties & events geared towards kids has this poison as the main attraction. And don't get me started on breakfast cereals....

Whats needed is the reduction of added sugars on everyday food..mostly processed food. I dont think we should go to the extent of not having cakes or ice cream on special occasions, that is not the problem.

Don't eat processed food.

Re: John Yudkin: the man who tried to warn us about sugar

#130
post #18

I'm getting sick of this ignorant sugar alarmism. Sugar is not the culprit behind all the diseases listed in the article. Obesity is [5] [6]. Unless of course you're talking about cavities. Then not brushing your teeth is the culprit. The reason sugar gets such a bad rep is that high-sugar foods tend to be less-filling and lead to overeating [1]. Stay at a healthy weight by controlling caloric consumption [2]. The ar…

An acquaintance I once met, that used to work on the product design team for one of the major brands of snack/potato chips makers, had a witty response to what a friend asked, along the lines of:

"so, tell us, how can you work at something that you know is bad for people's health?" and he answered:

"I am certainly used to the opinion that garbage food is bad for your health, and what I think is that garbage food does NOT exist. What it actually DO exist are garbage diets. If you eat one bag of chips every now and then, nothing bad will happen to you. However if you eat one bag a day for 10 years, you will probably feel the effects."

So the bottom line is as usual, everything in moderation. I mean, the often used analogy is with water. You can't live without drinking it and yet you can certainly die if you drink too much of it.

Isn't this like an overdone debate? I mean, you can definitely start an alarmist attitude towards almost anything you can think of, no?

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