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Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

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Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#51
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In strong democracies, regulations provide the incentive.

..and you think those work?

If you do regulate. We currently have full regulatory capture in most industries and regulators that are doing their jobs are either hamstrung or the laws are so far behind the industries that they can’t or won’t work.

The key to proper regulation is to keep money and influence from pooling at the top, making it difficult for any single person to buy enough influence.

As it is, we have a dozen monopolies that should be broken up that are making a small section of the population so rich they are essentially above laws.

But, proper regulation can exist if people want it, and more specifically in the case of the USA, legislators want it. Unfortunately, Dems actively prevent it, and republicans are ripping it down, so the rest of us are kinda fucked.

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#52
post #12

When this news first came out it was mind blowing, but at the same time I don't entirely get it. So the money quote seems to be: > The literature review heavily criticized studies linking sucrose to heart disease, while ignoring limitations of studies investigating dietary fats. They paid a total of 2 people $50,000 (edit: in 2016 dollars). That doesn't seem like enough to entirely shape worldwide discourse around nu…

You’re exactly right: This one incident did not shape the entire body of scientific research.

There is a common trick used in contrarian argumentation where a single flaw is used to “debunk” an entire side of the debate. The next step, often implied rather than explicit, is to push the reader into assuming that the opposite position must therefore be the correct one. They don’t want you to apply the same level of rigor and introspection to the opposite side, though.

In the sugar versus saturated fat debate, this incident is used as the lure to get people to blame sugar as the root cause. There is a push to make saturated fat viewed as not only neutral, but healthy and good for you. Yet if you apply the same standards of rigor and inspection of the evidence, excess sugar and excess saturated fat are both not good for you.

There is another fallacy in play where people pushing these debates want you to think that there is only one single cause of CVD or health issues: Either sugar, carbs, fat, or something else. The game they play is to point the finger at one thing and imply that it gets the other thing off the hook. Don’t fall for this game.

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#53
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which are crafted by individuals with strong financial ties to the meat, dairy, or egg industries, thus should be disregarded by any reasonable person.

Then I would think the meat, dairy, and egg industry didn't get their money's worth. The My Plate guidelines have protein as less than 25% of the plate, and nothing says it has to be animal based.

The Court has actually ruled that the USDA violated federal law by hiding conflicts of interest in the Dietary Guidelines.

It is beyond insane that these are the official guidelines on what Americans should eat. Why would anyone defend them?

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#55
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is beyond me how anyone can expect any business (especially public traded) to have any ethics whatsoever.

They’re out there. I find it more productive to search for and financially support such businesses, rather than adopt the doomer pessimistic anticapitalism take. For example I just bought a Concept2 RowErg rowing machine. They sell literally every piece and part on their website so it’s end user repairable. The metrics integrate with a ton of apps, so you’re not locked into their app/ecosystem and there’s no subscrip…

>I find it more productive to search for and financially support such businesses, rather than adopt the doomer pessimistic anticapitalism take...

But sadly, many order of magnitude more people would like to just make more money when invest. Which is why..

>Unfortunately a lot of these honest businesses are one generation away from potentially selling out everything the founders built,

> rather than adopt the doomer pessimistic anticapitalism take...

Capitalism does not imply public trading. Capitalism can work even when companies re-invest parts of their profits.

Oh no, that would be too slow. We want Speeeed...even if that means a quick descent into certain doom.

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#56

A casual look at where people live the oldest, what they eat, and what's recommended tell you all you need to know about food recommendations then and now. It's a field where actual long term controlled experiments are impossible, confounding variables are everywhere, and multiple lobbies have vested interests in the outcomes. I take everything with a grain of salt apart from studies of harm when sources are credible…

> The only current advice I follow is avoiding industrially processed food.

It is also surprisingly hard in practice. There are so many foods that on the label are supposed to be whole foods or low processed but then when you read the ingredients do you realize you've been bamboozeld.

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#57
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then I would think the meat, dairy, and egg industry didn't get their money's worth. The My Plate guidelines have protein as less than 25% of the plate, and nothing says it has to be animal based.

The Court has actually ruled that the USDA violated federal law by hiding conflicts of interest in the Dietary Guidelines. It is beyond insane that these are the official guidelines on what Americans should eat. Why would anyone defend them?

What do you find disagreeable about the My Plate that was linked?

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but do you trust Big Butcher?

Not when so much meat has sugar added to it.

Sugar makes an excellent spice, not a primary ingredient. It's really useful for grilling for instance.

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#60
This is on HNs homepage because it confirms what we want to believe about our favorite foods: saturated fat = bad is just a sugar industry psy-op!

But notice how "Sugar industry blames [saturated] fat for CVD" doesn't mean it's good for you. Their motive is to sell you sugar.

Just like finding evidence of the meat/dairy industry sowing FUD on saturated fat doesn't mean it's bad for you. Their motive is to sell you saturated fat.

We should instead look at our best converging contemporary evidence on how saturated fat impacts human heath outcomes, not wank off to blog posts like this.

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