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Sugar Love

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61–66 of 66 posts

Re: Sugar Love

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Balanced diet? For the longest time, the FDA has claimed that a balanced diet includes 5-7 servings of rice and grains a day, 2 servings of fruits and veggies, 2 servings of protein, and a small amount of fat. That's one of the biggest problems here. What people have been taught is patently incorrect. It's a recipe for riding a blood sugar roller coaster. We teach our kids from an early age to eat sugary foods. We us…

"Parents getting educated" I think most of us know that sugar cereals are bad, sunnyd is fake and disgusting, and soda is poison. The problem is we just don't care. At least that's what it looks like. When you see an obese child whose parents are also obese and they're all happily consuming their favorite poisonous snack do you see that as an educational challenge? I see it more as a discipline problem.

Potentially a combination of things. Education and reinforcement, discipline, opportunities, etc. All would surely help. On the last item, at a servo (what an Australian generally calls a "gas station") soft drinks and energy drinks are often cheaper than water or promoted in two-for-one deals. They're also always at eye level, leaving milk and water on lower shelves of the display fridges.

When you reach the counter (and the same thing happens near supermarket checkouts), there is literally shelving with hundreds of chocolate bars between you and the attendant.

And this is where you're filling the car that enables you to avoid walking a distance instead.

Another opportunity example is fast food. The 24-hour shops will be Hungry Jacks (Burger King in AU), McDonalds and so on, or servos. Supermarkets will generally have shut by 9pm.

Re: Sugar Love

#63

As far back as 1675, when western Europe was experiencing its first sugar boom, Thomas Willis, a physician and founding member of Britain’s Royal Society, noted that the urine of people afflicted with diabetes tasted “wonderfully sweet, as if it were imbued with honey or sugar.” Just to point out, the high concentration of glucose in urine of diabetics is the result of the disease. A healthy person who just happened…

Correction: both type 1 and type 2 diabetes have genetic risk factors. In fact, genetic factors are stronger with Type 1. I would expect to see subtype categories filter out into the mainstream in the next generation or so, as the explosion of diabetes in the developed world carries discussions of it out into the wider population. The current primary differentiator between Type 1 and 2 is Type 1 is an autoimmune disorder, while Type 2 is an insulin resistance disorder.

Re: Sugar Love

#64
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole gluten free kick fries my brains. It exists because some people have an actual problem with gluten, but lots of people have jumped on the bandwagon since if it's on the label it must be for general health reasons. (Where are the "nut-free" folks? How about the folks that only eat things labelled "New and Improved?") Actual gluten issues have existed for a while -- I found a cookbook for those with Celiac di…

While you may find it annoying, the upside of this is awareness. More people are aware of gluten intolerance than ever before, and for people with celiac's and serious gluten intolerance, life is now much easier.

As many things, this is now a double-edge sword. As gluten-free is getting mixed signals as a fad diet and as a serious medical condition. For celiac's it's in their interest that it be viewed as a serious condition, that could be life threatening.

I've come across accounts of celiacs who are concerned that the rise of gluten-free options while expanding their menu options, has also raised their level of anxiety. Because some places might just be trying to adapt to a fad diet, but aren't taking enough precautions to avoid food cross-contamination, such as re-utilizing utensils to cook "gluten free" foods.

I think part of the concern is that "gluten intolerance" as a serious medical condition is getting overshadowed by the flaky diet mumbo jumbo.

Re: Sugar Love

#65
post #55
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://nipccreport.org/ Note that "denialist" is a very broad (not to say loaded) term. A better term would be: skeptical of the claimed "consensus" that we need to drastically reduce CO2 emissions, even if the economic costs are huge, or else the planet is doomed.

I'm sorry, maybe I was unclear. I'm talking about peer-reviewed work (which the NIPCC stuff is not) that is being trumpeted by people who are, like, not being funded by a libertarian think tank. I mean, NIPCC is bankrolled by the Heartland Institute (a Cato-alike wishcasting group) and two advocacy groups that won't reveal their funding, one of which was headed by Fred Singer (who to this day is trying desperately to…

NIPCC is bankrolled by

University of East Anglia emails are actually a thing

So we're supposed to disregard one group's arguments because of some perceived bias, but look the other way when "our team" is guilty of unprofessional, unscientific behavior.

This is exactly the kind of special pleading political advocacy that is a disaster for good science.

Re: Sugar Love

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The glycemic index is a totally broken concept. Your body and tissues are made to happily work with surges of insulin and there is absolutely nothing problematic about that. From a weight loss perspective sugars, such as in fruit juice, are superior to starches for two reasons. The fructose is thermogenic and raises base metabolic rate. Secondly, starches tend to reach lower lengths of the intestine undigested where…

You're reccomending a high sugar diet for weight loss. Yet its nutritional value is nil. How does it benefit? Low starch, high sugar, low fat, decent protein sounds like a diet that would be improved by omitting the sugar.

That diet would be low in everything except protein. Of course, in theory, that would be better for weight loss. But the question is whether or not that is really sustainable, which is especially important for a long term goal.

IIRC, although your body can run on just the glucose it gets by breaking down fat, it is less efficient. In my own experience this shows up as a negative effect on mood -- which makes me more likely to want to eat (and binge).

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