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Eggs Don’t Cause Heart Attacks – Sugar Does
- saynsedit 10y agoEggs don't kill humans, but they kill an ungodly amount of chickens: 8 Billion of them per year, roughly. http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/PoulSlauSu/PoulSlauSu-02-25-2016.txt http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/PoulSlauSu/Poul...
- ryandvm 10y agoHow does eating unfertilized eggs kill chickens? What am I missing?
- saynsedit 10y agoThe male chicks that are incidentally born in the egg industry are usually ground up alive or gassed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_culling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_culling http://youtu.be/IOZEP9AGxrw http://youtu.be/IOZEP9AGxrw The scale is literally 8 billion.
- superswordfish 10y ago> Most of us don’t know that a serving of tomato sauce has more sugar than a serving of Oreo cookies Most store-bought jar sauce has sugar in it (and tastes gross). You can absolutely make sauce that doesn't have sugar in it, and some of the nicer jar sauces are that way also. > or that fruit yogurt has more sugar than a Coke Again, maybe if it's Dannon, but you can also buy plain yogurt and put fruit in it. Sweeten to taste. > or that most breakfast cereals — even those made with whole grain — are 75 percent sugar Maybe Post/General Mills sugar cereals, but again it's not that hard to find cereal with low sugar content. This article argues that the problem is solved with regulation, but a lot of what we eat is influenced by government subsidy (i.e. corn/corn syrup), which makes many of the unhealthiest foods inexpensive. The article makes it sound like all processed food is loaded with sugar and that grocery shopping is dangerous. That may be true of "food deserts" but it isn't generally true. The nutrition facts are already there. If somebody can't be bothered to see that whatever they are eating has 30g of sugar per serving, what can you really do about it?
- bigredhdl 10y agoI'm always surprised how hard it is to get artificially sweetened yogurt. I know of only one brand at only one chain of grocery store in my area. It seems like a natural combination.
- hammock 10y agoLook for Dannon Oikos Triple Zero next time (black packaging). It's sugar free and sweetened with stevia.
- Aeolos 10y agoBut why would you want to sweeten your yoghurt? Milk has enough sugars on its own.
- forgotpwagain 10y agoI agree! I wonder if there's a substantial overlap between the set of people who buy yogurt frequently and the set of people who are averse to ~artificial chemicals~ in their food (tildes denoting a bit of sarcasm at chemophobia).
- michaelmior 10y agoI'm always surprised how hard it is to get completely unsweetened yogurt (natural or artificial). The only brands I've seen locally are "organic" yogurts with a hefty price tag.
- maxerickson 10y agoIME most of the plain varieties lack added sugar. There's still plenty of sugar from the milk. I've been eating whole fat greek style US yogurt lately. It tends to have less sugar than other plain yogurts and I am less inclined to add it.
- pacaro 10y agoI have no idea about the economics, but making your own yogurt is extremely easy. You get rather more control of the contents at that point. Fresh yogurt is also naturally sweeter
- anexprogrammer 10y agoIt's been some years since I was in the US, so maybe it's not as bad as it was, but the hidden sugar in bread was the one that always astonished. US bread tastes, to me, more like cake and frankly ruins the chance of a good sandwich.
- maxerickson 10y agoIt depends on which bread you buy. The lightest sandwich breads that are made in regional commercial bakeries tend to have quite a bit of sugar. The bread from the store bakery might not have any. Bread from fancier bakeries will depend on what style of bread it is.
- _greim_ 10y agoI wonder if it's a situation in which parents struggling to get kids to just eat your damn food have created market forces that have gradually pushed mainstream bread to suit the preferences of children. We parents (at least in the US) often compromise on food for the sake of our kids, and it seems plausible that collectively we've unconsciously adapted our preferences to match our children, and so lost our taste for truly wholesome bread.
- kdamken 10y agoIt's not. I recommend watching the documentary Fed Up on Netflix, it help explains how we got to this state.
- gtrubetskoy 10y agoSomething I didn't know until recently when I started reading about Dave Asprey's Bulletproof Coffee (fully expecting it to be bogus initially) is that surprisingly cells have an alternative source of energy, ketones instead of glucose (sugar), and that in the olden days when food was not as abundant, our bodies spent a fair amount of time in ketosis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketosis), a metabolic state where the body breaks down fats to produce ketones as fuel for cells. (Not to be confused with ketoacidosis, which is bad). It seems plausible to me that since WW2 in developed countries where food and especially sugar became commonplace, a whole set of diseases, coronary, metabolic ones such as diabetes, obesity, possibly cancer, possibly Alzheimer's are all related to us not spending enough time in ketosis.
- djrogers 10y agoJust because the guy knows what a ketone is doesn't mean his coffee isn't bogus...
- acconrad 10y agoDave Asprey is a bullshitter. He's trying to sell you expensive, high-calorie coffee. No matter what you eat, if you eat too many calories, that is also bad for you. Ketosis can also raise your resting blood sugar levels to prediabetic states, I have observed it myself in my own blood tests after trying it for nearly 6 months. Moderate carb (low GI, low GL variety), protein and fats from whole, unprocessed foods, will always win out over fad diets like paleo, keto, zone, or anything else that pops up.
- pigpaws 10y agoactually, all it takes is high fat butter in your regular coffee (while taking the sugar out). You don't have to buy anything from him. Also, excess protein turns into sugar, so if ketones are raising your resting blood sugar, you may have another underlying metabolic or pancreatic issue.
- Shorel 10y agoWhat's moderate carbs for you? 30% 10% 5%? Keto simply considers 30% of calories from carbs too high, while otherwise agreeing with your 'will always win' diet. I don't get why you seem so angry while being fundamentally in agreement with what you call 'fad diets'.
- ars 10y agoOnce thing I would really like to know is if it's Fructose or Glucose (or both) that causes the problem. Studies usually look at "sugar" in general without specifying which one. Based on some reading I've done it seems to me that sugars other than Glucose are the problem and switching to Glucose would let us have sweet food with less of a health problem.
- vox_mollis 10y agoFructose is linked to liver problems, and also creates far more glycation end-products than glucose (which could very well be part of the atherosclerosis explanation). One problem is that glucose without fructose really doesn't taste very good at all. One option might be replacing sugars entirely with sugar alcohols with low intestinal distress, like erythritol. Of course, we could always work to become a less decadent society, but that won't happen.
- mrob 10y agoGlucose without fructose tastes perfectly acceptable. It's as flavorless as any simple sugar. It's about 0.75 times as sweet as sucrose. The mouth-feel is slightly different but still pleasant.
- ddebernardy 10y agoFructose, if this video by Lustic is anything to go by: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
- daxelrod 10y agoAs with most nutrition topics, it's more complex than that. There's evidence that fructose consumed as part of fresh fruits doesn't affect the body the same way as fructose added to other foods, or even the same way that fruit juice does. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/making-the-case-for-eating-fruit/ http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/making-the-case-for...
- eco 10y agoOne problem is that it requires about 33% more glucose to match the sweetness of sucrose and 126% more glucose to match the sweetness of fructose. Glucose has a much higher effect on insulin levels and glycemic load which makes it a harder problem for diabetics. Fructose, on the other hand, has all the issues described in the Dr. Lustig video linked in another reply. I just avoid anything with a lot of any type of sugar (more than a few grams per serving) as much as I can.
- mrob 10y agoNo breakfast cereals are 75% sugar. The USDA Nutrient Database allows you to list breakfast cereals by sugar: https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/nutrients/report/nutrientsfrm?max=25&offset=0&totCount=0&nutrient1=269&nutrient2=&nutrient3=&subset=0&fg=8&sort=c&measureby=g https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/nutrients/report/nutrientsfrm?m... The most sugary breakfast cereal is only 56% sugar. The database doesn't list every breakfast cereal sold, but it includes all the popular ones, and it's implausible that any could be so much more sugary than those included to be 75%. Even a cereal where sugar is the main selling point (Kellogg's Frosted Flakes) is only 35% sugar.
- ihsw 10y agoDoes that include sugar substitutes, aka sweeteners?
- eco 10y agoSugar substitutes are generally hundreds of times sweeter than the sugar they replace so they wouldn't even be a blip on the composition by mass. This is why cans of diet coke float in water but cans of regular coke sink.
- hughes 10y ago75% sucralose sounds horrid. I can't imagine anyone would want to eat a bowlful of Splenda for breakfast.
- mrob 10y agoFrom the documentation: "Total sugars is the term used for the sum of the individual monosaccharides (galactose, glucose, and fructose) and disaccharides (sucrose, lactose, and maltose)." http://www.ars.usda.gov/sp2UserFiles/Place/80400525/Data/SR/SR28/sr28_doc.pdf http://www.ars.usda.gov/sp2UserFiles/Place/80400525/Data/SR/...
- BarkingChicken 10y agoFroot Loops have 25.3g of net digestible carbs (total carbs minus fiber) per 30g serving. That's 84%. http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/breakfast-cereals/1532/2 http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/breakfast-cereals/1532/2 I'm fairly certain your link only includes added sugars which is not the total number of digestible sugars (digestible carbs = digestible sugars). Unfortunately, most people have the misconception that carbs from "natural sources" (fruits, starches, grains, etc.) don't effect your blood sugar the same as added sugars, but that is incorrect.
- qaid 10y agoWhat always surprises me is that many obese people don't seem to actually eat that much more than me. I believe it's their addiction to sodas, microwaved meals, and basically never eating anything that's fresh. I have an obese friend who grew up watching a lot of TV (especially sports) and when he was a kid, he believed that in order to become a famous athlete like the people on the TV screen, one should drink a lot of soda. Growing up, I've watched a lot of cereal commercials too. They all have a memorable theme, and they try to convince the kids that it's both tasty and full of vitamins and so it's good for your body. But I was so addicted to the sugar in them -- there was a time in high school where I was sometimes eating a full box of cereal a day. I feel sad that Mexico can ban junk-food commercials, make sodas more expensive by taxing them, and ban sugar-related goods in schools and we cannot. We should be doing the same things in the States too, and we should give the children a proper education about nutrition early on.
- frogpelt 10y ago"In my new book, The Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet, which will be released on February 25, I provide an..." blah blah blah blah. Sugar is poisonous/toxic/carcinogenic and if you buy Dr. Mark Hyman's book he will give you all of the keys to unlock 200-year life expectancy.
- zardo 10y agoAlso, saturated fat and cholesterol are no longer risk factors for CVD and fatty liver disease, so he will free you to eat an egg based diet!
- emeraldd 10y agoWhy was this flagged? I see it as very relevant to people in the startup world ...
- upofadown 10y agoProbably because it is basically an ad for a diet book...
- azdle 10y agoIt's still a well-cited article. If HN banned articles that end with an ad blurb, 3/4 of the content that makes the front page would violate that rule.
- maskull 10y agoIf I eat a bowl of cereal, even unsweetened, I am ravenous and unproductive 2 hours later. On the other hand if I have 4-5 eggs or tin of sardines I'm good for 4-5 hours.
- upofadown 10y ago>This study of more than 40,000 people, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, accounted for all other potential risk factors including total calories, overall diet quality, smoking, cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity and alcohol. How can a study that ignores physical activity possibly discover anything significant about heart disease?
- chrisdbaldwin 10y agoPerhaps the fuel matters more than running the engine.
- DiabloD3 10y agoNot often I see something flagged off the front page, but given how badly written that article is, I can see why.
- zaroth 10y agoA bit breathless for my taste; "Just one 20-ounce soda increases your risk of a heart attack by about 30 percent." How did that sentence survive editing? Is that per hour, per day? I assume they are trying to say '65g of added sugar to your daily intake' -- note the recommended daily intake is about 35g of added sugar. As mentioned in TFA, this brings up an interesting bug in our nutritional labeling. Sugars are grouped under carbs for calculating the percent of recommended daily intake, and there's no differentiation between natural and added sugar. So 39g of sugar in a can of coke shows up as "13%" instead of "111%". Fixing the label would be a good first step...
- irrational 10y agoAs I sit here eating some Stroopwafels and reading this.
- themartorana 10y agoI would risk a heart attack for stroopwafels. I love Amsterdam, but I go back for the stroopwafels.