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Processed food drives diet-related diseases

3 points by LinuxBender 5y ago

throwaway29303 5y ago
CNN: You suggest that the food industry has altered the food we eat, knowing it can kill us. Really? Dr. Robert Lustig: Really. The food industry knows that when they concentrate sugar, it becomes addictive. The more sugar you add to processed food, the more addictive it becomes. They also know that when they concentrate sugar, it causes liver fat, which leads to insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and death. They do it anyway. CNN: Doesn't the quantity of sugar we eat play a role? Lustig: Yes, if you could modify the quantity. But you can't, not with addictive substances. That's why they are addictive. It's the same thing with all hedonic substances like cocaine, nicotine and heroin. When someone says, "I have a horrible sweet tooth," that is sugar addiction. Do you really think people can moderate their food intake when the food has been engineered to do the exact opposite? ... Like I said previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25571660 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25571660 I'll concede that, sure, this is going to take some time but it'll surely going to happen once the addiction is kicked to the curb or if sugar is becoming unbearable to any country's NHS (or equivalent to those who don't have such privilege).
jfengel 5y ago
Or more to the point, it's Robert Lustig flacking his "sugar is toxic and addictive" theory. So the headline is almost more informative than the article. It's all heavily driven by Lustig's "sugar is as bad as heroin" thing, which seems to me the same kind of counterproductive as a lot of anti-drug messaging. We should all eat less heavily-concentrated foods that make it easy to eat too much, and are both very tasty and readily available. You shouldn't need to exaggerate the dangers -- and it's definitely disturbing that people still don't follow what's really very simple advice. In a sense that makes it all very timely. Right now we're watching a similar conflict play out where people are fighting against doing the right thing, often citing mixed messaging on the details while completely missing very simple and obvious things. We see the difficulty in reaching out to both people who demand "the absolute, fully complex truth" before believing any of it AND people who are prone to falling for obfuscations no matter how simple you make the advice.

3 points by LinuxBender 5y ago

CNN: You suggest that the food industry has altered the food we eat, knowing it can kill us. Really? Dr. Robert Lustig: Really. The food industry knows that when they concentrate sugar, it becomes addictive. The more sugar you add to processed food, the more addictive it becomes. They also know that when they concentrate sugar, it causes liver fat, which leads to insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and death. They do it anyway. CNN: Doesn't the quantity of sugar we eat play a role? Lustig: Yes, if you could modify the quantity. But you can't, not with addictive substances. That's why they are addictive. It's the same thing with all hedonic substances like cocaine, nicotine and heroin. When someone says, "I have a horrible sweet tooth," that is sugar addiction. Do you really think people can moderate their food intake when the food has been engineered to do the exact opposite? ... Like I said previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25571660 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25571660 I'll concede that, sure, this is going to take some time but it'll surely going to happen once the addiction is kicked to the curb or if sugar is becoming unbearable to any country's NHS (or equivalent to those who don't have such privilege).

jfengel 5y ago

Or more to the point, it's Robert Lustig flacking his "sugar is toxic and addictive" theory. So the headline is almost more informative than the article. It's all heavily driven by Lustig's "sugar is as bad as heroin" thing, which seems to me the same kind of counterproductive as a lot of anti-drug messaging. We should all eat less heavily-concentrated foods that make it easy to eat too much, and are both very tasty and readily available. You shouldn't need to exaggerate the dangers -- and it's definitely disturbing that people still don't follow what's really very simple advice. In a sense that makes it all very timely. Right now we're watching a similar conflict play out where people are fighting against doing the right thing, often citing mixed messaging on the details while completely missing very simple and obvious things. We see the difficulty in reaching out to both people who demand "the absolute, fully complex truth" before believing any of it AND people who are prone to falling for obfuscations no matter how simple you make the advice.