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Reducing sugar in packaged foods can prevent disease in millions
- guerrilla 5y agoBut if sugar is addictive, as it seems it is, this would cost a significant fraction of annual revenue to food producers, so there's no way they'd do it. Even if it's not literally addictive, it's clearly attractive and they'd take a big hit.
- EamonnMR 5y agoWhat baffles me is that artificial sweeteners exist and yet there is enough (imo) unfounded FUD about them that leads people to instead choose Sugar or Nothing (which inevitably translates to Sugar because of the pseudo-addictiveness you mention.) Is wireheading bad? Maybe, but if I'm going to be doing it either way I'd rather reduce the harm.
- theshrike79 5y agoArtificial sweeteners in soda (Aspartame and Asesulfame K) make me fart out stuff that smells so bad that it should be banned by the Geneva convention. But weirdly it somehow depends on the ratio of the ingredients. Some brands I can handle, others I can never partake in (Pepsi MAX being the worst offender).
- yellow_lead 5y agoWell, they also taste pretty bad to some people.
- sjf 5y agoI am one of those people. If even sip something with stevia in it I am going to be trying to get the taste out of mouth for hours. It makes me want to scrap my tongue off. It was truly the worst thing I have ever consumed. It has only happened a couple of times, now I am literally traumatized and check the ingredients on anything that is likely to have it. For context, I am not a picky eater, there are things I don't like, but this is on a whole other level.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoThere are many others on the market now besides stevia. If added sugar is important to you, try the others because they all taste a little different. There’s also just plain maple syrup which is better than using pure sugar.
- phonypc 5y ago>There’s also just plain maple syrup which is better than using pure sugar. How do you figure? It's practically pure sucrose, just like table sugar.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoTable sugar has a glycemic index of 65. Maple sugar's is 54. Not a huge difference but if sweeteners are important to you, maybe every bit counts.
- phonypc 5y agoThe same reasoning would imply pure fructose is a better option. Or that eating a potato is worse.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoDepending on quantities, you are correct. Glycemic index and quantity tell you how the food affects your blood sugar levels. Whether or not you’re diabetic, keeping blood sugar levels low is important to health.
- yellow_lead 5y agoIt's pretty gross IMO too. Especially in carbonated waters or seltzers.
- postalrat 5y agoDo you avoid eating any sugar?
- EamonnMR 5y agoI'm not super strict about it but when given the choice yeah I go for the substitutes.
- ogma 5y agoInsanity, carbohydrates are nothing to fear. Any serious athlete could tell you that. Just make fruits and vegetables the core of your diet... I even eat chocolate, palm / cane / brown sugar, pastries, etc. fairly often and I could easily pass for one of those guys on a Men's Health cover.
- sandworm101 5y agoThe switch to sugar alternatives is already happening. https://www.marketingweek.com/diet-coke-sales-overtake- https://www.marketingweek.com/diet-coke-sales-overtake- classic-coca-cola/ "Compare this to the week before, when Diet Coke sales were at £10.4m and classic Coca-Cola £10.65m. The data shows Coca-Cola value sales were higher than Diet Coke every week for the past year until the brand overhaul and subsequent introduction of the sugar tax. Since then they have diverged with Diet Coke sales increasing at a faster rate than classic Coke." [2018]
- cbhl 5y agoBeverages are interesting because there are now financial incentives to switch off of sweetened beverages: sweetened beverages are taxed higher in some municipalities (e.g. SF) and even banned in some school districts (e.g. PepsiCo has been selling Dasani and Bubly in some in-school vending machines instead).
- bcassedy 5y agoThose penalties must be really harsh if Pepsi is electing to sell Dasani, a Coca-Cola product.
- hn8788 5y agoI don't know how true it is, but one thing I've heard about artificial sweeteners is that your body thinks it's sugar, and will make your body feel hungrier because it expects it to have the same calories as regular sugar. I still prefer them because I hate the sticky feeling sugary products leave on my teeth, but I've talked to people who think artificial sweeteners are pointless from a calories-in/calories-out POV due to how your body reacts to them. For all I know that's completely made up though, they might have learned that from Dr. Oz or other daytime TV shows.
- caturopath 5y agoI'm pretty sure most of the "artificial sweeteners are evil" stuff is just moral panic to how they seem like cheating. It seems so unbelievable that any of them are especially bad for you or your habits, especially when compared to sugar.
- nn3 5y agoSo you're saying that all the papers on this made up their data?
- caturopath 5y agoNo, if there was a preponderance of scientific evidence, I'd accept it of course, but the alternative sweetener story isn't like that. There are papers out there on almost any topic with all sorts of results, many of which don't generalize, don't transfer, don't reproduce, or otherwise don't have the meaning they might point to if you guessed the implications.
- crdrost 5y agoIt's bigger than that. So first off, just about all of these artificial sweeteners are like 200x sweeter than sugar or higher. This kind of means that you have high amplification which comes with distortion—artificial sweeteners do not taste like the real thing. So those chemical aftertastes are probably the biggest contributors to skepticism. Second, the most common artificial sweetener right now is aspartame, and it is kinda nasty stuff. Don't take my word for it, drink a Diet Coke that's about 1 week before expiration and see if you can stomach it—it's foul. That foulness is the metabolites of aspartame, I want to say one of them is formaldehyde? They are pretty nasty and you do produce them after drinking a Diet Coke, they appear in urine afterwards. The aspartame also bears a cryptic warning for people with phenylketonuria, and it might legit make consumers feel worse, as in reduce their serotonin and dopamine and make them more irritable. The only silver lining on this cloud is that because this stuff is 200 times sweeter than sugar, you actually only get a very low dosage per each individual beverage. Because of that very low dosage, we are thankfully not seeing huge epidemiological problems from it yet. But yeah, a combination of nothing tasting right and the poster-child being awful is a decent recipe for conspiracy theories.
- wpietri 5y agoI used to be a regular Diet Coke consumer. I used to get frequent migraines. A doctor suggested that might be related. I quit drinking them and sure enough, the migraines became way less frequent. Seems like only 2% of people have this problem with aspartame [1], but some of the fear is definitely justified. Maybe that's the only neurological effect it has, but I can see why some people pick sugar or nothing. [1] https://www.uchealth.com/articles/sweeteners-headaches-and-the-unpredictability-of-triggers/ https://www.uchealth.com/articles/sweeteners-headaches-and-t...
- EamonnMR 5y agoThere are many alternative sweeteners to aspartame fortunately. Sucralose is my go-to personally.
- worik 5y agoArtificial sweeteners are not getting to the root of the problem. What people expect their food to taste like. Why not dial back on the sweetness? Is it really that addictive? Why not drink water rather than cans of genuine or artificial sugar water. FUD, sure. Personally I am uneasy about tricking my body that it is getting sugar when it is not. I am not waiting for scientific evidence. The hippies were right. Eat food. Mostly plants. As close to raw as practical and tasty. If your great grand mother would not recognise it, it is not food.
- EamonnMR 5y agoI personally do drink water instead of soda usually and definitely endorse that idea.
- MandieD 5y agoAfter college, I started gaining weight (like many Americans), so I switched to using Splenda (sucralose/E955) in my coffee. Taste was fine, “after effects” were not. Pity, because I liked the taste a lot better than other artificial sweeteners.
- chithanh 5y ago> I'd rather reduce the harm The fact that artificial sweeteners are used as animal feed additive in order to increase body mass should give you enough to think what happens if we add it randomly to human food. Yes, artifical sweeteners can be a good replacement for sugar, but things that shouldn't contain sugar in the first place should probably not contain artificial sweeteners either.
- inglor_cz 5y agoI had many unpleasant experiences with zero calorie sodas, especially if I started to consume them regularly. Belching, farting, reflux etc. Those always went away when I stopped. (I do not drink sugary sodas at all.) So it wasn't as surprising for me to learn that there are suspicions that artificial sweeteners may alter gut biome. There isn't any consensus yet, but my N==1 seems to agree with the suspicion. I am generally fairly sensitive to gut biome changes, even a few weeks on a different probiotics might change e.g. my sensitivity to milk. https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/22/10/5228 https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/22/10/5228 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8156656/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8156656/ https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13793 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13793
- acchow 5y agoGovernment can pass laws
- guerrilla 5y agoProbably not so easily against a set of lobbies that includes some of the most powerful there are: agriculture, food and health insurance.
- ogma 5y agoWe handle this by incarcerating all of the lobbyists, politicians, and other traitors engaged in regulatory capture, who have compromised our public health and national security. Is this your argument for everything? There are lobbyists, therefore let's do nothing? I hope you support ending this sort of legalized corruption in general then.
- bpodgursky 5y agoYou don't need lobbyists to explain this. Even in super-progressive SF and Seattle, there's immense popular resistance to a sugar tax on bottled drinks. The people like sugar, and the people are democracy.
- inetknght 5y ago> Even if it's not literally addictive Except that some research suggests that it is: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/
- domenici2000 5y agoYes, but we are effectively subsidizing them with increased health care costs due to type 2 diabetes and other illnesses.
- wpietri 5y agoThat's absolutely the problem. The current equilibrium is the results of an arms race. If any one manufacturer just cut sweetening by 50%, they'd be be screwed. We'd have to do it all together to reset everybody's tastes, and that's unlikely to happen. It's a similar dynamic to advertising. In theory, advertisements give us new information about products. In practice, the biggest spenders are companies you've heard of pushing products you're familiar with. Approximately everybody on the planet knows what a Coke takes like but they spend $4 billion per year, or about 10% of annual revenue. Would consumers like it to be 10% cheaper? sure. Would Coca Cola Inc like $4 billion extra in profits? Most definitely. But they have to advertise because their competitors advertise, so we're all stuck in a wasteful equilibrium.
- dukeofdoom 5y agoSugar Mandate next?
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoThe nice thing about reducing sugar is that after a while your taste buds realize how insanely over-sweetened many products are in the US. My current favorite example is bottled teas. When I was a kid I remember drinking Snapple, now I can't understand how I ever downed that stuff, it's like drinking syrup. If I'm lazy I'll get a bottle of unsweetened tea and mix it about 4-1 with sweetened tea. I get something that has a pleasant, natural, gently sweet taste, and even if I drink 3 of these a day I'm still getting a lot less sugar than a single glass of fully sweetened tea.
- windexh8er 5y agoThis. I abstain from all sugar a few times a year for at least a week. I can't drink soda in any form anymore, it all tastes like syrup at this point. I have no cravings for it at all. But continually breaking the sugar cycle helps me realize how off things taste being overloaded with sugar. There's plenty of research showcasing how addictive sugar can be and since there's no health value to consuming it there's no downside to minimizing it.
- betwixthewires 5y agoSugar is a dangerous drug masquerading as a macronutrient. It is probably as dangerous as cigarettes and alcohol, and more deleterious to you health (although not as acutely dangerous) than hard drugs like opiates and amphetamines.
- o10449366 5y agoYep. Cereals, fruit juices, mainstream coffee (Starbucks, Dunkin, etc.), yogurt, baked goods... It's insane to me that society in the US has been conditioned to consume literally hundreds of grams of sugar for breakfast. If you need caffeine (which is a separate discussion), you don't need to consume what's essentially a frozen milkshake as the delivery vehicle.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago> yogurt I don’t think unflavored yogurt has much sugar, does it?
- DoreenMichele 5y agoIn theory. But sugar is a pain killer. Makes me wonder why it's so popular and what would really need to happen to effectively make such changes.
- imtringued 5y agoAre you implying the food industry is abusing depression to sell its products?
- DoreenMichele 5y agoNope.
- josh_today 5y agoSounds like a sugar epidemic. Why are these ingredients not banned?
- theshrike79 5y agoBecause the US produces WAY too much corn. Like insane amounts of corn. And to make use of all that production, they make sugar out of it. High-fructose corn syrup to be exact. And then they put it EVERYWHERE because it's so cheap - because of the overproduction.
- 2muchcoffeeman 5y agoThese suggestions are very extreme: ban ingredients, use artificial sweeteners. What about America means that you can’t just use less sugar and eat less sugar? Plenty of other countries don’t have this problem.
- paulryanrogers 5y agoSugar companies paying for studies on the dangers of fat were a great distraction. Nowadays high sugar content is ingrained in the culture. Some other countries are also increasing their sugar intake. Soda companies in particular drive this phenomenon.
- foerbert 5y agoIf you're willing and able to make everything from scratch, nothing. But if you're not, or can't... well. Simple lack of availability will be a major hurdle.
- chithanh 5y agoPlenty of countries have this problem. WHO recommends a "sugar tax", to decrease market viability of products that are high in added sugar. https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/260253 https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/260253 Whether artificial sweeteners are the answer is less clear, given lack of evidence that increased use of artificial sweeteners leads to reduced sugar consumption.
- deleted 5y ago
- phonypc 5y agoEh. Sure, maybe you'd see these results if people actually reduced their total consumption. Would just cutting it in packaged foods and beverages actually accomplish that though?
- nimbius 5y agoAmerican here. I generally stick to a vegan/vegetarian diet to try and work on my "numbers" from our company healthcare bio-screening. My woke moment was when I was told exactly how much sugar is in a teaspoon. 4 grams. After that day I started seeing just how criminally insane some food products were and just how far most companies go to make sure you dont accidentally find out how much refined sugar you eat. tricks like changing portion sizes displayed to per-serving instead of per-package, or hiding behind vegetables and smoothie jargon for drinks to pass off a third cup of sugar as somehow healthy. 4 grams is a teaspoon. 3 teaspoons is a tablespoon. 4 tablespoons is a quarter cup. EDIT: 3 teaspoons, is a tablespoon apparently.
- caturopath 5y ago3 teaspoons is a tablespoon.
- candiddevmike 5y agoIt would be interesting to plot the amount of sugar added to various food staples over the years.
- lemming 5y agoAt my dentist growing up, they used to have little plastic bags stapled to the wall labelled with the product that that amount of sugar came from. A can of Coke has a pretty big bag of sugar in it, as does a glass of orange juice. It's amazing seeing it visualised like that.
- chadcmulligan 5y agothese are US measures. Metric 5ml is a teaspoon, 20ml a tablespoon. In case anyone else was confused like me.
- skoob 5y agoI'm assuming you're Australian. In the rest of the world, a tablespoon is 15ml.
- caturopath 5y agoAre claims that sugar consumption has been declining in the US for decades true? https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/heatlhyfoodamerica/pages/388/attachments/original/1509030949/sweetnerersGraph3.gif?1509030949 https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/heatlhyfoodamerica/pag...
- ck2 5y agoExcept in the United States that will never be done voluntarily by the manufacturers or most consumers, we just had two years now proving "freedumbs". The only "solution" is the cigarette model, all food now has an "added sugar" nutrition label, add a dollar to price for every added gram. Those dollars go towards health care fund for sugar based diseases. If you don't eat sugar-added foods, great for you and you don't pay for it. Just like the cigarette model (except goverments siphon cigarette taxes for everything except cancer/copd treatments). Manufacturers will then also make low or no sugar foods that cost way less because they don't have any taxes.
- sjwalter 5y agoIMO this is attacking it from the wrong angle. What I want is a change to insurance industry regulations to make it so fat people and sedentary people can start paying their fair way and not be subsidized by those of us who maintain their health. Could be done a number of ways. Life insurance already sometimes requires a physical at signup. Why not for health insurance too? Could also just be a discount. Could even, e.g., partner with Peloton--you work out 5 days a week? Actuarial table shows you're XX% cheaper to insure. If it's opt-in like that, all the healthy people will opt-in, and all the unhealthy people (NOT pre-existing conditions, just things within people's own power to control that some do well and others ignore--exercise and diet, primarily) will pay more. No need to tax the sugar, tax the actual impact, healthcare.
- lkuty 5y ago"to make it so fat people and sedentary people can start paying their fair way" You can make people pay for added sugar in the food but not for them being fat. That is discriminating. BTW you don't know if a fat person is in bad or good health based on her/his overall shape.
- fortran77 5y ago> BTW you don't know if a fat person is in bad or good health based on her/his overall shape If you are obese or overweight you are, by definition, not healthy.
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- asciimov 5y agoI usually keep to a low carb diet. Recently I had a burger from a local burger joint bun included. The entire time I’m eating this burger I keep thinking this is the best damn burger I’ve had in forever. I chalk it up to being hungry. At the end of the burger I had bite of bun left that was bare of toppings. I ate it and realized this white bread bun is so sweet it tastes more like cake than bread… no wonder I thought the burger tasted so good.
- nn3 5y agoThere was a story here about the Irish tax authority classifying Subway bread as a sweet, not as bread, due to the high sugar content. I think that's an accurate description of a lot of american breads. https://www.npr.org/2020/10/01/919189045/for-subway-a-ruling-not-so-sweet-irish-court-says-its-bread-isnt-bread https://www.npr.org/2020/10/01/919189045/for-subway-a-ruling... Usually when I buy bread in the bread isle i discard all that have added sugars. But it's been getting hard recently.
- C19is20 5y ago"Irish tax authority"..."bread isle".
- martinpw 5y ago> Usually when I buy bread in the bread isle i discard all that have added sugars. But it's been getting hard recently. Even companies that try to market their bread as healthy still add sugar but then try to imply that it is a "healthier" kind of sugar. I wrote to one about it and got this reply: Thank you for checking in with Dave's Killer Bread about the sweetness of our bread. We use sweeteners because we find that our DKB consumers prefer a bread that is sweetened. All of our varieties are sweetened with organic dried cane syrup So now I mostly make my own.
- BostonEnginerd 5y agoThat’s at least a pretty honest response.
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- ravenstine 5y ago> Product reformulation efforts have been shown to be successful in reducing other harmful nutrients, such as trans fats and sodium. Trans fats are harmful (well except some natural ones), but how can sodium be a harmful nutrient unless you have existing cardiovascular or renal issues? Seems like a strange statement.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoWhen I read things like this, I feel that a nutrition class should be required in US high school. Not a unit about nutrition during health class, but a full semester on nutrition. Salt (sodium) is terrible for blood pressure. Just search keywords “salt blood pressure”. And if you don’t know why high blood pressure is bad for you, that’s ok. Spend 2 minutes reading about it, that’s all you need.
- KingMachiavelli 5y agoSure but you have to already have high blood pressure for that to be an issue. It would take time and a diet very high in salt to cause high blood pressure alone.
- phonypc 5y agoGiven the qualifier "unless you have existing cardiovascular or renal issues" they probably understand the relation between sodium and blood pressure. (Dare I say understand it better than you?) Trans fats (more specifically partially hydrogenated vegetable oils) are understood to be harmful in any amount. Sodium is essential in some quantity and only harmful in excess. It really doesn't make sense to group them together as "harmful nutrients."
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago> only harmful in excess. Tell that to the American Heart Association: https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/sodium/sodium-and-salt https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-s... When there’s extra sodium in your bloodstream, it pulls water into your blood vessels, increasing the total amount (volume) of blood inside them. With more blood flowing through your blood vessels, blood pressure increases. It’s like turning up the water supply to a garden hose — the pressure in the hose increases as more water is blasted through it. Over time, high blood pressure may overstretch or injure the blood vessel walls and speed the build-up of gunky plaque that can block blood flow. The added pressure tires out the heart by forcing it to work harder to pump blood through the body. And the extra water in your body can lead to bloating and weight gain. High blood pressure is known as the “silent killer” because its symptoms are not always obvious. It’s one of the major risk factors for heart disease, the No. 1 killer worldwide. Almost no one gets a free pass. Ninety percent of American adults are expected to develop high blood pressure over their lifetimes. Did you know that sodium can affect your blood pressure even more dramatically if you’re sensitive to salt? Recent science explains that certain factors may influence how your blood pressure changes when you eat salt, such as: Age Weight Race/ethnicity Gender Some medical conditions (like diabetes or chronic kidney disease) Even if you don’t already have high blood pressure, eating less sodium can help blunt the rise in blood pressure that occurs with age. It can also reduce your risk of heart attack, heart failure, stroke, kidney disease, osteoporosis, stomach cancer and even headaches. https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-s https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-s...
- james4k 5y agoShould reduce sugars and oils. It seems that refined oils are just as damaging if not more than refined sugars.
- moneywoes 5y agoAny alternatives? I’m guessing olive oil is a good substitute?
- worik 5y agoBeef fat. Truly delicious and very cheap. Ahhh... But not in USA. It will be full of "get fatter" hormones(?) I am not sure organically grown beef fat is available, or as cheep. Where I live, where it is illegal to feed grow drugs to cattle, I do a lot of cooking with beef fat.
- andrewl 5y agoYou could try bison fat, although I believe bison are, on average, less fatty than other cattle. The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) forbids the use of hormones and antibiotics in farm-raised bison: Q: Can hormones and antibiotics be used in bison raising? A: Antibiotics and growth hormones are not given to bison. Source: https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and-preparation/meat/bison-farm-table https://www.fsis.usda.gov/food-safety/safe-food-handling-and...
- james4k 5y agoOlive oil is considered a better oil, but it doesn't mean you can have as much as you want. It's surprising what you can cook and still get good results without oil. Not that I don't ever use oil, but a lot of times it doesn't actually add much to the dish. Edit: You can for example saute veggies in water, maybe relying more on spices for flavor. And if you're really looking for some browning/charring, use dry heat from an oven or air fryer.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoFor cooking, try avocado oil (available in any grocery market these days), not olive oil.
- betwixthewires 5y agoI'd add salt to that. Americans consume way too much of these two ingredients. I cook some good stuff but I take it easy on the salt, it tastes better that way, and almost everyone that tries it says it needs more. I like sugar, I use a little bit in my coffee, tea, I like fruits and stuff. But I don't drink soda or eat pastries or candy (except in November). Knowing how much sugar I used to consume really baffles me, and when I see how much other people eat I am dumbfounded that I ever considered such a thing normal. It's like watching little kids smoke cigarettes for breakfast.
- paraph1n 5y agoHold on a second, the linked research is about sugar. I've seen a lot of similar studies suggesting sugar consumption is a problem. Is salt consumption also unhealthy? I was under the impression that it's not.
- betwixthewires 5y agoFrom what I understand excess consumption causes increase in blood pressure and subsequent cardiovascular problems. Definitely nowhere near as dangerous as sugar, and you die without salt, not so with sugar, but Americans do consume too much of it.
- andrewl 5y agoVery much so. I just saw this article the other day: Super Simple: Drinking Enough Water Could Prevent Heart Failure https://scitechdaily.com/super-simple-drinking-enough-water-could-prevent-heart-failure/ https://scitechdaily.com/super-simple-drinking-enough-water-...
- fredros 5y agoIt has this effect only on roughly a quarter of the population though.
- desmosxxx 5y ago
- p2t2p 5y agoI’ve been LCHF-ing for last two months. My weight steadily goes down half a kilo a week. Except for that one week during which i consumed half a kilo of Philadelphia cheese
- iamgopal 5y agoFat and sugar are different, does cheese are always with added sugar ?
- p2t2p 5y agoThere’s no sugar in that cheese, at least in Australia. Fat maintains weight on that diet as it replaces carbs as the source of energy (simplified statement, there’s a bit more to it but the end result is fat == maintain weight)
- wombatmobile 5y agoMichael Moss conducted a remarkable research effort into the food industry during which he gained access to food scientists and executives from the largest food corporations. He presents what he learned in his 2013 book Salt Sugar Fat. Sugar is not just in candy, cake, and soda. It's in virtually all processed food. Anything sold in a supermarket in a box, bottle, can, jar, or packet, is likely to have sugar added up the the "bliss point". That's an empirically derived level at which the cravability and addictability of the product is maximised. SuperSummary https://www.supersummary.com/salt-sugar-fat/summary/ https://www.supersummary.com/salt-sugar-fat/summary/ Navigating the Supermarket Aisles With Michael Pollan and Michael Moss | The New York Times https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATAZrRfebiw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATAZrRfebiw
- gHosts 5y agoI want to start a Truth in Packaging campaign. Mint Sauce? Nah. That mint flavoured sugar water. Cheese is a Good Source of Protein? Nah. Bollocks, it's clearly a better source of fat. I could go on for ages. I'm truly glad I don't live in America... The amount of sugar in NZ food is frightening and I have to spend ages label reading to avoid the worst of it.... ....but the amount of HFCS in American food is just plain stark crazy.
- dave84 5y agoNothing annoys me more than ‘protein balls’ that have more fat and carbs than protein.
- phonypc 5y ago>Cheese is a Good Source of Protein? Nah. Bollocks, it's clearly a better source of fat. The former can be true despite the latter. "Carrots a good source of vitamin A? Nah, clearly a better source of sugar."
- gHosts 5y agoIf you have as a Biggest Label about the nutrition on Carrots is "Carrots a good source of vitamin A" then it's misleading. It's "spin".
- BatteryMountain 5y ago(Speculation ahead!) Interesting point in video posted recently by Veritasium: Basically, they are doing experiments to track evolution in "realtime" of some organisms. During the conversation the guy mentions that the population growth of their organisms are controlled by adding or removing glucose for them to consume - basically as long as glucose is available, there will be growth. (First 5 minutes of video) This is really not my field at all, but I found it interesting that sugar has that great an effect on growth. Considering how much sugar most humans eat, considering the gross amount of other organisms in our bodies.. there must be some kind of measurable effect on our microbiome by eating more sugars (or things that use glucose). What if sugar is ~the~ culprit for many diseases (cancer anyone?)? I'm not anti-sugar, just speculating. Criticism welcome, am I on the right path to think this way? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4sLAQvEH-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4sLAQvEH-M
- BatteryMountain 5y agoAnd then also, when people fast for whatever reason, how much does it disturb the microbiome and is primarily disturbed by the lack of glucose (causing tons of trimming/organisms dying and/or fighting for food)?
- imtringued 5y agoMaybe there is a synergy with meat that is pumped with anti biotics. You eat sugar which feeds microbes so its not perfectly absorbed into your body. Then you eat meat with anti-biotics which kills the microbes and lets your body absorb the sugar directly. Random HN comment alert by the way.
- cutthegrass2 5y agoWe should all be reducing our sugar intake and the intake of any food that is quickly/easily metabolised into glucose. It’s one of if not the main fuel source of cancer cells.