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> what today will sound absurd in the future? The incredible amount of sugar that we eat and give to our kids. There is already a clear trend of "hiding" suga

> what today will sound absurd in the future? The incredible amount of sugar that we eat and give to our kids. There is already a clear trend of "hiding" sugar from the ingredients. The label "No sugars added" gives a really positive meaning. But most processed foods are still chock-full of sugar. I guess in 20 or 30 years sugar products will be labeled with scary labels like tobacco is today. As for alcohol, I don't think so. People will still want to get wasted, even knowing that it is bad for the health.

Sharlin 5y ago
> As for alcohol, I don't think so. People will still want to get wasted, even knowing that it is bad for the health. Alcohol advertising is already highly regulated compared to past decades. Smoking even more. Even professional magazines in the 60s and 70s used to have alcohol and cigarette ads every few pages. Not to mention that alcohol use was much less frowned upon at the workplace, especially in certain fields.
collaborative 5y ago
I hope you are right about sugar. People are doling out candy to kids like it's their duty these days
- drewg123 5y ago
  The sad thing is that sugar is everywhere, not just in candy. I was in the local hospital for surgery, and the "juice" they gave me to drink when I was recovering was so sweet that it could have doubled for syrup. The first 2 ingredients were 2 different kinds of sugar. I think its because they were purchasing the cheapest "juice" they could find, but my friends joked that they were trying to give people diabetes to increase business.
account42 5y ago
One negative consequences of the "no sugars added" is that it makes it harder to see how sweet something is because now instead of sugar its all artificial sweeteners in many things that don't need them at all.
- Ma8ee 5y ago
  It’s not that hard to read the nutrition facts label on your food packaging. https://www.fda.gov/food/new-nutrition-facts-label/how-understand-and-use-nutrition-facts-label https://www.fda.gov/food/new-nutrition-facts-label/how-under...
  - millzlane 5y ago
    What about the labels that doesn't list the sugar in the facts but lists Aspartame in the ingredients? It says it has a sweetener but doesn't say how much. Funny enough Aspartame doesn't appear anywhere on the page you linked to.
    - Ma8ee 5y ago
      What about them? What is it you would like to know and how would the information help?
      - millzlane 5y ago
        Artificial sweeteners effect your health. It would be nice to know how much is in there. The information would help a person to avoid the food combinations with Aspartame that decrease the rate of metabolism. But yea I guess a person could just read the label and just believe whatever it tells them.
        Ma8ee 5y ago
        Are you suggesting that there is common and widespread fraud with how food is labelled, to the extent that labels no longer can be trusted?
      - barrkel 5y ago
        From the comment you first replied to: harder to see how sweet something is It was never about sugar content, but how sweet something is. Overly sweet things can be unpleasant to an adult palate, or one accustomed to a culture of less sweet things. In simpler times, sugar content was a somewhat reliable metric of sweetness (of course it can be balanced by acid, tannins, salt etc.), so you could select a product without needing to taste it first.
ponyous 5y ago
Especially in US, I don't think people realise how bad they have it there in terms of sugar. Even pizzas tasted sweet when I was in a random fast food place...
TheJoeMan 5y ago
There are large black hexagonal warnings on Coca-Cola cans for sale in Mexico. It doesn’t seem to change much except look ugly.
chimprich 5y ago
> As for alcohol, I don't think so. People will still want to get wasted, even knowing that it is bad for the health. In a better world we'd have a good substitute for alcohol that had similar effects but much less serious health concerns. This should be a major research target, but for stupid political reasons it isn't.
- __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
  There's a whole zoo of recreational drugs that are safer to do in moderation than alcohol is to do consistently. Rather than replace alcohol, I think we should just get better at educating: - when is it safe to use a given drug? so we can get to the business of exploring: - which drugs are best paired with which intentions, moods, environments, etc?
  - chimprich 5y ago
    > There's a whole zoo of recreational drugs that are safer to do in moderation than alcohol is to do consistently Which ones are you thinking of? Are any of them similar to alcohol in effects? (Light euphoria, increased socialisation, mild confidence boost, pleasant method of application?)
- GDC7 5y ago
  > In a better world we'd have a good substitute for alcohol that had similar effects but much less serious health concerns You are thinking about self administration of GHB, but people need to be really careful because 2 mL is a recipe for a fun night, whereas 7 mL will get you in ICU. Bur vis-a-vis alcohol it has big advantages. No liver problems, no kidney problems, no clogging of arteries, no cardiomiopathy or inflammation... But again people need to be paranoid before its use, in order to diligently respect the quantities. The administration at a party would be a gig for companies, because you'd need the same level of professionality as say the security services for a VIP party.
  - donkeyd 5y ago
    GHB is a horrible alternative to alcohol. I really don't understand why you think that is not the case. GHB is highly addictive, dosing is hard, it's really unhealthy with long term use and is nearly impossible to stop doing once you're addicted. In the Netherlands, the percentage of people that relapse after rehabilitating from GHB is the highest of all drugs, including alcohol.
papito 5y ago
The book "The Dorito Effect" goes into this a lot. Basically, the sugar substitutes are often discovered in food labs by accident (someone didn't wash their hands and licked their fingers, ew). These substances are tens of thousands of times more sweet than sugar, allowing for "zero" amount in the final product.
kilroy123 5y ago
I sure hope so. I went sugar free a few years ago and I have zero regrets.
- hattar 5y ago
  I have tried doing this a few times but always ended up stumped and eventually gave up. It’s difficult to find processed foods (e.g. yogurt, cereal, peanut butter) without sugar and so easy to mistakenly get foods with sugar on accident. Baked goods of almost all kinds have sugar by necessity, so they’re generally out. This doesn’t even account for the natural sugars in fruits and the like. How committed are you to no sugar and how have you addressed all that? I’d love to try again with some better strategies.
  - kilroy123 5y ago
    I was only able to do this by also doing intermittent fasting. I replaced sugar with some more blood sugar friendly substitutes like stevia and some erythritol. (I like to go light on this stuff though) I eat very low carb compared to most Americans. (Not keto just low carb)
  - crdrost 5y ago
    I see this comment and feel so bad for past you! Why are we treating all sugars as the same? They are not the same. Some baked goods have sugar in order to feed yeast, rather than humans... Pizza dough, bagels, croissants. Yes these all come in dessert varieties, but it's not the default option. Especially when you start getting to dumping on fresh fruit, it's like, no, please don't commit yourself to a bland beige life like that! Plants are masters of poisons and trickery, e.g. capsaicin (what makes peppers spicy) makes our mouths burn, but not the mouths of birds—who spread their seeds. Plants use fructose specifically because it's not dextrose and therefore it's hard for bacteria to digest: because they want us to eat this fruit and scatter the pit. Indeed they make the fruit sweet rather rapidly, “now now, it's ready now!”, to signal an optimal “it’s not poisonous! now you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours” moment to us. Plants even look out for our longer-term health, those bright colors that we find so attractive are usually signaling to us these really important antioxidants that we need. As long as we don't freeze or puree the cell walls into oblivion, the resulting fiber traps some sugars and feeds it not to us but to our gut bacteria, who then don't starve and eat our GI linings... “let's not eat foods that I know are healthy, to satisfy arbitrary rules I made up to keep myself healthy”... really? So if zero tolerance is out, what remains? • Set a low sugar target, “no more than 10% of my calories from sugars.” • Prefer stuff with a shelf life. If it has an expiration date rather than a nutrition label, great! • Don't worry about the natural sugar in yogurt, the lactose, unless you're lactose-intolerant. But don't buy the flavored versions as they are sugary enough to classify as desserts for breakfast. Instead do what the Dutch do—buy the plain stuff and cut the sour yourself with added whole grains and fresh fruit. • “Don't even let it in your house” the other stuff. Guilty pleasures for me include chocolate and jam, I try to make sure that I don't have these in-stock... • The grocer is a pilgrimage. What I mean is, it's tempting to zigzag your way through and see everything, and this is also why shopping takes forever! But pilgrims usually make a big walk around a structure before diving into the middle for a brief flirtation/unveiling of divinity. A good grocery run too walks around the aisles at the edges, fresh fruit and veg, fresh baked goods, meat and poultry, dairy... And it makes targeted trips into the middle only for things that it needs. You've got a list of the things you'll dip into the middle for, after all, and if your grocery trips are short then if you miss something, you can take another short grocery trip later in the week and still save time and money. Small batch sizes, lean manufacturing!

Sharlin 5y ago

> As for alcohol, I don't think so. People will still want to get wasted, even knowing that it is bad for the health. Alcohol advertising is already highly regulated compared to past decades. Smoking even more. Even professional magazines in the 60s and 70s used to have alcohol and cigarette ads every few pages. Not to mention that alcohol use was much less frowned upon at the workplace, especially in certain fields.

collaborative 5y ago

I hope you are right about sugar. People are doling out candy to kids like it's their duty these days

drewg123 5y ago
The sad thing is that sugar is everywhere, not just in candy. I was in the local hospital for surgery, and the "juice" they gave me to drink when I was recovering was so sweet that it could have doubled for syrup. The first 2 ingredients were 2 different kinds of sugar. I think its because they were purchasing the cheapest "juice" they could find, but my friends joked that they were trying to give people diabetes to increase business.

account42 5y ago

One negative consequences of the "no sugars added" is that it makes it harder to see how sweet something is because now instead of sugar its all artificial sweeteners in many things that don't need them at all.

Ma8ee 5y ago
It’s not that hard to read the nutrition facts label on your food packaging. https://www.fda.gov/food/new-nutrition-facts-label/how-understand-and-use-nutrition-facts-label https://www.fda.gov/food/new-nutrition-facts-label/how-under...
- millzlane 5y ago
  What about the labels that doesn't list the sugar in the facts but lists Aspartame in the ingredients? It says it has a sweetener but doesn't say how much. Funny enough Aspartame doesn't appear anywhere on the page you linked to.
  - Ma8ee 5y ago
    What about them? What is it you would like to know and how would the information help?
    - millzlane 5y ago
      Artificial sweeteners effect your health. It would be nice to know how much is in there. The information would help a person to avoid the food combinations with Aspartame that decrease the rate of metabolism. But yea I guess a person could just read the label and just believe whatever it tells them.
      - Ma8ee 5y ago
        Are you suggesting that there is common and widespread fraud with how food is labelled, to the extent that labels no longer can be trusted?
    - barrkel 5y ago
      From the comment you first replied to: harder to see how sweet something is It was never about sugar content, but how sweet something is. Overly sweet things can be unpleasant to an adult palate, or one accustomed to a culture of less sweet things. In simpler times, sugar content was a somewhat reliable metric of sweetness (of course it can be balanced by acid, tannins, salt etc.), so you could select a product without needing to taste it first.

ponyous 5y ago

Especially in US, I don't think people realise how bad they have it there in terms of sugar. Even pizzas tasted sweet when I was in a random fast food place...

TheJoeMan 5y ago

There are large black hexagonal warnings on Coca-Cola cans for sale in Mexico. It doesn’t seem to change much except look ugly.

chimprich 5y ago

> As for alcohol, I don't think so. People will still want to get wasted, even knowing that it is bad for the health. In a better world we'd have a good substitute for alcohol that had similar effects but much less serious health concerns. This should be a major research target, but for stupid political reasons it isn't.

__MatrixMan__ 5y ago
There's a whole zoo of recreational drugs that are safer to do in moderation than alcohol is to do consistently. Rather than replace alcohol, I think we should just get better at educating: - when is it safe to use a given drug? so we can get to the business of exploring: - which drugs are best paired with which intentions, moods, environments, etc?
- chimprich 5y ago
  > There's a whole zoo of recreational drugs that are safer to do in moderation than alcohol is to do consistently Which ones are you thinking of? Are any of them similar to alcohol in effects? (Light euphoria, increased socialisation, mild confidence boost, pleasant method of application?)
GDC7 5y ago
> In a better world we'd have a good substitute for alcohol that had similar effects but much less serious health concerns You are thinking about self administration of GHB, but people need to be really careful because 2 mL is a recipe for a fun night, whereas 7 mL will get you in ICU. Bur vis-a-vis alcohol it has big advantages. No liver problems, no kidney problems, no clogging of arteries, no cardiomiopathy or inflammation... But again people need to be paranoid before its use, in order to diligently respect the quantities. The administration at a party would be a gig for companies, because you'd need the same level of professionality as say the security services for a VIP party.
- donkeyd 5y ago
  GHB is a horrible alternative to alcohol. I really don't understand why you think that is not the case. GHB is highly addictive, dosing is hard, it's really unhealthy with long term use and is nearly impossible to stop doing once you're addicted. In the Netherlands, the percentage of people that relapse after rehabilitating from GHB is the highest of all drugs, including alcohol.

papito 5y ago

The book "The Dorito Effect" goes into this a lot. Basically, the sugar substitutes are often discovered in food labs by accident (someone didn't wash their hands and licked their fingers, ew). These substances are tens of thousands of times more sweet than sugar, allowing for "zero" amount in the final product.

kilroy123 5y ago

I sure hope so. I went sugar free a few years ago and I have zero regrets.

hattar 5y ago
I have tried doing this a few times but always ended up stumped and eventually gave up. It’s difficult to find processed foods (e.g. yogurt, cereal, peanut butter) without sugar and so easy to mistakenly get foods with sugar on accident. Baked goods of almost all kinds have sugar by necessity, so they’re generally out. This doesn’t even account for the natural sugars in fruits and the like. How committed are you to no sugar and how have you addressed all that? I’d love to try again with some better strategies.
- kilroy123 5y ago
  I was only able to do this by also doing intermittent fasting. I replaced sugar with some more blood sugar friendly substitutes like stevia and some erythritol. (I like to go light on this stuff though) I eat very low carb compared to most Americans. (Not keto just low carb)
- crdrost 5y ago
  I see this comment and feel so bad for past you! Why are we treating all sugars as the same? They are not the same. Some baked goods have sugar in order to feed yeast, rather than humans... Pizza dough, bagels, croissants. Yes these all come in dessert varieties, but it's not the default option. Especially when you start getting to dumping on fresh fruit, it's like, no, please don't commit yourself to a bland beige life like that! Plants are masters of poisons and trickery, e.g. capsaicin (what makes peppers spicy) makes our mouths burn, but not the mouths of birds—who spread their seeds. Plants use fructose specifically because it's not dextrose and therefore it's hard for bacteria to digest: because they want us to eat this fruit and scatter the pit. Indeed they make the fruit sweet rather rapidly, “now now, it's ready now!”, to signal an optimal “it’s not poisonous! now you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours” moment to us. Plants even look out for our longer-term health, those bright colors that we find so attractive are usually signaling to us these really important antioxidants that we need. As long as we don't freeze or puree the cell walls into oblivion, the resulting fiber traps some sugars and feeds it not to us but to our gut bacteria, who then don't starve and eat our GI linings... “let's not eat foods that I know are healthy, to satisfy arbitrary rules I made up to keep myself healthy”... really? So if zero tolerance is out, what remains? • Set a low sugar target, “no more than 10% of my calories from sugars.” • Prefer stuff with a shelf life. If it has an expiration date rather than a nutrition label, great! • Don't worry about the natural sugar in yogurt, the lactose, unless you're lactose-intolerant. But don't buy the flavored versions as they are sugary enough to classify as desserts for breakfast. Instead do what the Dutch do—buy the plain stuff and cut the sour yourself with added whole grains and fresh fruit. • “Don't even let it in your house” the other stuff. Guilty pleasures for me include chocolate and jam, I try to make sure that I don't have these in-stock... • The grocer is a pilgrimage. What I mean is, it's tempting to zigzag your way through and see everything, and this is also why shopping takes forever! But pilgrims usually make a big walk around a structure before diving into the middle for a brief flirtation/unveiling of divinity. A good grocery run too walks around the aisles at the edges, fresh fruit and veg, fresh baked goods, meat and poultry, dairy... And it makes targeted trips into the middle only for things that it needs. You've got a list of the things you'll dip into the middle for, after all, and if your grocery trips are short then if you miss something, you can take another short grocery trip later in the week and still save time and money. Small batch sizes, lean manufacturing!