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Same goes for sugar. We know the dangers it poses, we are also seeing how much it increases risk of death due to covid. I don't think we should be surpsied, as

Same goes for sugar. We know the dangers it poses, we are also seeing how much it increases risk of death due to covid. I don't think we should be surpsied, as much as pushing to regulate this garbage. As an aside, Michelle Obama's campaign when Obama was in office was about improvement children's health. Her focus was going to be on nutrition (lunch food). Shortly thereafter Coke and Pepsi came in with "donations" and the whole thing became about exercise, no focus on nutrition. There should be no surprise that capital takes precedent over health in our current system / culture. Arguably, we should care more about sugar than we do about covid.

api 5y ago
It's absolutely amazing how much we shovel sugar into our kids even at school, then wonder why they can't pay attention. Sugar is our generation's tobacco for sure.
- tomxor 5y ago
  > Sugar is our generation's tobacco for sure. This might seem far fetched, but I think it's pretty accurate. When tobacco was at it's height most people didn't really think it was bad for you - which gradually turned into a denialistic "yeah but it's not that bad" - it took a long time for society to come to terms with just how harmful it is. The quantity of sugar in every day food has increased dramatically over time, and our attitude to it has been similar to the denialistic phase for tobbaco - "yeah it might hurt my waistline a little bit but it tastes too good" - Making people think if they aren't fat then it's ok, when really the consequences are far worse, sugar is pretty much poison for our bodies, it's bad for every single part of it (melts teeth, causes gum disease which poisons your bloodstream, ages skin, causes inflammation, causes heart disease, causes diabetes, affects the immune system, messes with cognition, makes you more hungry by sharply switching off ketosis, and finally displaces nutritional food making your body even more susceptible to aforementioned ailments). I wish I understood this better when I was growing up. Thankfully I had a parent who never encouraged sugary food, and put in the effort to cook good meals... but many people don't and are at the mercy of what super markets sell, which is increasingly extremely sugary food. If there is a single leading harmful substance that is as prevalent as leaded petrol was - i think it's probably sugar (in the west at least).
rootusrootus 5y ago
> Same goes for sugar. Except that presumably includes the current generation, instead of everyone pre-millenial. There is certainly not any real consensus or meaningful action being taken in regards to sugar. It is as prevalent now as it ever was.
- chucksta 5y ago
  Its not nothing, but it's close; https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/state-and-local-backgrounders/soda-taxes https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...
nynx 5y ago
Sugar is at least a substance that one can choose not to eat. Lead poisoning and pollution aren’t choices.
- pathartl 5y ago
  Sugar isn't really optional these days. It's snuck into so much of our processed food it's sickening.
  - alyandon 5y ago
    Indeed. Added sugar and high fructose corn syrup is in everything. I have to go out of my way to find a brand of bread that doesn't have added high fructose corn syrup. It's ridiculous.
    - lhoff 5y ago
      I havent bought bread in probably 4 Years now. Investing half an hour of work (distributed over the day) every other week for a 2kg Bread. Half of it goes in the freezer. Also buying fresh vegtables and cooking instead of buying ready made dishes helps.
      - tomxor 5y ago
        Yup, this is basically the only realistic way to avoid it, switch to types of food that cannot by their very nature have sugar added.
        cma 5y ago
        I would imagine most of those fresh vegetables have been domesticated/bred to increase sugars.
        tomxor 5y ago
        You're probably right, but that's still a lot better than manufactured foods. Also the funny thing with fruit and veg is that the opposite can happen, with the "Red Delicious" as the leading example, bred for looks and lost all the taste. Even without human interference, fruit can actually be bad for you if you eat it at the wrong time and in the wrong quantities - fructose has the same effect as sugar - but now we are basically getting into nutrition more generally which is a tricky subject. Fruit still comes with many other nutritional benefits compared to sugary manufactured snacks, and even fibre that make it worth while (note that orange juice, as minimally as we are processing the fruit, still allows you to consume it in unnatural quantity and concentration, which can be very bad).
londons_explore 5y ago
> Coke and Pepsi came in with "donations" and the whole thing became about exercise You know, I wouldn't mind this as long as the scale of the donation was big enough. If they donated $1000 per american to the US government, who could use it to reduce taxes or improve life for americans more than the sugar decreases quality of life through illness and poor health, that would be great. But they didn't. I bet their donation was $100k or so, or less than 1 cent per american.
legitster 5y ago
> As an aside, Michelle Obama's campaign when Obama was in office was about improvement children's health. Her focus was going to be on nutrition (lunch food). Shortly thereafter Coke and Pepsi came in with "donations" and the whole thing became about exercise, no focus on nutrition. This isn't accurate. There were changes to the school lunch program, and by most accounts they were pretty effective: https://sph.washington.edu/news-events/news/obama-era-school-nutrition-policy-led-better-diets-students-faces-changes https://sph.washington.edu/news-events/news/obama-era-school... The main takeaway is that the changes were fairly expensive, so lots of schools didn't participate.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  The rollback they did in 2020 is ridiculous. My kids school lunch now is all packaged sugary crap. Corndogs, cinnamon buns for breakfast, Trix yogurt, etc. Even the milk is gross - lowest bidder swill that tastes like wax. The hot food items are all oven-baked, in plastic wrappers. It’s essentially the same crap that you would see in a university vending machine.
nostromo 5y ago
You can’t ban everything… Marijuanna and sugar and a million other potential vices like alcohol and video games should be available. But we should teach kids discipline, critical thinking, and impulse control - rather than playing whack-a-mole with every vice that comes along.
- x3iv130f 5y ago
  Instead of banning things we can stop subsidizing it or just tax it. Sweeteners are heavily subsidized in the US which is why they're in everything.
- loudtieblahblah 5y ago
  as we're a society increasingly made up of single parents with a poverty of energy and time. not to mention their own education on these matters.
  - nostromo 5y ago
    Perhaps we should solve that problem then.
- miketery 5y ago
  Process is much easier to change then changing people. Its why the government deducts taxes from you, instead of you paying at the end of the year (both because you'd spend it all, and you'd be pissed doing a bulk sum payment). Likewise we have levers, should we be selling soda / pop with outrageous amounts of sugar in them without some sort of healthcare tax? I don't mind sugar being available, but right now its subsidized by our health care fees. My insurance is more expensive because of diabetes, heart disease, etc.
jozvolskyef 5y ago
One major aspect that makes sugar a category of its own is that there is a safe dose, and the safe dose isn't small. It's very easy to count how much you consume and not all cultures suffer from overconsumption.
loudtieblahblah 5y ago
Same for industrial seed oils. We know it's dangerous. But monied interests and some vegetarians who think all things that come from plants must be good for you, prevent this from being shoved into near all packaged foods.
mf_tomb 5y ago
Sugar is bad, but it's only one part of the picture: "Evidence-informed dietary priorities include increased fruits, nonstarchy vegetables, nuts, legumes, fish, vegetable oils, yogurt, and minimally processed whole grains; and fewer red meats, processed (e.g., sodium-preserved) meats, and foods rich in refined grains, starch, added sugars, salt, and trans fat." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4814348/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4814348/
eli_gottlieb 5y ago
>As an aside, Michelle Obama's campaign when Obama was in office was about improvement children's health. Her focus was going to be on nutrition (lunch food). Shortly thereafter Coke and Pepsi came in with "donations" and the whole thing became about exercise, no focus on nutrition. Well also, the right-wing culture war machine decided Michelle Obama was taking everyone's children's freedoms away.

api 5y ago

It's absolutely amazing how much we shovel sugar into our kids even at school, then wonder why they can't pay attention. Sugar is our generation's tobacco for sure.

tomxor 5y ago
> Sugar is our generation's tobacco for sure. This might seem far fetched, but I think it's pretty accurate. When tobacco was at it's height most people didn't really think it was bad for you - which gradually turned into a denialistic "yeah but it's not that bad" - it took a long time for society to come to terms with just how harmful it is. The quantity of sugar in every day food has increased dramatically over time, and our attitude to it has been similar to the denialistic phase for tobbaco - "yeah it might hurt my waistline a little bit but it tastes too good" - Making people think if they aren't fat then it's ok, when really the consequences are far worse, sugar is pretty much poison for our bodies, it's bad for every single part of it (melts teeth, causes gum disease which poisons your bloodstream, ages skin, causes inflammation, causes heart disease, causes diabetes, affects the immune system, messes with cognition, makes you more hungry by sharply switching off ketosis, and finally displaces nutritional food making your body even more susceptible to aforementioned ailments). I wish I understood this better when I was growing up. Thankfully I had a parent who never encouraged sugary food, and put in the effort to cook good meals... but many people don't and are at the mercy of what super markets sell, which is increasingly extremely sugary food. If there is a single leading harmful substance that is as prevalent as leaded petrol was - i think it's probably sugar (in the west at least).

rootusrootus 5y ago

> Same goes for sugar. Except that presumably includes the current generation, instead of everyone pre-millenial. There is certainly not any real consensus or meaningful action being taken in regards to sugar. It is as prevalent now as it ever was.

chucksta 5y ago
Its not nothing, but it's close; https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-local-finance-initiative/state-and-local-backgrounders/soda-taxes https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...

nynx 5y ago

Sugar is at least a substance that one can choose not to eat. Lead poisoning and pollution aren’t choices.

pathartl 5y ago
Sugar isn't really optional these days. It's snuck into so much of our processed food it's sickening.
- alyandon 5y ago
  Indeed. Added sugar and high fructose corn syrup is in everything. I have to go out of my way to find a brand of bread that doesn't have added high fructose corn syrup. It's ridiculous.
  - lhoff 5y ago
    I havent bought bread in probably 4 Years now. Investing half an hour of work (distributed over the day) every other week for a 2kg Bread. Half of it goes in the freezer. Also buying fresh vegtables and cooking instead of buying ready made dishes helps.
    - tomxor 5y ago
      Yup, this is basically the only realistic way to avoid it, switch to types of food that cannot by their very nature have sugar added.
      - cma 5y ago
        I would imagine most of those fresh vegetables have been domesticated/bred to increase sugars.
        tomxor 5y ago
        You're probably right, but that's still a lot better than manufactured foods. Also the funny thing with fruit and veg is that the opposite can happen, with the "Red Delicious" as the leading example, bred for looks and lost all the taste. Even without human interference, fruit can actually be bad for you if you eat it at the wrong time and in the wrong quantities - fructose has the same effect as sugar - but now we are basically getting into nutrition more generally which is a tricky subject. Fruit still comes with many other nutritional benefits compared to sugary manufactured snacks, and even fibre that make it worth while (note that orange juice, as minimally as we are processing the fruit, still allows you to consume it in unnatural quantity and concentration, which can be very bad).

londons_explore 5y ago

> Coke and Pepsi came in with "donations" and the whole thing became about exercise You know, I wouldn't mind this as long as the scale of the donation was big enough. If they donated $1000 per american to the US government, who could use it to reduce taxes or improve life for americans more than the sugar decreases quality of life through illness and poor health, that would be great. But they didn't. I bet their donation was $100k or so, or less than 1 cent per american.

legitster 5y ago

> As an aside, Michelle Obama's campaign when Obama was in office was about improvement children's health. Her focus was going to be on nutrition (lunch food). Shortly thereafter Coke and Pepsi came in with "donations" and the whole thing became about exercise, no focus on nutrition. This isn't accurate. There were changes to the school lunch program, and by most accounts they were pretty effective: https://sph.washington.edu/news-events/news/obama-era-school-nutrition-policy-led-better-diets-students-faces-changes https://sph.washington.edu/news-events/news/obama-era-school... The main takeaway is that the changes were fairly expensive, so lots of schools didn't participate.

Spooky23 5y ago
The rollback they did in 2020 is ridiculous. My kids school lunch now is all packaged sugary crap. Corndogs, cinnamon buns for breakfast, Trix yogurt, etc. Even the milk is gross - lowest bidder swill that tastes like wax. The hot food items are all oven-baked, in plastic wrappers. It’s essentially the same crap that you would see in a university vending machine.

nostromo 5y ago

You can’t ban everything… Marijuanna and sugar and a million other potential vices like alcohol and video games should be available. But we should teach kids discipline, critical thinking, and impulse control - rather than playing whack-a-mole with every vice that comes along.

x3iv130f 5y ago
Instead of banning things we can stop subsidizing it or just tax it. Sweeteners are heavily subsidized in the US which is why they're in everything.
loudtieblahblah 5y ago
as we're a society increasingly made up of single parents with a poverty of energy and time. not to mention their own education on these matters.
- nostromo 5y ago
  Perhaps we should solve that problem then.
miketery 5y ago
Process is much easier to change then changing people. Its why the government deducts taxes from you, instead of you paying at the end of the year (both because you'd spend it all, and you'd be pissed doing a bulk sum payment). Likewise we have levers, should we be selling soda / pop with outrageous amounts of sugar in them without some sort of healthcare tax? I don't mind sugar being available, but right now its subsidized by our health care fees. My insurance is more expensive because of diabetes, heart disease, etc.

jozvolskyef 5y ago

One major aspect that makes sugar a category of its own is that there is a safe dose, and the safe dose isn't small. It's very easy to count how much you consume and not all cultures suffer from overconsumption.

loudtieblahblah 5y ago

Same for industrial seed oils. We know it's dangerous. But monied interests and some vegetarians who think all things that come from plants must be good for you, prevent this from being shoved into near all packaged foods.

mf_tomb 5y ago

Sugar is bad, but it's only one part of the picture: "Evidence-informed dietary priorities include increased fruits, nonstarchy vegetables, nuts, legumes, fish, vegetable oils, yogurt, and minimally processed whole grains; and fewer red meats, processed (e.g., sodium-preserved) meats, and foods rich in refined grains, starch, added sugars, salt, and trans fat." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4814348/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4814348/

eli_gottlieb 5y ago