4 ms·

Based on personal observations I find it very hard to believe sugar consumption has decreased across the US population in the last 13 years. There's a near con

Based on personal observations I find it very hard to believe sugar consumption has decreased across the US population in the last 13 years. There's a near constant line out every Starbucks drive-thru I pass. Whenever I go in one to work while caffeinated, those definitely aren't unsweetened beverages being prepared for the masses. Supposedly the whole reason Starbucks espresso is so bitter is so it works well with their sweetened beverages, straight espresso drinkers are in the extreme minority.

noasaservice 4y ago
I was thinking similar, but I think its plastic contaminants and byproducts.
- pengaru 4y ago
  They're not mutually exclusive. How fructose is metabolized is so well understood at this point it's clearly a major factor in obesity and diabetes. It's the primary cause of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease AIUI. And it hasn't been removed from the US diet. That's very unlikely to occur until corn subsidies go away. Even once that occurs it'll take awhile for such a huge industry to evolve away from such a mature supply chain. It strikes me as a problem resembling pivoting from fossil fuels. It won't happen quickly, and we haven't even started yet w/fructose. Which is why I don't think the graph at that twitter link above is even plausibly true. Furthermore there's massive business interest in convincing the public sugar isn't the problem, so don't bother stopping consuming it. That's what all the sugar addicts certainly want to hear anyways.
  - stjohnswarts 4y ago
    sugar isn't that much more expensive than corn syrup, so I don't think cancelling subsidies on it would make much difference at all as sugar could replace it 1:1 with very little overall increase in prices of food products.
    - pengaru 4y ago
      I don't think it's so simple, HFCS has industrial advantages over sucrose in addition to the subsidies. So if HFCS were made more expensive it's unclear to me if sucrose would even be an acceptable substitute for all the ways HFCS is (ab)used due to its sweetness, stability, and ease of use advantages over sucrose. They put HFCS in practically everything processed on store shelves because it's so cheap and checks many boxes from preservative to browning agent, and I'm sure myriad other effects I know nothing about.
_huayra_ 4y ago
The chart cited in that tweet seems to have a very suspicious trend. I highly doubt some consumption trend has such a sharp inflection point like that. I would suspect that it is either both of the following: - data is based on some food survey, and they changed how they asked the question - "sugar" in the chart is just some specific sugar (e.g. cane sugar), and there was some substitute or reclassification (e.g. fructose -> sucrose?) Also, I find it very hard to believe that global sugar consumption has been declining, given how hard junk food countries are pushing into less regulated developing economies (e.g. Coca Cola in Chiapas MX, just look on youtube).

noasaservice 4y ago

I was thinking similar, but I think its plastic contaminants and byproducts.

pengaru 4y ago
They're not mutually exclusive. How fructose is metabolized is so well understood at this point it's clearly a major factor in obesity and diabetes. It's the primary cause of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease AIUI. And it hasn't been removed from the US diet. That's very unlikely to occur until corn subsidies go away. Even once that occurs it'll take awhile for such a huge industry to evolve away from such a mature supply chain. It strikes me as a problem resembling pivoting from fossil fuels. It won't happen quickly, and we haven't even started yet w/fructose. Which is why I don't think the graph at that twitter link above is even plausibly true. Furthermore there's massive business interest in convincing the public sugar isn't the problem, so don't bother stopping consuming it. That's what all the sugar addicts certainly want to hear anyways.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  sugar isn't that much more expensive than corn syrup, so I don't think cancelling subsidies on it would make much difference at all as sugar could replace it 1:1 with very little overall increase in prices of food products.
  - pengaru 4y ago
    I don't think it's so simple, HFCS has industrial advantages over sucrose in addition to the subsidies. So if HFCS were made more expensive it's unclear to me if sucrose would even be an acceptable substitute for all the ways HFCS is (ab)used due to its sweetness, stability, and ease of use advantages over sucrose. They put HFCS in practically everything processed on store shelves because it's so cheap and checks many boxes from preservative to browning agent, and I'm sure myriad other effects I know nothing about.

_huayra_ 4y ago

The chart cited in that tweet seems to have a very suspicious trend. I highly doubt some consumption trend has such a sharp inflection point like that. I would suspect that it is either both of the following: - data is based on some food survey, and they changed how they asked the question - "sugar" in the chart is just some specific sugar (e.g. cane sugar), and there was some substitute or reclassification (e.g. fructose -> sucrose?) Also, I find it very hard to believe that global sugar consumption has been declining, given how hard junk food countries are pushing into less regulated developing economies (e.g. Coca Cola in Chiapas MX, just look on youtube).