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What I would like to know here is whether the suggested serving amounts in those countries are adjusted, as well. Sugar is bad for our health, sure, but it's n
by Semitangent 2y ago
What I would like to know here is whether the suggested serving amounts in those countries are adjusted, as well.
Sugar is bad for our health, sure, but it's not like it is rat poison. It gives easily digestible calories and in a product like baby formula, where you have defined amounts of that product to consume every day, "added sugars" in a vacuum does not seem to be such a big problem to me.
- adrianN 2y agoA baby's digestive system is not set up to digest sugars other than lactose for the first few months.
- belval 2y agoGenuinely asking, is that true? Sugar or sucrose is a combination of glucose and fructose that can be broken down by water, since glucose is the basic sugar that cell uses wouldn't that be available regardless of the baby's digestive system?
- adrianN 2y agoFructose is metabolized very differently from galactose. Babies also don't have a fully formed gut microbiota. Introducing carbohydrates other than lactose too early can mess that up.
- edarchis 2y agoIt's maltodextrin and designed to be digestible by babies. You can buy it in a fine powder marketed as "Caloreen" from Nestlé. Our pediatrician pushed us to use it in supplement to breast-feeding because the baby was below the expected curve. For what it's worth (not much), our baby that was fed Caloreen has no sugar addiction, quite the contrary. Knowing our pediatrician, I am 99.9% sure that he didn't have any incentive from Nestlé and was just having the baby interest in mind. I am rather blaming the weight curves that are more designed for bottle-fed babies than breast-fed ones, combined with the human tendency to focus on the indicators rather than what they represent.
- agos 2y agoarticle says it's sucrose or honey, not maltodextrin
- mathattack 2y ago[flagged]
- Closi 2y agoAt the very least it's a bad look considering Nestle's history here.
- chabes 2y agoGiving empty sugar calories to babies (regardless of the fact that infant malnutrition is more prevalent in these countries) is bad actually.
- triceratops 2y agoWTF is a "suggested serving amount" for a basic food? These aren't mixed nuts to snack on with your beer. For formula-fed infants the suggested serving amount is "exactly as much they want".
- watwut 2y agoBaby formulas do have suggested serving amounts, sugar or not.
- triceratops 2y agoWhat do you do if you've fed the suggested serving amount, the baby is still hungry, and there's no breast milk?
- Dalewyn 2y agoA person's caloric and nutrient needs will vary from moment to moment, a suggested daily serving is merely an average value for average people used as an objective frame of reference. And if we're going to argue whether a food has more or too much sugar than other foods, we need to use an objective frame of reference as a point of comparison. Anyway, the Nestle hate in this overall thread is just as worthless as the Boeing bashing and Musk Derangement Syndrome seen in other threads.
- triceratops 2y ago"An objective frame of reference" sounds like it should be standardized. A suggested serving amount is pretty arbitrary and up to the manufacturer to determine, and is the opposite of "objective". In https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40087543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40087543 I suggested using per 100g or per 100 calories as a reference. Extremely objective and clear.
- cryptonector 2y agoGP's point is that you're not going to significantly reduce the suggested serving size of an essential food on account of having made it sweeter because the other nutrients are still needed.
- temp0826 2y agoIt practically is poison, it's just the effect takes years to become obvious. Obesity, type-2 diabetes accompanied by all of its implications and effects leading to miserably unhealthy lives and early deaths. I hope there is a reckoning with the industry (and the "experts" and supposed government watchdog organizations lying and feigning to protect us) someday and sugar is treated more like cigarettes with disgusting pictures of people dying on the fronts of cereal boxes.
- watwut 2y agoI wonder where eating disorders in teenagers come from ... seriously, sugar is not poison, it is food and on itself wont harm you.
- KomradeKeeks 2y ago[flagged]
- dang 2y agoPosting like this will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are, so please don't post like this to HN. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.