9 ms·

Interesting. I think folks in the comments here maybe missed this paper is way more about the beverages part making it important. The research is around sugar s

by neom 2y ago

Interesting. I think folks in the comments here maybe missed this paper is way more about the beverages part making it important. The research is around sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs). If I'm reading it right, the SSBs have a differentmetabolic effect. "Due to their liquid form, SSBs are rapidly consumed and digested, resulting in lower satiety, higher caloric intake and weight gain. High doses of rapidly digested glucose also activate insulin and other regulatory pathways, which can result in visceral fat production, hepatic and skeletal muscle insulin resistance and weight gain. High doses of rapidly digested fructose directly activate hepatic fat synthesis, leading to ectopic fat deposition and metabolic dysfunction in liver and muscle" Unfortunately I can't find where they define high dose, but if you look at what they say is high elsewhere, it seems to be around 9 servings a week of "any beverage with added sugars and >50 kcal per 8 oz serving, including commercial or homemade beverages, soft drinks, energy drinks, fruit drinks, punch, lemonade and aguas frescas." - A can of coke is 12oz I believe?

KittenInABox 2y ago
I'm curious what is the number of added sugars and above 50kcal peer 8 oz serving. You can get away with saying fruit drinks have no added sugar and still be insanely sugary.
- athenot 2y ago
  Fruit drinks have a neat trick to increase sugar content. Take apple juice for example: you can evaporate water out of it till it's a sugary syrup, then add it to regular apple juice, and it's still called "100% pure apple juice no sugar added". (This is also done with various flavor essences from the juice, so they can recombine them in such a way as to produce a uniform flavor all throughout the year regardless of where the fruits are coming from.)
  - ricardobeat 2y ago
    Not in the EU: > It should be clearly indicated when a product is a mixture of fruit juice and fruit juice from concentrate https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32001L0112 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A...
    - criddell 2y ago
      Are you saying that they couldn't say "100% fruit juice and no sugar added" on the label when the drink is a mixture of fruit juice and fruit juice from concentrate? What part of the regulation would prohibit this?
      - pjerem 2y ago
        You can say "no added sugar" but you are forced to write it’s from a concentrate and it must be in the front of the product, not hidden somewhere. Not perfect but at least you can’t just say it’s fruit juice.
        Maxion 2y ago
        You can call it a fruit drink though, have photos of berries on the package, and text like "juice from berries" and so forth. Very easy to mislead consumers - most orange juice in the EU is like this.
      - ricardobeat 2y ago
        They could not. That would not pass the 'clearly indicated' in the quoted rule. There is also another more general rule which enforces a label of 'sweetened' or 'with added sugars' for any kind of sweetening agent including fruit concentrate: > 4. For fruit juices which have been sweetened by the addition of sugars, the sales name shall include the word "sweetened" or "with added sugar", followed by an indication of the maximum quantity of sugar added, calculated as dry matter and expressed in grams per litre. [1] > A claim stating that sugars have not been added to a food, and any claim likely to have the same meaning for the consumer, may only be made where the product does not contain any added mono- or disaccharides or any other food used for its sweetening properties. [2] Coming from a country of impenetrable legalese everywhere, I find these regulations very refreshing, they are incredibly easy to read and always straight to the point. [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32001L0112 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A... [2] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/memo_06_198 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/memo_0...
trod1234 2y ago
All carbohydrates eventually break down into sugars. Some quite a bit faster than others. What people and scientists haven't been saying in any meaningful way is the truth that carbohydrate poisoning is a real thing. If you eat too much, its harmful. Its common knowledge that medicines may become poisons when taken in too high amounts. This applies to most things in this area. Protein poisoning is fairly easily discovered in the scientific literature, why isn't carbohydrate poisoning? Its a conundrum.
- fwip 2y ago
  Scientists aren't saying it because it's not true.
- hombre_fatal 2y ago
  You don't think the scientific literature has anything to say about sugar surplus or junk food surplus? Carbohydrate poisoning sounds nonsensical though. Too many potatoes and whole grains, for example, aren't poisoning you. More people should be replacing junk food with those things. It's just a fad to use "carbs" as a euphemism for "junk food" and it only further confuses the discourse about nutrition.
  - bityard 2y ago
    I've noticed that people who want to deny that the extremely high carbohydrate content of the typical western diet is the major factor for runaway rates of diabetes and cardiovascular disease like to label the "bad" food as "junk food" or "ultra-processed food." But we never get an explanation from them as to what exactly is IN the junk food or ultra-processed food that causes the disease.
    - hombre_fatal 2y ago
      Well, I can answer that. It's not always about a certain boogeyman inside it, but whether it makes it easy to overeat and whether it pays its rent in nutritional content. Consider potato chips. Even if they have zero saturated fat, the issue most people have with them is that they are hyperpalatable and low nutritional value compared to their calorie density. Combine fat and salt and certain textures, and we can't stop ourselves. Trying to blame a macronutrient like carbs doesn't make much sense to me. Add in bad ingredients like saturated fat and the problem becomes multifaceted, but it's not necessary for individual ingredients to be bad for us for a food to have its downsides.
athenot 2y ago
About 15 years ago, I stopped drinking soda. Not out of a desire to be healthy or loose weight but simply because it dawned on me that for the same amount of sugar in one soft drink that I drink without any afterthought, I could enjoy a really good pastry that I can slowly savor. I do the same for fats. The way I look at it, I want to maximize the "enjoyment per kcalorie". :) More recently, I'm starting to apply this to meat as well. I really enjoy meat, but I'm not one for quantity since I'm on the skinnier side. So I'm trying to enjoy meat more, and in doing so, get better quality, prepare it better, etc. while at the same time eating less of it. This is still a work in progress, and eating in restaurants can be challenging as they usually favor quantity over quality—except for the very high-end & costly places.
- BigGreenJorts 2y ago
  I knew a guy who did this with chocolate. He used to get a candy bar from the vending machine at work like every day, but something happened, I think he either got a health scare or saw a documentary or maybe a combo of things and was like, "Gotta stop eating these shitty chocolate bars every day." Started setting aside the coins he was using at the vending machine and at the end of the week would get a bar from a higher quality brand at the grocery store. Learned he really liked dark chocolate. Started upgrading to nicer and nicer chocolate. Last I heard from him he was going to some of the bougie chocolate shops downtown every few months.
- jillesvangurp 2y ago
  Good for you. I think for meat especially, there's a difference between the stuff people talk about (like premium steaks they almost never eat) and the reality of what ends up on their plates which is a lot less glamorous. A typical fast food burger just isn't that great in terms of texture, taste, looks, etc. and IMHO almost always disappointingly unsatisfying and slightly uncomfortable afterwards. I'll eat that once in a while; usually because there's nothing more convenient and never because I crave one. For me the cheap and nasty stuff is easy to skip on a daily basis and it's not like I eat the expensive premium stuff that often anyway. I love a good steak, but I don't splurge on paying 3x the other items on the menu when I'm at a restaurant typically. Which is what it takes typically to get a nice premium cut of meat. I do enjoy cooking with meat but I'll make an effort to make the most of it. E.g. I made a nice beef stew over the weekend. That's a bit of of work and a humble/affordable cut of meat. And very tasty. If you like Indian food, try having or making a dal. As it turns out, Indians know a thing or two about making very tasty vegan food from cheap/simple ingredients. And this can as nice as some chicken curry with a few chunks of cheap chicken that is maybe a bit overcooked and dry (I've been served that in many Indian restaurants). Those curries actually still taste fine if you don't eat those chunks of meat. And the whole point of heavy spicing in countries with warm climates like India was historically to mask the flavor of cheap cuts of meat that were maybe a bit past their prime. Which is possibly also a reason why vegan food is popular in India. Fridges are a fairly recent novelty too. And the meat doesn't even add a lot of flavor; they just add it last minute typically. Lots of Indian restaurants usually have vegan or vegetarian versions of most of their curries where they toss in some tofu or paneer instead of meat. The only difference between eating meat or vegan in such places is literally what protein is added to the dish at the last minute. The rest is basically vegan or vegetarian by default. Anyway, I skip sugary drinks mostly. And I've cut down on my alcohol intake as well. Most of what I drink has basically very little or no calories. Most of my remaining food challenges are unhealthy snacks, unnecessary carbs and the temptations of unhealthy restaurant food, or late night shopping in super markets and the associated bad decision making. Restaurants bulk out their dishes with carbs and they make things taste good by adding salt and fats. It's hard to eat healthy in restaurants. So, I try to limit my restaurant food intake. And like with meat, most of the restaurants people visit aren't actually that great anyway. At least where I work, Michelin stars are not a thing for the typical lunch options. Quite the opposite actually. I'm only an OK cook but I can cook tastier/better versions of a lot of the shit I get served in places like that. It's not that hard. I recently actually started just skipping lunch entirely at work mainly for this reason and I'm training myself out of having a Pavlovian craving for food just because the clock says so. I don't actually need the calories. Or the post lunch dip in productivity. I especially don't need the lousy food choices imposed by that one person that wants to go to the burger place. There's a lot of group thinking inspiring unhealthy choices around lunch time. I took part in that for years. It's stupid when you think about it and I've suffered the health consequences as well. There's a cumulative effect if you do that for a few decades.
exhilaration 2y ago
So taking myself as an example: I drink 12 oz of coffee daily (7 days per week), and I add exactly 12 grams of table sugar to my coffee each day (equivalent to 3 sugar packets), which is 45 calories. Seems like I don't have much wiggle room and should continue avoiding soda and juice.
- brailsafe 2y ago
  I'll be the guy that I assume most people are sick of by this point, and recommend experimenting with dropping the additives in exchange for higher quality coffee if you can afford it (it's usually not much more per cup). At effectively zero calories, after some period of time you'll get used to it and recalibrate your sense of sweetness to the point where sugary drinks and coffee are much less palatable
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    I honestly can't tell much difference between expensive coffee and Maxwell House. But in general I've never nerded out over coffee, wine, bread, cheese, whiskey, or any other food or beverage. I don't add sugar to my coffee either.
    - cwbrandsma 2y ago
      I can easily tell the difference between the two, but I really don't care so long as the coffee is brewed well. I still like Maxwell House Black Silk, but at home I grind my own beans and brew in a French Press. What I don't like is "Church Coffee", where it has brewed within an inch of its life and is the darkest, most bitter/burned flavor that ever existed.
      - mcny 2y ago
        The best coffee I have ever had was from a coworker's French press. (:
        2y ago
dfltr 2y ago
"Sugar: The Bitter Truth" (https://robertlustig.com/sugar-the-bitter-truth/ https://robertlustig.com/sugar-the-bitter-truth/) is a pretty long watch, but it's incredibly eye-opening in terms of explaining in detail exactly why our current dietary sugar intake is so damaging to our bodies. Note: Robert Lustig is a professor of pediatric endocrinology at UCSF, I promise I wouldn't ask you (the reader) to watch a long-ass youtube video unless it contained extremely relevant science about how you (the biological machine) work.
- jjav 2y ago
  Seconded. Lustig's talks are extremely good and highly recommended for anyone who eats.
- loeg 2y ago
  Lustig is a crank with opinions well outside scientific consensus.
  - bitwize 2y ago
    This is one of those areas where scientific consensus needs to catch up with the alarming facts that have been discovered. Scientific consensus was against handwashing for doctors and plate tectonics, and it still is in favor of "clearing amyloid plaques will totally fix Alzheimer's", but the facts just keep on being what they be.
    - loeg 2y ago
      No, this is an area where Lustig is probably wrong, and definitely making unsubstantiated statements.
      - chiefalchemist 2y ago
        Can you elaborate a bit?
      - vixen99 2y ago
        As in? No examples so that we can look at the facts ourselves?
xboxnolifes 2y ago
I'm always glad for more hard evidence, but this exact reasoning has been "common sense", or something to that tune, my entire life. Maybe not every individual resulting issue, but that liquid sugar absorbs more rapidly and as such is worse that an equivalent amount of sugar in a more solid meal.
- eru 2y ago
  It's also a lot easier and quicker to drink the juice from, say, 6 oranges than to eat 6 oranges.
Hilift 2y ago
Orange juice is high in sugars. Drinking any alternative beverage with a lot of sugar is bad for your health. I believe a 12 ounce glass of orange juice is 100% of maximum sugar intake for one day. If you drank orange juice the same way you drank soda with added sugar, the health effect would be equally detrimental.
- musicale 2y ago
  I think citric acid is better than phosphoric acid (e.g. for your bones and kidneys), though both can dissolve tooth enamel. OJ also has more vitamin C than typical sodas. Milk has more calories/ounce than soda, but it also has protein, fat, and calcium. Anecdotally, I find juice more filling than soda, milk even more so.
  - malfist 2y ago
    Citric acid and phosphoric acid likely have the same impact on your teeth and no impact on your bones and kidneys. Acids and bases on your diet have very little to do with what pH is exposed to the rest of your body. Your stomach is probably more acid than anything you eat or drink, and your lungs and kidneys tightly regulate the pH of the blood. If your diet is effecting your blood pH, your probably already on death's door
    - musicale 2y ago
      > Citric acid and phosphoric acid likely have the same impact on your teeth and no impact on your bones and kidneys "Recent findings show that increasing dietary phosphorus through inorganic phosphate additives has detrimental effects on bone and mineral metabolism in humans and animals. There is new data supporting an educational intervention to limit phosphate additives in patients with chronic kidney disease to control serum phosphate." "Cola is a unique source of additive inorganic phosphate that has been studied over the years in its effect on bone health. Cola delivers a load of phosphoric acid that is absorbed readily and rapidly and is often consumed between meals. A 20 fl. oz. bottle of cola, for example, provides 55 mg of phosphorus, whereas non-cola sodas are phosphate-free. In addition, cola may displace milk in the diet, so it can contribute to lower calcium intake concurrent along with greater inorganic phosphosphates intake (12)." But, you could be correct regarding bone effects: "It seems likely that any potential negative effects of cola on bone when it substitutes for milk in the diet would be driven by decreased calcium intake and other bone health nutrients (e.g. protein, vitamin D) in milk, rather than the difference in phosphorus load. This is because milk has about ten times the phosphorus content of cola by volume," Though I still wonder about possibly different effects from inorganic phosphorus additives in cola vs. naturally occurring phosphorus in milk and other foods. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5693714/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5693714/
brandall10 2y ago
Soft drinks tend to be much higher in sugar per ounce, roughly double. A 12 ounce can of coke has 39 grams, so you blow past that at around 4 ounces.

by neom 2y ago

KittenInABox 2y ago

I'm curious what is the number of added sugars and above 50kcal peer 8 oz serving. You can get away with saying fruit drinks have no added sugar and still be insanely sugary.

athenot 2y ago
Fruit drinks have a neat trick to increase sugar content. Take apple juice for example: you can evaporate water out of it till it's a sugary syrup, then add it to regular apple juice, and it's still called "100% pure apple juice no sugar added". (This is also done with various flavor essences from the juice, so they can recombine them in such a way as to produce a uniform flavor all throughout the year regardless of where the fruits are coming from.)
- ricardobeat 2y ago
  Not in the EU: > It should be clearly indicated when a product is a mixture of fruit juice and fruit juice from concentrate https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32001L0112 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A...
  - criddell 2y ago
    Are you saying that they couldn't say "100% fruit juice and no sugar added" on the label when the drink is a mixture of fruit juice and fruit juice from concentrate? What part of the regulation would prohibit this?
    - pjerem 2y ago
      You can say "no added sugar" but you are forced to write it’s from a concentrate and it must be in the front of the product, not hidden somewhere. Not perfect but at least you can’t just say it’s fruit juice.
      - Maxion 2y ago
        You can call it a fruit drink though, have photos of berries on the package, and text like "juice from berries" and so forth. Very easy to mislead consumers - most orange juice in the EU is like this.
    - ricardobeat 2y ago
      They could not. That would not pass the 'clearly indicated' in the quoted rule. There is also another more general rule which enforces a label of 'sweetened' or 'with added sugars' for any kind of sweetening agent including fruit concentrate: > 4. For fruit juices which have been sweetened by the addition of sugars, the sales name shall include the word "sweetened" or "with added sugar", followed by an indication of the maximum quantity of sugar added, calculated as dry matter and expressed in grams per litre. [1] > A claim stating that sugars have not been added to a food, and any claim likely to have the same meaning for the consumer, may only be made where the product does not contain any added mono- or disaccharides or any other food used for its sweetening properties. [2] Coming from a country of impenetrable legalese everywhere, I find these regulations very refreshing, they are incredibly easy to read and always straight to the point. [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32001L0112 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A... [2] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/memo_06_198 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/memo_0...

trod1234 2y ago

All carbohydrates eventually break down into sugars. Some quite a bit faster than others. What people and scientists haven't been saying in any meaningful way is the truth that carbohydrate poisoning is a real thing. If you eat too much, its harmful. Its common knowledge that medicines may become poisons when taken in too high amounts. This applies to most things in this area. Protein poisoning is fairly easily discovered in the scientific literature, why isn't carbohydrate poisoning? Its a conundrum.

fwip 2y ago
Scientists aren't saying it because it's not true.
hombre_fatal 2y ago
You don't think the scientific literature has anything to say about sugar surplus or junk food surplus? Carbohydrate poisoning sounds nonsensical though. Too many potatoes and whole grains, for example, aren't poisoning you. More people should be replacing junk food with those things. It's just a fad to use "carbs" as a euphemism for "junk food" and it only further confuses the discourse about nutrition.
- bityard 2y ago
  I've noticed that people who want to deny that the extremely high carbohydrate content of the typical western diet is the major factor for runaway rates of diabetes and cardiovascular disease like to label the "bad" food as "junk food" or "ultra-processed food." But we never get an explanation from them as to what exactly is IN the junk food or ultra-processed food that causes the disease.
  - hombre_fatal 2y ago
    Well, I can answer that. It's not always about a certain boogeyman inside it, but whether it makes it easy to overeat and whether it pays its rent in nutritional content. Consider potato chips. Even if they have zero saturated fat, the issue most people have with them is that they are hyperpalatable and low nutritional value compared to their calorie density. Combine fat and salt and certain textures, and we can't stop ourselves. Trying to blame a macronutrient like carbs doesn't make much sense to me. Add in bad ingredients like saturated fat and the problem becomes multifaceted, but it's not necessary for individual ingredients to be bad for us for a food to have its downsides.

athenot 2y ago

About 15 years ago, I stopped drinking soda. Not out of a desire to be healthy or loose weight but simply because it dawned on me that for the same amount of sugar in one soft drink that I drink without any afterthought, I could enjoy a really good pastry that I can slowly savor. I do the same for fats. The way I look at it, I want to maximize the "enjoyment per kcalorie". :) More recently, I'm starting to apply this to meat as well. I really enjoy meat, but I'm not one for quantity since I'm on the skinnier side. So I'm trying to enjoy meat more, and in doing so, get better quality, prepare it better, etc. while at the same time eating less of it. This is still a work in progress, and eating in restaurants can be challenging as they usually favor quantity over quality—except for the very high-end & costly places.

BigGreenJorts 2y ago
I knew a guy who did this with chocolate. He used to get a candy bar from the vending machine at work like every day, but something happened, I think he either got a health scare or saw a documentary or maybe a combo of things and was like, "Gotta stop eating these shitty chocolate bars every day." Started setting aside the coins he was using at the vending machine and at the end of the week would get a bar from a higher quality brand at the grocery store. Learned he really liked dark chocolate. Started upgrading to nicer and nicer chocolate. Last I heard from him he was going to some of the bougie chocolate shops downtown every few months.
jillesvangurp 2y ago
Good for you. I think for meat especially, there's a difference between the stuff people talk about (like premium steaks they almost never eat) and the reality of what ends up on their plates which is a lot less glamorous. A typical fast food burger just isn't that great in terms of texture, taste, looks, etc. and IMHO almost always disappointingly unsatisfying and slightly uncomfortable afterwards. I'll eat that once in a while; usually because there's nothing more convenient and never because I crave one. For me the cheap and nasty stuff is easy to skip on a daily basis and it's not like I eat the expensive premium stuff that often anyway. I love a good steak, but I don't splurge on paying 3x the other items on the menu when I'm at a restaurant typically. Which is what it takes typically to get a nice premium cut of meat. I do enjoy cooking with meat but I'll make an effort to make the most of it. E.g. I made a nice beef stew over the weekend. That's a bit of of work and a humble/affordable cut of meat. And very tasty. If you like Indian food, try having or making a dal. As it turns out, Indians know a thing or two about making very tasty vegan food from cheap/simple ingredients. And this can as nice as some chicken curry with a few chunks of cheap chicken that is maybe a bit overcooked and dry (I've been served that in many Indian restaurants). Those curries actually still taste fine if you don't eat those chunks of meat. And the whole point of heavy spicing in countries with warm climates like India was historically to mask the flavor of cheap cuts of meat that were maybe a bit past their prime. Which is possibly also a reason why vegan food is popular in India. Fridges are a fairly recent novelty too. And the meat doesn't even add a lot of flavor; they just add it last minute typically. Lots of Indian restaurants usually have vegan or vegetarian versions of most of their curries where they toss in some tofu or paneer instead of meat. The only difference between eating meat or vegan in such places is literally what protein is added to the dish at the last minute. The rest is basically vegan or vegetarian by default. Anyway, I skip sugary drinks mostly. And I've cut down on my alcohol intake as well. Most of what I drink has basically very little or no calories. Most of my remaining food challenges are unhealthy snacks, unnecessary carbs and the temptations of unhealthy restaurant food, or late night shopping in super markets and the associated bad decision making. Restaurants bulk out their dishes with carbs and they make things taste good by adding salt and fats. It's hard to eat healthy in restaurants. So, I try to limit my restaurant food intake. And like with meat, most of the restaurants people visit aren't actually that great anyway. At least where I work, Michelin stars are not a thing for the typical lunch options. Quite the opposite actually. I'm only an OK cook but I can cook tastier/better versions of a lot of the shit I get served in places like that. It's not that hard. I recently actually started just skipping lunch entirely at work mainly for this reason and I'm training myself out of having a Pavlovian craving for food just because the clock says so. I don't actually need the calories. Or the post lunch dip in productivity. I especially don't need the lousy food choices imposed by that one person that wants to go to the burger place. There's a lot of group thinking inspiring unhealthy choices around lunch time. I took part in that for years. It's stupid when you think about it and I've suffered the health consequences as well. There's a cumulative effect if you do that for a few decades.

exhilaration 2y ago

So taking myself as an example: I drink 12 oz of coffee daily (7 days per week), and I add exactly 12 grams of table sugar to my coffee each day (equivalent to 3 sugar packets), which is 45 calories. Seems like I don't have much wiggle room and should continue avoiding soda and juice.

brailsafe 2y ago
I'll be the guy that I assume most people are sick of by this point, and recommend experimenting with dropping the additives in exchange for higher quality coffee if you can afford it (it's usually not much more per cup). At effectively zero calories, after some period of time you'll get used to it and recalibrate your sense of sweetness to the point where sugary drinks and coffee are much less palatable
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  I honestly can't tell much difference between expensive coffee and Maxwell House. But in general I've never nerded out over coffee, wine, bread, cheese, whiskey, or any other food or beverage. I don't add sugar to my coffee either.
  - cwbrandsma 2y ago
    I can easily tell the difference between the two, but I really don't care so long as the coffee is brewed well. I still like Maxwell House Black Silk, but at home I grind my own beans and brew in a French Press. What I don't like is "Church Coffee", where it has brewed within an inch of its life and is the darkest, most bitter/burned flavor that ever existed.
    - mcny 2y ago
      The best coffee I have ever had was from a coworker's French press. (:
      - 2y ago

dfltr 2y ago

"Sugar: The Bitter Truth" (https://robertlustig.com/sugar-the-bitter-truth/ https://robertlustig.com/sugar-the-bitter-truth/) is a pretty long watch, but it's incredibly eye-opening in terms of explaining in detail exactly why our current dietary sugar intake is so damaging to our bodies. Note: Robert Lustig is a professor of pediatric endocrinology at UCSF, I promise I wouldn't ask you (the reader) to watch a long-ass youtube video unless it contained extremely relevant science about how you (the biological machine) work.

jjav 2y ago
Seconded. Lustig's talks are extremely good and highly recommended for anyone who eats.
loeg 2y ago
Lustig is a crank with opinions well outside scientific consensus.
- bitwize 2y ago
  This is one of those areas where scientific consensus needs to catch up with the alarming facts that have been discovered. Scientific consensus was against handwashing for doctors and plate tectonics, and it still is in favor of "clearing amyloid plaques will totally fix Alzheimer's", but the facts just keep on being what they be.
  - loeg 2y ago
    No, this is an area where Lustig is probably wrong, and definitely making unsubstantiated statements.
    - chiefalchemist 2y ago
      Can you elaborate a bit?
    - vixen99 2y ago
      As in? No examples so that we can look at the facts ourselves?

xboxnolifes 2y ago

I'm always glad for more hard evidence, but this exact reasoning has been "common sense", or something to that tune, my entire life. Maybe not every individual resulting issue, but that liquid sugar absorbs more rapidly and as such is worse that an equivalent amount of sugar in a more solid meal.

eru 2y ago
It's also a lot easier and quicker to drink the juice from, say, 6 oranges than to eat 6 oranges.

Hilift 2y ago

Orange juice is high in sugars. Drinking any alternative beverage with a lot of sugar is bad for your health. I believe a 12 ounce glass of orange juice is 100% of maximum sugar intake for one day. If you drank orange juice the same way you drank soda with added sugar, the health effect would be equally detrimental.

musicale 2y ago
I think citric acid is better than phosphoric acid (e.g. for your bones and kidneys), though both can dissolve tooth enamel. OJ also has more vitamin C than typical sodas. Milk has more calories/ounce than soda, but it also has protein, fat, and calcium. Anecdotally, I find juice more filling than soda, milk even more so.
- malfist 2y ago
  Citric acid and phosphoric acid likely have the same impact on your teeth and no impact on your bones and kidneys. Acids and bases on your diet have very little to do with what pH is exposed to the rest of your body. Your stomach is probably more acid than anything you eat or drink, and your lungs and kidneys tightly regulate the pH of the blood. If your diet is effecting your blood pH, your probably already on death's door
  - musicale 2y ago
    > Citric acid and phosphoric acid likely have the same impact on your teeth and no impact on your bones and kidneys "Recent findings show that increasing dietary phosphorus through inorganic phosphate additives has detrimental effects on bone and mineral metabolism in humans and animals. There is new data supporting an educational intervention to limit phosphate additives in patients with chronic kidney disease to control serum phosphate." "Cola is a unique source of additive inorganic phosphate that has been studied over the years in its effect on bone health. Cola delivers a load of phosphoric acid that is absorbed readily and rapidly and is often consumed between meals. A 20 fl. oz. bottle of cola, for example, provides 55 mg of phosphorus, whereas non-cola sodas are phosphate-free. In addition, cola may displace milk in the diet, so it can contribute to lower calcium intake concurrent along with greater inorganic phosphosphates intake (12)." But, you could be correct regarding bone effects: "It seems likely that any potential negative effects of cola on bone when it substitutes for milk in the diet would be driven by decreased calcium intake and other bone health nutrients (e.g. protein, vitamin D) in milk, rather than the difference in phosphorus load. This is because milk has about ten times the phosphorus content of cola by volume," Though I still wonder about possibly different effects from inorganic phosphorus additives in cola vs. naturally occurring phosphorus in milk and other foods. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5693714/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5693714/

brandall10 2y ago

Soft drinks tend to be much higher in sugar per ounce, roughly double. A 12 ounce can of coke has 39 grams, so you blow past that at around 4 ounces.