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Is Sugar Toxic?
a_hanso tips an article by Gary Taubes in the NYTimes Magazine that evaluates claims from Dr. Robert Lustig's virally popular lecture on the negative effects of sugar on peoples' health. (YouTube video of the lecture.) Taubes discusses the science behind the claims and the odd willingness of people to accept Lustig's arguments without further inspection. Quoting:
"When I set out to interview public health authorities and researchers for this article, they would often initiate the interview with some variation of the comment 'surely you’ve spoken to Robert Lustig,' not because Lustig has done any of the key research on sugar himself, which he hasn’t, but because he’s willing to insist publicly and unambiguously, when most researchers are not, that sugar is a toxic substance that people abuse. In Lustig’s view, sugar should be thought of, like cigarettes and alcohol, as something that’s killing us. This brings us to the salient question: Can sugar possibly be as bad as Lustig says it is?"
just ask an authority on this topic, and that of health in general, for that matter: Ray Kurzweil.
It is very much like other toxic substances. So I agree it should be treated as a toxic substance, at least when the form of sugar is an unnatural processed form, such as corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, or other.
The obsession with sweet flavor is part of a marketing campaign not unlike the Chinese use of MSG. MSG is not considered healthy now is it?
There is no reason why the human body should ever consume processed sugar. If you need sugar, get it from an organic natural substance or don't consume it at all. Sugar are empty calories and processed sugar is only added to foods to make it addictive. Sugar is a scam, a toxic substance, and high fructose sugar should be relabeled rat poison because that's what it does to rats.
Calling sugar "toxic" is probably a plot to demean the word "toxic" and make tobacco less regulated.
Either that, or he's fallen for a more subtle form of the Dihydrogen Monoxide troll, perpetrated by the chemistry of sugar itself.
Why, yes, when you shove about a metric ton of it up a lab rat's ass, yes, it's toxic.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
If Sugar is bad for you, then howcome it's food?
I was taught to "Just say no" so I say he goes without any sugar what so ever so he can get is D.A.R.E. sticker. Also no eating things that get metabolised into sugar because that is just another way of getting your fix. Now, lets see how long he makes it...
Having done no research on the matter apart from my own experience, I'd say it's because people who "abuse" sugar are more likely to also abuse more harmful things. I, for instance, will eat a candy bar when I'm staying up late. I'll also drink excessive caffeine and get less sleep than I should. Correlation, but not causation.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
No. While refined carbohydrates like white sugar and white flour are things most people do use too much of, they're not half the problem HFCS, aspartame, and the potential organ damage from GMO corn. Priorities...
Caveat Utilitor
Das ist lustig
In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
In great enough quantities. It's called "drowning".
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Ray Kurzweil says it's bad
http://books.google.com/books?id=SqQ8O-xSqZwC&pg=PA123&lpg=PA123&dq=sugar+kurzweil&source=bl&ots=P2Ehbqn63H&sig=Wn90f02quca9PGRxpmJPaYLj_VM&hl=en&ei=UdasTZn1H4f0vwOT_JDxCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=sugar%20kurzweil&f=false
Peasants typically consume high fructose corn syrup because they cannot afford real sugar. Look in urban areas in the USA and look at what is being put in grocery stores and what they are eating. High fructose corn syrup is in everything. High fructose corn syrup is being used as a form of population control on the masses. Unlike some other substances it kills slowly over a period of decades. It is a proven slow acting poison, studies conducted on rats prove that rats fed high fructose corn syrup tend to develop heart disease become diabetic and die.
Why do they want the urban poor to die from heart disease and diabetes? It may sound like a conspiracy theory but think about it. And then think about why they also want to get rid of unions, cut people off social security, get rid of univeral healthcare, and cut spending on programs which save lives. The peasant poor in the USA are like cattle being culled, oh you expect corporations to treat human poor animals better than cattle? Look at a PETA video and see how cattle are treated.
can be toxic. I love it when these idiot professors, without any medical research to back it up, make some stupid claim that is inline with the current liberal culture. I remember back in the 70's when there was the alarm that saccharin would cause cancer, because they gave it to mice or some dippity-do nonsense. Then a couple years later, it was found that to reach the level of consumption that the mice were given, you would have to drink something like 800 diet sodas a DAY! Well, if it didn't cause cancer, it sure as d*mn well could kill your kidneys, that's for sure. Most likely another professor, that couldn't get a real job after college, so he just stayed in the ivory towers of a university, where anything that comes out of a book MUST be fact.
Lusting has been extensively debunked by Alan Aragon http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-the-fructose-alarmism-debate/ and James Krieger, amongst others; and Gary Taubes' carb hypothesis requires that obese individuals are capable of violating the laws of thermodynamics and the laws of conservation of mass so he's just reaching for something, anything that can vaguely support his bullshit claims.
At certain quantities, it's as dangerous as dihydrogen monoxide
Sugar is definitely toxic in high concentrations for some organisms - that's why it's used as a preservative. High concentrations of sugar kill many bacteria.
Radioactive water is more toxic than regular water just as high fructose corn syrup is more toxic than regular sugar.
Nobody is saying natural fructose from fruit is the source of the problem. The source of the problem is sugar is not a natural substance anymore. It's as if bottled water were being contaminated with unnatural radioactive substances and being labeled "vitamin water", if this "vitamin water" were causing cancer then yes water would be toxic too.
Anything is toxic in high doses.
There is no need, and it would be unscientific, to introduce some magical theory of "processed" foods versus "natural"foods: if the chemistry is identical, the biology is identical. The lecture is well grounded in the science of biochemistry.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
Water is toxic too, if you drink too much you die. I've never heard of people dying or having problems from ingesting a moderate amount of sugar, that's why I don't find this very credible.
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
And what form of sugar is most popular in America? The most toxic "high fructose corn syrup" or the lease toxic cane sugar?
Normal sugar is just as bad. RTFA.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
I'm telling people not to eat processed sugar. Fruit is organic sugar. The sugar in fruit is not the sugar in breakfast cereal. Processed sugar is a slow acting poison. Organic sugar in small amounts is like salt in small amounts.
The problem is processed sugar has replaced organic sugar. So when we talk about sugar now, we are talking about high fructose corn syrup because that is the most common form of sugar in the American diet.
It starts off with a teaspoon of sugar in your coffee...
Before long, you're eating tons of it, snorting it, injecting it into the blood.
Then you need harder stuff...
When this experimental technique was applied to water, the rats drowned.
And I do not advocating drinking too much juice or eating too much fructose. Fructose gets processed by the liver and because of how its processed it goes directly to fat cells. It's very difficult to burn it off, and it generally high calories.
That being said you have to weigh the risks vs the benefits of the vitamins in the fruit, vs the amount of fructose you consume.
Honestly it would be better to take fruit vitamins of powdered fruit without any fructose or sugar, than to drink actual juice and get the fructose which the body generally does not need and will waste or convert to fat.
Saying that something that people are exposed to every day is toxic is step one. Then you have to somehow make a conspiracy out of it. Profit (and fame)!
One of the most pervasive and powerful lobbies in Washington is the sugar lobby. They're worse than the oil companies going after climate research when it comes to attacking anyone who raises questions about their product.
They started the PR push back in advance of the story. Expect more in the days to come.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Given that glucose is what our bodies run on, I'd have to say no, sugar is NOT toxic to us. Is having too much sugar bad for you? Certainly. It's about balance. Too much of nearly anything (even water) is going to be bad for you.
High blood sugar causes your body damage. It will destroy capillaries in your extremities and retinas, making you blind and gangrenous. Sounds pretty toxic to me.
Sugar is also necessary for the body to function. If you don't eat any, your body will make some. However, the amount actually required to function is very small. When blood sugar is kept at ideal levels, all is well and sugar is not killing you.
The problem is, people are eating way too much of it these days. Not just sugar, but starches that break down into sugar very quickly when eaten. This causes blood sugar spikes, provoking your metabolism to go into defense mode. That means a spike of insulin to control the blood sugar level quickly. However, this often overcompensates, leaving blood sugar low, which drives one to eat again, much sooner than is actually necessary. Plus, the excess sugar is stored as fat, and fat leads to insulin resistance over the long haul -- diabetes.
People need to eat more protein and fat, and choose carbohydrates that are absorbed into the system slowly. Keep the blood sugar on an even keel and you can break the cycle of endless hunger. You'll lose weight without having to diet, because you won't be driven to eat by the ping-ponging of your blood sugar level. And the fine structures of your body will sustain less damage from the blood sugar spikes, meaning you'll weather aging a lot better.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
Study funded by Splenda, Equal, and Sweet'n'Low.
Almost all that we eat is converted to sugar by our own bodies. Protein is the exception. The catch is that carmelization occurs and this end product clogs our internal organs. It is one reason why older peoples eyes don't look as clear as when they were young. So yes sugar does help to kill you and there is nothing at all that you can do about it other than a mild state of starvation all your life. Prevention may extend life but it ruins the quality of life to such a degree that one almost must be perverted to maintain that degree of hunger.
Whet we are seeing are people looking for a way to get attention and make money simply by spouting nonsense. Think about the extent of this phony evangelism. How many people have made money, one way or another, by selling diets and diet products? And every one of those diets and diet products was hot air with a liberal dose of lies melted in to the alloy. Yet simply lying and stealing money with false health claims is not enough to be put in prison these days. And the suckers keep right on lining up to lose their money. Whether it's the daily miracle cure for arthritis or the miracle weight loss method it is all nonsense.
I never said I agreed with the entire article.
Yes, water is very toxic if you drink a toxic dose of it. What is the toxic dose of sugar? There are many types of sugars? What molecule are are we refering to? Without the "pesky" details we're just wasting our time.
Just how many people posting replies here have actually, you know-- watched the hour long presentation created by Mr. Lustig all the way through?
In the presentation, Lustig lists the metabolic pathway that fructose (The sugar he rants about) has to go through in order to be processed by the body, and explains why it is toxic in the quantities that people eat it in.
What is drawing fire here, is that lustig rightly mentions that sucrose is just a glucose and a fructose bound together by an ether bond, and metabolically speaking is practically identical to HFCS. (Something the corn refiner's association is also quick to point out.)
The real point of the presentation is to point out that the US population is eating considerably more sugar than it was 50 years ago, with a more than 300% increase in fructose consumption specifically.
He advocates reduction of fructose consumption, based on several cited studies he lists in his viral video presentation.
That said, armchair nerd pundits like us have no place to try to debunk such claims, since as far as I know none of us are licensed dieticians or physicians. As such, throwing useless arguments like "Dihydrogen oxide poisoning" around are non-sequitors at best, and pointless mud slinging at worst.
Having seen the presentation, and seen that he cites dozens of studies that can be independently examined, (and therefor verified), I feel that his presentation is of higher quality than say, a certain celebrity's rants about immunity shots and autism are. As such, it deserves more meaty rebuttles than what I am reading here on slashdot.
Well put me in the ignorant group because countless research has been spent on this subject... HFCS (55% fructose - 45% glucose) is no worse than sucrose (50% fructose - 50% glucose)... That problem is the sheer amount of calories... Also, the only reason they there is slightly more fructose than glucose is simply because they found it tastes sweeter this way. Meaning, HFCS actually has FEWER calories then a similar sweeter that uses sucrose...
take an apple, 50 calories sugar, 2 g fiber. Healthy food. Horrible fruit stipes, almost twice calories of an apple, less than half he fiber, and can be eaten endlessly.
A few bottles of coke, or fruit punch, several fuit strip snacks, basically what people think is an ok diet, and one has 2000 calories with no nutrition, and hundreds of grams of refined and concentrated sugar, much more than is healthy.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Don't forget the fiber. The rare times I drink sugar, it is something like orange juice with extra pulp. I'm not sure what it does for sugar absorption, but I do know two things. The insoluable fiber keeps me regular. Second, the soluable fiber will bond with the carbohydrates in the juice, so the cholesterol in the food I'm eating at the same time cannot do the same and enter my bloodstream.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
> "High blood sugar causes your body damage. It will destroy capillaries in your extremities and retinas, making you blind and gangrenous. Sounds pretty toxic to me."
I assume you mean this happens through type-2 diabetes?
At Goldsboro's Honey, two beekeepers discuss the day.
Beekeeper 1: Well, sure is quiet in here today.
Beekeeper 2: Yes, a little too quiet, if you know what I mean.
Beekeeper 1: Hmm...I'm afraid I don't.
Beekeeper 2: You see, bees usually make a lot of noise. No noise --
suggests no bees!
Beekeeper 1: Oh, I understand now. Oh look, there goes one now.
Beekeeper 2: To the Beemobile!
Beekeeper 1: You mean your Chevy?
Beekeeper 2: Yes.
The beekeepers track their bees down to Homer's sugar pile.
Beekeeper 1: Well, very clever, Simpson, luring our bees to your sugar pile and selling them back to us at an inflated price.
Homer: Bees are on the what now?
Beekeeper 2: Simpson, you diabolical...we're willing to pay you $2000 for the swarm. [starts counting money]
Homer: Deal!
[thunder crashes, rain starts]
Beekeeper 1: Oh, wait a minute. The bees are leaving.
Homer: No! My sugar is melting. Melting! Oh, what a world.
[thief spits out his tea]
Homer: [weeps] My sugar's gone...
Marge: [walk out with umbrella] I'm sorry, Homey.
Homer: It's OK, Marge. I've learned my lesson. A mountain of sugar is too much for one man.
It's clear now why God portions it out in those tiny packets, and why he
lives on a plantation in Hawaii.
Sugar in insufficient quantities will make you hypoglycemic, you lose consciousness and collapse--I've been there. Too much, and you go into shock and die.
Vitamin D in insufficient quantities will increase your blood pressure, make your bones brittle and give you colon/prostate cancer. Too much and your kidneys shut down and your liver fails.
Is Vitamin D toxic now?
The impending chocolate shortage will not be an issue with Sugar being declared a Schedule I drug!
Considering my diet consists of 88% sugar. Cookies, candy, and ice cream. My three favorite food groups.
Well put me in the ignorant group because countless research has been spent on this subject... HFCS (55% fructose - 45% glucose) is no worse than sucrose (50% fructose - 50% glucose)... That problem is the sheer amount of calories
And, if Lustig is right, the stuff he talks about (which damns HFCS and sucrose equally).
Also, the only reason they there is slightly more fructose than glucose is simply because they found it tastes sweeter this way. Meaning, HFCS actually has FEWER calories then a similar sweeter that uses sucrose...
If they were sweetened to the same level -- which they aren't. And that doesn't even get to the fact that HFCS is cheap enough that it's in food that would likely not have any sugar otherwise.
This is covered by the hour-long presentation cited by the summary.
Also pointed out in that video is the fact that foods that switched formulas from sugar to HFCS actually INCREASED the caloric content from sugar, due to the reduced price point, and increased sweet-taste appeal it provides.
Basically, the reduction in calories from using fructose rich corn syrup are more than offset when you add twice as much corn syrup as you did sugar previously---Just because you can.
Now, go watch the video, THEN comment. K, Thnks, bye.
A drug is "Articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals."
Sugar is a food as foods are "Any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body."
Indeed it does provide nutritional support for the body, in the form of energy. What's more you find sugar is essential to the function of a body. Glucose is a cell's primary energy storage and metabolic intermediate. Without it, your body does not function.
So sorry, it isn't a drug. Attempting to redefine it doesn't change that and is rather silly. That people eat too much of it is not relevant. Call it a drug because people east too much and you end up calling all foods drugs since people eat too much of all foods, fats, proteins, etc.
What is actually claimed is not that sugar (rather generic term which can mean carbohydrate) is toxic, but specifically that fructose has similar effect on the liver metabolism as alcohol (diabetics have fatty liver just like alcoholics), and fructose negative effect on the liver is worsened if caloric needs are already met. Specifically, if fructose metabolism in the liver is compared to alcohol metabolism you will see similar/same by-products of both. The claims made are verifiable, although a do require a bit biochemistry understanding.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Yes... In fact, HFCS seems to kill everyone around the 7th decade of their young pristine lives... Wow!! Brilliant Analysis!!!
Wakeup call!!! First, the US is not an agricultural nation anymore, so, we don't really have allot of peasants... Apparently John Deere got your peasants before HFCS got a chance.... Also, the average life expectancy has almost doubled from what it was before HFCS even existed....
Also, Im having a hard time linking heart disease people becoming diabetic...
it's not bad at all, corn syrup is whats dangerous. And besides the idea that everyone has to be supermodel thin is just preposterous. Habits in eating is more of a symbol of current financial and emotional states. Bigger people are either afforded the opportunity to consume food an a regular basis or they are so poor that McDonalds becomes a staple in their diet. But that's only relevant if you bypass the fact we all die and the condition in which we are buried or cremated is not really important at all. So when talking about whats "bad" for us it should be along the lines of moral civility decaying to the point to were we only care about narcissism....
As a person with mild fructose malabsorbtion I can say it's packaging that makes a difference too. I can eat fruit without a problem, but the same ammount of fructose in something like HFCS brings on my symptoms.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
for the last two years I have cut 99% of sugar out of my diet and have not noticed any difference, not certain if its toxic but you can live without it
He's labeling simple sugars as toxic based on how the word is defined in a dictionary. Basically he's merely stating that sugars in excess are harmful. I don't disagree. Try eliminating simple sugars from your diet and you will realize what they are doing to you. You will feel like crap as your body goes through withdrawal symptoms.
Don't forget the fiber. The rare times I drink sugar, it is something like orange juice with extra pulp.
Don't think that the extra pulp gets you much fiber... even Tropicana Extra Pulp has 0g fiber listed on their nutrition facts.
You never said you read the entire article, either, and it's apparent you didn't see at any of it. Otherwise you'd know there isn't any difference between "real sugar" that your "peasants" can't afford and the HFCS that's being used as a "population control" mechanism as you absurdly claim.
Yes, I am guessing glucose must be even worse....I mean EVERYONE dies, and everyone is exposed to glucose on a daily basis, so it MUST be the cause right???
In short... Have you ever wondered that it might just be the sheer amount of calories that makes junk food so bad for you???
The Romans didn't use sugar; they sweetened their food with lead.
Point being that just because we put it in every food we eat doesn't mean it's safe or healthy.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Just ask any diabetic.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
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Also important - sucrose (ie. table sugar) is metabolised into glucose + fructose.
Comments get rated down, comments get rated up. Tides go in, tides go out. There is never a miscommunication!
Where to begin. We can start with the first word of your post. "Lusting" is an activity I enjoy with redheads. Lustig is a scientist.
Secondly, Aragon makes a claim that Lustig doesn't nor does the article if you manage past the first few words. HFCS and sugar are equivalent nutritionally and they're both bad. Fructose is metabolized differently however (Aragon apparently can't read as well and decided to go the whole HFCS vs sucrose thing). Vis a vis the Japanese diet, he also tries to use anecdote (even when all of the posts he cites don't even support him!) and you'd do much better just to measure per capita sugar consumption (you know, sugar made minus sugar exported (or used for non-human consumption)) divided by number of people. This actual data (as cited in the TFA that you didn't read) supports the author's assertion, whereas using the plural of anecdote as data does not. (However, I would kill to have Japanese-style soft drink machines where literally one or two things actually contain sugar. You can't even find unsweetened tea in the states except at specialty stores for the most part.)
Lastly, Aragon plays the wonderful correlation/causality card. Which works for a great number of things, but unfortunately, scientists interesting in societal behavior can't just force people to adhere to their dietary whims randomly.
I'd like to see further research done in say, a controlled environment like a school where some bureaucrat can ban sugar from products the school sells and see if children become healthier. But bringing in thermodynamics to sound smart without the vaguely inclination of what you're even referring to is merely arrogant.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
In short... Have you ever wondered that it might just be the sheer amount of calories that makes junk food so bad for you???
Lustig takes some pains to both point explicit fingers at fructose, and then explains the metabolic pathways by which it accomplishes its task.
Perhaps you'd care to provide similar detail of studies implicating caloric intake instead of fructose specifically, and then describe the mechanism by which it causes diabetes?
There is no other country in the planet, INCLUDING the countries which actually ARE the producers of sugar, having problems with sugar.
...
Its an american problem. And this much stampede is done about it, and someone finally comes up saying some BASE element that is fundamental to life, is toxic
the UNIVERSAL energy source that ALL CELLS (including bacteria) on ANY living organism on this planet uses, is ATP.
and, ATP is generated through respiratory process from GLUCOSE (hello sugar) and oxygen.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_produces_ATP_energy_for_a_cell
and we have someone coming up saying that the BASE mechanism for all life on this planet, is toxic.
when we check it out, it comes up as an idiot that is in an AMERICAN that is trying to fight obesity.
no sugar isnt toxic. its the american mindset that is toxic - overdo ANYthing, and it becomes harmful to health, including oxygen. there are no other countries on the planet having problem with sugar, but americans.
thats your problem. but appallingly, someone makes a science out of america's own excesses. appalling.
Read radical news here
No, the presentation lacks any kind of scientific rigour at all; the only thing the presentation shows is that some doctors are poor at science, scientific reasoning, logic (he committed each and every fallacy of logic) and statistics.
He never claims that people will gain more than they take in. He's talking about the negative effects of HFCS versus sucrose, not sucrose itself. Yet everyone is talking about it.
Barely anyone reads the articles, I'm not surprised that virtually no one here bothered to watch the 90 minute video.
"That said, armchair nerd pundits like us have no place to try to debunk such claims, since as far as I know none of us are licensed dieticians or physicians."
The old "If you don't do X you can't criticize what they say!" By that logic, none of us can criticize the president since none of us are leaders of a nation.
People very well can look for errors, even if they don't do a given thing. What's more, bringing their particular knowledge to bear on a subject may be useful. Someone gifted in statistics might look at a study and understand nothing of what was being claimed, but be able to look at the data and say "You've made math errors here."
Also if you want a more detailed rebuttal, someone else linked http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/02/19/a-retrospective-of-the-fructose-alarmism-debate/ which has a bunch of information and links to more. Also please remember by your logic you cannot rebut any of that unless:
1) You read ALL of it, everything linked, through and through and
2) You have a Master of Science in Nutrition or similar credentials (as the author does).
If Dr. Goodstudy is well-respected in his field, why wouldn't I trust him to agree or disagree with the research of others in his field, even if he hasn't actually repeated any of the experiments himself?
If he's wrong too many times his reputation gets tarnished and I'll have every reason not to trust his opinions in the future.
I don't know Lusting from Adam but if he's a well-respected researcher in the field then it's understandable people will listen when he makes pronouncements based on others' research or even off of off-the-cuff observations related to his field.
On the other hand, if he's speaking outside his area of expertise in a way that sounds like he's an expert, then he deserves to be called on it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
if you consume too much of it.
If you drink too much water you can die, if you eat too much chocolate you can die...
So yes if you want to get "technical" sugar is "toxic".
sugar is not used as preservative because it is 'toxic'. in high concentrations, it acts like any substance that heavily absorbs water, by drawing water from environment. that includes any kind of bacteria cell - through osmosis, it draws water from cells, and neutralizes bacteria. just like salt in high quantities.
Read radical news here
Remember, he wrote Komm, süßer Tod.
Glucose, SUGAR, is the BASE substance that ALL life on this planet uses in their cells to create ATPs. dont talk like an idiot saying it damages anyone. what you have been wanting to say, is below :
OVERUSE OF ANY KIND OF SUBSTANCE/FOOD DAMAGES YOU.
Read radical news here
I don't think TFA is claiming that sugar is actually toxic, merely that it should be thought of as toxic in large quantities like anything else that is bad for you. I wouldn't drop sugar altogether, there's nothing wrong with having some now and then, naturally occurring and otherwise.
A label is a label of course and ultimately it should be up to the individual if they want to get really fat or not.
Wow. You, sir, are batshit insane. It isn't that hard to eat healthy on the cheap. Most produce around here is less than $1 per pound. Get a cookbook and you can whip up yummy, healthy food for cheaper than a lard meal at Mickey D's. Sugary, crappy food is CONVENIENT, so people stuff it down. No one forces anything down anyone's throat.
Oh, and for the billionth time, HFCS IS NO WORSE THAN REGULAR SUGAR. They're both fructose/glucose, only in marginally different quantities. I'll bet if you stuffed those rats full of regular ol' sugar they'd also wind up with diabetes.
You are a fucking lunatic.
I hold Sugar to be one of the key ingredients enabling mankind to crawl out of the dark ages. Coffee, of course, was a second, complimentary, necessary ingredient, and, lastly, now abjured, tobacco gave to Western civilization the zest and drive to conquer, pillage and enslave the ancient world and derive a surplus to birth the age of Enlightenment!
Obesity and obesity-related diabetes are just as big a problem in Australia as in the US, and we make very little use of high fructose corn syrup in Australia: most of our sweet things are sweetened with sugar-cane sugar. (HFCS is cheap in the US only because of heavy subsidisation of the corn industry).
If the sugar lobby is so powerful, why is HFCS used in everything instead? Obviously they've got nothing on the corn lobbyists.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Of course, this has been appropriately modded as flamebait, so this is a little pointless. However, as a poli sci guy, I have to take issue with your use of the word "peasant". Do you know what that means? Or are you using it to make a point of some kind? Because it doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.
Also, your argument fails to account for the fact that the rate of population increase amongst those of lower incomes is higher than that of the higher income demographics. And what do corporations have to do with what you said, please? You know, you can actually submit some pretty lengthy posts here, so if you wanted to actually support that argument with logic, you've got room...
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
The push to kill sugar is really the push to make artificial sweeteners more lucrative.
well, of course, considering the biological diet of Homo Sapiens does not include complex sugars at all. not even the meal cycle is natural. blinded by custom. dental problems were not a concern until carbohydrates and sugar became part of the diet
I'd say the "toxic" teminolgy are more for dramatic effect, but it does deliver the message - sugar is not good food, not a good ingredient, and in the amounts you eat it, it's really bad for you.
It's profitable as hell in the food business though. It's cheap, doens't spoil, it actually preserves other food, people love it, and it's somewhat addictive. Sells like crazy and has a large profit margin. Hell I can see why they lobbied the whole world to say whatever was needed to sell it for decades. It's so addictive in fact that this guy can talk all he wants, there will be little effect. I'll be shocked if the sugar and candy industry lose more than 1% of their business over this. Over an extended period it may have more of an effect though.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Sugar's not really food. It's a drug. The first drug of addiction for most people on the planet.
... and rock and roll it's devil music, innit?
Chemists have a list of the Toxicity of many different things, even water is on it, and by the way, nothing has a non-toxic zero. To a chemist, everything is toxic, so just saying sugar is toxic is like saying matter has mass.
As to the article, it boils down to a simple thing: Too much of anything is bad for you.
As to the claims of Lustig that sugar is evil and poison. It looks like he's full of B.S. as there doesn't seem to be any science backing that up. Especially the claims of a basic molecule having an ethical stance of a negative type.
Compared to HFCS, sugar is as safe as water.
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
I was under the impression that insulin spikes due to the glucose will have a far greater effect.
Did you read his rebuttals? He was nitpicking various aspects of of Lustings arguments, often playing on words and nuances more than fact. He provided no definitive counter evidence.
Go figure...
Lusting = scientist
Aragon = blogger
Decide how you want.
I was on statins for about a year and a half after unsuccessfully trying to better my numbers with a "low-cholesterol low-saturated fat" diet. My doctor chalked up my numbers to genes and sent me on my way with a script.
The statins made me feel terrible (back pains, low energy, heart palpitations, general fogginess and difficulty concentrating) so I gave them up. I was a bit worried about the heart palpitations, so I had a cardiac workup done - everything checked out OK.
After reading a bunch of stuff linking sugars to high cholesterol, I decided to try a low-sugar/carb diet (Mediterranean diet). It worked amazingly well. My total cholesterol dropped from 260 before statins to 175. I was around 200 on the statins. Ratios are good as well.
The other nice side-effect of cutting out sugars - I'm 20 pounds lighter now.
-ted
If you want to do this try having a glass of OJ (high pulp or not) with a bowl of oatmeal with some cinnamon on it - lotsa fiber and good taste even without the sugar with the cinnamon. Also - not to long ago it was common for restaurants to serve juice in a small 4 ounce glass. Even Mcdonalds had it in a pre ackaged 6 ounce container. It's a recent thing to have 8 or even more commonly 16 ounce servings, which is waaay to much. Fruit juices CAN be good for you, just not in such quantities. also, one other suggestion -- orange water. juice yourself one half an orange into a big glass of water. That right there is better than any softdrink and is fairly sweet if you mostly drink water. Stop drinking anything but water or unsweetened tea or coffee for three weeks- even skim milk will taste downright sweet afterwards.
Water is not addictive, and consuming it in ever increasing quantities doesn't irrationally affect human judgment on how much we should consume.
I don't know of any cases of people who drowned because they got addicted to water.
Sugar, OTOH, is VERY addictive, and as one consumes more of it, the common sense circuitry in (some) human brains shorts out (much like with what we term 'drugs') and instructs the body to consume ever more, to the point of radically shortened lifespan, radically-decreased mobility, extreme susceptibility to illness, and all other manners of self-harm.
This is a shared trait with, let's see,
Cigarettes?
Heroin?
Alcohol?
All of the above?
So while the linguistic nazis are right and it may not be a drug by the strict definition of the word (because it very much is a nutrient), it also most definitely shares the one key characteristic with drugs - the very one that makes us consider them dangerous to society, and subsequently vigorously regulate them.
Maybe we need to coin a new term to group substances that addict us, harm our judgement, cause us to overconsume them, and are detrimental to society, that will encompass both food and drugs. Maybe "Bad adictive shit".
But since "drugs" already carries the ethical weight of "bad addictive shit", expect it to be hijacked right left and center to depict non-drug-substances too. Kinda like using that carry the ethical weight & connotation of rape, murder and pillaging on the high seas to depict violating copyright (except in the sugar case, for a somewhat nobler cause).
Besides, anyone who thinks the linguistics meta-point is more important & discussion-worthy than "America, and the world in general, has an unhealthy abusive relationship with sugar" point seriously needs to have his priority-setting gray matter looked at by a professional.
-
What's Next? BACON?!!
=:-O
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Sugar, salt, vitamins, calcium, iron, water, etc... anything is toxic/harmful if abused. Calling sugar toxic is idiotic.
Some basics.
Glucose is the primary blood sugar. Fructose, and other sugars are made into glucose eventually (sometimes in the mouth, sometimes in the intestine, sometimes in the liver). This includes starch and glycogen, which are just long chains of glucose (or glucose analogues). Glucose and other simple sugars are 6-carbon rings. Wiki glucose for a nice diagram. The thing is, the rings open up, which means one of the bonds is weak enough that it breaks, and re-connects, often. It spends about 1/4 of 1% of its time in this configuration. Which means if you take a snapshot at any point in time, 0.25% of the molecules will be in this "open" configuration.
In the open configuration, the molecule is the biologic equivalent of a ready-strike match head. It has a free O- which really wants to bind with anything it touches (like your sister, haha, but back on topic). This is *extremely* toxic, and the primary reason why you have a system in place, regulated by insulin, to keep the total amount of glucose in the blood to a minimum. Because when it's stored in long chains, as it is in the muscle or liver, it doesn't have this toxic property.
The article however talks about another type of toxicity. That being the effect of too much of one type of sugar on the liver. Since TFA and the rest of the comments are directed at this, I'll leave that part to others.
...raised by the parent article is covered in this piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/12/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-10-12-03-the-agri-cultural-contradictions-of-obesity.html
America being a nation of fatties isn't an accident.
Just because someone's lobbying for something doesn't mean it's wrong.
I have a theory that the geek brain requires more glucose than the average brain. This allows me to rationalize my Mt. Dew addiction and my undying devotion to Swiss Cake Rolls. Don't try to kill my buzz with facts about sugar -> glucose conversion. Little Debbie for President!
First it was eggs. "Eggs are good for you, eggs are bad for you, eggs are good for you..."
That cycle took about 20 years.
Then it was high fat diets. Then low fat diets. Then caveman diets. Everything is either good or bad for you depending on what time of day it is. The cycles are getting faster and faster too. 20 years for eggs, adkins style diets went in and out in about 5 years, and caveman diet is the "in thing" for the last several months, probably to be proven deadly tomorrow.
Now alcohol's toxic? I mean, just yesterday I was reading that alcohol was good for me. That one seems to change every day.
Maybe the reason nobody really takes anything scientists say at face value is that it all changes 3 days later when some stupid reporter covers a story as "What scientist X said last week is going to kill you, scientist Y says this week is incredibly good for you!"
Maybe I'll just keep living a life of moderation and ignore all this crap. So far all these folks are doing is making me stress about doing the same things my grandparents (who all lived into their 90's) did all their lives. I'll keep eating vegetables (you know, more people died of food related illnesses last year from eating vegetables than from eating meat?) and meat (Dead Cows and Pigs FTW) and fish (Mercury poisoning FTL) and such.
I'll probably end up getting hit by a truck or something, and then what'd all that deprivation get me?
Move out of the deep South. Unsweetened tea is common where I am, and also was common in the DC area where I grew up. It was crappy stuff, something I can't bring myself to drink because of how bad it tastes, but it is unsweetened tea. It took me years to learn how to brew tea and realize that the problem is restaurants are afraid of boiling water and thus brew black teas meant for seeping in water that is initially at a boiling temperature, at temperatures more suitable for delicate white or green teas, 140 F or less. To top it off, they don't even understand brew times up here.
Cheap amber oolong seems easy to find at those hole in the wall Chinese restaurants scattered everywhere, usually some form of teabag oolong brewed in a specialty tea brewing device that will keep a decent temperature for that tea, but don't try a black tea in those things. Those teas are never sweetened unless you add sugar at the table.
If you are looking for tea bags, most grocers I've seen have at least cheap, lousy teabags.
And yes, I buy real tea from a specialty store, but I do realize what is out there in tea, and in an emergency can make something I can at least stand to drink.
"I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend unto the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire
It's not just sugar, it;s every highly processed food.
But you have a choice of feeding millions of feeding a few.
Food processing for consumption by the masses is an evolution. But unfortunetaly our bodies have not adapted to the significant changes. But we are feeding millions more than we could ever feed 100 years ago within the same or lesser agricultural footprint.
It;s not all good or good for you but hey at least you have all the choices. It;s up to you to decide what;s for dinner.
I have it. I am middle aged and not obese (male, 6', 170lbs).
It could have been partly caused by my sedentary coding lifestyle plus consumption of lots of fruit juice and an only averagely healthy diet partly by genetic predisposition (one relative in two previous generations). But I'm only one case so who knows.
A microbiology phd acquaintance of mine advised that insulin resistance can (inability of sugar to be taken into cells through the cell wall) can be caused by repeated over-use of the insulin system through frequent consumption of high glycemic index foods/drinks. The system basically has a certain lifetime capacity and it wears out from frequent insulin floods/shocks.
So for me now, sugar definitely IS toxic, and, since the diabetes prevents the sugar getting in and feeding my cells, it causes a craving for more quick-sugary stuff. And the craving going away when given in to feels like it releases dopamine or whatever. So potentially addictive too.
According to the diabetes education/support team at the hospital (dietitian, specialist nurse etc) we should eat a diet free from simple sugars and fluffy highly processed carbs. Sugar with lots of fiber is ok. You need your sugar, but taking it with lots of fiber (whole grains, vegetables etc) slows down (smooths out over time) the sugar metabolism and reduces insulin floods and excarbation of the problem. It also reduces incidence of high blood-sugar levels which is what kills you. High blood-sugar levels over time actually corrodes small blood vessels (you know, the ones in your organs and feet and hands and eyes. These tissues then die eventually.
So eat one fistful of carbs (preferrably complex) and one fistful of protein and as many vegetables as you want. You will probably notice that almost all restaurant meals are two fistfuls of simple carbs and a little bit of protein, lots of fat, a token vegetable. The reverse of what you need.
You can snack on more vegetables, fruit, high-protein and/or high-fibre snacks. Snacking (on these healthier things) is actually good because of the more even consumption of sugar (supply of energy) over the day.
This advice applies to everyone. Avoid diabetes and get generally healthier.
My advice based on my experience and the advice of the experts who've coached me is to think of high refined-sugar-content and high simple-carb foods as toxic. You'll probably live longer.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Once again the slashdot summary is misleading. I urge everyone to see the referenced video and read the article afterwards. They are very informative. However, I should point out that the slashdot summary makes it look like the New York Times article is kind of dismissing Lustig's video. This is not true, the article is actually mostly supportive of Lustig's theories while providing much more historical information.
Sugar and Dihydrogen Monoxide pose the greatest dangers to our children. http://dhmo.org/
That's all fair... I just have one addition. If you're going to have the OJ, why not just eat the orange? If you won't, I'm not going to try to discourage you from that 4oz glass or whatever, but if you will, that'll be better for you than the juice.
I made a few changes in my diet a year ago or so, and replacing drinking a fair bit of juice with the actual fruit instead (actually mostly grape juice to eating apples) I suspect had a big effect.
I really think /. needs a +1 Tinhat
greed@All_Evils:~#
Wow. Oh, and for the billionth time, HFCS IS NO WORSE THAN REGULAR SUGAR. They're both fructose/glucose, only in marginally different quantities. I'll bet if you stuffed those rats full of regular ol' sugar they'd also wind up with diabetes. You are a fucking lunatic.
People keep saying that. Are you calling a 10% difference marginal? Really. I think you need to look up the definition of marginal, because a 10% difference is a tad more than marginal. There is another difference other than the ratio of fructose to glucose. Fructose and glucose molecules are not bonded together in HFCS and passes into the blood stream much faster than with sucrose.
HFCS works to the benefit of both. It's (comparatively) difficult to grow sugar in the US, so, in short, we can't make enough to satisfy demand. Normally, we'd just import the remainder from elsewhere, but because the sugar lobby is so powerful, we've got huge tariffs in place to "protect" domestic sugar. This makes sugar very expensive, much more expensive than it would be, which is what makes it cost-effective to, in essence, synthesize sugar from corn.
I'm seeing from these comments that a lot of people don't actually know what sugar is. Part of the problem is the colloquial usage of the term for when we say something like "blood sugar". What's actually being measured is serum glucose levels.
Glucose, in scientific terms is a monosaccharide. The "sugar" being described by Lustig is a disaccharide. That is to say, it is composed of two monosaccharides bound together - glucose and fructose. Glucose is NOT the problem and Lustig states this quite clearly. Thus, starchy foods like potatoes, rice, wheat, etc are NOT the problem because starch is simply made of long chains of glucose strung together. If it's in excess, glucose tends to get stored in your body as glycogen because that is the most efficient way for you body to convert it back to glucose when it is needed. However, fructose is problematic. No cell in your body can use fructose directly. Thus, the liver has to do something with it. And that's where the problems begin because one of the major biochemical pathways of fructose results in fat (among other problems described in the lecture). Since fructose is one-half of sugar (sucrose), sugar is a problem.
The only situation when fructose is not a problem is when it is taken in low quantity and is absorbed slowly. Thus, as presented in nature, it is okay to ingest in the form of fruit because of the natural fiber content that's always associated with fructose. But in modern food processing and juicing, we have greatly increased the amount, and stripped away all the fiber (for storage and cooking efficiency).
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
As a scientist, I like to base my opinions on evidence wherever possible.
Lustig makes strong points which are backed up by studies (cited in his lecture) and are consistent with known biochemical pathways (which he explains).
The vast majority of responses here are complete bunkum: anecdotal evidence, true facts which sound like they are relevant ("you can drown in water!"), and misrepresentation of his central point ("our bodies *need* glucose! He's crazy!")
If you disagree with his position and have evidence to back that up, I'll listen to what you have to say.
Everyone else - you're going to get really frustrated when I don't change my opinion because of what you say.
Let's let evidence and logic have it's moment here.
Asked of a tobacco grower on cnbc.
The first thought in my head was "okay but so does booze, sugar, fatty food".
I don't smoke but if I want to smoke, or skydive, or stay up 24 hours, or drink, or eat cream smothered bacon-- get the hell out of my private life.
You need to stop them at the tobacco level- or when it falls, the next thing will be sugar and fat. In fact they are already starting on them now.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
'nuff said.
Calling sugar "toxic" is probably a plot to demean the word "toxic" and make tobacco less regulated.
If you introduce the "Western diet" to cultures that don't have it, those people become hypertensive, get heart disease, obese, and die earlier.
Is there a more appropriate word than 'toxic'? Is "Really bad for you" somehow more politically correct?
Maybe it's not the fructose. Maybe it's the refined starches, or the bad fats, or the lack of vegetables. But the 100+ pounds of sugar a year can't be a nutritional benefit, unless you're riding the Tour de France - your body isn't evolved for that. Like they say, eat the outside of the supermarket, stay away from the middle.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Maybe the reason nobody really takes anything scientists say at face value is that it all changes 3 days later
I think you are confusing scientists with popular news writers that misqoute and half quote scientists. The basic facts about metabolism and bio-chemistry haven't evolved that fast at all
Everything is toxic in the right concentration.
I've just now reviewed Alan Aragon's debunking of Lustig's claims, roundly publicized here in several comments. Including some of the cited references from that article.
Alan's rebuttal was a debate between himself and Lustig. The issues wander the landscape of unrelated factual errors (Lustig claims that the Japanese have no added fructose in their diet), cites of papers which show the data being inconclusive (specifically, he's citing absence of evidence as evidence of absence), and painting Lustig with the same brush as more "fringe" claimants.
And of course it wasn't the actual debate, but a summary of the debate, and written by Alan. He must have won the debate too - he says so in his summary.
In comparing the two positions, I find Alan's rebuttal lacking in scientific rigor. If a half-dozen or so studies can be found (or undertaken) which target Lustig's claims directly and show no evidence for the things that he says, that would counter the half-dozen or so studies that form the basis of Lustig's lecture.
Until then, I assign higher likelyhood to Lustig. I'll continue to hold this position until actual scientists chime in with conclusions based on evidence.
Does does that go? If your article can be summarized as "no", don't write it.
http://www.chaotickingdoms.com
Seriously, if sugar were toxic, HOW IN THE FUCK COULD ANY OF US HAVE SURVIVED CHILDHOOD?
Every kid I knew ate sugar laden cereal, drank sugar laden soft drinks and had candy bars with cake and ice cream for dessert.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/IMT_EndoPAT.aspx ...
"Traditional testing such as angiography and stress tests only measure blockages in the arteries and will miss non-obstructing vulnerable plaques which are the cause of the majority of heart attacks and strokes.
Intima-media thickness (IMT) scanning uses ultrasound technology and is a simple procedure that is noninvasive, painless, and free of radiation. It can predict risk of heart attack or stroke better than an angiogram. IMT is measured by taking pictures of your carotid artery using an ultrasound probe on your neck. This measurement predicts your risk of a future heart attack or stroke.
Assessing endothelial dysfunction with an EndoPAT machine is also very helpful in that it will pick up the earliest stages of cardiovascular disease. It also is simple, noninvasive, and involves no radiation. Sensors are placed on your fingers which measure the dilation of the blood vessels in your fingers while a blood pressure cuff on your arm inflates and deflates.
By using the results of these tests in combination with a medical history, physical exam and blood work physicians are able to more accurately assess risk without the risks of traditional testing methods."
See also:
http://www.drfuhrman.com/disease/HeartDisease.aspx
http://www.drfuhrman.com/success/SuccessStory.aspx?id=143
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/cat-cardiovascular-disease.html
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I mean the withdrawal symptoms for water are worse and hit quicker. Oh, and don't get me started on how bad the withdrawal from O2 is.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
The sugar lobby wants to keep the price of sugar artificially high (so Florida won't go out of business) by maintaining high tariffs on imported sugar. This maintains the price of sugar much higher than HFCS, and so HFCS is used. The sugar lobby isn't looking for people to use more sugar so much as they are trying to make sure there isn't enough if it to go around.
Can sugar possibly be as bad as Lustig says it is?
Can second hand smoke be as bad as you've been told it is?
Can marijuana be as bad as you've been told it is?
Can fast food be as bad as you've been told it is?
We foist a lot of bullshit on each other. Why start questioning any of it now?
Sugar is toxic, that’s why our bodies secrete insulin to lower the levels in the blood to keep from destroying neural tissue. It’s well known that sugar will affect the eyes and peripheral nerves, causing diabetic neuropathies. After so long, the cells become desensitized to insulin requiring the pancreas to secrete more insulin. High levels of insulin will cause all kinds of havoc with the body, from infertility to depression.
Even dentist will tell you sugar will eat through the enamel on your teeth, what do you think it does to your blood vessels? We know that diabetics and pre-diabetics have a spike in their cholesterol, one could make the connection of atherosclerotic plaque protecting against “sugar damage.” Just an idea
Sugar has a pretty interesting history of taxation, too. Now why would anybody tax sugar? Perhaps it is something we don't want to encourage.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
Why is everyone parroting the trope that "everything is toxic in large quantities" without asking whether the modern Western diet is above the threshold of excess? Isn't that what we're talking about here?
I feel like the libertarians in the crowd are trying to dismiss a valid question before it's answered.
Eh...true but not in the way you think of "toxic". High sugar or salt concentrations have been used for many centuries to preserve foodstuffs. They act by producing what is called a hypertonic environment where the dissolved sugar or salts draws out water from inside a cell through the semi-permeable cell membrane. If left long enough, the cell cytoplasm will shrink and the bacteria dies or at least are inhibited from growing.
Some commenters in this thread wants to give Lustig the benefit of the doubt but I disagree. Sometimes, it is best to tar and feather cranks. Militancy has no place in science, however well intentioned because it has a tendency to blind the preacher from contradicting evidence.
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Actually, the hypothesis is that fructose is harmful, not glucose. The most widely used sweetening agents are sucrose and high fructose corn syrup, both of which are about 50% fructose.
Consider Richard Dawkins: He is very popular, and considered a good speaker. Why? Because he has one issue, and he's willing to talk about it all day long. This speaker, too, is sensationalist and myopic. But he is making well-justified points, backed up by good data, and so he's worth listening to. The criticisms and "debunking" of his work on the various blogs are not refuting his claims; rather, they are arguing that fructose is one of many contributors to obesity. If the worst criticism of the 90-minute video is that it's not broad enough, then it was a worthwhile video indeed.
HFCS is the Sugar lobby. There isn't much health difference between HFCS and just sugar.
All I can say is watch the video and then comment. I did, was more informative than most videos Ive seen lately, and poses an excellent argument on the possible cause of increased sugar leading to obesity. I think it is something worth seriously considering if you are overweight or have the health issues stated. In the last week since I saw it I cut out most processed sugars and am actually feeling better than I have in a long while.
Watch the video, decide for yourself. Will it kill you to cut down on HFCS or processed sugar? Not at all. And could it help? quite probably, so to me its worth a try.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
What?
No, dumbass, HFCS is used because the sugar lobbyists are so successful in keeping out foreign imports of sugar, keep the domestic price artificially high - high enough that it's cheaper to use HFCS than real sugar.
AFAIK, the Sugar Industry purposefully controls the size of their market to keep prices at a raised premium. The market itself, is the monopoly. If they didn't contain it as well as they did, and hold on to the processing patents that they do, we'd be seeing a 10lb of sugar for a $1 at the grocer. There's also the high importation tax for foreign sugar, which makes it fairly difficult to be economically profitable for those who try.
If there was ever a monopolistic market to observe and study over extended periods, it's the Sugar industry in the US.
[citation needed]
You do realize there's more than one kind of HFCS, right? HFCS 55 is 55% fructose which is 5% more than sucrose and is used largely in soft drinks. HFCS 42 is 42% fructose, which is about 8% LESS than sucrose and is used in most solid sweetened foods. I don't know where you're getting that 10% number.
In Soviet America the corn lobby is the sugar lobby and vice versa.
I can't believe how monumentally ignorant yall are about health. So I will pull what I've been told many times by computer nerds - READ THE FUCKING MANUAL
Just read anything by Sherry A. Rogers. Go to your library and check out one of her books. They are easy reads and are well documented with pertinent research.
It isn't JUST sugar, its a lot of stuff, but yes, refined cane sugar is pretty bad for you for a variety of reasons. The whole sugar/insulin thing is what messes up diabetics. Sugar uses up your body's magnesium faster, which is a bad thing.
I don't know what this Lustig guy said but I started reading Rogers 15 years ago and SHE explains in great detail why sugar and the crap we call food today is bad for you.
It isn't about going on a diet, its more about pointing out what is bad and letting you choose what to do.
It's the metabolic and endocrine impacts which Lustig and Taubes are concerned with. You're dumping a load of sucrose (triggering an insulin response) and fructose (triggering a triglyceride release from the liver) with either. If you're eating excesses of either sugar or HFCS, you're going to trigger the same effects. The effect on your taste buds is not significant to the article.
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
It is largely because of the sugar lobby that HFCS is used in everything instead - the lobbyists were able to secure tariffs/quotas on imports so that sugar prices are too high for e.g. soft drinks and junk food. Kill off said tariffs and we could probably make a dent in the obesity epidemic and would see corn prices plummet as well, making the Mexicans happy (corn is a staple of their diet and high prices resulted in protests in recent years).
The sugar lobby has put its efforts into high import tariffs. The resulting high prices on cane sugar naturally led to a search for a cheaper source of sweetness, and corn sugar won.
And yes, the corn lobbyists have much more power.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Are you freaking serious? Inhaling sugar causes intravascular blood shearing? Diesel does. Sugar causes massive CO2 and steam release that contributes to global warming? Nearly every vehicle on the planet does. Dictatorships (US) and invasive foreign policy (China and US) and small arm conflicts (US) is done because of sugar? It is for oil. Wars have been fought over sugar? They have for oil.
Yeah, the sugar lobby is horrible. Right after the fat lobby, followed closely by the ethanol deserves to be free lobby.
First - his main beef is with fructose.
Second - the chemistry of the body breaks refined sugar (sucrose) into its component parts fructose and glucose, hence his phrase "all sugar is bad for you"
Third - chemically the body treats fructose in the exact same way as ethanol (alcohol).
Fourth - If you are going to disagree with someone read their statements or watch the videos.
Fifth - Statistics don't lie, only interpreters do. Fat consumption has gone down; heart disease, diabetes and other forms of "metabolic disorders" have gone up.
Sixth - Come on people, we know the government is in bed with corporations. If those two entities are in agreement against something someone is saying it most likely is the truth.
The only reason to come against it is because we don't want to give up something in our personal lifestyle. We live in America though, we can know it's bad and not give a crap. Enjoy your Pepsi, I do. Just not as often.
Lastly, who among the doubters are going to say with honesty, and integrity that soda, donuts, cookies and such things are actually healthy for us?
---- Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted.
the toxicity of sugar (sucrose, glucose, fructose, etc) is one of things that almost no researcher in the know dares to mention publicly because it would be career (and funding) suicide. the processed food industry is far too powerful a lobby group.
but the researchers know. check medline. almost every research article on diabetes begins with words to the effect of "fed the rats sugar until they developed diabetes". feeding rats sugar is THE consistently reproducible method of inducing diabetes.
and this is what the processed food lobby is doing to consumers every day with sugar in absofuckinglutely everything. even things you think wouldn't have sugar because they're supposed to be salty or sour or savoury or anything-else-but-sweet have sugar in them. because it's cheap, it's addictive (esp. to children and adults with poor impulse control - i.e. most of the population), and it's a preservative.
sugar in our diet isn't bad when it's rare and unrefined (as it is in fruits and vegetables etc. and in our natural pre-agriculture diet it WAS rare, but it was a huge amount of easily absorbed energy which is why we evolved the ability to taste sweetness...and why we also evolved to *like* it). even when humans first discovered processed sugar from sugar cane a few hundred years ago it wasn't a huge problem because it was very expensive (like all spices were) - only the rich could afford it.
even the improvement of refinery processes that made sugar became extremely refined and extremely cheap wasn't that bad....it was only when "food" factories started putting it in *everything* so that it became almost impossible to avoid eating far too much of the stuff that it became a problem.
and this, btw, is also why the poor (and the time-poor) suffer from diabetes more than the rich do - the rich can afford to eat well. the poor can't (money-wise AND time-wise).
I nearly stopped listening to the Dr. Lustig after he said "Rossini, you know, La Gazza Ladra, The Marriage of Figaro..." It's being pedantic, but, UGH.
So the sugar people win when nobody buys sugar?
Whatever happened to this ?
Some years ago it was called the solution as inverted sugar should not be recognized by our metabolism but tasted just as sweet.
Too much of many different kinds of things can be toxic. Hell, too much water can be toxic (no, really, it can. look up overhydration, also commonly known as water intoxication). People eat sugar all the time without severe negative effects. Like many things though, it's the people who go overboard with it that run in to problems.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
The fact that we use HFCS is evidence of the sugar lobby. If we didn't have such high sugar import tariffs we would never use HFCS. Nobody else uses HFCS in quantity except Japan. We've been using it so long that people create fanciful excuses, like it's easier to transport, blah blah blah. But clearly none of those are sufficient reasons because no country with unimpeded trade access to cane sugar actually uses HFCS.
The sugar lobby in this country makes a lot of money. Although HFCS is omnipresent, there's more cane sugar demand than can be supplied domestically. This is why HFCS exists; import supply couldn't meet demand. Couple the artificial suppression of cane sugar supply with corn subsidies and only then is HFCS economical.
I'm not an anti-HFCS fanatic. There's no evidence that the 55/45 fructose/glucose ratio is significantly different, health wise, than sucrose from cane sugar. But I prefer the taste profile of cane sugar. (I won't drag out the Mexican Coke example because that's unfair. Most people who drink Mexican Coke drink it from a glass bottle. Soda in a glass bottle has a higher CO2 content than from plastic, because plastic leaks too much. A lot of what makes Mexican Coke preferable is the higher carbonation.)
You do realize there's more than one kind of HFCS, right? HFCS 55 is 55% fructose which is 5% more than sucrose and is used largely in soft drinks. HFCS 42 is 42% fructose, which is about 8% LESS than sucrose and is used in most solid sweetened foods. I don't know where you're getting that 10% number.
You do realize that HFCS 55 has 10% more fructose than sucrose?
Its because sugar is expensive, because the US restricts imports to keep the price artificially high, whereas the same US government subsidizes corn, which makes HFCS artificially cheap. Its insane.
Yeah, cutting back on wine is always a good idea.
Taube's article is pretty long. It's still much faster to read it than to watch Lustig's whole presentation. If you can, do both, of course. If you can't or won't WTFV, then RTFA. If you can't or won't RTFA, then here's a summary.
Yes, too much of anything is toxic. Duh. That's not what Lustig or Taube are talking about. They're also not talking about "empty calories" -- the consumption of lots of sugar without other nutrients, meaning your overall calorie intake is higher, so you get fat and have obesity-related problems.
What they're talking about is the question of whether fructose directly causes health problems of its own accord -- namely, things like fatty liver and insulin resistance, things which may in turn raise the risk of diabetes and cancer independent of whether you get fat.
What Taube will tell you, that Lustig won't, is that the research is not conclusive. It all shows very strong correlation, but that of course isn't causation. And that's caused all these disputes of what the real problem is, particularly whether it's fat or sugar that's responsible.
Taube says that we should be considering the possibility that it's both; or at least, abandoning the idea that it must be either-or. Similarly, on the question of whether it's sucrose or HFCS that's worse, he suggests that they're so similar (both are glucose-fructose mixtures in nearly equal proportions) that they're probably both just as bad as each other.
Too much of anything is toxic; but (Taube says) because the research is inconclusive, nobody can say how much fructose is "too much". It's an established fact that short-term, high-dose fructose intake causes these problems (fatty liver et al.), but it's not known what long-term intake at the levels currently typical in the US will do.
The circumstantial evidence suggests that it will cause the same problems, eventually. And of course various people (like Lustig) have seized on this circumstantial stuff as damning evidence. But just because they're overstating the case, doesn't mean they're wrong, says Taube.
Eh. At best carbohydrates (which include all sugars) are neutral at best. When they're buffered by water and fiber and in low quantities sugar has little effect on system inflammation, and does supply energy... However, sugar does cause inflammation. In everyone. This means lower immune system function, feeling ill, etc. Most of the time it is asymptomatic, though sometimes it can even cause noticeable symptoms such as tonsillitis or sinusitis Obesity is very much linked to high GI foods chock full of carbs (I'm looking at you, potatoes and grains). These foods have incredible caloric density, and do not have the fiber or water content in place to buffer it into the bloodstream. It is absorbed quickly, then negative feedback loop takes effect and insulin stores excess as fat; but, it stores TOO much. And now blood sugar levels are low again. This creates a tired feeling and more hunger. It's a vicious cycle. That said, there are diets that induce ketosis, and so carbohydrate intake, if at all, is negligible. As far as I know, there aren't any cases of this causing any sort of health problems (at least in people with working gall bladders). TL;DR: More steak and green things. Less donuts. Stuff face. Go fight bear.
Of course sugar isn't toxic. Next silly question. Then again some people want to label CO2 toxic. Maybe the problem is just that some people are not willing to try to make the distinction between something that can be harmful, must be used responsibly, and something which is toxic, and should be avoided to whatever extent possible (with April 20th approaching, I seem to find myself arguing with these people more and more). Some people prefer to simply ban everything that can be harmful, so that they don't have to think too much about what they're doing.
Sugar is not toxic. When it where we would be dead in seconds. Considering the amount of sugar we are consuming. Howerver, sugar has an effect on our reward system. In short sugar makes us happy. And it produces a positive bond to products which contain sugar. That's why fast food companies use so many sugars in their food. It makes you come again. So sugar is used to manipulate you. But so are advertisments.
If the sugar lobby is so powerful, why is HFCS used in everything instead?
Actually, the sugar lobby is directly to blame for the popularity of HFCS in American food.
They lobby for protectionist tariffs to keep sugar prices artificially high. As a result, sugar costs about twice as much inside the USA. And that's a big reason why we end up eating so much HFCS.
informative link: http://www.benzinga.com/105260/sugar-tariffs-cost-americans-2-5-billion-in-2009
This is a very dangerous statement to be made and it is being made with a purpose that most people are blind to. If enough people can be led to believe something as "plausible", that will be enough to allow the government to declare sugar as a controlled substance. If not going as far as a controlled substance, it will be a new battle stance against sugar and obesity that will lead to the government controlling the amount of sugar that people will be permitted to consume daily. Eventually, this will lead to the Obama's food Nazis extorting more money from another sector of the economy to pay for out of control spending.
There are things wrong with that "rebuttal", but it is irrelevant anyway. Sucrose, glucose, fructose, and HFCS have little nutritional value. There is no benefit and no reason for consuming large quantities of them. Unless you're accustomed to the taste, it doesn't even taste good. And it's clear that if you consume them in cold drinks, ice cream, etc. you can consume far too many calories in this form without noticing. So, just lay off the sugar, period.
You obviously didn't watch the presentation. For the body, HFCS and sugar are basically equivalent. Both are bad.
In Lustig’s view, sugar should be thought of, like cigarettes and alcohol, as something that’s killing us.
Time is something that's killing us. You have to decide if you want to live to reach the 100 or if you want to live to live.
He claims you have to choose between becoming fat or fart, because you fart more if you eat more fibre.
This is not true.
If you eat more fibre, more of the sugars will be consumed by micro-organisms in your gut. Those micro-organisms create gasses. That's why people that recently started eating a high fibre diet fart a lot. But not all micro-organisms create equal amounts of gasses, and more important, not all micro-organisms create gasses that smell bad or cause big bubbles (farts).
If you already have "non-fart" micro-organisms in your guts, these will replace most of the "fart inducing" micro-organisms when you have eaten a high fibre diet for some months. If you have no "non-fart" micro-organisms in your gut as a starter culture, you have to get some from an outside source. You can get some of them from fermented foodstuff like sour milks (e.g. yoghurt, kefir, Nordic fil), soured meat (e.g. traditionally made prosciutto, a lot of traditional sausages), soured beans (e.g. most traditional made tofus and soy sauces) or soured vegetables (e.g. sauerkraut, traditional European style home made pickles (no sugar added)), as long as they are not pasteurised of course. But those are basically monocultures of micro-organisms, if you want a wide variety of micro-organisms in your gut, which is ideal for your health, you also have to eat raw vegetables (grown or wild) that have been organically grown. The good micro-organisms is on the outer parts of the vegetables, so no peeling, only rinsing and mild scrubbing. Some vegetables have more good micro-organisms then others, like(*) cabbage, kale, nettles, sorrel, lingonberry, raspberry, gooseberry, or (even richer) leafs of blackcurrant, raspberry or lingonberry (not used as vegetables, but as starter cultures for fermenting other vegetables and as "bad stomach" remedies (ironically, often sold as infusions for this purpose in (at least Swedish) alternative medicine stores, which is useless, because the heated water kills the micro-organisms that provide the cure)).
You get more gas-inducing micro-organisms in your gut from eating vegetables, fruit and cereal that have been grown with pesticides, cooked food that have been stored too long, raw food that have been stored in carbon dioxide (food gas used to prolong shelf life and prevent oxidation (oxidation make some food, like raw meat, look less tasty)), or treated with sulphites (mostly used to preserve the colour of dried fruit). The bad micro-organisms also love sucrose and fructose.
The good micro-organisms thrive in a sour environment, in fact most of them produce either lactic acid or acetic acid temself. So eating slightly sour food help them establish dominance over bad micro-organisms in your gut.
The "non-fart" micro-organisms are also the same ones that help you extract nutritions from food in your gut and figth gut infections. So it is triple-good to get much of them.
(*) I'm Swedish, so I only know of traditional Swedish herbs, fruits and vegetables (I could rabble hundreds of Swedish wild herbs that are good for your gut flora, but that would be rather pointless wouldn't it). You probably have hundreds of vegetables and herbs growing in USA that also is good for your gut flora when eaten raw (if they are organically grown, of course).
if anything it is to set the stage so new categories are open for class action suit by irresponsible sugar using industries. It could also be used as an opening for politicians to tax products containing sugar.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I don't agree with any of your facts, but I agree with the ultimate thesis: it could be seen as rational to maintain such an industry for all of those reasons stated. As for the factual dearth, it isn't just HFCS at fault here. Consumption of (any) sugar should be reduced around 30x just to get back to 1900 levels; many other dietary adjustments also are necessary to "optimize for longevity." Remember, our bodies were not selected for as vessels to get us into old age in 10,000 BC where we would have merely been contenders for the resources better left to our young offspring.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
The sugar lobby had trade quotas imposed on sugar imports, thus raising the price of sugar in the USA.
It's the dose that does the damage. Anything is toxic in large enough quantities.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
means that most did not watch the video. The "Coca Cola conspiracy", as Lustig terms it, is a compelling argument explaining much of teenage and adult obesity in first-world countries, while the the baby food data he presented are the most horrid thing I learned in 2011.
Food processors switched to HFCS because sugar was too expensive due to the tariffs the sugar lobby got placed on sugar imports. Interesting how their successful lobbying came back to hurt them - and the American public (if you believe HFCS is bad for you). Supposedly, if you want a "classic" Coke, buy one at a Mexican owned store where the Cokes are imported from Mexico and contain cane sugar.
because they're 5-year-olds.
I live in a world where i am constantly being told what i can and cannot do, can and cannot eat, can and cannot smoke, you name it.
I refuse to give up my alcohol, my coffee, my morning smoke, my car and the god given right to eat sugar when i damn well please to.
This has to be stopped.
In this country the total RDI (Recommended Daily) Intake for sugars is 45g.
When you eat too much sugar you overwhelm your pancreas's ability to produce enough insulin to make you body burn the sugar off.
This causes your blood sugar level to rise to the point where you get drowsy. This is an insulin coma or afternoon nap.
The pancreas sees the unfulfilled requirement for insulin as backorders, and even in about 2.5 hours, when the sugar level drops back to normal levels, it keeps producing insulin, driving your blood sugar down to the point where you get sweaty and tremulous. This is a good time to eat. If you don't you will start to experience visual disturbances. Then you'll collapse unconscious. You may convulse or seize. Your heart may fibrillate and then you die.
As little as 100g of sugar can do this to a healthy adult. 70g is used for the diagnostic test.
If you don't die, both the high and low sugar levels damage your entire body. Especially your pancreas which will fail to control your blood sugar level leading to any of the above. You may find any of the above symptoms occur when you get up in the morning or if you don't eat regular low-sugar meals.
You'll have to inject yourself many times a day to stay alive, you'll get bleeding in your eyes which will make you blind and your feet will get cold and then gangrenous. And that's just the start.
How many grams of sugars did you eat today ?
In German, "lustig" means "happy" or "funny". We also have a saying, "Sauer macht lustig", which means, "sour makes happy". *
So Mr. Lustig does not like sweet, uh :)
(*) probably referring to wine
Because the sugar farmers get paid even when they don't sell their wares?
Google "Why do we pay farmers to not grow crops?"
If the sugar lobby is so powerful, why is HFCS used in everything instead? Obviously they've got nothing on the corn lobbyists.
Didn't you hear? It's "corn sugar" now. And, despite all the evidence to the contrary, it's just like cane sugar.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Eating one grain of table sugar at every meal will probably not harm you in the slightest.
Eating 1 kilo at every meal probably will.
Figuring out the balance is the tricky part.
That is life.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
I hate to be that guy, but define "sugar"?
Like most omnivores we require carbohydrates (*cough*,*cough*SUGAR!) to produce energy, protein to help us heal and build muscles, and cellulose and other vegetable matter to help with digestive processes.
So, what do you mean, Dr. Lustig, by "sugar is toxic"? High fructose corn syrup is indeed toxic to the body in large amounts, just like just about any other item we inhale or ingest. Like that? Or, any carbohydrate? I got news for ya. We need those and they are *nothing* analogous to cigarettes or alcohol (*cough*,*cough*SUGAR!).
"Correlation is not causation". Don't people like saying that a lot around here?
[...] an excellent argument on the possible cause of increased sugar leading to obesity.
Increased sugar does not lead to obesity. Increased sitting-on-your-ass leads to obesity. The problem isn't the substance, it's the behavior!
The fucking article is about fructose. You know why it's spelled with F-R-U-C-T and not G-L-U-C? Because it's not fucking glucose, irrespective of Dr. Lustig's claims validity.
Not necessarily true. There is a difference to be taken into account in the nature of the product each lobbyist group is selling. Corn is simply cheaper than other sweeteners, so anybody trying to secure some market place for sugar through legislation has a much longer row to hoe than somebody trying to make the same space for corn.
"Digestible" isn't a boolean value. For instance, as we all know, most adults can't digest lactose. Most white adults can, because they have the right enzyme. However the range of the amount of enzyme available from individual to individual must be quite large. I doubt that those in the lower end of the range get as much energy from drinking the same large amount of milk as those on the higher end.
..at a great enough concentration.
Before it was fat that was dangerous, now it's sugar but not fat.
Why does all these forget that in correct balance it's all for the good. Unbalanced it's for the bad.
I know there is a forum pun in there somewhere. Anyway, as the subject suggests it is all about balance.
The difficulty is due to the types of modern food we eat, it is VERY hard to moderate many of the things we should, such as fat, sugar, and salt.
Pretty much any processed food is loaded with all three. If fact a lot of food that people might consider healthy is in fact not. Canned vegetables and soup for example is just loaded with salt. Sugar, or HFCS, or added glucose in some why shape or form is added to just about everything, particularly drinks.
So I think the fact the guy is likely trying to make is that the amount that is commonly ingested is toxic to the human body, and results in all sorts of health problems like obesity, heart problems, diabetes, etc...
This is directly the problem with a largely unregulated food industry which has a very large lobby to prevent it from ever becoming so. The best a regular person can do is to try an regulate these substances buy avoiding processed food whenever possible, and buying local fresh good from farmers markets and the like. However for most people deck is really stacked against them.
The big thing about sugar is not only the intake, but how fast your body burns them. As a rule of thumb the more refined the faster you burn, and the worse it is for you. Try to use sugar that has some fiber attached to it, this will slow absorption and allow you body to handle it better. Of course if you still eat a ton of it this wont help either. Even stuff people normal associate with health like juice is horrible for you in this regard. You are much better off just eating an actual piece of fruit, as it contains all the fiber and structure of the material that you have to break down before getting at all the sugar it contains. Anyway of the three, fat, salt, and sugar I probably try and regulate sugar and salt the most.
Something similar has been done. I don't recall exactly where. Perhaps North Carolina. Anyhow, I saw it on the Discovery Channel, and they had interviews with kids and stuff. There was a highschool where the lunch menu was replaced with healthy stuff like a salad bar, etc. Behavioral problems declined, absenteeism declined, grades improved, etc. Instead of pizza and McDonalds, the kids ate healthier, and lo and behold, they felt better.
....and it helps cure a bad case of the lobstermonstrosities!
I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
Yeah, sugar is toxic, and we are all perishing from the pesticides, carcinogens in our regular natural and processed foods (and genetically modified foods) and in our water and air, not to mention the bad stuff on our clothing, food containers, etc. etc. Did I forget the radiation coming to us from cell and power towers, from portable telephones, from the rain and snow and sleet and hail?
One very good measure of the health of a large group of people is their life expectancy. If things are so bad, as noted above, why is it that life expectancy in the US keeps increasing, year by year? MEDICAL ADVANCES? I don't think there has ben such a continuing increase in medicine, sufficient to overcome the environmental degradation that so many point to with such alarm.
Maybe it's better nutrition, better public health measures (handling sewage and the like).
Actually, one part of the reason HFCS is so widespread is the sugar lobby. The US has few sugar growers, but thanks to their lobbyists, there are tariffs on imported sugar. The US pays a much higher price for "real sugar" than most of the rest of the world.
The other part is, as you mentioned, the corn lobbyists and the huge corn subsidies they pull in. Because corn prices are artificially low, and sugar prices artificially high, it's cheaper to use HFCS in everything.
Redundancy is good And also good.
If the sugar lobby is so powerful, why is HFCS used in everything instead?
Because the sugar lobby has gotten imports of sugar restricted (to drive up the price), so US companies end up needing a substitute, hence HFCS.
As usual on Slashdot people post without actually RTFA at all... His point is that Fructose is 10x worse than Glucose, because it inhibits satiation response meaning you eat more, as well as cross linking compounds in the liver (sclerosis) leading to liver failure. Also that compared to glucose; 10x more fructose reaches the liver that needs to be processed, and that because of the specifics of fructose processing reaction - It isn't processed, leading to build up, generation of high density LDL protein (heart attacks), insulin resistance, diabetes. Its a toxin! Simple! And much more toxic than water.
IMHO, every time some human decides that something we've been eating for centuries is bad for you I'm forced to ask what their real motivation is.
They said sucrose is bad for you and substituted it with HFCS which turns out to be worse. They said saturated fat is bad for you but trans fat is worse. They said that CFCs were destroying the ozone layer. Now that appears to be bogus and the Antarctic ozone hole seems to grow and shrink on its own. Global Warming? Yeah, not so much especially since they were all worried about global cooling back in the 70s. I've got it! We'll call it Global Climate Change so we can claim every anomaly to be the result of using fossil fuels and therefore we can tax them. Vaccines cause autism!!! Umm...nope. That was all bullsh*t too. Nuclear Winter? That turns out to be a scare tactic created by the KGB and the SVR to discourage the placement of nukes in western Europe (read the book "Comrade J"). Cow's milk is bad for you, drink soy milk instead. Oh, did we mention that soy increases estrogen production in men? Don't serve chocolate milk to kids in school! Oh, did we mention that by pulling the chocolate milk, milk consumption dropped dramatically? Never mind the fact that chocolate has lots of antioxidants.
Enough, goddammit! I will eat whatever the hell I want to eat.
Here's a theory: Muslim extremists would be much happier people if they ate bacon on a regular basis. Bacon makes most people happy. I propose a multi-million dollar study to test my theory. Who's with me?
If you are familiar with American presidential politics, then you are aware of the outsized influence that Iowa* has on the outcome of elections. It's not any surprise that the famers there constantly get more attention than they would otherwise probably deserve. This manifests itself not only in HFCS but also in subsidies for ethanol.
*For those not familiar with American agriculture, Iowa is famous for growing corn.
"You can't even find unsweetened tea in the states except at specialty stores for the most part."
So you don't shop at WalMart, Krogers or many other fine groceries?
Bullshit.
If anyone is looking for a diet that Lustig would lust over, one that closely heeds advice of modern science, one that allows you to lose weight with no exercise (and become damn good looking with a small amount of regular exercise) then read no further than Kurt G. Harris' Archevore site: www.archevore.com
It's a Paleo/Pastoral diet from an MD who has been researching nutrition on Pubmed for years, reading the likes of Lustig, Weston A Price, Gary Taubes, and so forth. It's excellent stuff. I've been doing it for a year. It's essentially high fat, especially saturated fat, low fructose, low omega-6 fatty acid/low polyunsaturated fatty acid, zero wheat, those are the tenets. You could be high carb (lots of rice, potatoes, etc.) and still do it just the same.
Like caffeine!
Growing up I always had lots of sugar sweets, soda, etc. In my 30s I also got to be about 40 lbs overweight. When the subject of diets came up, I always thought that my "quality of life" would be poor if I didn't have my sweets...
However, for medical reasons, in 2008 I personally and intentionally changed my lifestyle to a diet that involves eating little to no sugar. Within 8 months, I dropped 40 lbs, my blood work numbers are all in range and my blood pressure requires less medication. I still eat carbs (including some white bread type) occasionally - but no direct sugar "sweets" (e.g. cake, cookies, etc). My wife and I have both done this with similar results (she was the trailblazer on this and has kept her weight down for approaching 10 years now). I do eat dark chocolate (70% or greater). Once you purge your system of sugar (about 2 weeks) eating things that have too much sugar (e.g. barbecue sauce on meat) will either cause stomach upset or (worst case) hurling. This is how you know you're on the right track.
It is difficult (but not impossible) to eliminate all the sources of sugar in modern life. You have to read labels carefully and know all the sugar synonyms. This article is the first one I've read that makes the distinction between fructose and glucose which I believe based on my experience with white carbs. It also nicely accounts for the other blood work improvements (triglycerides, HDL, LDL, etc). Once you get off of sugar, naturally sweet things taste sweeter.
I highly recommend this approach for anyone.
HFCS is used everywhere because the sugar lobby has successfully received a low sugar import quota, causing sugar prices to be high, making HFCS look cheap.
If sugar is so prevalent, and so incredibly deadly, our life expectancy should be dropping as refined sugars become more available. Let's see if that's true:
Life expectancy in the United States, the most sugar-fortified country on Earth, for the past 200 years (click "play")
NO.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
I don't care about the presentation, and no I didn't watch it. Anything is bad in significant quantities, even water. Would they say water is bad for you? Then they can stuff they're sensationalism. Sugar is natural and your body needs it. It doesn't need corn syrup.
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
If demand is outstripping supply to the point where the market is choosing cheaper alternatives, then the market is not operating at it's most efficient point. The sugar lobby needs to let more sugar in, so that everyone sells more sugar. As it is, they are pricing themselves out of the market.
I've never had Mexican coke, so I can't speak to that, except to say that fountain coke is carbonated right at the dispenser, so the plastic vs glass CO2 argument doesn't hold water.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Background info first:
My best friend and I are former college athletes who never learned to eat like normal people. As a result of years of poor habits and alcohol we each needed to lose upwards of 30 lbs to get back to a healthy weight. He is a PhD in neurobiology and while discussing how we would address our rotund shapes he mentioned some of the work others in his department had done regarding feeding/fasting patterns in rats. The gyst of it was that if you ate a full days calories in the morning then fasted until the next morning it would have positive hormonal effects as well as promoting weight loss while maintaining higher energy levels (we both still coach). On jan 3rd we started and documented daily food intake and weight. We've both lost approx 30lbs since then and are having a relatively easy time staying on the diet. Over time we added 3 more rules to the "no eating after lunch" rule:
1) eat food, not processed or engineered stuff
2) mostly vegetables (high fiber, low sugar)
3) not too much (don't go crazy)
TL/DR cut out sugar, lost weight
The anecdotal stuff:
Having been on this program for almost 4 months whenever i have a bunch of junk food on my days off i have what i can only describe as a low to medium grade hangover the next day (slight headache, fuzzy, etc). I became aware of this "sugar is toxic" thing only recently (last week) so there is no placebo effect to these perceived "hangovers". Wondering if it's possible to get junk food hangovers.
Nice way to spin the article in exactly the opposite direction as the author intended. (http://careers.foxnews.com/)
Corn syrup is a mixture of 55% fructose, and 45% glucose. Sugar is 50% fructose and 50% glucose. Almost identical.
Sugar in the form of pure sucrose is not natural at all. Sugar cane and beetroots are not pure, because they contains lots of fiber to slow down absorption. Starches are glucose polymers and don't contain fructose. Natural high fructose foods, such as fruits also contains lots of fiber. A soft drink contains no fiber, and lots of fructose. Something not found in nature at all. Your body doesn't need sugar. It needs carbohydrates, but they can be supplied in many different (and healthy) ways, such as starches and glucose.
The rat study you point to is not a fair comparison, because the rats could choose how much they eat, and that depends not only on the metabolic processes, but also on the flavor. Everybody agrees HFCS and sugar don't taste the same, even though the metabolic process is virtually identical. For starters, HFCS tastes sweeter than the same concentration of sugar.
It's very much like calling carbon dioxide "pollution" when the atmosphere is already awash in more of it than humankind ever put out.
Really?
Your intended point aside, that's practically tautological. You're saying that X+1>X. There may have been 1 part per billion CO2 prior to man and your statement would still be true. If mankind put out 99% of the carbon in the atmosphere, it's still less that 100%.
And just minutes ago several cities in California imposed a ban on eating sugar in public places (which include restaurants)!
Is this moron related to that other moron from NY who tried to ban salt?
...or oil company analogy?
Crude (fructose, sucrose) is cracked into fuel (glucose) in a refinery (liver). The oil reserves (western diet) far exceeds refining capacity. Middle management is completely automated by a system called "insulin" which orders fuel tankers (fat cells) to fill up when there's an excess of petrochemicals (fructose, glucose, sucrose) at the refinery. Upper management calls in a nerdy slashdotter (health expert) when things start going wrong : orders for fuel aren't getting filled, and customers (in cars ;) are screaming (appetite is not being satisfied) no matter how much extra crude upper management commands to be pumped. Things got really serious when reports of damaged equipment also started coming in.
The problem is a bug in how the automated middle management (insulin system) works... it SHOULD only look at fuel (ie. glucose) levels, but it sees ALL petrochemicals the same. This wasn't a problem when the system was designed (evolved ;) because the refinery used to easily keep up with inputs, but now the system is telling tankers to spend all of their time being filled rather than delivering fuel and overfilling is causing damage to tankers, pumps etc... etc...
As replacing the insulin system is not at option for the forseeable future the only alternative is to control the pumping of crude so as not to overwhelm the refinery, and outsourcing refining (ie. consuming pure glucose) instead.
I don't drink Tropicana. I prefer the no-name brands, they actually tend to be healthier. The big name fruit juice brands add sweeteners and remove the good stuff like fiber, because most Americans want sweet crap that is unhealthy. That is why white bread sells so well: most people want the taste (or lack thereof) and texture, health effects be damned.
For a relatively healthy fruit juice, try drinking almost anything that says "not from concentrate." I like the Simply Apple, for example. It tastes much better than the typical "from concentrate" crap and it is healthier.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Everything's poisonous, nothing's poisonous.
Linus Pauling came up with the idea that fructose is a chronic toxin over 30 years ago. Only he actually had a scientific rationale for the claim. And before you come back with some retort about his vitamin C (ascorbate) theory, remember that it wasn't until after his death that they found the broken ascorbate synthetase gene in the human genome that he predicted back in the 1970s.
Sugar = white death. Ask uncle google for this - "sugar white death".
Recipes for USA bankrupt - http://tinypaste.com/0d66f dd = dollar deluge (printed in the infinity)
They did two test, one let them eat all they wanted. As the first sentence of the summary states.. ""In an experiment conducted by a Princeton University team, 'Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same." So yes, it was a fair comparison. Sounds like it is about as "virtually" identical, as the taste. That happens a lot in chemistry...
Your body does need sugar.... although not processed. Glucose is a sugar. You need it. Starches and carbs also break down into smaller sugars, changing your blood sugar, which can affect how you eat and how hungry you are.
I watched the first part of the video, haven't had time to watch it all yet. He made some good points so far, but I haven't seen where he has proved fructose is a poison. I do agree with the soda thing, as I have recently thought about new coke as a kid and what the difference was since before Pepsi debuted their throwbacks. If I drink a soda, it is a "Mexican" Coke with real sugar. I know I don't crave it like I did coke when they came out with the classic that had HFCS, and was different to me than the old coke,the first time I tried it. It sucked. Now I know a little more why it was done.
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
Wow. You, sir, are batshit insane. It isn't that hard to eat healthy on the cheap. Most produce around here is less than $1 per pound. Get a cookbook and you can whip up yummy, healthy food for cheaper than a lard meal at Mickey D's. Sugary, crappy food is CONVENIENT, so people stuff it down. No one forces anything down anyone's throat.
Not everyone has a kitchen they can use to "whip up yummy, healthy food". Not everyone lives in areas like yours in which fresh produce is readily available at reasonable prices. In particular, most of the US urban poor do not have access to shops selling fresh produce, and if they do it's a lot more expensive than cheap crap, and many of them don't have the facilities to prepare meals with it anyway. A lot of the working poor also lack the time to actually prepare meals, between working long hours, the time it takes to travel to and from work via public transport, having to do their laundry in public laundrettes, etc...
One thing I have noticed about sugar, is that it is addictive.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Both sugar AND caffeine give us quick energy. Mitochondria gives us energy the slow way => from drawing body fat in to peel the energy out of it in a chemical process. Once we use a certain amount of sugar and/or a certain amount of caffeine we short circuit the hard way in preference of the easy ways. One big result of this life of ease is that over time, decades, the mitochondria stop functioning as the energy provider it's supposed to be and leaves us strapped having to use the shortcuts. This is called insulin resistance too, but given a few more years of the mitochondria having "lost their way" our body cells proceed to self-destruct into cancerous cells.
It's a long detour that still leads to a coffin, some people sooner, some later. But the cola drinks are killers on top of killers because their ingredients weakens people's ankle bones as one for instance. On the other hand, an occasional Coke keeps kidney stones dissolved. hahahaha I once drank so much fountain Pepsi my blood got so CO2 thinned I was talking to a customer when suddenly blood poured out my nostrils. Colas are not harmless and they raise triglyceride levels (which causes major headaches & migraines when over-consumed).
Many of the foods we consume do the same thing sugar does => RAISES ESTROGEN LEVELS IN MALES and suppresses testosterone production. Many men have been tested and found to have more female hormones than women. So the question to ask is why would the food industry raise men's female hormones for? Well, women get the excess hormones too and grow larger breasts, therefore someone obviously wants women having large breasts damn the men straight to hell.
The big name fruit juice brands add sweeteners...
Um, maybe some do; Tropicana doesn't.
I like the Simply Apple, for example. It tastes much better than the typical "from concentrate" crap and it is healthier.
Simply Orange "Grove Made" (high pulp) also has 0 fiber too. (Simply Apple as well, but that's more obvious.)
Sucrose is one glucose molecule and one fructose molecule. Unless you're measuring by atomic weight instead of ratio, it's 50/50 each.
The claim was made that Fructose is a major cause of obesity and high blood pressure. Fructose does this by shutting down peoples internal calorie intake control system causing people to eat too much. Secondary effect is blocking NO (nitrous oxide) receptors/ production causing high blood pressure. This should be easy to test with a couple experiments. Dextrose/glucose according to Dr Lustig does not cause these effects because it takes a different metobolic pathway in the liver and body. The Blood Pressure question could be tested by eating no sugar for a few days then take your blood pressure. Eat Dextrose/Glucose and see if BP goes up. Repeat with High Fructose Corn Syrup. If BP spikes with Fructose and not Glucose Dr. Lustig's claims might be valid. If it spikes with both then his ideas are at least partly wrong. If it does not spike He is very wrong.
The Obesity experiment would be done with mice or rats. Divide rats up into 4 groups 1 control eats regular food and water. Second group gets food water and Dextrose/Glucose Syrup, Third Group Food water and Sucrose (table sugar) Syrup, Fourth Group Food water and High Fructose Corn Syrup. Let the subjects eat as much as they want and monitor their weight and total consumption of all food. If Dr Lustig is correct the First and second group should weight the same because the normal weight control system is not affected. The Third group should gain some weight because Sucrose is half Glucose and half Fructose. The fourth group should gain the most weight because they are eating the most fructose and their appetite control system would be messed up.
It is amazing to me that many people make claims like this and are believed without any proof. This stuff sounds more like religion than science.
You might have missed this, but HFCS just so happens to be a form of sugar!?!
Nutritionist Mark Haub went on a diet of junk food with a handful of veggies, and kept his calorie count down just to prove a point - weight loss is all about calories.
Not only did he lose 27 pounds in 2 months, his cholesterol was down and he was healthier than when he started.
The plural of "anecdote" is not "data," but this single demonstration is easily enough to debunk the "carbs/sugar/HFCS make you fat" baloney.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/index.html
Would you say fat is a toxine? I don't think so. But for health on the long term, yes, short term, well, same as water. Yes, even water at very excces can kill you, same as sugar. But what people usually take is too much sugar, which leads to diabetes on the long term. That and toxic is quite different. Would you say that any unbalanced diet is toxic, no, not really, just bad (or very bad) for health long term.
To find research peers, lines and funding check the AgingPorfolio.Org
They could be making alcohol out of that, instead of corn. Everyone would be better off. Well, except for us poor schmucks who have to burn their shitty gasoline.
The Sugar and Corn Lobbies are largely overlapping and indistinct. Producers of high sugar foods are perfectly happy using HFCS in their products.
Yeah, I could make my own. In fact I did this morning. I typically walk in the morning to pick up breakfast (banana at the gas station or a veggie sandwich from Jimmy John's), but while there's numerous teas in the gas station, there's no unsweetened. And I live in Houston (I don't consider it the deep south...we do have an openly lesbian mayor after all). As I stated in my original comment, if our soft drink dispensers had the same stuff the Japanese ones did (cold unsweetened green tea, hot green tea...two carbonated beverage options -- never diet), I'd be happier. We're talking about going from putting quarters in the machine to driving to a store to buy tea, boiling water, letting the tea steep, refrigerating it, and then viola, an hour later, I have tea. Maybe I am a lazy American, but I just don't have the energy to do that in the morning;)
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Interesting. Should have posted the article;) The idea that eating healthier is better for you seems like a no-brainer and why children ought to be able to skip vegetables because they don't like them makes about as much sense as a child being able to skip math class because they don't like that. School is for teaching good habits after all.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
And here it takes me nine minutes to get tea. One minute to find a mug and put water in it and start microwaving it. Two minutes to microwave, six minutes to steep. Enjoy hot. My wife's tea is faster (three minute brew). Brew time depends on the type of tea of course. If you really want ice tea, use twice as much tea for the volume, and then double the volume using ice (standard recipe I was taught from cook books and better tea shops).
I've seen unsweetened tea dispensers at plenty of restaurants in my area and where I grew up, and yes, I do consider anything in Texas the Deep South. It may not seem so politically, but the cuisine has distinctive southern aspects, such as beverage choices.
Most green teas I've had are just as bad as the lousy cheap tea available in restaurants here. Brewed at the wrong temperature, the wrong strength, the wrong time, using the cheapest possible tea fannings (dust). I've had good tea at restaurants, but it doesn't come from a soda style dispenser. When I go into a tea shop to sample their teas, I can tell when a tea has been sitting for too long by the flavor.
"I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend unto the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire