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FDA Bans Trans Fat
An anonymous reader writes: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has finally come to a conclusion about artificial trans fat: it must be removed from the U.S. food supply over the next three years. According to their final determination (PDF), there's no longer a scientific consensus that partially hydrogenated oils are safe to consume. Trans fat must be gone from food in the U.S. by June, 2018, unless a petitioner is granted specific approval by the FDA to continue using it. "Many baked goods such as pie crusts and biscuits as well as canned frosting still use partially hydrogenated oils because they help baked goods maintain their flakiness and frostings be spreadable. As for frying, palm oil is expected to be a go-to alternative, while modified soybean oil may catch on as well." The food industry is expected to spend $6.2 billion over the next two decades to formulate replacements, but the money saved from health benefits is expected to be more than 20 times higher.
What if I want to consume it despite there not being a consensus that it is safe to consume?
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
One could argue HFCS is worse than transfat and it is used everywhere. Come on, get on a roll, FDA!
Trans fats are an unwanted biproduct of hydrogenation, and are a fat which humans do not have an enzyme to easily break down. This should directly reduce this incidence of heart disease, and is good news for everyone except cost-cutting food producers.
I doubt the Oil Partial Hydrogenators Union has the same pull on capital hill as the Corn Growers Association.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
Yep it sure was
http://www.latimes.com/food/da...
Better for you than butter or lard. It's also pretty amazing the long lives so many people have lead consuming this poison.
Oh well, the FDA can't do anything about the rainforests.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
There's no consensus they're safe to consume? There's no evidence they're harmful to consume either, which makes me wonder where they're getting their `savings' figure from.
When will this food Nazi bollocks end?
The agricultural lobby is very powerful in the US. Very powerful indeed. They are not easily crossed.
Shit storm starting in 3..... 2...... 1.......
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I predict that within the week there will be a website somewhere running a variation of 'Obama decrees transfats illegal' with an article claiming science proves they promote weight-loss and prevent cancer, concluding in a warning that regulation of diet is the mark of a communist takeover.
If that fat wants to be a different kind of fat who are we to say otherwise?
One can also argue that any kind of refined sugar is not good for you. HFCS is certainly the worst but cane/beet sugar in any form is not healthy in any way. Even the "raw" forms that are just slightly less refined than table sugar are terrible for you, especially in the quantities we consume them.
Uh, the article you linked to explains all about the ill effects of trans fats, including quotes such as "Most scientific research shows that even trace amounts can be harmful to health." Maybe you should read what you link to first next time. Also I suggest you read up on trans-fats!
It's not. it's what, 55% fructose, 45% sucrose -- whereas table sugar is a 50/50 split?
France's ecology minister, Segolene Royal, has rankled the company that makes Nutella by urging the public to stop eating its irresistible chocolate hazelnut spread, saying it contributes to deforestation.
"We have to replant a lot of trees because there is massive deforestation that also leads to global warming. We should stop eating Nutella, for example, because it's made with palm oil," Royal said in an interview late Monday on the French television network Canal+.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/stop-eating-nutella-urges-french-163347064.html#CGKK1fE
Ever notice how many reforms are actually reversals of previous reforms? Trans fats got a huge boost in the '70s and '80s because the reformers were convinced that saturated fat was very bad for you. Margarine was supposed to be more healthy than butter. So manufacturers ditched saturated fats and went for trans fats.
Similarly, now people want to ban animal testing, which established at the insistence of the reformers of a century ago. HMOs were a healthcare reform of the '70s, and are now reviled. People now complain about mandatory minimum sentencing, which was a '70s reform meant to end the problem of wildly disparate sentences.
And so the cycle goes....
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
I think you can probably find a consensus that fried foods are bad for you and if they were not consumed, there could be billions saved in related medical costs.
Maybe they'll get to that later after additional indoctrination.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I own a chocolate company. We make high quality chocolate from cocoa beans that we import directly from the farmers. When I fly over Central and South America, I almost tear up when I see the total devastation caused by Palm Oil. From 30,000 feet, there are times that as far as you can see it is mostly palm oil plantations -- especially over the Yucatan Peninsula. The thing to keep in mind is that unlike many crops, palm oil plantations allow for very little undergrowth and general bio diversity mixed in. (Cocoa often will have other crops mixed in as well as larger "mother trees" of various species shading the cocoa. There is also typically quite a bit of wildlife living in and around the cocoa plantations.) Yes, I've walked in and around palm oil plantations. They are strangely beautiful in the same sense that the European forests with trees all in rows are beautiful. Even so, palm oil plantations wreck total devastation on the local fauna and as much as banning trans fats may help our general health, banning trans fats will certainly destroy the rain forests in and around the equatorial belt.
I throw cakes at people and cakes without transfat frosting just don't have the right consistency.
Doesnt seem to make a difference for pie crusts though.
Modern app appers eat app apps!
Apps!
Pot is banned. And so are other drugs.
Do you really want to get into a Libertarian argument here and all of the pedantry? God - well, the Judeo Christian god - well, the Judeos Christian God after 2AD - that's Anno Domini - and I'm referring to the Biblical Christ - who is actually Jesus of Nazareth - and I'm not referring to the Spanish guy named Jesus who is playing soccer in Nazareth, although, I understand that in most of the World 'Soccer' is really 'Football' - rightfully so - but don't get me wrong .....
Pedantry, he gateway to insanity, well insanity isn't a proper term ,...
I smell profit is to be made with trans fat contraband!
Typical of the Government. After industry already significantly limited trans fats (80% reduction in use by 2012) *now* they step in and sop up the glory while it's easy pickings.
Remember this next time you want the nanny state to do something for you.
In the past few years, I don't recall coming across a single product that had any trans fat.
Great! How about cigarettes?
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
Plastic bags also used to be what was going to save the environment.
I know a lot of transfatty acid use is hidden from the consumer view by including it in mono or dyglyceride forms. These fatty acids do not need to be specified further, but form transfat when consumed. Is the FDA banning all artificial trans fatty acids or only the triglyceride forms? Are they simply going to force manufacturers to hide their usages?
Go learn. You need to know what HFCS actually is before you can have my attention while you spout off about it.
It's sugar. Specifically, it's corn molasses distilled to remove moisture volume.
Is this a South Park episode? Last time, the FDA banned gluten.
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What about good old lard and butter? It used to work just fine on pie crusts. Lard works great for frying my egg. It conveniently comes from the bacon I'm frying up at the same time.
If your eating something where the primary ingredient is HFCS I doubt there is any way to make that product healthy. They would just replace HFCS with something slightly less bad. I'd say people generally eating too much food is a bigger problem than HFCS.
You realize you completely missed the point of what I said.
Which was Trans Fats were considered to be safer than fats. As to their being harmful to health, if we eliminated everything that was believed at some point in time to be harmful to your health there would be nothing left to eat.
Things tasted better anyway. This whole anti-fat, anti everything else is a bunch of garbage, if the public wouldn't buy a 12oz bag of chips, and eat the entire bag in one sitting.
http://carehealth24.com/index....
Soybean Oil...well soy in general is an Allergen for a statistically significant portion of the population. NOT a good replacement. World needs to move away from modified anything. Go back to good old natural fats and Oils.
Lard folks....use Lard!
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Wasn't that a hoot. Environmentalists wound up destroying farm forests by killing the demand for paper bags, much the way the artificial demand for recycled paper did as well.
He wasn't suggesting it was safer. He was suggesting it was billed as being safer. The article supports his point, since it mentions that historically the stuff was used as a substitute for butter and lard, both because it was cheaper, and because it was a means of reducing saturated fats in our food. They specifically called out the switch from butter to margarine (which is (was?) made with trans fats) as an example of this trend to treat trans fats as being healthier than the alternatives.
I'd say he read his article just fine, since it supports what he's saying. It also supports what you're saying, which is that modern research is showing the stuff is ridiculously bad for you, despite what we were told in the past. You're both correct.
Watch who gets the exemptions. It will be the democrat donors. The same thing happened with Obamacare. They pushed to get it passed, then got exemptions.
Those laws are to hurt the competition, not help the plebs.
Palm oil plantations are replacing the Indonesian rain forest where orangutans live. They will all go extinct so fatties can have their comfort food.
G.O. F.D.A.
If the measurement threshold is large enough than it can be like those fat free butter sprays that are made from oil and water. When you can say trans fat free as long as it has less than a gram of it why bother changing it when they're mostly milligram doses anyway? Oh and from the fine article it appears the real reason is that Monsanto genetically engineered Soybeans to naturally produce trans fats. So they can use them but not have to claim them.
That's the heart of the problem right there HFCS would probably not be too bad if you had the equivalent of 1 or 2 cans of pop a week. You most likely shouldn't be having 6 cans of pop a day. When everything you eat has it, then you're going to run into problems. I don't think it's right to ban these food additives outright, because they do have their uses, and they aren't terribly bad for you in moderation. However, I wish there was some way to get it into people's heads that they shouldn't be eating so much of this stuff, and should eat more unprocessed real foods.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
This way, people have a choice.
If the tax is sufficiently high, then in practice, the people who will consume it the most will tend to be richer... and can generally more readily afford to pay for any of the extra health care they may need because of a poor diet.
As a side effect, it also offers a revenue stream.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Yup. Hardly any difference. But HFCS55 sure sounds scarier than 'table sugar". Everyone knows at this point that our problem isn't with fats, it's with carbs.
One could argue, but naturalnews is not science; it's hysteria
I'm not a fan of banning them either. However, given the rate of obesity and type 2 diabetes in this country with strong evidence they are caused by our increased consumption of various kinds of sugar ("real" sugar and HFCS), I would be very much in favor of a relatively high tax on them.
The reason they're used in processed foods is because they are an effective and cheap flavor enhancer. Tax them and they become less economically viable in cheap bulk processed foods. Consumption would naturally go down as alternatives were substituted. And for the people that still consume it in quantity, the tax revenue can be funneled into taking care of the health problems caused by over consumption. Win win.
Okay, the word "was" was in there pretty subtly. Regardless, the facts are pretty clear on trans-fat now, they are more harmful than and as equally tasty as saturated fats, and the only benefit of allowing their sale goes to cost-cutting food producers who'd prefer their customers remain unaware they use them. But, I suppose I see your point.
Even in low consumption HFC is bad. Sugar would be a better. HFC is just used everywhere it's hard to get away from - even if you don't drink pop.
There, fixed that for you... your original looked very odd to those of us old enough remember when the agricultural lobby was the farm lobby.
HFC is not sugar. It has a different chemical signature and is metabolized differently than sugar. It's actually worse than sugar.
No it's not. It's not sugar cane.
trans fats we've known for nearly 10 years are killing us but its not enough. the industry has sat on no brainers for too long and shuffled their lobbyists to the tune of profit. Among others that could be and should be banned:
High Fructose Corn Syrup has turned us into a nation too fat for everything from coffins to military service. numerous studies concur this isnt sugar.
Palm Oil most foods with this ingredient either dont need it, or source it out of a 40 year old legacy habit from colonial dominionism of US trade. the WHO has declared it an abomination, and its destroying rainforest at an alarming rate.
Cigarettes full stop. this shouldnt even be a fucking debate.
Margerine. this is a culinary abortion with as much or more cardiovascular destructiveness as the butter it so readily supplanted in the 70s. ban this sick filth and lets work on diets that contain respectable, conservative amounts of solid fats when needed.
among other things we could cut down on are processed foods in general. its an industry that scams billions out of americans who are manipulated into willfully and ignorantly assuming boiling water and dispensing corn+soy+sodium from a cardboard box is cooking. Jamie oliver was right. Children should be taught at minimum 25 recipes they can use in life for healthy meals and the recipes should then be a required component of graduation.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Problem is people tend to over-eat because of HFCS. People will consumer more because of the HFCS. This is not seen with sugar cane.
Despite all the propaganda, sugar is not much better than HFCS. Not to take away from how bad HFCS is, because it's terrible. But sugar has no nutritional value and it spikes your insulin almost as bad as HFCS.
How about we start with the artificial stuff. It's the artificial stuff that's killing us quickly. The natural stuff seems to take longer.
You can still buy crisco moron.
Crisco used to be a big source but they've been trans fat-free for years.
~~"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." ~~Dennis Miller
They would just replace HFCS with something slightly less bad.
Like cane/beet sugar, which is only slightly less bad than HFCS.
One could argue that HFCS is worse than transfat, but one could ALSO argue that excess consumption of large amounts of most common sugars is worse than transfat.
Look around, and you'll find only one or two studies that seem to show HFCS is significantly worse than, say, table sugar. There are all of these claims about metabolic differences, but they rarely seem to show up in experiments -- you'll find a lot of experiments, in fact, where there's little difference in effects.
I absolutely agree with you that we should decrease HFCS consumption. But I don't agree if your remedy is that we're just going to replace it with sucrose or honey or whatever else that's basically going to have similar bad effects. We need to lower sugar consumption in general....
I guess it will be back to lard, tallow, and butter for my cooking needs.
Time to offend someone
Entire ecosystems are being destroyed to create palm plantations. Thanks Obama.
So does this mean that I will no longer be able to buy chips cooked in lard such as Grandma Utz?
Go learn. You need to know what HFCS actually is before you can have my attention while you spout off about it.
It's sugar. Specifically, it's corn molasses distilled to remove moisture volume.
No.
HFCS is corn syrup that is processed with an enzyme that converts the glucose in the corn syrup into fructose. Fructose is a naturally occurring sugar found in most fruits and vegetables. The problem with HFCS is right there in the name: HIGH FRUCTOSE corn syrup. HFCS is highly concentrated sugar, which means you are getting far more than you would with an equivalent amount of another sweetener.
I think you mean the Jeb Bush super pac.
One could argue all kinds of things. C'mon guys, I thought we could do a little better around here. HFCS doesn't seem to be "bad", the problem is it's in everything and total calorie consumption is going up. HFCS is nothing more than glucose and fructose, two perfectly fine sugars.
You do see the same with cane/beet sugar. Just not as badly as you do with HFCS. But eating food filled with simple carbohydrates (i.e. any kind of simple sugar) causes you to crave and over consume to one degree or another.
Table sugar is 100% sucrose, which breaks down into 50% fructose and 50% glucose. 55F/45S (assuming you didn't brain fart when you wrote that) would break down to 77.5F/22.5G.
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Feel free to argue all you want, you can continue be wrong if you so choose.
The fear-mongering about HFCS is largely made up and nearly all the arguments against it have major holes. The premise seems to be that Fructose is "bad" but, oh it must be all right if you get it from say, eating fresh fruit because... uh.. um... the fruit is natural and has fiber and water in it, yeah, that's the ticket.. Whereas regular glucose syrup (corn syrup) has LESS fructose than "real sugar," so by the same logic, ought to be even better for you than fresh fruit, if it's really the fructose that's evil.
Yes I've seen the studies about mice getting fatter from HFCS than sugar and so forth, but if they prefer it (because it tastes sweeter), they'll eat more. Duh. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. Not to mention recent headlines like "Fructose More Toxic Than Table Sugar In Mice" and yet within the text of the article itself with that headline "The study found no differences in survival, reproduction or territoriality of male mice on the high-fructose and sucrose diets." And "Regardless of sex, the researchers also found no difference between mice on the two diets when it came to food intake, weight gain or glucose tolerance." Yeah, if you're going to cherry pick the alleged results for your headline, I'll cherry pick them for my criticism of it too. Gotta wonder if that study was even researcher-blind because some of the results sound a bit fishy. Definitely more research is needed, preferably by groups that are neither funded by the corn industry, nor operated by researchers who are basically setting out to prove their pre-conceived conclusions about how evil HFCS must be. You can find some data to support pretty much any hypothesis if that's your intent.
The main problem isn't really HFCS, or even "sugar" but mostly boils down to poor dietary choices, especially eating too much in general, and eating too many empty calories, from whatever source. Eat a reasonable and relatively healthful diet, and splurging on a root beer float or a chocolate bar or even a big mac and a twinkie every now and then isn't going to be big a problem. You could even get a fairly balanced and reasonable diet by eating at fast food joints if you were to exercise some judgement in what items you pick, how often, and how much.
Then we have the whole politically correct "no fat-shaming" thing telling people that it's fine to be obese and claiming that simply calling a spade a spade and speaking out against excessive caloric intake forces all young girls to immediately die from eating disorders. Except... Gee, how big is the obesity epidemic in comparison to the problems of anorexia and bulimia? Seems like a bit of a disparity there. You shouldn't bully and mistreat people with either problem, but some things are just simple facts, and the morbidly obese person's doctor would tell them the same thing. They need to eat better and get more exercise, and/or seek competent medical treatment and help if there is an underlying metabolic issue. Heck, I could stand to lose a few pounds (or trade some fat for muscle mass) myself too. I freely admit it, and I'm certainly not "proud" of it. You can still get fat from whole grains and soy and fruits and vegetables if you can't control your caloric intake appropriately.
Just because a farm spreads out over several states does not mean it's not a farm anymore.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
"The food industry is expected to spend $6.2 billion over the next two decades to formulate replacements"
No, American Consumers are going to spend $6.2B, or more, to pay for the food industry to come up with an alternative that won't be as good.
Food is kind of important.
If your eating something where the primary ingredient is HFCS I doubt there is any way to make that product healthy. They would just replace HFCS with something slightly less bad.
I'd say people generally eating too much food is a bigger problem than HFCS.
I'm not aware of any product where the primary ingredient is HFCS. However, it is found in many places where it doesn't belong simply because fat and sugar make things taste better. That is why there is HFCS in bread. That's why there is even a sweetener of some sort in most salt.
Neither are beets but we get sugar from them, all sugar is NOT from sugar cane.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
"You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try." - Homer J. Simpson
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Although many people don't think about lard in baked goods (other than maybe biscuits), it works quite well there. Oreos was made with lard until sometime in the '90s when the replaced it with -- wait for it -- partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. It looks like we've come full circle. (Yes, I know oreos aren't exactly the greatest baked good, but it can work elsewhere too.)
That said, you only listed tallow and lard. Don't forget about butter and rendered chicken fat (schmaltz), which is really good stuff (and is often a byproduct of cooking chicken).
On an unrelated note, Wisconsin is ahead of the curve on regulating trans fats courtesy of the butter lobby:
97.18 (4) The serving of colored oleomargarine or margarine at a public eating place as a substitute for table butter is prohibited unless it is ordered by the customer.
97.18 (5) The serving of oleomargarine or margarine to students, patients or inmates of any state institutions as a substitute for table butter is prohibited...
https://docs.legis.wisconsin.g...
Hell, it was illegal to sell margarine here for many years.
I can't believe it is worse for me than butter!
Not as good of a product name though...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Put a big label on them saying contains transfats. Make it in red. Really plenty of choice at this point, supposedly 80% of the products that had transfats no longer do.
HFC is not sugar. It has a different chemical signature and is metabolized differently than sugar. It's actually worse than sugar.
It may be a good idea to look into the sugar composition of honey alongside high fructose corn syrup. Science education and critical thinking allows a person to not be so easily persuaded to believe in propaganda.
No no no, we're certain that HFCS is evil (because we read it on Facebook) and therefore it must be the singular cause of all the world's health problems. If we could just get rid of HFCS we'd instantly live in a skinny-person utopia with everyone living to 130 years old and never needing vaccinations.
Actually, I think this Trans-fat thing has been handled pretty well overall. First, significant evidence was found to indicate that trans fats are very likely to be harmful, especially in larger amounts and over time. It was studied and further confirmed and the public notified. Then many companies and restaurants started to voluntarily phase it out over time, without being immediately pressured with a rapid deadline and burdened with excessive short-term costs. Then labeling was required so that consumers have a way to tell how much trans fat is in the foods they buy, and then years later, the substance is now being declared as no longer generally recognized as safe for use in foods sold here, with another few years to allow for the transition. That seems like a reasonable compromise to me. You can't just ban something that everyone uses overnight, but at the same time, it's kind of irresponsible to allow companies to have companies selling the stuff indefinitely, and it's also important to fully understand the alternatives lest it were to get replaced with something that ends up actually being worse (as happened when replacing saturated fats with trans fats in many products in the first place)
Get the science right. High Fructose is not "concentrated sugar" and that is not why it is bad for you. Glucose is the preferred sugar, your brain and muscles can use it directly. Fructose can only be metabolized in the liver, it also produces more fat, but the primary reason it is a problem is unlike glucose, it does not cause insulin to be released or stimulate production of leptin, a key hormone for regulating energy intake and expenditure. Table Sugar (sucrose) is basically a combination of fructose and glucose. Which means you get your energy from the glucose and the fructose gets turned into fat, which in itself is a good thing until you overdo it.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFAzoY-brBo
There was a scientific consensus....
How could it have been wrong? All the consenting scientists couldn't be wrong, could they?
It's true, but I believe that science is making progress and there is better evidence now than there was when the previous "reforms" were made.
This cycle is hardly unique to nutritional science, and it's easy to think that we're simply going in circles. However, I think it's more of a helix than a circle. Yes, we do sometimes get close to where we were before, but we never go exactly back to the same point because we have progressed forwards -- although often less than we'd like.
For a moment there I though that FDA had banned Transgendered Fat Peolple... I guess I'm sleepy...
She got way more than she paid in. Everybody except the rich does. That's because one of the dirty little secrets of social security and Medicare is that they're socialist programs. The whole thing about her "paying" for it b was cooked up to get libertarian types like her to accept the v help the desperately needed. If you'd had a decent history prof in college you'd know this
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My brother refuses to buy any food with palm oil in it, citing environmental issues with it and to a certain extend, health issues. Anyone versed in the topic could enlightened me as to why it's so bad?
"The hallmark of humanity is the ability to move beyond sensory inputs" - Mary Helen Immordino-Yang
Trans-fat does not only occur in margarine or other hydrogenated vegetable oils, but also in butter, which contains up to 4% trans-fat (of the total fat content). While this is less than in most (but not all) margarines, it is not insignificant.
One could argue HFCS is worse than transfat and it is used everywhere. Come on, get on a roll, FDA!
One could, but one could also argue that HFCS isn't any different than regular sugar, the difference with Trans Fat is there's a scientific consensus around one view.
The FDA shouldn't be banning things just because a few researchers and journalists have started thinking it's bad, if they'd have banned butter a long time ago and we'd all be eating margarine.
I stole this Sig
Death within minutes of marijuana use. Sometimes the victim is an innocent bystander.
http://denver.cbslocal.com/2015/05/18/marijuana-intoxication-blamed-in-more-deaths-injuries/
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_27790764/coroner-oklahoma-man-killed-self-keystone-after-eating
even trace amounts
So we're banning meat next? Trans fats occur naturally in various forms of meat.
I'm not trying to say sugar is good for you - far from it - but HFCS is worse. If the food manufacturers left sugar as the sweetener instead of switching to HFCS, health problems wouldn't have been as great. Consumption spiked when HFCS was used.
I do agree reducing sugar consumption would be best. It would be nice if sweeteners weren't used everywhere. For example in salad dressings and pasta sauce.
Check the research on how HFCS is metabolized versus sugar. It's different. Studies have shown that HFCS effects how satiated people feel when eating; people keep eating. This is not the case with sugar. These are facts supported by research. You can stop trolling for the corn industry.
You won't find many in the US starving to death. Even the lowest in society eat. People eating too much is more of a problem.
...and bread, and pretty much every "low fat" food out there, and "healthy" snack bars, and "healthy" breakfast cereal, and...
I said sugar cane so not sure what you're griping about. FYI when people say "sugar" they typically mean sugar cane.
The craving is worse with HFCS. It's been shown to be addictive like. Unlike sugar cane.
One could, if they could prove that HFCS should no longer be generally recognized as safe, as was done with trans-fats.
Your minor problem is going to be that natural foods do not contain substantial quantities of trans-fats. It's a quirk of the abiotic hydrogenation process that is used to modify naturally occurring unsaturated oils. Thus the substance is essentially artificial.
That's not the case with HFCS. The process that produces HFCS is artificial, but the very same sugars are in corn, sugarcane, fruits, berries, and various vegetables. You don't object to what the substance is -- you merely object to the form it is being provided in and how much is used.
A little thought experiment: would you have the FDA ban honey as well? It has virtually the same glucose to fructose ratio as HFCS 55 (glucose and fructose are the major sugars present at about 32 and 38% respectively), about 17% water, about 10% other sugars (especially maltose, which is a dimer of glucose), and about 3% other.
If not, then tell me the key difference between the two substances that makes one ban worthy and the other not.
Banning HFCS is simply a poor proxy for regulating that amount of sugars that are incorporated into foods. Yet we don't (currently) permit the FDA to regulate on that basis. If you want to have the argument, make the argument. Don't construct a make believe boogeyman and expect a community of nerds to buy into the myth without question.
Right now, a serving of food can contain .4g of transfats per serving and legally list "0g transfats" on the label.
Does the FDA regulation still allow this, or will partially hydrogenated oils of ANY amount be banned?
It will be interesting to see what coffee creamers like CoffeeMate will do, since they use a tiny 1 teaspoon serving size and are something like 50% trans fats so they can easily say "0 trans fats" on the label. Most people use something like a tablespoon and end up with a gram of a half of the transfats in their coffee.
[citation needed] Oh wait, how about this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_fructose_corn_syrup
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose
and
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20516261
Derp.
It's not. it's what, 55% fructose, 45% sucrose -- whereas table sugar is a 50/50 split?
Where did you get the idea that you can take a food, completely ignore the body's metabolism, list its component molecules, and declare parity? It's a complete stretch, and so it's completely wrong. This is 1982-era reasoning.
The major problem is the rate-limiting factors of liver enzymes. The liver can handle a little bit of fructose at a time. If it gets overrun, it quickly manufactures triglycerides with the excess fructose, and those run right out and stick to the arterial walls (I know, triglycerides don't like to be anthropomorphized).
Sucrose metabolism is almost entirely rate-limited by the amount of available sucrase enzyme in the small intestine (the stomach acid affects 10% of the amount consumed). This provides a slow-sip of fructose to the liver, so it's much more manageable. This built-in protection is defeated by using HFCS or any unbound glucose/fructose syrup - the liver gets it nearly all at once. Keep that up and you'll be fat and get heart disease.
It's still possible to overload the liver with excess amounts of sucrose - you have more sucrase than liver enzymes, so anything more than a taste of sugar is still going to be a problem. This works out OK if you're going to be starving all winter, but in modern Western societies that starvation never happens, so the weight keeps piling on.
Even if you don't understand the biochemistry, the two basic rules still work well - don't buy stuff in the middle of the grocery store and don't eat anything your Grandmother wouldn't recognize as food from her childhood. Hrm, we might need to up that to "Great Grandmother" these days; if the ingredients label lists a chemical shitstorm straight out of Post-WWII "better living through chemistry - try the transfats!" insanity, don't eat it.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
One could argue HFCS is worse than transfat
It's only worse than transfat when it's used to replace transfat, which is in fact one of the ways in which it is commonly used. When it's used to replace sugar, the chemical difference is minimal. When it's combined with a massive load of citric acid (good for you in small amounts, not in large ones) and used in ways other than as a sugar replacement, it's completely batshit crazy.
If the USDA hadn't misled us about the role played by carbohydrates in general, and sugar in particular, then we wouldn't even be having this discussion because people would read the label, say "what's all this carbohydrate content" and put the item back on the shelf. But the "fat is what makes you fat" mantra is still burned into people's minds, in spite of the fact that it is a load of dingo's kidneys, and people are still looking for fat on the label. HFCS isn't fat, so in the cart it goes...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Not sure where you shop, but where I shop, HFCS isn't really that abundant. There's none on the lettuce/tomatoes/cucumber I had in the salad that I had for my lunch today. There wasn't any in the salad dressing. There wasn't any in the pasta I had along side the salad. There wasn't any in the home made muffins I had for a snack. There wasn't any in the Cheerios I had for breakfast. It's really not that hard to stay away from. Just read the labels of the food you buy.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Oh not true, Monsato owns the government
What kind of asshole response is that? You know full well what was meant.
ah yes, the transfat in the lard ...
You're not being killed quickly. Your life expectancy is not low. Please stop believing all the fear mongering that's got you believing your being killed by something or someone.
Poison is poison.
Waiting serves no purpose.
It's like putting lead on your noodles. Bad for Nestle in India, bad for America.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"Everyone" knows carbs are not made equal. "Everyone" knows that glucose and fructose are both carbs, and are processed entirely differently.
Oversimplistic war on carbs takes you nowhere.
Okay, the word "was" was in there pretty subtly.
No, it wasn't. Those of us that don't bash ourselves in the chin with irrational knee-jerk responses when something doesn't conform to our worldview had no difficultly understanding his point.
Well, they needed room for all the ethanol crops.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
They should NOT be allowed in the Fat restroom, unless they were BORN FAT!
Most granulated sugar does not come from cane. Sugar beets grow in cold climates, and are typically used extensively as a substitute for cane sugar by areas north of the 30th latitude.
When you say "sugar", you typically mean "granulated, dry-packed sugar crystals". That can come from many, many sources. All of them are capable of providing identical fructose/glucose/polysaccharide ratios. To make granulated sugar, the process goes like this:
- Cane: make molasses from sugar cane, then boil it dry. The dehydrated molasses is now "raw sugar". To get white granulated sugar, bleach the raw sugar.
- Beets: make molasses, boil it dry, then bleach it.
- Sorghum/milo: make molasses, boil it dry, then bleach it.
- Corn: make molasses, boil it dry, then don't bother bleaching it because corn molasses (syrup) is already clear or nearly so.
Do you see a pattern here?
You can make sugar out of just about any starchy vegetable. You can make biofuel out of just about any starchy vegetable. Yes, there's a correlation.
Now, if for ANY of those processes, you stop at the "molasses" step and then only partially boil the water out of it, you have High Fructose {plant_name_here} Syrup. Depending on how much water you boil out of it, you may get between 25 and 60 percent fructose mixture, and a dwindling percentage of polysaccharides. All forms of edible sugar are basically defined by the fructose:glucose:polysaccharide:other ratio. HFCS is between 40:55:5:0 and 55:43:2:0. Honey is typically 49:50:0:1 until it's filtered, then it becomes 49:51:0:0. Rehydrated white crystal sugar syrup is 50:50:0:0.
No particular type of sugar is better or worse for you. Once they're refined to the point they can be called "sugar", they're all just combinations of the same thing.
So, to sum up, you're an idiot, and sugar is just sugar no matter its source.
Caitlyn Jenner had better not put on any weight.
Have gnu, will travel.
still waiting on the FDA to ban High Fructose Corn Sirup from everything too...
+1 that sounds tasty!
But aren't you guys discussing saturated fat and not trans fat?
WTF Slashdot, why do I have to login 50 times to post?
Back in the 1970's, the nanny state recommended switching from butter to margarine for a healthy heart. Not great-grandma's margarine, the modern trans-fat stuff.
Then Linus Pauling and the Vitamin C insanity, and hundreds of fad diets, popularized on daytime TeeVee, streamed to a gullible nation of eyeballs, heads tilted back, eagerly tossing back their daily dose of pseudoscience in the form of info marketing.
Nathan Pritikin being the standout among the diet revolutionaries -- an aerospace inventor who shattered the mythology of the American Medical Association by deciphering the link between the overly refined, high fat, salt, and sugar of western diets and the preventable diseases they cause.
If a lot of the items in your basket have a nutrition label on them, it's time to reassess the parts of the store you're visiting. The cereal, vegetable, and limited animal protein diets of our great-grandparents are quick and easy to make, and very healthy for human primates.
Make sure your raw foods are properly prepared. Cooked or cold, you don't want the FDA approved supply stream infecting your throat or gut.
If you're eating something and it tastes good, SPIT IT OUT!
Notice that the old fucker still died anyhow.
We need to stop with the nanny state bullshit like this.
EVERYTHING out there is bad for you when not taken in moderation.
Personal fucking responsibility!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Hfcs has nothing to do with it. If it did, type 2s would start to get better without it. It's only 5% different from table sugar in hf content.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Let us compare:
Sucrose (table sugar): a disaccharide made up of a fructose and glucose molecule bound together - 50% fructose + 50% glucose. The intestine uses the enzyme sucrase to break it into the two parts before it enters the bloodstream.
HFC (corn syrup): is two monosaccharides, 55% fructos + 45% glucose.
Seems like they hit the blood stream and are metabolized the same from that point on.
Which studies? Care to provide a link? I kinda always thought that all sugars are metabolized by 'normalizing' them to glucose and fructose. In case of sucrose it involves hydrolysis of one weak chemical bond, that produces glucose and fructose. HFCS simply skips that step.
Lard or tallow make excellent pie crusts, especially for savory pies, but Apple and a few other heavily spiced pies tend to work really well with it.
But I will admit, I had some cherry pie made with a coconut oil crust and it was excellent.
(if you haven't guessed, you should eat pie in moderation)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The major problem is the rate-limiting factors of liver enzymes. The liver can handle a little bit of fructose at a time.
Fructose is directly absorbed into the blood stream. It's not metabolized exclusively by liver.
It may be a good idea to look into the sugar composition of honey alongside high fructose corn syrup.
Why? I mean, no one has said anything about honey in this thread, so why should we waste our time comparing honey to anything?
Yes. I blame all simple sugar (HFCS and cane/beet sugar), specifically the grossly increased consumption in the last few generations. Was that not clear?
please make the bakeries go back to using flour.
However, given the rate of obesity and type 2 diabetes in this country with strong evidence they are caused by our increased consumption of various kinds of sugar ("real" sugar and HFCS), I would be very much in favor of a relatively high tax on them.
So... not a subsidy then? 'Cos that'd be a start.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
This is what pisses me off every time HFCS comes up in a debate. You're not supposed to replace HFCS with sugar. You are supposed to replace it with fresher, less processed foods that don't need added sugars.
The problem I think was that 2 different anti-HFCS groups got some publicity at the same time. One was Dr what's-his-name who called HFCS "poison". But he really meant all sugars. It's just that HFCS was the main one found in everything at the time (because it's cheaper, easier to add since its liquid, and the corn supply is more stable than the sugar supply).
At the same time, the "Passover Coke" crowd was making noise about how much better CocaCola tasted with cane sugar, compared to HFCS. I agree that it does taste awesome, but that has nothing to do with health.
Unfortunately, these two movements collided in the public conscienceless and became "HFCS is really bad for you, and should be replaced with sugar". So now you have idiotic things like Raisin Bran that proudly says "No HFCS" on the box but is full of added sucrose. Raisins are supposed to be the sweetener in Raisin Bran, the only other ingredient should be bran.
Every glass of milk I have every drank has contained transfat. How much more is this going to make milk cost? What will the taste difference be? Will "cow shares" no longer be allowed?
Good luck fighting their respective lobbies. But yeah, simply eliminating subsidies would be a good first step.
It's bad, yes, but not worse than sugar (equal in badness, because it's fructose + glucose).
See "Sugar: The Bitter Truth" for some biochemistry on that (specifically, why fructose causes damage).
The fruit aisle is around the outside of the store, and fruit, let's say an apple in this case, has around a dozen grams of fructose. If it's a large and particularly sweet apple, perhaps significantly more. I can easily eat multiple apples in one sitting if I'm hungry.
Your grandmother would definitely recognize fruit juice as well, despite its naturally high fructose content. If you can overload the system with too much fructose from HFCS you can definitely do the same with all-natural-organic-unpasteurized fruit juice.
Not to mention, "chemicals" aren't necessarily bad either. For example something like thiamine mononitrate sounds scary (to idiots), but assuming you have some understanding of what you wrote, instead of just parroting it from a Facebook post or web site, you already know it's just Vitamin B1, which is an essential nutrient, without enough of which, serious health problems will occur. There are a LOT more examples of that sort of thing.
Many processed foods actually tend to be more in the "not quite as good" category rather than the "bad" category, and a bit of corn syrup in wheat bread isn't going to do a damn thing to your metabolism if you eat a cheese sandwich with two slices of bread. Now if you load it up with an inch high pile of jam that's probably another story.
Overall, those "rules" may have some merit, but it doesn't take much effort to figure out that fresh vegetables and whole grains are going to be better for you than a box of Twinkies and a can of Spaghetti Os. A lot of families are on a limited budget though, and can't afford fresh, organic, vegetables and don't have the time or space to grow enough of their own. In such cases, it's important to be able to identify relatively inexpensive and convenient (and ideally long-lasting) but also healthful food choices, and the rules above don't really help very much there.
Lots of things like on-sale whole grain pasta, frozen vegetables (even spinach), jar sauce, low-sugar breakfast cereal or rolled oats, peanut butter, and even tuna and various canned items (if you're not worried about BPA, or if they're in BPA free cans, which several manufacturers have already switched to) are just fine, and mostly from the center of the store. You can still get fairly good nutrition on a budget and without having to go to the store every 2 days or spend a long time on preparation. You can also have a treat from time to time, just don't order the baconater three times a week or pick up a Big Gulp or a Pumkin Spice Latte or White Hot Chocolate (holy crap 49g and 62g sugar?!) every morning.
Err, I meant slightly worse, of course (a bit more fructose).
I've been on a nearly ketogenic diet for the past year.. it's just this knee-jerk soccer mom like reaction to HFCS just seems dumb to me.
Sugar and HFCS are nearly the same, barring some slight metabolic differences (fructose being metabolized by the liver -- thanks Dr. Lustig, that was an interesting hour long video!) After not consuming much of either of them, i definitely feel better, and 70 pounds lighter to boot. =/
HFCS is strong stuff, so it is easy to add without affecting other parts of a recipe or texture/consistency. Isn't that hard to sugar things up via other sweeteners (or plain sugar), but adding a little more HFCS is almost the same as sprinkling a little MSG on your chinese food.
HFCS is made from corn. Corn subsidies are crazy, which makes HFCS incredibly cheap, but large scale corn farming relatively attractive despite low prices. If you didn't have these corn subsidies, sweetening everything with gobs of HFCS would not be as cost effective. But as long as the first primary is in Iowa, I doubt that will happen.
Bottles.
http://americandad.wikia.com/wiki/Live_and_Let_Fry
Sugar the original gateway drug. Oh and it causes very profitable ongoing conditions too. Just the gift that keeps on giving.
I haven't seen any compelling evidence that HFCS is any worse than sugar. The overuse of caloric sweeteners is definitely a problem, but there is no reason to single out HFCS over sugar. I guess having a scary-sounding chemical to ban sounds a lot less insane than "let's ban sugar."
I think American Dad tackled this subject years ago, so they predicted this.
http://americandad.wikia.com/wiki/Live_and_Let_Fry
you know, seeing as the FDA regulates food producers and the ingredients they use.
I would be curious how you propose that the government ban anal sex. Short of sewing everybody's asshole shut at birth and giving them a colostomy, that is...
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
It's unlikely a tax would be effective at reducing consumption. The problem is that high levels of sweetness is actually addictive. People would simply pay the higher prices and continue to consume the foods, much like how cigarette tax hasn't been effective at preventing people from smoking. The decision to purchase and consume the product in addicted individuals simply isn't a rational one. For example, I've believed for five years that sugar in any form (other than glucose) is rather toxic, yet it wasn't until the beginning of this year that I finally managed to break the habit of consuming it on a regular basis. ...and it isn't that I didn't try before, I'd often quit for a few months, then at a birthday party everyone would be like "one cupcake won't hurt" and after consuming that one cupcake, my resistance to further comsumption was dimished and I'd go on a week-long sugar-eating binge. I'm certain the only reason I've been successful for the last 5.5 months is because I've had the rule that absolutely any sugar consumption isn't allowed, no matter how little it may be, because if I consume any, I simply won't be able to control myself afterwards.
It's also worth mentioning that, since making this change, I've steadily lost 5 pounds per month despite no other dietary restrictions or exercise. Indeed, I still consume pizza like a pig, eating a whole pizza at once and rendering myself unable to eat anything else the rest of the day because my stomach is simply too full, yet the weight continues to gradually fall off. Sugar is some terrible shit.
The reason it's in everything is because, if you want to make buckets of money, the best way to do that is to create a product which for psychological reasons people simply aren't able to prevent themselves from consuming. Is a small chocolate bar worth $1.50? Hell no, but people are addicted and so they'll pay $1.50 for one, just like they'll pay $5 per day for a crazy small amount of tobacco. It's already not a rational decision, and so making the decision even less rational is unlikely to help.
To seriously address the problem of addiction without compromising personal freedom, I think the best solution is that any addictive substance, like sugar, tobacco, alcohol, and any presently-illegal drugs, should be available for anyone to purchase, but with the condition that anyone selling these products must check a national registry to make sure that the person they're selling to hasn't voluntarily signed up to the registry to restrict sales of that product to them. That way, people who honestly want to contine using tobacco products can do so without any bullshit taxes or restrictions on their consumption, but those who want to quit but are having a difficult time doing so because tobacco is simply available on every street corner can sign up to this registry and thereby make it illegal for anyone to sell them tobacco since, because they voluntarily put themselves on that registry, anyone selling them tobacco is quite literally profiting from their addiction rather than legitimately selling them a product that they honestly want to consume.
Hasn't stopped them in the past.
One could argue that the moon is made of cheese. What do scientists say?
Eat less sweets and you'll be okay. HFCS is no more dangerous than sugar. The obesity rate has very little to do with HFCS and more to do with increased caloric intake in general.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Based on the currently available evidence, the expert panel concluded that HFCS does not appear to contribute to overweight and obesity any differently than do other energy sources.
I'll be interested in seeing any links you can provide that proves the contrary. It's been repeatedly shown that the increase in BMI has less to do with HFCS or sugar and more to do with increased caloric consumption in general. Over reliance on fast food and poor dietary choices are the leading causes of obesity.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Fructose, Sucrose are bad for you, Lactose a bit and Glucose is fuel.
Ban sucrose and limited concentrates of fructose in juices with warnings.
One can argue many things. But arguing does not make it true.
Trans-fats naturally occur in butter and human breast milk. If you ban trans-fats, will butter be coming off the shelves?
Actually it's an enzyme, sucrase, that converts sucrose into glucose & fructose in the small intestine. The only real differences between HFCS & sucrose are: (1) The ratio 45/55 vs 50/50 of fructose/glucose. (2) At what location it becomes glucose/fructose. And (3) that some people (rarely) are intolerant to one or more of these sugars.
"'Trans fat raises the bad cholesterol and lowers the good cholesterol a little bit,' he said.'Saturated fat only raises the bad cholesterol.'"
There's actually no scientific proof of this, and in studies done over the last 5 years, can't be replicated.
I expect to read the news of that kind in a near future. A track was stopped at US-Mexican border. The shipment was marked as a medicine marijuana supplied for CVS by their business partner Cali Cartel. However a careful search found under few bags of marijuana --- carefully packaged Trans Fats!
We're winning the War On Drugs every day, right?
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
Fuck you assholes for voting for Obama, may you burn for eternity.
Sure, why not ban 'em?
Unlike marijuana, there are safer substitutes for trans fats that are better. Butter, lard, for two. I'm not sure about palm oil.
And you could also argue that a small drink is a safer substitute for a big drink. A person can just stand up and get a refill, but if they're less likely to do that if they start with a small cup, then it makes laziness work for them instead of against them.
--PM
Nope. Not proven. Our growing rate of obesity is clearly linked to an increased caloric intake. Diabetes is clearly linked to obesity. HFCS or sugar are merely one component of a higher caloric intake. You can get the same effect by eating a sufficient quantity of any food, including fruits & veggies. (Granted, it takes a lot of 'em.) If you want to worry about something, look to high fat foods and 3,000 to 5,000 calorie meals.
The suggested daily caloric intake is 2,000 to 2,500 calories. You drink 3 liters of soda a day, and sure the sugar will add a fair bit to your caloric intake. About 1,200 calories (140 calories per 12oz of coke). But without solid food you will still lose weight (and eventually die) from insufficient caloric intake (aka starving to death). What else are you eating? Is it a salad or a triple burger?
I'm in the interesting situation where I cannot eat gluten, dairy, soy, and a few other things. I can't eat anything from the bakery, candy, or frozen aisles of the grocery store, and very little from the rest of the store. Simple survival, getting enough calories to live on, is extremely difficult for me. All those raw foods, the fruits and veggies everyone recommends eating... Here's a hint: They have barely more calories than air. Try to break 2,000 calories with carrots sometime. Just try!
And yes, sugar forms a crucial carbohydrate in my diet. HFCS or sucrose, it's just glucose and fructose in my gut. Glucose is nature's most perfect food. Every cell in our body can use it as a food source as is with no further processing. Fructose is more troubling, being linked to that non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Living off it is probably a bad idea. But a few sugary drinks during the day makes the difference between under 1,500 calories and over 2,000 calories, better know as life and death.
Mind you, you're a lot better off with something like Almond Milk than soda. And eating large amounts of high-fat foods like nuts is probably the only thing still keeping me alive. Giving up dairy is really hard. They put that stuff in everything! Gluten is even worse. And don't get me started on Soy.
So before you start talking about taxing or banning sugar, while keeping those 5,000 calorie fat-filled meals still on the table, take a moment and drink a glass of water while you contemplate people like me.
Hello,
I find the argument that "healthy" people live longer and end up costing more in health care interesting.
However, I am reluctant to believe it based on your claim alone, and I would find it hard to persuade others. Have you got any sources to cite?
If you're right, I think many might find it interesting.
--PM
Except the "Alternatives" will most likely be worse not better.
What exactly do you think connects the intestine to the liver?
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Actually, glucose and fructose go through a different metabolic pathway. Glucose is absorbed via a secondary active transport mechanism down the concentration gradient of sodium, and fructose is absorbed via facilitated diffusion. There are more details, but the body does treat them differently. Ultimately, a lot of the fructose does get converted to glucose eventually, but not all of it. I don't really know if it's the additional fructose that causes other effects in the body that seems to lead to a gain on body fat, or just the fact that they put sugar in fucking everything now.
However, I wish there was some way to get it into people's heads that they shouldn't be eating so much of this stuff, and should eat more unprocessed real foods.
Good luck with that: "this stuff" is cheap (that's why they use it instead of stuff like butter and real sugar), and with the middle class disappearing in this country, a lot of people simply don't have money for "unprocessed real foods".
Also, there's evidence that some of this stuff (like HFCS) is addictive.
No, table sugar is the same, 55/45. The difference is that table sugar is sucrose, a complex molecule which is broken down by the body into glucose and fructose. HFCS is already broken down into the simpler glucose and fructose molecules so your body doesn't have to expend energy doing that, and can just pump it directly into your bloodstream.
I'm not aware of any product where the primary ingredient is HFCS.
You've never heard of Coca-Cola or any other soda? Besides water, sugar is the main ingredient.
Table sugar is 100% sucrose, a disaccharide consisting of one glucose and one fructose molecule covalently bound together. HFCS is a mixture of glucose and fructose as monosaccharides (individual sugar molecules). Multiple HFCS compositions exist commercially.
.: Semper Absurda
[citation needed]
HFCS is sugar. Sugar is sugar.
The subsidies are bad. People eat too much of it. But (until some proof is provided), it apparently isn't any more unhealthful than any other sugars.. unlike trans fats, which truly were worse than what they replaced.
Everyone knows at this point that our problem isn't with fats, it's with carbs.
Unfortunately, when it comes to nutrition, "everyone" has fallen for a mixture of quackery and old wives' tales. Case in point: your conflation of simple sugars and complex carbohydrates, which ignores the excessive animal protein and extraordinary dearth of fiber currently consumed in Western diets.
.: Semper Absurda
How about this sort of Devil's bargain:
you're old and in failing health, but you could be kept alive with ever more heroic health care measures.
You come down with something fatal if untreated, and really unpleasant even if treated. Would you make a bargain with your healthcare insurer, "Hey, you pay me 50% of the cost of saving my life, and give me only palliative end of life care instead. My heirs thus get 50%, and you save a bit less than 50%. How about that, insurance company?"
It's rational to do this, but could you find enough rationality in yourself, your heirs, your insurance company, and society in general to make such a bargain and have it stick?
--PeterM
I would be happy if the government just stopped substituting them so heavily.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Care to provide a link?
Sure, the Wikipedia article provides an adequate discussion of fructose metabolism.
I kinda always thought that all sugars are metabolized by 'normalizing' them to glucose and fructose. In case of sucrose it involves hydrolysis of one weak chemical bond, that produces glucose and fructose. HFCS simply skips that step.
More or less, although it's a bit more complicated due to how sugar molecules are transported in different cell types (as discussed in the above link). However, most commercial HFCS compositions have more fructose than glucose, which can lead to excess Krebs cycle intermediates that are in turn directed to fatty acid metabolism (via acetyl-CoA).
.: Semper Absurda
Indeed, fructose is primarily metabolized in the liver.
.: Semper Absurda
I never mentioned any complex carbs, so I don't see how I could be conflating simple sugars and complex carbs.
Sorry, I thought that was so obvious it didn't need explaining.
We can make this very simple: the problem is foods with a high glycemic load.
This post should be like, +500 mind blown. You make me not wanna drink soda again. (which is a good thing. I'm trying to stop).
The ratio of fructose and glucose in HFCS is similar to a lot of fruits. Grapes are probably the closest, at 54% fructose, 46% glucose; and honey at 56% fructose, 44% glucose. So if HFCS is bad for you, then so are grapes and honey. And if you're trying to paint fructose as the bad guy, then you should be horrified to know that apples, pears, and watermelon have an even higher fraction of fructose.
The problem isn't HFCS per se. It's that we eat too much damn sugar (in all forms).
I'm not a fan of banning them either. However, given the rate of obesity and type 2 diabetes in this country with strong evidence they are caused by our increased consumption of various kinds of sugar ("real" sugar and HFCS), I would be very much in favor of a relatively high tax on them.
There are taxes on sugar. It is 5x higher in the US than the rest of the world (if you are in the US)
That 5x bump in cost is one of the reasons HCFS exists in so many products. Sugar is so dammed high (already).
Deciding that you'd "very much in favor of a relatively high tax" on something you don't like is a pinheaded means of solving the problem. How about the FDA limit sugar / HCFS in products.
Tax the shit out of it and people will stop buying and dying of X (insert tobacco) related causes -
You have to read the Ingredients list and seek out "hydrologised" or "partly hydrologised" fats. Because a small amount of trans fats below a certain threshold are allowed to be listed at zero in the main Nutritional Information list the manufacturers manipulate the Serving Size so that Trans Fats are below the threshold, you can't go by the Nutritional Information list. Also they can use "Trans Fat Free" banners on the package if the serving size is so manipulated.
I bet there was a ton of sodium and preservatives in your salad dressing though. I won't touch any of that "dressing" crap, I only use first pressed extra virgin olive oil and real balsamic vinegar on my salads.
I'm not a fan of banning them either. However, given the rate of obesity and type 2 diabetes in this country with strong evidence they are caused by our increased consumption of various kinds of sugar ("real" sugar and HFCS), I would be very much in favor of a relatively high tax on them.
There are taxes on sugar. It is 5x higher in the US than the rest of the world (if you are in the US)
That 5x bump in cost is one of the reasons HCFS exists in so many products. Sugar is so dammed high (already).
Deciding that you'd "very much in favor of a relatively high tax" on something you don't like is a pinheaded means of solving the problem. How about the FDA limit sugar / HCFS in products.
Tax the shit out of it and people will stop buying and dying of X (insert tobacco) related causes -
France banned hydrogenated vegetable oil and saw something like a 30% or 40% reduction in heart attacks... in just a single year. Just how blatant of a good idea do you need this to be?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
How do they stop men from marrying/having relations with young girls?
All old religions allow it.
The reason they're used in processed foods is because they are an effective and cheap flavor enhancer. Tax them and they become less economically viable in cheap bulk processed foods.
Say what? Tax HFCS? Why not just remove the subsidy for corn? Hawaii would be much happier if that were the case. They have been economically disadvantaged since the 1970s because the corn lobby has been successful at getting subsidies large enough that manufacturing High Fructose Corn syrup is cheaper than just growing sugar cane.
I doubt you can find more than a very small handful of products that use cane sugar. I would be interested in seeing studies that prove your claims that cane sugar is bad for you when used in moderation. Do you have links handy as I am a busy person.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
was a clue zooming far above your head.
You see that A is bad. Then somebody propose B. But B cannot be tested in double blind study or similar because B is an economic outfit (HMO) or a food stuff which would be difficult to test (trans fat). Since there is no counter indication from maybe short animal study (think toxicity and cancer) you accept it as GRAS. Then 30 years down the line you see an increase of coronary disease so you remove it from GRAS list. There is nothing really that special here or surprising. It works in cycle because science for food or economy can take a very long time to come to results (well at last food. Economy is another can of worm. Wriggling worm).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The first margarine fabrication were in the 1870 in France nonetheless. But at that point it was an all natural product fabricated from animal fat tallow and water. It was only much later (in 1950 IIRC) that trans fat came in as a byproduct of hydrogenation of unsaturated fat , process used to give it specific consistency and properties. AFAIK in the last 10 years or so margarine maker saw the writing on the wall and removed completely (or removed mostly) trans fat from the fabrication process of margarine.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Even if you don't understand the biochemistry, the two basic rules still work well - don't buy stuff in the middle of the grocery store and don't eat anything your Grandmother wouldn't recognize as food from her childhood.
Really? This is really the shit that gets modded up to +5 these days, again and again? Do I even have to spell out what's wrong with it?
On your fructose rantings: your explanation, if true, vilifies almost all fruits just as much as it does HFCS. No doubt you'll come up with some anecdotal, pulled-out-of-your-ass justification for treating HFCS differently, though.
Also, let's just keep completely ignoring the fact that heart disease and stroke are top killers worldwide, even in countries where they have never heard of HFCS.
How does this neoluddite shit keep getting modded up? If you're against sugar then fine, but the anti-HFCS movement is mostly completely fine with table sugar used as a substitute, and it appears that absolutely none of these blowhards are advocating treating the fructose in fruits the same as the fructose in corn.
If you're against HFCS but pro-grape juice (increasingly being used as a sweetener in some products that want to avoid HFCS cooties), you are either a Dr. Oz-loving neo-Luddite moron who needs to turn in his geek card immediately or you are sitting on some earthshaking unpublished scientific studies.
-forbid the consumption of a substance that vested commercial interests have totally convinced me is salubrious?
Without citing a single study in your post, yet you're still "insightful".
Legendary stuff.
It's not. it's what, 55% fructose, 45% sucrose -- whereas table sugar is a 50/50 split?
Where did you get the idea that you can take a food, completely ignore the body's metabolism, list its component molecules, and declare parity? It's a complete stretch, and so it's completely wrong. This is 1982-era reasoning.
The major problem is the rate-limiting factors of liver enzymes. The liver can handle a little bit of fructose at a time. If it gets overrun, it quickly manufactures triglycerides with the excess fructose, and those run right out and stick to the arterial walls (I know, triglycerides don't like to be anthropomorphized).
Sucrose metabolism is almost entirely rate-limited by the amount of available sucrase enzyme in the small intestine (the stomach acid affects 10% of the amount consumed). This provides a slow-sip of fructose to the liver, so it's much more manageable. This built-in protection is defeated by using HFCS or any unbound glucose/fructose syrup - the liver gets it nearly all at once. Keep that up and you'll be fat and get heart disease.
It's still possible to overload the liver with excess amounts of sucrose - you have more sucrase than liver enzymes, so anything more than a taste of sugar is still going to be a problem. This works out OK if you're going to be starving all winter, but in modern Western societies that starvation never happens, so the weight keeps piling on.
Even if you don't understand the biochemistry, the two basic rules still work well - don't buy stuff in the middle of the grocery store and don't eat anything your Grandmother wouldn't recognize as food from her childhood. Hrm, we might need to up that to "Great Grandmother" these days; if the ingredients label lists a chemical shitstorm straight out of Post-WWII "better living through chemistry - try the transfats!" insanity, don't eat it.
Serious question: Do you have a reliable source for the fructose-to-triglyceride conversion?
There's a lot of research trying to disparage this notion, and for a lay-person like myself it's impossible to tell which are the neutral (i.e., good) research and which is the lobbyist-directed ones.
What pray tell is the problem with it? Obesity and diabetes? I drank 2 mountain dew 20 ounces a day for a while in college and still drink a pop at least every other day (never diet, artificial sweeteners give me a headache) yet my current BMI is 21 and my blood sugar is fine. In fact when I was drinking the most pop in college my BMI was more like 17.
What made me fatter (or some people would call less skinny) was chicken nuggets and milk shakes I ate after I graduated, soda had no impact on my weight.
Right... because taxes totally work like this!
Stop them from marrying them? By denying a marriage license.
Stop them from having relations is tougher, for the same reasons that banning anal sex would be difficult.It would generally take a victim coming forward and testifying about what happened....
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"Well, they did it! They killed Sugarfoots!" - Buck Strickland
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Season 12 - Episode 11 - Trans-Fascism
Just looked up the ingredients.
Oil and vinegar are pretty much natural preservatives. So there's no need to add in artificial ones. Perhaps a little high on the salt at 350 mg per serving, but it's really not that bad. Also, studies have actually shown that sodium is not that bad for you
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Why not say it will save 5000 times in healthcare costs. that is something you can never prove if it is true or not. How about for those who never have health care costs? FDA just want to tell people what and how to eat, they think people are so stupid that they have write laws for what we can eat.
We need to stop the FDA from telling people what they can and can not eat.
Social Security does have a cap. Medicare, on the other hand, has no cap. It also increases once you get past $200k (ACA provision, .9% Medicare surtax on income > $200,000).
Rather than use using butter or olive oil etc. They will use this more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The odd thing about it is that scientific research doesn't really back up the notion that HFCS is markedly worse than plain old table sugar. There is pretty much just one rat study that everyone cites (the Princeton one), and that doesn't hold up to scrutiny, as they omitted things like "controls" and in one case simply stated a conclusion despite a lack of any matching data.
Don't construct a make believe boogeyman and expect a community of nerds to buy into the myth without question.
I'm already married, but would you like to marry me?
I don't care your gender. Let's shack up.
If they are not going after her for one thing, they are going after her for another.
Table sugar is also a highly concentrated sugar. It's even higher concentration than HCFS.
The problem lies in that table sugar has glucose and fructose, whereas HCFS is mostly fructose. The body can handle glucose much easier than it can fructose.
Now, all sugar is bad at the quantities used in the US, but table sugar is much less harmful.
Please show me where in the scientific method you see "scientific consensus". You don't because it isn't in there.
Pay off the FDA officials in jobs with pay 4-5 times their salary at the FDA and you can get anything on the market. It is legalized bribery and it is rampant at the FDA, USDA, CDC and virtually all government agencies.
Why a tax? My understanding is that farmers get subsidies based on crops, particularly corn, in order to keep prices low. But the price of corn has been kept so low, apparently, that we can turn it into ethanol and a sugar substitute.
If my understanding is correct, just remove the subsidy (not instantly, but a gradual removal over three years.) Then all the other stuff you say will happen anyway.
(It also creates a nice paradox for Republicans: Stick to your guns about smaller government by removing subsidies, or lose the support and money of the ag lobby. At the moment the ag lobby would win that, though.)
The hit dog hollered, jdavidb. When you can't win your argument with logic, go AC and start the ad homs.
It's the Technically Correct response which is the best kind of response.
Not too damned busy to argue with the OP though. I'm seeing what you're doing there...
But have you gone for a walk, got some exercise, sung, or listened to music...ON WEED?
You libertardians make me LMFAOROFLCOPTER daily. Let's analyze your post, shall we?
You claim to be smart enough to decide for yourself but evidently even YOU can't figure it out. You'll counter this with:
but yet the sentence before it says:
So, in typical libertardian fashion, you acknowledge the need for regulation but then scream for the downfall of regulation. You don't know what the fuck you think! Furthermore:
You might think you're smart, you may even be smart, but I don't know that for sure about you or any of my neighbors. Just because you think it's great to hose your yard down with DDT, or that Trichloroethylene is a great metal cleaner that's perfectly ok to wash right down the sink does not mean it is. It effects more than you but you just don't care cuz yer freedumbs! People are cheap fucks even if you aren't- it's the main reason why producers use hydrogenated oils, HFCS, & glutens. You're outnumbered there. I can't trust them to do the right thing to save a penny and I can't trust you either. Sorry you hate that but I like to live.
Tallow was not banned from McD's because of diet regualation, per se, but it was a contributing factor no doubt. Now that they're banned, you still won't get your tallow. You can thank the vegan Hindu's for that. I bet you don't remember the sue-storm that happened back around 2000 do you?
hfcs IS a carb, MORAN!
You don't have the stove on wide ass open. Oh wait, you're old enough to know that. You're being all rhetorical n shit. I frown on these shenanigans.
Yes, it is exactly like it. And if you don't see that, you're a fucking moron.
You God damned slave.
HFCS has infiltrated everything. It is not just soda
It is in all sorts of processed foods and even bread.
But go ahead and eat them. All this means is that nobody can sell it to you. Just like they can't sell radioactive polonium or whatever.
She could have not got money out. Nobody held a gun to her head and forced her to take the money. She did.
She could instead have not gone broke, which she thought of others indicated they should not live, being unworthy.
She could instead have died penniless without stealing from others.
Or she could have realised that her rhetoric was bollocks and that those taking from SS etc aren't "being parasites" or feeling entitled, but WERE entitled to the money from the government.
Instead she stole from her point of view and cheated her just fate, again by her point of view (and I suspect your devout belief too), yet still wanted to keep the insanity belief that others doing it were vile parasites on the deserving.
Rights aren't granted by the Constitution.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
One would be wrong to argue that; most recent research says it's not much worse for you than sucrose at the same dose, and since it's sweeter, you can use less of it. That means that two things of equivalent sweetness (with sucrose/HFCS) aren't really that much different, from a health perspective. Mostly it has been detrimental because it's cheap and used to make things taste more appealing (to the masses), which was mostly needed to make low-fat foods taste better.
You just keep telling yourself "There's no evidence." Rectal surgery on weed. DOH!
WTF have they forgot about Cigarettes... Try banning something that really kills people and costs the health care companies tons of cash.... Oh yeah I'm from your government and I'm here to help you, I'm mean f-you we do what we want! If it's good for you or not we decide!
See subject & answer it vs. you doing it here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... so keep "puffing that pot" fool!
* :)
Gotta love it - seeing you give me guff (yet being a "ne'er-do-well" pothead with nothing better to show for yourself vs. what I've done that gives others more speed, security, reliability, & anonymity), knowing you CRIPPLE your OWN thought processes with pot is priceless, since it makes it (& I've just GOTTA say it, you're making me do it) "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2ez'" to utterly crush you by making you "eat your words", spiced with the bitter taste of SELF-defeat, + your foot in your mouth RAMMING THEM DOWN, rinsing down the puke you spewed on /. that I smacked you down with easily!
Keep puffin that pot, McDopey!
APK
P.S.=> Gotta LOVE pot smoking dolts - they're stupid enough to do what "stoned_ritual" did, & smash themselves into the ground everytime vs. myself, lol... apk
See subject & answer it vs. you doing it here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... so keep "puffing that pot" fool!
* :)
Gotta love it - seeing you give me guff (yet being a "ne'er-do-well" pothead with nothing better to show for yourself vs. what I've done that gives others more speed, security, reliability, & anonymity), knowing you CRIPPLE your OWN thought processes with pot is priceless, since it makes it (& I've just GOTTA say it, you're making me do it) "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2ez'" to utterly crush you by making you "eat your words", spiced with the bitter taste of SELF-defeat, + your foot in your mouth RAMMING THEM DOWN, rinsing down the puke you spewed on /. that I smacked you down with easily!
APK
P.S.=> Gotta LOVE pot smoking dolts - they're stupid enough to do what "stoned_ritual" did, & smash themselves into the ground everytime vs. myself, lol... apk
See subject & answer it vs. you doing it here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... so keep "puffing that pot" fool!
* :)
Gotta love it - seeing you give me guff (yet being a "ne'er-do-well" pothead with nothing better to show for yourself vs. what I've done that gives others more speed, security, reliability, & anonymity), knowing you CRIPPLE your OWN thought processes with pot is priceless, since it makes it (& I've just GOTTA say it, you're making me do it) "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2ez'" to utterly crush you by making you "eat your words", spiced with the bitter taste of SELF-defeat, + your foot in your mouth RAMMING THEM DOWN, rinsing down the puke you spewed on /. that I smacked you down with easily!
APK
P.S.=> Gotta LOVE pot smoking dolts - they're stupid enough to do what "stoned_ritual" did, & smash themselves into the ground everytime vs. myself, lol... apk
See subject & answer it vs. you doing it here http://tech.slashdot.org/comme... so keep "puffing that pot" fool!
* :)
Gotta love it - seeing you give me guff (yet being a "ne'er-do-well" pothead with nothing better to show for yourself vs. what I've done that gives others more speed, security, reliability, & anonymity), knowing you CRIPPLE your OWN thought processes with pot is priceless, since it makes it (& I've just GOTTA say it, you're making me do it) "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2ez'" to utterly crush you by making you "eat your words", spiced with the bitter taste of SELF-defeat, + your foot in your mouth RAMMING THEM DOWN, rinsing down the puke you spewed on /. that I smacked you down with easily!
APK
P.S.=> Gotta LOVE pot smoking dolts - they're stupid enough to do what "stoned_ritual" did, & smash themselves into the ground everytime vs. myself, lol... apk