Reducing Sugar In Packaged Foods Can Prevent Disease In Millions, Study Finds (massgeneral.org) 229
Long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 quotes a new press release from Massachusetts General Hospital: Cutting 20% of sugar from packaged foods and 40% from beverages could prevent 2.48 million cardiovascular disease events (such as strokes, heart attacks, cardiac arrests), 490,000 cardiovascular deaths, and 750,000 diabetes cases in the U.S. over the lifetime of the adult population, reports a study published in Circulation...
More than two in five American adults are obese, one in two have diabetes or prediabetes, and nearly one in two have cardiovascular disease, with those from lower-income groups being disproportionately burdened.
Their model suggests that after 10 years, America could save $4.28 billion in total net healthcare costs, and $118.04 billion over the lifetime of the current adult population (ages 35 to 79), according to the announcement.
It also points out that America "lags other countries in implementing strong sugar-reduction policies." And the study's co-senior author (also a dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University) says their findings "suggest it's time to implement a national program with voluntary sugar reduction targets, which can generate major improvements in health, health disparities, and healthcare spending in less than a decade."
More than two in five American adults are obese, one in two have diabetes or prediabetes, and nearly one in two have cardiovascular disease, with those from lower-income groups being disproportionately burdened.
Their model suggests that after 10 years, America could save $4.28 billion in total net healthcare costs, and $118.04 billion over the lifetime of the current adult population (ages 35 to 79), according to the announcement.
It also points out that America "lags other countries in implementing strong sugar-reduction policies." And the study's co-senior author (also a dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University) says their findings "suggest it's time to implement a national program with voluntary sugar reduction targets, which can generate major improvements in health, health disparities, and healthcare spending in less than a decade."
Needs a federal excise tax (Score:5, Interesting)
Because there won't really be any voluntary reduction in sugar content by packaged food producers. Sugar sells products.
The only way to change this is to make sugar more expensive at the producer level. This raises prices and cuts profits for packaged food manufacturers if they keep sugar at the same levels, so they will probably come up with ways to make do with less of it.
I think the challenge would be defining "sugar" because there's a lot of alternatives to plain sugar, such as HFCS and various sugar-bearing juices and plant extracts which could be substituted for "sugar".
Re:Needs a federal excise tax (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Needs a federal excise tax (Score:5, Informative)
They brought in a sugar tax in Ireland for fizzy drinks. Now the manufacturers put in the maximum allowed concentration of sugar that doesn't incur the tax and they cover the shortfall with artificial sweeteners like Aspartame and Acesulfame K. The end result being that the couple of times a year I indulge in a bottle of Lucozade orange it tastes like ass compared to the old version
Which doesn't help here, because I have to avoid Aspartame and Acesulfame K on the advice of my GP as they've been identified as migraine triggers. By cutting them out of my diet I've experienced almost no migraines in the last 3 years. The only time I get a migraine now, I can easily go over what I've consumed in the past few days, and always end up finding a product where the recipe has been changed to include those. As a result we now have to pay a 2x - 3x premium to import the same products from the US because the companies here are too stupid to realise we'd rather just pay the extra 10p a drink to avoid the chemical sweeteners. The problem is the ones full artificial sweeteners are being pushed everywhere, in many places you can't even get proper versions, those places have lost my custom too as a result. Places are quite happy to charge premium prices for a cocktail then ruin it entirely with Lemonade filled with sweeteners, or not disclose that there are no full sugar options until after you've purchased your drink. These things really should be on allegen lists, like nuts etc.for people who need to avoid them. Luckily some smaller startups have twigged on and are offering proper drinks for a slightly higher price, but it's more difficult to find those when you're out and about due to the stranglehold the older drinks manufacturers have on the industry.
Re:Needs a federal excise tax (Score:4, Insightful)
In politics we tend to pay attention to minority opinions and interests. But Free Market? Well it is cruel and Darwinian.
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I have to avoid Aspartame and Acesulfame K on the advice of my GP as they've been identified as migraine triggers.
You're not the only one. Back in the 90's I was guzzling Crystal Light every day and wondering why I was having headaches all the time. Knocked that off and the headaches went away. If I drank a Diet Coke now, 15 minutes later I'd start getting a headache again.
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Most of them taste worse than ass.
The only ones that I've found so far, and I've tried 'em all, are sucralose and erythritol. And you have to use them together.
Aspartame and stevia both have the problem that they contaminate the mouth and fuck up the flavor of other stuff you're consuming at the same time. So irritating. Sorbitol does it too.
Re: Needs a federal excise tax (Score:2)
Re: Needs a federal excise tax (Score:5, Interesting)
It's interesting you know what ass tastes like
You need to live a little. Try something new. Spice up your life.
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It's interesting you're interested in me knowing what ass tastes like
But look, I'm not gonna eat yours, so stop hinting
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"It's interesting you know what ass tastes like"
Who doesn't?
Never played the rusty trombone?
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I wonder what ass you have been tasting?
Also, erythritol is not an artificial sweetener, nor are stevia and Sorbitol, and there are other sweeteners that taste very similar to cane sugar, allulose for example.
Anyone who says that there are no sugar substitutes that taste like sugar is willfully ignorant. There are many.
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Anyone who says that there are no sugar substitutes that taste like sugar is willfully ignorant. There are many.
Erythritol, stevia, and sorbitol do NOT taste like sugar, especially not to someone who didn't grow up eating them. "Artificial sweetener" is not the same thing as "naturally derived low-calorie sugar substitute", but the latter certainly does not have the same flavor as sucrose and many people (myself included) don't like the way they taste even when blended with sucrose or fructose.
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Perhaps you have a problem with your tongue?
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>"The only ones that I've found so far, and I've tried 'em all, are sucralose and erythritol. And you have to use them together."
I like sucralose. It tastes almost exactly like sugar and has no strange aftertaste. Plus it seems very safe and has a good body. Aspartame is sharp and somewhat off and as too little aftertaste. Plus it has no body/stickiness. It isn't horrible, is more of a "clean" mouth feel, and I can get used to it, but it isn't anywhere near as close to "sugar" as sucralose. Unfortu
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it tastes like ass compared to the old version
Maybe you just have an acquired taste based on memory. I switched to Coke Zero recently, one thing I discovered was that after one or two months I found that normal Coke tastes like ass compared to Coke Zero.
Likewise with Fanta. Most Fanta available here has no sugar in it. Other than Fanta Orange you almost need to import the sugary variants, and you know what? The sugary variant tastes like arse.
There are many different sugar substitutes on the market with a variety of flavours, some good, some bad. Using
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Not just the taste, after a couple decades worth of addiction the mouthfeel of non sugared drinks is hard to get used to. The only diet soda I can stand is (European) Fanta Zero, I suspect the little bit of guar gum helps.
I'm sure a long enough adjustment period could get me used to just about anything, but the flesh is weak.
Re: Needs a federal excise tax (Score:2)
I enjoy sugared soda, but I have to say that artificially sweetened soda just tastes better to me. If I were to describe the difference, it feels "cleaner", more "precise".
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It is easy to get used to, you just don't try.
Make it Capone come to my "Sweet Easy" (Score:4, Interesting)
Or buy the real stuff for example in Germany (shipping is no problem). I should start a "Sweet Easy" underground suggar trade.
I should set it up as a darknet market place.
I recently ordered a box of 24 x 0,33L Pepsi Co - with full 10,7 g/100ml sugar content - because the normal Pepsi you can now only buy is 7g + Shitteners.
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"Fun fact: aspartame turns off the bodies ability to say it is full. So if it tastes that bad and you keep having more."
So you can drink a gallon of zero-calorie drinks and have no space left to eat?
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None of this is fact, not that you could tell the difference.
Re:Needs a federal excise tax (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way to change this is to make sugar more expensive at the producer level. This raises prices and cuts profits for packaged food manufacturers if they keep sugar at the same levels, so they will probably come up with ways to make do with less of it.
Business solution: less sugar? Are you mad? Fine, high fructose corn syrup it is then!
Regulators: I’m sorry, HFCS is also sugar, you can’t use that.
Hmmm ok then, what was that industrial chemical that tastes sweet again but doesn’t cause too much cancer?
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Lead acetate [wikipedia.org].
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Lead acetate
Ahh yes, brings me back to the days when we used to chug an emulsion of lead acetate In ethylene glycol, truly the chemists sweet bubble tea.
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This speaks volumes for the moral level of right wingnuts.
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This speaks volumes for the moral level of right wingnuts.
And also about their level of intelligence. If blues ate a bunch of lead they'd become as violent and irrational as the reds, and that frankly wouldn't be good for the conservatives as they are in the minority today and we blues are armed too, we just don't walk around shopping malls with our rifles.
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Calm down, it's likely a paid troll whose just saying purposely divisive things.
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What? No! Why should all the lead go to those hippies, we want our lead! Muh freedumbs!
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Lead acetate
As long as it's sold in blue counties only, I'm okay with that.
Trying to bring them down to your level?
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"If you want more of something, subsidize it. If you want less of something, tax it." RR. There's a reason why taxes in German are called "Steuern" which is the same word as "to pilot" or "to steer". Taxes and subsidies are the government's best tools to influence the market.
As for TFA: Americans on the whole are fat. They are ridiculously fat. To some extent, this is the fault of the food companies, because they pack sugar into just about everything. Eat breakfast cereal? Look at the label - even the heal
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More to the point, reducing the sugar content w/o reducing people's desire for sugary/sweet tasting foods will only encourage food producers to replace the sugar with substitutes, like Aspartame or Sucralose, which usually have some weird aftertaste and/or require other alterations to create a final product with similar characteristics as when made with sugar. Yuk to both.
You'd be surprised at how reducing your sugar (and salt) consumption reduces your desire for sweet (and salty) foods and then how much
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Re: Needs a federal excise tax (Score:3)
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Sugar, as in cane sugar, is already significantly more expensive in the United States compared to most of the rest of the world. As I recall, it's on the order of $0.10/lb more expensive in the US than in Canada. This is due to "protections for the sugar cane industry" that, you guessed it, are lobbied for by the Corn grower's industry.
The way to do what you want is to control the total amounts of glucose/fructose/sucrose and whatever other components.
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plain sugar (Score:2)
because there's a lot of alternatives to plain sugar, such as HFCS and various sugar-bearing juices and plant extracts which could be substituted for "sugar".
Because real sugar is only from sugar cane ... and sugar beets? I don't think "plain sugar" is well defined, because I never heard the term before you brought it up.
Despite that, I do not think it is hard for us to define and regulate fructose, glucose, sucrose, maltose, and other monosaccharide and disaccharides. We can apply the regulation to processed foods, including or not include juices, but not including whole fruit. Easy. We should include restrictions on ready to serve juices, but we probably will
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It’s because supplying plentiful, instantly available, and calorie dense food to any animal makes them fat.
That doesn't explain what happened.
Plentiful calorie-dense food has been available for a century. Plentiful sugar has been available for nearly as long.
Yet, the obesity surge only started in the 1980s, tripling the previous rate.
Options (Score:5, Funny)
Have you got anything without sugar?
Waitress: Well, there's sugar egg sausage and sugar, that's not got much sugar in it.
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Have you got anything without sugar?
Waitress: Well, there's sugar egg sausage and sugar, that's not got much sugar in it.
Sadly, I am out of mod points.
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We once had a waitress suggest that my wife could get the crème brûlée after we said she sadly couldn’t eat any of the items on the dessert menu due to her lactose intolerance. We kindly said that crème brûlée has cream in it, to which she asked, “Are you sure?”. I didn’t have the heart to point out that it’s literally in the name. I just said, “Yep, pretty sure”.
Re:Options (Score:4, Insightful)
she sadly couldn’t eat any of the items on the dessert menu due to her lactose intolerance. .... I didn’t have the heart to point out that it’s literally in the name.
Well, I'm brutally honest. You should be informed that there is almost no lactose in cream. The waitress may be better informed than you.
There is however some milk in crème brûlée, so depending on the recipe, there may be a gram or so of lactose per serve. Not enough to worry about.
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Actually, once you've put alcohol into a dish you're never going to get rid of all of it. There will always be trace amounts left, but properly cooked, there won't be enough left to taste.
It's a big ask (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's a big ask (Score:4, Insightful)
The good news is that soft-drink CEO's have been pro-active about removing sugar from their products.
The bad news is now they're substituting corn syrup for sugar.
Be careful what you wish for.
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You're confusing table sugar (sucrose) with sugars generally. Corn syrup is sweet because it contains the sugars glucose and fructose. Fructose is sweeter than glucose, which is why sugary foods often use high fructose corn syrup instead of ordinary corn syrup.
Sugar reduction involves reducing the sum of all those sugars, not just sucrose.
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You're confusing table sugar (sucrose) with sugars generally.
You're confusing table sugar (sucrose = glucose + fructose) with corn syrup (maltose + oligosaccharides, including fructo-oligosaccharides (short chains of fructose molecules)). The fact is that table sugar and corn syrup are both made partly out of fructose, and even most HFCS provides little more fructose than table sugar though it can have a much higher proportion.
Fructose is sweeter than glucose, which is why sugary foods often use high fructose corn syrup instead of ordinary corn syrup.
Foods use HFCS instead of sugar or even normal corn syrup because it is cheaper, and they also use HFCS instead of vegetable oil because it is
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No, I am not confusing anything like that.
The bad news is now they're substituting corn syrup for sugar.
That is what I was responding to. It is an equivocation, because the word "syrup" means it is high in sugar(s). Any variety of corn syrup (glucose syrup, HFCS, HMCS) will be targeted by the kind of sugar reduction policies suggested in TFA. The original comment incorrectly implied that "sugar" specifically meant only sucrose, and that substituting corn syrup would satisfy "sugar reduction" targets.
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Who modded you up? High fructose corn syrup is sugar.
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Yes, and the food companies have been getting people accustomed to high sweetness content, a bit like nicotine for the tobacco industry. Whatever did they do before 1900 after which sickly sweet came to define a treat?
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Yes, and the food companies have been getting people accustomed to high sweetness content, a bit like nicotine for the tobacco industry. Whatever did they do before 1900 after which sickly sweet came to define a treat?
The character Laurie Keller on the TV show Cougar Town opened a cupcake shop and admitted to Bobby Cobb that the secret ingredient in her frosting was "a little nicotine". I guess that and the sugar kept people coming back ... :-)
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The human tongue is designed to best like a certain amount of sweetness.
I speak from experience when I say that when you reduce your overall sugar intake, and eat less sweet foods, then it takes less sugar to make things seem sweet. You're forgetting the involvement of the brain, which seems apropos...
Re:It's a big ask (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest problem is the people who were educated on a "food pyramid" and the lies behind it telling them to eat a whole bunch of carbs.
The problem with that hypothesis is that humans have been living on a "whole bunch of carbs" for thousands of years, even since the dawn of agriculture, when we left our cave-man hunter-gatherer days behind. Modern Americans eat for more fat and protein than most of the world in all of history. Chinese peasants get almost all of their calories from rice, and generally can eat as much as they want. But are they obese?
Re: It's a big ask (Score:2)
The elephant in the room, both with sugar and carbs is storage and product shrink. If you buy weird chips or candy and it takes them 5 months to move off the shelves, they are still good when they do. If you make salads with meat and they dont move out of the cooler day one, they are lost. This is why the stores are filled with junk, not popular choice, people would rather eat fresh.
You need something like fresh food production cubes onsite with a nutrient recovery compost system or robot harvesting or some
Easy solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Prepare your own food and you have total control over the sugar content.
Re:Easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Prepare your own food and you have total control over the sugar content.
Except to actually do that you need to be incredibly careful. There's an incredible amount of sugar added to common household cooking ingredients. In the USA simply making a recipe with bread gets you added sugar, god forbid your recipe needs any kind of sauce.
It's difficult and time consuming to make all your own sauces. And it's also time consuming to stand in a supermarket and read the ingredients label.
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I never bothered checking in google to confirm.
A Google search takes like 10 seconds. Less time than you spent typing your post.
Meat and poultry are often injected with liquid containing salt, broth, binding agents, and sometimes sugar.
Plumping [wikipedia.org]
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It would need to be listed as an ingredient. I have never seen that. Maybe you are talking about the UK?
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So did a bit of digging and yes, that was the UK. It was also illegal. Turns out the only legal additive that does not need to be declared is up to 5% water and that is it:
https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
Re: Easy solution (Score:2)
My rule of thumb is to put in about 25% of the sugar any recipe calls for.
If I don't, it tastes like biting into a sugar cube.
The problem ain't supply, it's demand. People just *like* sugary shit.
Cue the sugar lobby (Score:2)
I'm not big on government regulations but this would be a non starter do to the sugar industry's clout.
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More directly: God forbid population health takes campaign contributions and other forms of grifting. Sooner or later we'll have family members as "advisors" in White House and executive branch positions. . . uh-oh! ? !.
Numbers (Score:5, Interesting)
2 in 5 obese? Sure, Iâ(TM)ll buy that. Surprised itâ(TM)s that low (says one who is directly contributing to the numerator).
1 in 2 with diabetes or prediabetes? Hmmm. That seems a tad high. I suppose pre diabetes might make it so (no, my fatness hasnâ(TM)t yet shown any prediabetes indicators yet, though Iâ(TM)m sure it could).
1 in 2 with heart disease? That seems really high. Whatâ(TM)s the definition? Anyone with high cholesterol or more?
Sure, I realize the population goes up into the 70s, but still.
Like my scientific method? Essentially anecdotal. But Iâ(TM)m sticking with it. Seriously, anyone know what their definition of heart disease might be?
Re: Numbers (Score:2)
The second two might have more to do with heredity.
You don't have diabetes or heart disease because of your genes but instead are susceptible. Without properly balancing your diet, these groups can easily get it and I also do not know how likely these Susceptibilities change genetic expression in offspring, so an unhealthy eater whom has no real susceptibility to these diseases may begin to have it in their offspring after a few generations. This aspect of biology is still a focus of lots of research and le
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1 in 2 with heart disease? That seems really high. Whatâ(TM)s the definition? Anyone with high cholesterol or more?
Heart disease is a long list of conditions. I technically have a heart disease (irregular heart rhythm) though the definition covers everything from blocked arteries to incorrect blood pressure to abnormal heart beats. 1 in 4 deaths in America are attributed directly to heart disease according to the CDC, and not every heart disease is necessary bad. Heck I wouldn't have discovered mine were it not for my work requiring a full stress cardiograph on condition of one the jobs I was doing. I took the results t
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More anecdotal data: roughly 25 years ago at a large midwestern Enormous State University, I was strolling over to one of the gyms. I could see a lot of rather pudgy boys wandering around wondering if they were there for a Fat Camp. As I got closer, I realized they were all wearing Boy Scout uniforms. I doubt the state of America's youth has gotten any better and is probably even heavier.
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The original article is pay walled ($35/24h to read!) Can't even find a link to the abstract in the press release but it's at: https://www.ahajournals.org/do... [ahajournals.org]
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The thing about relying on your personal experience is that it really sucks at preparing you to get older.
Take prediabetes. If most people who have it don't realize they have it, why should anyone care? Because it actually has some unpleasant effects that you don't notice; they creep up on you, day by day, year by year. A slow decline driven by chronic fatigue, irritability and creeping cognitive dysfunction isn't perceived as a problem *in yourself*; it feels like a problem with *everything else*. Peopl
And they keep lowering the thresholds. (Score:3)
1 in 2 with heart disease? That seems really high. WhatÃ(TM)s the definition? Anyone with high cholesterol or more?
My cardiologist has me take a metabolic test panel a couple times a year or so. (I've been using an old med school joke and referring to it as an ETKM, for "Every Test Known to Man") Nearly all my numbers are either well or just inside the normal threshold, though there's usually a couple that are a bit outside, and one of those is LDL a tad high.
He says not to sweat those, because a) I'
Mandate blood sugar tests to enter bakeries (Score:5, Interesting)
We should force people to show their blood-sugar levels and weight before allowing them to eat at bakeries, donut shops, or anywhere that sells candy. You must also be under 180 lb. This will save more lives than any vaccine mandate. XD
Or how about just letting people review content labels and decide for themselves. They can choose to eat foods with less sugar. The government is not their nanny and shouldn't be.
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It should give those anorexic bums a neat source of income, true.
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Can the poor choose healthy foods, meaning nothing processed and no animal protein?
Isn't the reason the poor are disproportionately burdened with diabetes, prediabetes, and cardiovascular disease; because healthy food is harder for them to get, and if they can get cheap whole-plant food, it takes long to prepare? They work much harder and spend more time getting to and from work, shops, and home. They also can't afford to go live in countries where omnicidal greed isn't the defining characteristic of the ma
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Or how about just letting people review content labels and decide for themselves.
Sure, where are you going to find these magic products with labels that show nutritional value? You are under the assumption that this is in your control. It's not. Sugar is an addictive substance so the entire food industry has an incredible incentive to force as much down your throat as possible. As a result there is sugar in everything. God in America even bread tastes like sickly sweet shit. You simply can't get away from sugar without an incredible amount of effort.
Also while we advocate personal respo
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"Sure, where are you going to find these magic products with labels that show nutritional value? "
In the US at the grocery store. They recently even added a line for "added sugar".
If you eat out continuously you might have a problem. Actually, two problems. Too much sugar and too much cash flow.
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What I do is; 1) no flavored sugar water. That was an easy kill, and probably 60% of the excess sugar.
2) no more than one commercially prepared meal a week. That cuts out a lot of hidden sugar.
3) no more than 2 doughnuts a week.
4) I can cut down on added sugar in many recipes when I'm cooking.
5) I do a fair bit of my own fruit canning, and I use light or extra-light syrup.
6) no between meal snacks,
7) one dessert per day.
You don't have to deprive yourself completely. I bake cookies and pies. I made a cheesec
Re:Mandate blood sugar tests to enter bakeries (Score:5, Insightful)
In principle, you're right: the government should not be people's nanny. However, in actual fact, the government is part of the problem: The government has pushed the "food pyramid" emphasizing carbohydrates since thie 1950s. This was justified by anecdotal evidence, but was more the result of lobbying efforts by the food industry. Since then, foods in the US have become more and more carbohydrate heavy - and especially sugar heavy. In reality, most people don't read labels in detail, and have no idea how many foods contain sugar as an additive.
Carbohydrates - especially sugar - are stored by the body as fat. There's a reason Americans have steadily gotten fatter and fatter over the past 50-60 years, and this is it.
To undue this damage requires government action. First, to stop comp licitly encouraging excess consumption of carbohydrates. Then to prevent food companies from unnecessary adding carbohydrates (mostly sugar) to products that shouldn't have it. The food companies like adding sugar: it's cheap, and people get addicted to the taste: if everything has sugar in it, then your taste buds think that everything should have sugar in it. Without government action, this will continue, because it makes money.
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Businesses respond to consumer demand. As long as consumers buy products that are high in sugar they will continue to do so. Business 101 = give the market what it wants.
Sorry, but no.
Oh sure, that's how it starts. That's how the first McDonald's worked when it opened. Then companies realize they can increase growth by putting their thumb on the scale and creating, coercing, and indoctrinating their own demand in their existing market. That's why fast food and packaged foods companies spend so much money on R&D for how to (1) reduce costs, (2) improve taste, and (3) hook consumers young. Replace sugar with corn syrup. Increase sugar and sodium. Hydrogenate the veg
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Or how about just letting people review content labels and decide for themselves. They can choose to eat foods with less sugar. The government is not their nanny and shouldn't be.
Sugar is an addictive drug, and the sugar industry has been protected and promoted by the government for years. It's too late to avoid government involvement in sugar intake, and I for one think that government has a role to play in mitigating the harm that it has enabled and indeed encouraged over the years.
Like tobacco (Score:2)
Well for starters people have has food labels that detail sugar content for decades now and America is fat as fuck so that certainly isn't a solution to anything.
What we could really use is a sustained awareness drive similar to what we've done with tobacco. Yes people still smoke but the numbers are nowhere near what they used to be. Meanwhile I can still enjoy a cigar every 5 years.
Counter study (Score:2)
Idiots? (Score:2)
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Where have you been the past year? People don't do what's good for them, twice so if you tell them.
MUH FREEDUMBS!
Removing sugar.. (Score:2)
You can't just "remove sugar" from foods, that results in a completely different taste, or replacing it with a non sugar sweetener that not only doesn't taste the same but might have other negative health implications too.
Here they reduced the sugar in soft drinks and replaced it with an artificial sweetener, result being that a lot of people no longer drink them. Instead, they now drink fruit juice with added sugar, tea with added sugar etc instead.
That's not much (Score:2)
The US spends something like $4 trillion on health care every year. $4 billion is 0.1%, barely a rounding error.
Thing is, anyone who was listening already knows eating lots of sugar isn't good for you. Virtually any place you can buy sugary drinks also offers less sweetened options (water, unsweetened tea, coffee). And with all this, many still choose to buy soda.
Sugar isn't the problem (Score:2)
Or at least not the whole problem. If you look at prepared foods & work out their nutritional composition by percentage (in the USA & Canada they do their best to obfuscate this info), most of what people tend to eat is carbs. They're in everything, & not just as sugars. The food industry has developed ways to process carbs to make them 'faster' (higher GI) than sucrose (table sugar, which has a GI of ~60 if my memory serves me right), e.g. many types of bread, especially those found in supermar
Not so clear (Score:3)
US sugar consumption has dropped significantly since the 1990s but obesity continues to rise. [imgur.com] Same with carbohydrate consumption. So it's not clear that reducing sugar in foods will have any health effect.
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That data is very misleading.
I bet that may be tracking the "Added sugars" or maybe even sugar(rather than HFCS). You know the food industry is very good at hiding things. Like hey, we can condense the apple juice which is primary sugar and list that as an ingredient.
Also say things like no nitrates added, then you see celery salt (if not hidden by natural flavoring) which turns into nitrates.
Oh, and I did find this: https://www.sugar.org/diet/int... [sugar.org]
which is as I assumed, it's "Consumption of added sugars i
HFCS is the problem! (Score:3)
I don't think that actual sugar is all that big a deal. The REAL cause of the obesity epidemic is HFCS - High Fructose Corn Syrup, which is quite inexpensive when compared to actual sugar.
Well, that, and the USDA's "Food Pyramid" that emphasized carbs over proteins and fats. To cure obesity, we need to get back to a BALANCED diet, one that includes more meat, dairy and eggs, and less cereal.
You can have my chocolate frosted sugar bombs (Score:3)
When you pry them from my cold [nocookie.net], dead [wp.com], hand [shrinkgeek.com].
Weaning yourself off sugar is ... hard ... (Score:3)
... but possible.
The difficulty is immense, because so many products - no idea what percentage, but a LOT - in the western world are packed with sugar, salt, fat and carbs.
Humans love it - it is addictive. It is almost hard wired into our brains to view this as a great thing - heck, it IS hard wired into our brains.
But as so many of us now do very little physical work, hence the rise of the physical fitness industry - something that would be almost alien to someone from 100 to 150 years ago and before.
Just watch people in a supermarket and see what goes into their baskets and trollies - the vast bulk of purchases are wheat (carbs), fat (dairy, cheap fatty meat, processed meat) and sugar (in almost every processed food) - plus salt, of course.
Food scientists long ago discovered the perfect balance to get people addicted.
Ever ate a burger from a cheap fast food chain, then fancied another? Or maybe you just got yourself the triple patty burger with large fries and a litre of soda?
How do you feel after?
I don't know about you, but when I used to do this, unsatisfied and still hungry, despite being full enough to feel like puking.
What were once "treats" - "the feast" - is now the norm.
Humans have always gorged themselves silly when the opportunity arose, but it didn't arise that often.
Now we can gorge ourselves silly 24/7 on absolute crap food full of that special blend of fat, carbs, sugar and salt.
Is it any wonder obesity is such a huge issue?
So, how do you wean yourself off this behaviour - hah, it's probably as hard as giving up smoking or any other drug, but it is possible.
I really don't think governments should be playing "nanny" on this issue, but they should be providing:
1. Tax cuts on healthier options, Tax rises on unhealthy options - balanced so it doesn't screw people over.
2. Food eduction as part of every curriculum, starting from the youngest school goers.
3. Tax subsidies for producers of healthy foods, countered by tax increases for the producers of the unhealthiest foods
Fat, sugar, salt and carbs should return to what they once were - an occasional treat.
We love it, we always will, but we just need to consume less of it.
And there are absolutely those amongst us who struggle the most.
Putting aside those with difficult mental issues or physical issues with food, we all struggle in different ways.
My wife has constantly struggled with her weight.
Her way of dealing with stress and unhappiness at work, is to eat - I always know she's having a bad day, when I see the junk food come home.
A packet of cookies, a bag of chips or she starts on the 'diet soda' again, or drinks more than a bottle of wine on a weekday evening.
Alas, the food industry is completely fucked in the head - and these unhealthy combinations are now the cheapest food option there is - because they have worked out ways to MAKE them cheap. You have to wonder how many subsidies are involved in this industry...
There is an absolute wealth of healthy food that tantalise the taste buds and wow the mind - and how much better is it, to maybe once a month, gorge yourself silly on fat, sugar, carbs and salt as a treat.
Heck, I don't know - I had my own battles at points in my life, with chocolate, chips, burgers, booze, candy - you name it.
I can see photo's of me at various stages over the years - skinny, podgy, bigger belly, sweaty glistening fat face, back to skinny again.
Skinny is where I'm happy in both my outlook on life, my comfort and my health.
Right, I'm off to gorge myself silly on chips and beer....
Bad package labeling (Score:3)
Part of the problem is that "serving size" is too arbitrary of a metric. Ratio of fat and sugar per volume and per total calories would be more useful.
Re: (Score:2)
> No industry wants to pay for "externalities". Be it pollution or devastating health consequences for its own customers.
Health consequences are "internalities"... these costs are already internal to those involved in the transaction.
Health care should be subsidised because it has positive externalities... it shouldn't become an excuse to control people's behaviour... being unhealthy is a cost in itself...
> People refuse to get vaccinated, spread the virus
It is in spreading the virus that makes not ge
Re: (Score:2)
Government should not do anything more than informing the public about the effects of sugar.
Re: (Score:2)
Government should not do anything more than informing the public about the effects of sugar.
That sounds to me like addiction speaking.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Not quite so Grasshopper-San. The iniquities inflicted by people on their bodies while young become a cost on society in the form of lost productivity and lost taxes. Then we have to pay for their health care. Ah, you say, but you have Company Health Insurance. Ya, and those rates are determined by the risk pools, which includes all the people who refuse to take care of their bodies.
Remember, actuaries can put a price on your grandmother's life, and yours. But, but, but, those nasty government Death Panels.
Re: (Score:2)
"normal" is humans can't control themselves and behave properly when acting as individuals which is why social relationships (communities, societies, governments, etc) are an important aspect of survival for animals with bigger brains
and you have a very sad (for you) definition of "suffer"
but we're all very proud of you for being able to control yourself, would you like a star?
Re:Are Americans starving or obese? (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe that has to do with incompatible methodologies.
For example, surveys ask if you skipped a meal because you were concerned about cost. That technically qualifies as starving, but the person may be simultaneously (not a case of while others) obese.
There is hardly anyone at a starvation weight for the lack of income.
A college student may skip a cafeteria ticket because it is a buffet feast fit for kings.
https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Nope, already tried and there are plenty of other sugars than left handed ones that also are not absorbed. You'll find they cause digestive issues because in humans intestinal bacteria is extremely important to our digestion and health, and those critters WILL metabolize the sugars in very interesting ways... that sicken many.
Sugar is natural and there are other ways to keep blood sugar down than playing chemistry experiment on our guts. What we eat and how much we exercise are the things we need to focu