Sugar

[Sbee]

Did you ever notice on a food label it lists the percentage of daily intake for protein, fiber, etc but it doesn't list that for sugar? That's those lobbying dollars hard at work, I don't think Coke, Pepsi, General mills and others would want you to see that you're taking in over 100% of the daily recommended intake when you have one 20 oz soft drink.

I noticed this today because I had a cliff bar for breakfast and looked at the label, 21 grams of sugar. Hey, it's a cliff bar, it's organic, they sell it at whole foods so it has no GMO or partially hydrodgenated oils, it's good for you, right?

So America gets fatter, health costs go up because of unlimited money in politics. They're allowed to hide information because of their lobbying power.

fun stuff

 

[tinselwolverine]

Cliff bars suck.

 

[adam86107]

It wouldn't matter if they did put the daily recommended value of sugar on everything, people would still eat how and what they wanted. One of the most dangerous things in today's foods is the extreme amount of sodium. Yet, heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death which is contributed to, among other factors, high blood pressure.

 

[Sbee]

It wouldn't matter if they did put the daily recommended value of sugar on everything, people would still eat how and what they wanted. One of the most dangerous things in today's foods is the extreme amount of sodium. Yet, heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death which is contributed to, among other factors, high blood pressure.

you really don't think someone would look at a bottle of coke and see that it contains 120% of the sugar recommended and think twice? how about looking at cereal labels for your kids?

I'm not trying to be Michael Bloomberg here, I'm just saying they should make it easy for us to know what we are eating. If we choose to eat or drink it anyway, that's on us.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Other than the calories, what would you be measuring with regard to sugar? I don't think there is another component with a recommended daily goal or limit.

 

[Michchamp]

sugar, sugar

do-do-do do do dooo

awww honey honey.

 

[Sbee]

Other than the calories, what would you be measuring with regard to sugar? I don't think there is another component with a recommended daily goal or limit.

a percentage of daily intake per serving, according to the world health orgainization. I believe US labels reflect the FDA but the WHO is less susceptible to outside influence. You could list the % of daily allowance of Calories, protein, sugar, vitamin A, D, K, E, calcium just to name a few.

the WHO reccomends 5% of daily calories come from sugar, given an average adult BMI that's 25 grams. a 20oz soda has 58 grams, i'd like to see that listed on the label that a large coke has 230% of daily recommended intake

 

[Spartanmack]

That's based on a 2k calorie per day diet - the low end of the recommended range for a sedentary adult male. The range (min intake for sedentary to max intake for active) for an adult male is 2k-3k for women it's 1.6k to 2.4k. Based on those ranges the low/high for maximum recommended daily allowance (sedentary female to active male) is 20-37.5 grams. The range is huge so unless you know the standard and where you fit in relative to to those standards, the % data won't be particularly useful. I'm all for transparency and labeling but at some point, it's incumbent on the consumer to educate themselves and figure out how many grams of whatever they should be ingesting.

 

[Sbee]

That's based on a 2k calorie per day diet - the low end of the recommended range for a sedentary adult male. The range (min intake for sedentary to max intake for active) for an adult male is 2k-3k for women it's 1.6k to 2.4k. Based on those ranges the low/high for maximum recommended daily allowance (sedentary female to active male) is 20-37.5 grams. The range is huge so unless you know the standard and where you fit in relative to to those standards, the % data won't be particularly useful. I'm all for transparency and labeling but at some point, it's incumbent on the consumer to educate themselves and figure out how many grams of whatever they should be ingesting.

make an asterisk and say it's based on a 2500 calorie diet. they include %'s for cohlesterol, why not sugar?

Let people eat and drink what they want but arm them with the information. I think it's almost like tobacco 30 years ago, they can advertise directly to kids now and get them hooked early on. Have a warning label on soda, might as well let them know that they'll be checking insulin daily in 20 years.

 

[Spartanmack]

I'm not saying sugar is a unique case - if the data isn't useful for sugar, it's not particularly useful for other inputs either (assuming they're all based on a % of daily caloric intake). Maybe it would be better if they put everything in calories and the FDA recommended max % of total daily calories. You can add an asterisk and say X/Y amount of calories is the recommended amount for a typical adult male/female. I don't know - there isn't a perfect solution - with your suggestion, the data could be misleading given the broad range of daily limits from the low end to the high end, with mine the consumer has to do a little math for themselves. All I'm saying is yes, companies should disclose what's in the food we're buying but at some point it's incumbent on the consumer to know what's good/bad for them.

 

[Sbee]

I'm not saying sugar is a unique case - if the data isn't useful for sugar, it's not particularly useful for other inputs either (assuming they're all based on a % of daily caloric intake). Maybe it would be better if they put everything in calories and the FDA recommended max % of total daily calories. You can add an asterisk and say X/Y amount of calories is the recommended amount for a typical adult male/female. I don't know - there isn't a perfect solution - with your suggestion, the data could be misleading given the broad range of daily limits from the low end to the high end, with mine the consumer has to do a little math for themselves. All I'm saying is yes, companies should disclose what's in the food we're buying but at some point it's incumbent on the consumer to know what's good/bad for them.

I think it's incumbent on the consumer to make their own decision but we should do everything within our power to make sure they're informed. If you get a soda and it shows all these small percentages and the 230% it would be an eye opener. I think excessive sugar is just like smoking 40 years ago, might as well put warning labels.

We're going to get to a point where we have so many obese citizens it will be hard to fill an army or find first responders.

I'm sure as hell if our diets were different we wouldn't have such fierce debate over health care policies.

 

[Michchamp]

I've read a couple articles lately on how refined sugar, and calories from it are particularly bad for you.

it has to do more with the fact that the human body's digestive system was designed to break carbs, fats, and natural sugars (like fructose) into simpler ones, not have sucrose mainlined right into your arteries, and so it plays a bigger role in making people obese than, say fats or salts do.

I've also read that huge numbers of people are expected to become diabetic over the next few decades.

But I take that with a grain of salt (no pun intended) because I've read all sorts of health fads in my life, about what is okay and what is not, although this one seems to have some evidentiary weight behind it. and it is suspicious that they don't list that on the container, but the big food industry is not about health and wellness, but profit, so...

 

[Thumb]

I've read a couple articles lately on how refined sugar, and calories from it are particularly bad for you.

it has to do more with the fact that the human body's digestive system was designed to break carbs, fats, and natural sugars (like fructose) into simpler ones, not have sucrose mainlined right into your arteries, and so it plays a bigger role in making people obese than, say fats or salts do.

I've also read that huge numbers of people are expected to become diabetic over the next few decades.

But I take that with a grain of salt (no pun intended) because I've read all sorts of health fads in my life, about what is okay and what is not, although this one seems to have some evidentiary weight behind it. and it is suspicious that they don't list that on the container, but the big food industry is not about health and wellness, but profit, so...

I have read that sugar is broken down and handled pretty easily by the body. It's high fructose corn syrup that the body can't figure out. A few studies claim that it even makes us chemically dependent on it, much like an opiate does, leading to the obesity problem.

And I guess regular sugar does not.

 

[KAWDUP]

Does this include Sucralose and other sugar substitutes, or is that a whole other can of crap that we take into the body?

 

[Gulo Blue]

Does this include Sucralose and other sugar substitutes, or is that a whole other can of crap that we take into the body?

My wife read something about the fake sugars' impact on your gut bacteria being really negative. Gut bacteria research is still an open field with lots to figure out. I think it was sometime in the last 5-10 years they discovered there are 3 types of guts and they had no idea what determined which type a person was. By type, I mean...bacterial biome, analogous to biomes we're used to thinking about, like dessert, forest, jungle... By identifying the bacteria types in individual people they found that certain bacteria live together and certain bacteria don't, and the bacterial collections fall into 1 of 3 groupings. To put in in terms of animals and biomes, if you see an lion, you can expect to see gazelles and hippos and you know you're not going to run into a polar bear.

Apparently, what bacteria you have in your gut reacts to what you eat and can be changed on purpose and it impacts how you digest everything. There' even a study that makes it look like introducing the right bacteria to your gut might be a way to cure certain peanut allergies.

Anyway, a quick google search turned up a study that says feeding sucralose to rats yielded a drop in there beneficial bacteria ("beneficial" do we really know which bacteria are beneficial?), an increase in fecal pH, and an increase in 3 proteins that make oral drugs less effective.

 

[byco42]

I don't eat, so I don't eat anything bad. Works for me.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Regarding sugar and high fructose corn syrup...I think we're talking about the same molecules in different ratios, glucose and fructose. It't more complicated than that because I think glucose and fructose join to form larger sugars and it could be just one chemical bond that creates the problem. Lactose is like that. It's a small sugar, but there's one bond some people have a problem with. That's why I'm not sure how you'd put a daily recommended limit on just "sugar". For the most part, that doesn't seem any better than putting a limit on calories. We might be on the verge of having a better understanding, but we're not there yet and part of the issue is that it depends on the individual person and their gut bacteria.

 

[TheVictors]

I don't eat, so I don't eat anything bad. Works for me.

My buddy recently cut out sugar and lost 4 pounds!


That's like a fucking rounding error depending on if you eat breakfast or not

 

[Sbee]

My buddy recently cut out sugar and lost 4 pounds!


That's like a fucking rounding error depending on if you eat breakfast or not

Of course that's a small number but I'm positive there are many health benefits of cutting out sugar, not just weight loss.

This does make me think about what bullshit counting calories is. Calories in calories out essentially says your better off eating 2400 calories of skittles vs 2500 calories of protien, vegetables, and fruits.

Of course coke and Pepsi want you to believe this so they can just sell you shit loads of diet soda. Who cares if you ingest excitotoxons that stimulate your brain cells to death, you're saving calories.

 

[zyxt9]

The artificial sweeteners can have negative side effects depending on the individual as well, so while that may help some people, it can also be a big negative for others (can have impact on sugar levels resulting in increased insulin, which triggers the body into thinking it needs more sugar for proper balance, but person then takes in more artificial stuff and the body pumps out more insulin, and the cycle continues).

While sugar is a chemical, it is a "natural" chemical the body is designed to ingest and process. Yes there can be overloads and too much of anything is not healthy. However, some studies indicate that there are a few types of cinnamon that can help naturally balance a sugar overload.

So much we do not understand yet. I knew they were doing gut bacteria studies, but until Gulo's post did not know the info he provided. Still, I'm a tad gun shy these days when we are constantly dealing with scientific studies that contradict each other. Obviously you have to consider the source, right? The anti-sugar scientists are going to produce their data points and potentially say "use artificial sweeteners" while the pro-sugar lobby is going to say "artificial sweeteners and HF corn syrup are unhealthy" and the corn grower lobby is going to say all of that data is skewed hogwash and so on.

It gets very difficult to determine the difference between "real" and "junk" science these days. Just look at all the people who refuse to have their children vaccinated due to a bogus link to autism. It only takes an accredited slimeball scientist to create mass hysteria, and now we have the return of diseases that were at one point virtually non-existent in the US.

We are too caught up currently in trying to black/white everything and have lost sight of fact that each individual is unique. Sure they can be grouped loosely together, but no group should be put forth as an all-defining one, which means it must be the responsibility of each person to determine what is best/worst for them and for once hold themselves accountable for their actions.