Pure White and Deadly - The Sugar conspiracy (or why the world's obese) ...

[Fab Foodie]

"Look at a graph of postwar obesity rates and it becomes clear that something changed after 1980.... Just 12% of Americans were obese in 1950, 15% in 1980, 35% by 2000."

So, a 25% rise in 30 years, followed by a 133% rise in 20. That's one helluva curve...

Yep. And what is scary is that how childhood obesity mirrors the curve albeit with a time lag ...
It's damning when you superimpose the low fat diet trend.

 

[Broadside]

@Fab Foodie What should the public health and nutrition advice be changed to in your opinion? And what changers to shopping habits etc?

 

[swee'pea99]

Thing is, sugar isn't 'the culprit'; merely one of the unholy trinity. This book, as recommended to me on these very boards, tells the full and grotesque story of how sugar, salt & fat destroyed the health of the western world - and continues to do so.

 

[phil_hg_uk]

This is an excellent read if you're interested in why the western diet went wrong, how and who was culpable. For many in the Food, Nutrition and public health field it's a pretty uncomfortable read and so it should be.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin

At last the real culprit is in the spotlight and the general opinion that sugar not fat is public enemy number one is at last gaining traction. I never bought into the low fat diet. I qualified as a Food Technologist in 1984 when the low fat/high carb diet and going for the burn was in full swing. It didn't make sense to me then. A few years later I scraped a degree in Biochemistry and at that point better understanding the role of Insulin in metabolism, replacing fat with carbs, especially if it's refined carbs really didn't make any sense at all. This should really be clear to any degree level Biochemist, Biologist, Nutritionist, Food Scientist or Doctor.
Whilst I would not consider myself any kind of nutritionist, the evidence I have seen over the years regarding the negative role of carbs and particularly sugar has been overwhelming, but little in public health has changed.

Hopefully, just hopefully now, we've got our man.

I decided to try to cut down on sugar in feb this year after having a high result in an annual blood sugar test at the doctors. I read a few books about it and watched a couple of documentaries & decided that a lot of the problems I felt I had were probably down to eating to much sugar.

I had already given up junk food ( mcdonalds, buger king, kfc that sort of thing ) 8 years ago and also stopped drinking soft drinks & fruit juice anyway but I was eating a lot of ready meals, sweets & cakes, so on the 1st of march I gave up eating all ready meals and sweets & cakes & went for food with a lower sugar content. I have to say at this point I do not necessarily buy the foods that are sold as low sugar I read the label & decide for myself, I also avoid all low fat versions of food as they as mostly just stuffed full of sugar to make them edible. The most useful bit of information I had found from all the reading & watching docs was how to tell how much sugar a product contained in a format I could really use, I mean its all very well saying this has 20 grams of sugar in it but I cant relate to that but if you say that had 5 teaspoons of sugar in it I find that much easier to understand.

The first thing I noticed about cutting down on sugar is how quickly you suddenly start to lose fat you can notice it on a daily basis, in actual weight I have lost 7 pounds give or take a fluctuation of 2 pounds but I can notice that I am a lot thinner in the face and I am losing my bloated stomach and have dropped about 3 inches from my waist in just over 5 weeks, I have previously tried to achieve this with exercise alone and didnt get anywhere with it I got fitter but not any thinner. The withdrawal symptoms have been quite similar to when I stopped smoking a few years ago & I get the odd cravings for sweets sometimes but not often, but the up side is I am not hungry after a meal and I dont constantly crave snacks and dont have a pudding after every meal as I dont always feel hungry enough to eat one also I can have a small breakfast then go out cycling then still not need my next meal for a few hours after that & I dont need to take snacks or gels with me on a normal say 25 mile ride as I dont get hungry.

I have not been doing as much exercise as I would normally do since I started this as I have been very busy with work but I will start back with using the treadmill and cycling more often & see where we go from here.

My advice for anyone thinking along the same lines is give up sugary drinks, including fruit juice, & dont think you are going to lose weight stuffing your body full of diet versions of those drinks either and cut right down on sugar in everything else. I was shocked when I experienced the withdrawals as I didnt think i had that much of a problem and also it is shocking when you stand in a shop and realize that almost everything in there is jammed full of sugar and you cant eat any of it. However the upsides are no craving for food/sweets, improved sense of taste and the loss of weight not to mention saving money I am spending a lot less on food now than I was.

Here are some of the books & docs I read:

Docs:

Sugar and Health - The Sweet, the Sour, and the Sticky! -

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG1J9995Nm8&index=3&list=FLdf6l_t-IOgr-j3Jt_AZsqw


The Secrets of Sugar - the fifth estate -

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3ksKkCOgTw&list=FLdf6l_t-IOgr-j3Jt_AZsqw&index=1


Fed up 2014 -

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y647tNm8nTI&list=FLdf6l_t-IOgr-j3Jt_AZsqw&index=4


Sugar: The Bitter Truth - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM&list=FLdf6l_t-IOgr-j3Jt_AZsqw&index=6

The Complete Skinny on Obesity -

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moQZd1-BC0Y


Books:

What Can I Eat? Sugar Free Diet - I really like this one as it is a really great guide to the sugar content of loads of foods - http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Can-Su...1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o01_

Sweet Poison - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sweet-Poiso...1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o01_

Pure, White And Deadly: How Sugar is Killing Us and What We Can Do to Stop It - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pure-White-...1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_

Fat Chance: The bitter truth about sugar - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fat-Chance-...1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o01_

 

[machew]

[QUOTE 4229104, member: 259"]That's the last time 'Dr' Gilliam McKeith is going to examine your poo.[/QUOTE]
Gillian McKeith – or to give her full medical title, “Gillian McKeith”

 

[simon the viking]

My view (for what its worth) is that a sugar is in too many 'savory' products 18 gms of sugar (6 spoons) in a can of soup.... and 'healthy' yoghurts 20gms (7 spoons) in something smaller than a coffee cup - would you put that much sugar in a coffee....

Another factor is my generation (40+) is the first generation who have had unlimited access to sugar (Rationing and lower wages etc in my parents generation restricted sugar intake) I could go out and spend £50 right now on unhealthy sugary foods with no impact on whatsoever on family finances.... and the problem is people do....

And obviously packaging information contributes to it... An overweight ex-colleague came back with a tub of luxury ice cream ate the lot....and when I queried the sugar content he said 10 gms..... he just saw the 10gms not the 10gms per portion and then do the maths for the whole tub.....

I showed it it was 10 gms per portion and he had just eaten 10 portions...... but he didn't care....

My view on the epidemic of T2 (from which I suffer) is that the pancreas is not 'designed' to process the large amounts of refined sugar we eat/drink in todays fast-food consumer society.....

I did research sugar content etc for my ebook I wrote a year or 2 ago on cycling and T2.......

A linky to my book you ask? go on then in its my signature at the bottom.... Sugarbeat

 

[Flying Dodo]

It's also worth pointing out the the recommended cholesterol limits aren't based on any particular bit of science. The Americans just picked on certain levels of LDL & HDL and stated everyone should ensure they remain below those arbitrary limits. With the result that hundreds of thousands of people are on statins which almost certainly do more harm than good.

 

[srw]

Thing is, sugar isn't 'the culprit'; merely one of the unholy trinity. This book, as recommended to me on these very boards, tells the full and grotesque story of how sugar, salt & fat destroyed the health of the western world - and continues to do so.

That's the sort of claim which is dangerous to make. On any objective measure, whether it's lifespan or years of healthy life or age-related incidence of dread disease the western world is healthier than it has ever been, and continues to get healthier.

That's not to say that we couldn't have been even healthier without refined sugar.

I'm also going to suggest that sugar isn't the only cause of modern obesity. I look down at my stomach and ruefully observe that I haven't really overconsumed refined sugar. I eat a reasonable amount of unrefined sugar in fruit, some refined sugar in cakes and biscuits (but by no means every day) and also drink a fair amount of fermented sugar in beer and wine. I don't eat a huge amount of processed and "junk" food.

Ultimately being overweight is a simple matter of physics - calories digested greater than calories burnt. Sadly we are fallible humans with minds that are very susceptible to the short-term pleasure hits of sugary, fatty, alcoholly food, and to the nostra we learnt as children - "think of the starving children in Africa". I'm sure that cutting down very significantly on refined sugar will be good for everyone, but as with everything to do with human health it's a lot more complex than that.

 

[swee'pea99]

That's the sort of claim which is dangerous to make. On any objective measure, whether it's lifespan or years of healthy life or age-related incidence of dread disease the western world is healthier than it has ever been, and continues to get healthier.

Depends what you call 'healthy', I guess. Yes, we are no longer wiped out by the million by TB, cholera or flu. And yes, life expectancy in the West is higher than it's ever been. But rates of obesity, which I'd call incompatible with any realistic use of the term 'healthy', are, as has been mentioned above, skyrocketing, with lifestyle-related diseases like diabetes and heart disease rising with them. And this change has - again as stated above - been so recent, so rapid and so severe, that while you're probably right to say 'the western world is healthier than it has ever been', whether it 'continues to get healthier' is far more questionable.

 

[Yellow Fang]

This talk of sugar reminds me of 2000AD where sugar is a proscribed substance, probably meriting five years in an iso-cube.

 

[srw]

Depends what you call 'healthy', I guess. Yes, we are no longer wiped out by the million by TB, cholera or flu. And yes, life expectancy in the West is higher than it's ever been. But rates of obesity, which I'd call incompatible with any realistic use of the term 'healthy', are, as has been mentioned above, skyrocketing, with lifestyle-related diseases like diabetes and heart disease rising with them. And this change has - again as stated above - been so recent, so rapid and so severe, that while you're probably right to say 'the western world is healthier than it has ever been', whether it 'continues to get healthier' is far more questionable.

I think you might want to have a word with statisticians, who on objective measures will tell you that it continues to get healthier.

The thing about obesity is that is very easy to be fit and healthy and at the same time fat. But unless you gradually become less fat you will eventually become less healthy. Obesity is a very slow, long-term killer.

 

[PeteXXX]

Is sugar itself bad for you, or is it only bad if you don't do enough exercise to burn off the calories?

 

[phil_hg_uk]

Is sugar itself bad for you, or is it only bad if you don't do enough exercise to burn off the calories?

Thats a good question, but for me any substance that has withdrawal symptoms like sugar does and is as addictive and causes cravings like sugar does cant be very good for you.

 

[swee'pea99]

I think you might want to have a word with statisticians, who on objective measures will tell you that it continues to get healthier.

The thing about obesity is that is very easy to be fit and healthy and at the same time fat. But unless you gradually become less fat you will eventually become less healthy. Obesity is a very slow, long-term killer.

As are statisticians...

 

[growingvegetables]

That's the sort of claim which is dangerous to make. On any objective measure, whether it's lifespan or years of healthy life or age-related incidence of dread disease the western world is healthier than it has ever been, and continues to get healthier.

Richard Carmona, ex-Surgeon General of the United States says different “Because of the increasing rates of obesity, unhealthy eating habits and physical inactivity, we may see the first generation that will be less healthy and have a shorter life expectancy than their parents."