
How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat - okket
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html
======
muzster
RIP: British Scientist John Yudkin - The man who tried to warn us about the
perils of sugar..

Source(s) :
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/diet/10634081...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/diet/10634081/John-
Yudkin-the-man-who-tried-to-warn-us-about-sugar.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yudkin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yudkin)

Edit: Lest we not forget his arch-enemy Ancel Keys

~~~
PieterH
My mother (1973, Edinburgh) bought "Pure, White, and Deadly," and we all read
it. I was ten or so. Yudkin attacked white flour, white (processed) fat, and
above all white sugar. It made perfect sense to us all, and cutting back on
sugar became a slow, yet consistent part of our lifestyle. We never ate that
much anyhow. I stopped eating sugar entirely at 15. I still recall the book's
cover.

Edit: it took me a _lot_ longer to cut fruit juice from our diet. I was so
convinced by that "natural" label. Until I realized my daughter, who'd drank a
lot of juice growing up, was addicted to sugar. Then we cut it out. My other
kids, not addicted. I was fooled for so long...

The sugar industry has a lot to answer for. It is IMO comparable to the
tobacco industry's suppression of cancer studies. Yet worse, because the
effects of high-sugar diets are doing more damage, to more people, and last
generations.

Think of the hundreds of millions of children who have eaten high sugar diets
since they were babies... lifelong damage to their health. A hundred years of
damage, these executives and corrupt scientists caused.

~~~
muddyrivers
I wonder if the tolerance, and then the love, of highly sweet things is
acquired. And mostly probably, it is acquired when one is a child.

I have met and worked with many East Asians and Europeans who came to American
in their 20's or older. Almost everyone of them thought American pastry and
deserts are unbearably sweet. Most of them shun from soda drinks and other
"food" containing high amounts of sugar. If they drink soda, they choose low-
or zero-sugar kinds.

Related or not, a big percentage of American look overweight when compared to
Europeans and East Asians.

~~~
paulcole
Americans saying that foods are too sweet is quickly becoming the new "I don't
have a TV." It's a humblebrag to show off status.

~~~
muddyrivers
I am East Asian and came to America in my 20's. I love pastries and deserts,
always looking for local pastries to try whenever I travel, to the point to
book hotels that are close to famous pastry shops.

Sorry for any misunderstanding my early comment causes.

------
adrianggg
I rarely say anything is black and white in this world but sugar is in my
opinion. Without any doubt in my mind.

Recently in the last 3 months I gave up sugar, hard core, it's hard but the
benefits are out of this world.

I was healthy and active. I ate healthy, or so I thought. Boy was I wrong and
mis informed.

I had heard theories so I decided to check them out. I went all out to avoid
sugar for a couple of weeks just to see. It was amazing.

I have lost 20 pounds that I didn't think was possible, I think better, I
sleep better and I eat way less. I have way more energy, like I drank 5 cups
of coffee all the time. I don't fade in the afternoon.

Those of you looking for a way to get more energy and focus at work,
especially those working long hours in startups. I encourage you to go all out
to reduce sugar intake to as little as possible. Of course eat whole fruits
those are ok.

Best thing I have ever done in my life.

There's a saying "those on high sugar diets don't know what it feels like to
be sugar free." It feels amazing. Try it. At least once in your life. You
won't go back .

sorry that was long :-)

~~~
adrianggg
A really smart guy said to me once something like, “if you are smart and have
money and you don't eat well then you are not smart”. I can't remember the
exact quote but the sentiment really stuck with me.

Look I'm no expert but I'm telling you the results are outrageous. Please do
your own research as I only really have a school boy understanding of how this
affects the body.

My skin cleared up, my ailments all disappeared, I no longer snore, my wife
says I radiate energy and my skin glows. People notice that my eyes are white
and bright. My thinking is clear and alert.

I run up a big hill occasionally, a massive one, I did it yesterday, I broke a
sweat but my body was working and I got to the top in record time with minimal
effort. I had been training for years and never could match that performance.
It's all SUGAR. I hit the wall because of sugar. I finally cracked the magic
code, NO SUGAR.

What do I eat? I will lose some people here, but honestly, whole fruit, salad,
no dressing, chicken,steak,salmon and WATER. That's it. I said it was hard but
I went 100% zero sugar. Real Food. Nothing in a box nothing processed. I now
love this food more than anything.

Why is whole fruit ok? My understanding is the fibre tells your body when to
stop eating. It's a natural way to tell you that you've had enough. If the
grapefruit it too sweet, don't eat it. Your body is telling you something.
Listen to it

Sugar inflames your body, it gives you a rush, then a crash, then it makes you
hungry. Sugar makes you eat more. It makes you swing up and down.

Getting off sugar is hard, you will have withdrawals. They are not pleasant.

My appetite and palette has changed for the better, I love food now, I can't
even drink a soda, I spit it out as the most disgusting thing imaginable,
that's a massive change for me. I eat way less I'm spending less money.

Medically all the little things I was thinking of going to the doctor about
have completely gone.

3 months in, a lifetime ahead of positive changes.

sorry if this was long and ranty and a bit smug :-)

~~~
nikmobi
I really like this response and I do truly believe that cutting out or
minimizing sugar is a truly beneficial thing.

But when I got to this:

> I can't even drink a soda, I spit it out as the most disgusting thing
> imaginable

I had a hard time taking the rest of your comment seriously. I can understand
it being too sweet to your now adjusted taste buds, but calling it the most
disgusting thing imaginable is just plain wrong.

~~~
grecy
> _I can understand it being too sweet to your now adjusted taste buds, but
> calling it the most disgusting thing imaginable is just plain wrong._

Try the 'ol "Grandma Test" on it:

If you had served your Grandma (or maybe great-Gramdma) with a glass of fizzy
black liquid, that you poured out of a shiny metal container, do you think she
would have drunk it?

I mean, honestly, that would be like putting a glass of used engine oil in
front of me today and trying to convince me to drink it.

It's clearly not food, and you clearly shouldn't be eating (drinking) it. Your
great-Grandma knew it, and your body does too.

~~~
jbattle
People eat fermented shark meat and blue cheese neither of which 'seem like
food to me'. I'm not sure the great grandma test is particularly useful other
than to reinforce one's preexisting notions.

~~~
imron
I resisted eating blue cheese for the longest time, based on the reasoning
that why would anyone want to eat mold?

Then one time I actually tried some - and it was delicious! Now I love it,
which was just another lesson in how stepping outside your pre-existing
notions can be beneficial.

------
balabaster
and this folks is why I have trust issues...

Scientists paid off by industry to make people look the other way, who then
become head of some Governmental departments and agencies advising the world
on whatever it was they were paid off for or have a conflict of interest in
and the door keeps revolving...

It's a wonder we believe anything at all after the amount of lies and
propaganda we're fed only to find out it's false... or are they lying now? Now
we're being fed information that it's the sugar industry at fault and not the
fat industry, while we have fad diets that are high fat, low carb, low sugar,
because carbs and sugar are bad and fat isn't bad at all allegedly. Who is
making the money from the increased fat sales and decreased sugar sales? Is it
because sugar is cutting into their bottom line too much and fat is in cheap
supply?

Why do we continue to believe the shit that pours out of the mouths of big
agriculture and the nutrition agencies as if they haven't been feeding us
bullshit for the past 50 years in aid of increasing profit. They don't give a
shit about the consumer, they give a shit about whatever fuels the greatest
growth in profits.

So this is why I have issue believing anything that any of them have to say
about anything because it's all underhanded subterfuge and manipulation, with
no end in sight.

~~~
DougWebb
As far as the actual food sales, most of the money winds up in the same small
set of hands regardless of which fad is currently popular. They'll resist
trends that switch from high-margin to low-margin foods, but only until
they've figured out how to alter the low-margin food to make it high-margin.

The secondary money-grab is from the food-fad industry. All of the books, all
of the websites, all of the memberships, all churning out recipes and advice
and misinformation, depends on constant change in what's considered "good".
Without constant change, their markets would dry up to a trickle. It's just
like the fashion industry; if we all decided to wear the same SciFi-like
jumpsuits all of the time because it's really the best thing to wear, the
fashion industry would be destroyed. So instead we have a constant rotation of
the fashion trends. (At least the fashion industry isn't killing us, though.)

~~~
balabaster
The longer I live, the more I value the lessons I learned from my
Grandparents:

\- Don't listen to the shit you hear in the media, it's all self serving. Do
your own research, that way it serves your need, not anyone elses.

\- Stay out of the centre aisles at the grocery store. Buy simple ingredients.
Make it yourself. If you can't grow it yourself or kill it, you probably
shouldn't be eating it.

\- Do the research, buy it once, buy it right. Quality will always beat
quantity in the long run. Buy something you can repair yourself over something
replaceable.

> if we all decided to wear the same SciFi-like jumpsuits all of the time
> because it's really the best thing to wear, the fashion industry would be
> destroyed

A few of us got stuck at a moment in time and never really updated... a decent
pair of hard wearing jeans and an endless supply of decent t-shirts that last
more than a few months of continuous wear and a decent pair of solid,
dependable boots. You may be able to tell that the fashion industry doesn't
make a whole ton of money out of me. Don't care, lol.

~~~
dredmorbius
You had a good set of grandparents. Bottle that and sell it.

~~~
balabaster
Not that they weren't awesome, but we pick and choose the advice we follow and
I'm sure I've forgotten as much advice that they gave me as I remember - and
that I _do_ remember is really only as it slaps me upside the head with a
"holy fuck were they ever right about that!" It probably would have helped
more if I'd listened 30 years ago when they first told me and stuck to it, but
then I didn't have the hindsight to be able to tell which were the good
lessons and which were rubbish; so like all 10 year olds, I ran it through my
"you have no idea what you're talking about you crazy old wo/man" filter and
what came out of the other side was a kid whose lifetime epiphanies are like a
list of what I would already have known had I listened to my grandparents.

Hindsight... crazy accurate.

------
timewarrior
It took almost 50 years to starting to debunk health issues created by Sugar.
It took decades to accept the health issues created by Lead and Asbestos.

Sometime I wonder if chemicals from bottled water, radiation from
Cellular/Wifi/Bluetooth pose health risks and we will find it out decades
later.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
Cellular, wifi, and bluetooth radiation poses zero risk. You can stand inside
the path of a microwave communication dish and receive many orders of
magnitude more radiation, and what it'll do is make you warm. That's it.
Soviet soldiers used to do that in Siberia to keep themselves warm, and the
only risk is the dish outputting too much power and cooking you instead.

~~~
markus2012
The first day in radar class the instructor put a piece of steel wool in front
of a small dish and it instantly melted white and dropped molten metal onto
the floor.

It always made me nervous when the class goofballs turned the horns on other
people so you could feel the microwaves.

Goofball 1: 'accidentally' radiates goofball 2 Goofball 2: What? What are you
doing? Oh, I'll show you - just watch me increase the power on this baby...

It turns out your testicles and eyes are a bad place to receive microwaves.

I submit to anyone thinking of attempting this: you are probably going to get
the power calculations wrong and cooking human cells is not fun at all.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
Yeah, there's definitely dangerous ways to use microwave emitters. But my
point is that your instructor thought that it was relatively safe to give them
out in radar class. If they were x-ray emitters, on the other hand...

------
redwards510
The documentary "Fed Up" is about sugar and was the first time I was made
aware there is no daily RDA % for sugar on nutrition labels. They just have
the grams. They lobbied very hard to make it that way, because having "4700%"
for a daily RDA wouldn't look very good!

~~~
MrMullen
True, but there is carb count and percentages on labels and it is not hard to
figure out that something that is 4700% your daily limit for carbs is not
something you should be eating.

~~~
mhurron
> it is not hard to figure out that something that is 4700% your daily limit
> for carbs is not something you should be eating.

You are probably getting more sugar from things you don't think should be full
of sugar than you think. US tastes have skewed to sweet so far that sugar is
stuffed in everything.

~~~
vertex-four
Even in the UK, when I stopped eating candy for a while, it turned out that I
found a lot of "ready-to-eat" food overly sugary.

------
graham1776
My wife and I rewatch the obligatory Lustig lecture about once a month to re-
anger ourselves at sugar. Nothing motivates like a bit of biochemistry mixed
in with political intrigue.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)

~~~
acconrad
The problem is Lustig is on the far end of the spectrum on anti-sugar. No
added sugars? Sure, I buy that. Labelling fructose as a poison simply because
it is directly metabolized in the liver is stretch. I'm not going to worry
that my kids are eating berries because of their fructose content.

~~~
hammock
In nature, fructose is almost always found in conjuction with fiber. For
example, fruits and vegetables. This combination of sugar and fiber tempers
the impact on the body. In contrast, many processed foods have added sugar and
reduced fiber content.

~~~
cconroy
It also appears phenolic compounds in plants play a role in helping too.[1][2]

[1]
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23365108](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23365108)
[2]
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22935321](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22935321)

------
jly
I think after the last few years of these kinds of things coming out, the
takeaway is pretty simple: be fairly sceptical of 'advice' coming out of large
governing bodies and instead just be sensible.

Don't eat too much food. Limit processed foods. Eat lots of fruit and
vegetables. Eat a large variety of foods. Be active.

These rudimentary guidelines are clearly difficult for a lot of people to
follow, but I think it's pretty easy to avoid negative diet effects by just
doing what most people intuitively know as the _right thing_ , even if we
consume some of all types of food. It seems to me this is more about self-
control and effort level than any scientific knowledge, at this point.

~~~
abainbridge
Yeah. But humans haven't had fresh fruit available all year round until
recently. Similarly, there was never a wide range of foods available. I'm not
sure we've got enough evidence to say that changing our diet to include lots
of fruit and a wide variety of foods is safe. The encouragement to do this is
coming from large governing bodies.

I'm off to eat nothing but turnips for a year and get scurvy :-)

~~~
jtmarmon
not to mention most fruits have been selectively bred/genetically engineered
to have much higher sugar content than they did when we evolved to eat them
seasonally

~~~
abainbridge
Indeed. And Food Unwrapped (UK TV programme) explained how the supermarkets
don't need to say how much sugar is in those ultra-sweet Piccolo tomatoes
because they vary and it's impractical to measure. In fact, it's worse than
that because mostly they do display the sugar content in the Nutrition
Information but it was found to always be a huge underestimate (like 3x lower
than the real value).

Still, they're much nicer than the old tomatoes. At least I'll die happy.
There are too many humans in the world anyhow.

------
hx87
I wonder if this has anything to do with my observation that it's ridiculously
hard to find whole fat yogurt, especially whole fat Greek yogurt (!), in most
grocery stores in the Boston area. Only specialist and high-end stores such as
Whole Foods keep them in stock, whereas the proles get stuck with the
sweetened, low-fat versions that contain up to 30 grams of sugar per serving.

~~~
foobarian
Counter-anecdata: I am able to find plain, whole milk yogurt pretty much at
any grocery store I visit out in the Natick area (Natick + adjacent towns).
Occasionally they are sold out but it's rare. I certainly don't think it is
ridiculously hard.

~~~
hx87
Maybe my observation has another plausible explanation: everyone is buying the
whole fat yogurt, so they're constantly sold out! If true, brings up another
question though...why do Shaw's and Stop & Shop keep stocking items that don't
sell?

------
aswanson
_The documents show that a trade group called the Sugar Research Foundation,
known today as the Sugar Association, paid three Harvard scientists the
equivalent of about $50,000 in today’s dollars to publish a 1967 review of
sugar, fat and heart research. The studies used in the review were handpicked
by the sugar group, and the article, which was published in the prestigious
New England Journal of Medicine, minimized the link between sugar and heart
health and cast aspersions on the role of saturated fat.

The Harvard scientists and the sugar executives with whom they collaborated
are no longer alive._

Good thing there is no collusion between big industry and paid off scientists
like Willie Soon to direct the narrative around things these days.</sarcasm>

~~~
balabaster
You forgot your sarcasm tag, most people will miss it ;)

~~~
aswanson
Done, thanks.

~~~
brianwawok
Your post now fails wc3 validation.

------
jamroom
This quote from the article is a great one:

"It was a very smart thing the sugar industry did because review papers,
especially if you get them published in a very prominent journal, tend to
shape the overall scientific discussion"

Has the acceptance policy for prominent journals improved that we're sure this
is not happening now? I have suspicions that this is likely still happening
more frequently then we might expect (i.e. pharmaceutical trials, etc.).

~~~
digi_owl
The basic issue is that reviews are just looking for glaring problems in the
presentation. To really test an article one has to replicate the experiment
from the ground up. And these days thats damn hard and expensive to do.

~~~
oxryly1
For the typical reviewer, replication is probably downright impossible.

[http://www.nature.com/news/1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid-
on-...](http://www.nature.com/news/1-500-scientists-lift-the-lid-on-
reproducibility-1.19970)

------
smokeyj
> One of the scientists who was paid by the sugar industry was D. Mark
> Hegsted, who went on to become the head of nutrition at the United States
> Department of Agriculture, where in 1977 he helped draft the forerunner to
> the federal government’s dietary guidelines.

This is why I'm cynical.

------
nnain
What if this backlash against Sugar is as extreme as the initial marketing?
What if 50 years on, people come back to say, "the generation that endlessly
promoted tasteless food and took away the sweetness". Is there a proper study
on the effect of eating a sweet chocolate everytime you feel like it, to some
kind of happiness? Everyone just sees to be treating this as a magical wand...
while still irrationally giving in to a lot of other hyped up food.

~~~
tux1968
Possible but unlikely. For one, you can get lots of tasty food by
reintroducing more dietary fat. One of the main culprits for the over reliance
on sugar for tastiness in the first place was the focus on reducing fat
intake.

------
balabaster
Follow the money and you will find the motive for what you're being told.
There is a reason you're being told what you are and don't believe that it's
for your own good. These industries and agencies don't care about what's good
for you, they are self serving and only care about what's good for them.
You're just the vessel supplying the cash they're after.

~~~
open_book
I wonder that sometimes about seat belt laws and stop smoking campaigns. Is it
the insurance companies that lobbied for and promote these ideas, or is it
some altruistic group that actually cares about my well being instead of
profits?

~~~
tlb
Seat belts and many other automotive safety improvements were driven by
insurance companies. That's a fortunate case of incentives being aligned.

It's surprising that health insurers aren't more vocal about sugar. Diabetes
and obesity are expensive for them.

~~~
balabaster
Follow the money, I'll bet you dollars to donuts there's a reason for it...
like executives having conflicting interests that result in either direct or
indirect financial stakes in or hidden kickbacks from the sugar industry.

Companies of these sizes have departments that are aware of the entire picture
and everything is scripted, choreographed and quite deliberate - except when
it serves their purpose to play dumb: "Hey DOJ, <sheepishly> we're real sorry,
but we weren't aware of this massive conflict of interest that we made
billions off! Please, take this $50m (from our $958m profit) as our mea culpa
and divide it up between to 284 million people it affected as our way of
saying sorry, we fucked up."

~~~
RonanTheGrey
I'm sad now.

------
kenjackson
From the article I can't tell if the sugar industry hid or falsified data.

There are at least two ways you can look at this. Imagine if the sugar
industry thinks they are getting a bad rap about heart disease, and want to
get researchers to study the link and show that they aren't to blame.
Conversely, maybe they knew there was a link and were paying researchers to
downplay it (or worse).

I feel like this article just points out that the sugar industry funded
research, but it never points to actual misinformation that resulted from it
-- or did I miss it?

------
ianamartin
Of course this happened. Duh. It's still happening today. I'm not saying where
because I don't know where. But if you do the simple math about how many
people are working as scientists, it's not hard to figure out that there are
companies who could benefit from positive scientific findings--no matter how
wrong--and realize that some of what we're reading in original research was
paid for and not really true.

I wish people would keep that in mind when they get all worshippy about
science being self-correcting and a great system.

It's not a particularly great system if you are looking, for example, for
certainty. If you want absolute certainty, a good dose of syllogist reasoning
will serve you better than any inductive method.

The problem is that syllogistic methods break down very quickly in real world
applications because you have to find ways of classifying all the objects that
may or may not fall into your category of "all", "some", or "none".

The scientific method is not a bad method, but it's not great. And it's weak
in ways like this. It is not even close to the best method. But it's the only
one we've found that's generally applicable to the human endeavor.

That's all it is. Better at being more general. I wish we'd get over ourselves
and be honest about that.

~~~
balabaster
It doesn't help when most of the information you hear regarding nutrition has
been to underwrite the profits of multi-billion dollar corporations that are
only out for one thing: Your money... and they don't care what means they have
to use to get it. For instance buying exclusive access to resources that you
had free access to for pennies on the dollar so that you don't have access to
it any more and then selling it to you for gross profits... and I don't mean
that in a taxation sense of the word gross. I mean that it's quite literally
disgusting.

I'm looking at you Nestle, but realistically, you're just one example of the
systemic corruption and propaganda that is pervasive across the entire
nutrition market.

------
deisner
This is the definition of chutzpah: "The [sugar] association also questioned
the motives behind the new paper.

“Most concerning is the growing use of headline-baiting articles to trump
quality scientific research,” the organization said. “We’re disappointed to
see a journal of JAMA’s stature being drawn into this trend.”

Yes, the dubious ethics and research quality at issue here are clearly JAMA's,
and not the lobbyists' who, by their own admission, paid scientists to publish
a journal article to exonerate their own industry.

------
henrik_w
I thought the book "Why We Get Fat" by Gary Taubes was a pretty interesting
read in the sugar vs fat debate.

[https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-
About/dp/0307474259](https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-
About/dp/0307474259)

------
yotamoron
The bitter truth about sugar:
[https://youtu.be/dBnniua6-oM](https://youtu.be/dBnniua6-oM)

~~~
degenerate
CTRL+F to see if anyone posted it, and sad to see it so far down. This is the
#1 video to show anyone that thinks sugar is fine. It's literally, at a
biological level in high doses, poison to our bodies. Watch the vid. It will
open your eyes. Too bad the food industry fabricated their lies decades before
we had the internet to share information like this. The damage is done and
will take decades to undo.

------
mary_fortran
The biggest problem with our health, however, is still Obesity. Just as the
fat were mislead by being made to believe that "low fat == healthy" these
people will be similarly think "low carb == healthy" and proceed to get obese
on low-carb foods.

Face it, if you're a healthy weight, by body-fat percentage, you don't have to
worry about fructose vs glucose or fat vs carbs.

Americans need to put their forks down. We need to start holding the
overweight and the fat accountable for their expensive lifestyle choices.

~~~
ythl
> We need to start holding the overweight and the fat accountable for their
> expensive lifestyle choices.

Ha, that's a good one. The answer you'll get is that nobody is responsible for
their expensive lifestyle choices, and everyone is a victim of the system.
People are fat? Not their fault; they live in food and exercise deserts and/or
are trapped in the poverty cycle where they can only afford garbage calories.
What, they are middle class? Genetic, then. Their parents are fat and it takes
an overwhelming amount of effort to break the cycle.

The only solution is to change the system, not people. Which, unfortunately,
can have adverse effects on healthy weighted people that like the current
system.

------
LordHumungous
On the other hand, I think the low carb/keto people have taken the pendulum
too far in the other direction. A lot of research seems to suggest that a
plant based diet heavy on whole fruits, vegetables, grains, and nuts is
healthier than one consisting of animal fats and protein. It makes sense when
you look at the diets of the healthiest people on Earth. Just because excess
processed sugar is bad for you doe not mean all carbs are unhealthy.

~~~
martinko
Low carb and keto is consistent with a vergatable, plant and especially nut
diet.

> Whole fruits

What are whole fruits and why do you feel fruits of any kind are healthy? The
levels of sugars in them are unnatural - neither oranges nor apples have
historically been as sweet as they are now.

~~~
gohrt
Whole fruits are pieces of fruit from a tree, that you bit into, as opposed to
fruits that have been chemically mechanically/processed to extract some
molecules (sugar) and discard others (especially the pulp/fiber)

Modern meat is also unnnatural, engineered by the agriculture industry.

~~~
jcsvyu789jh
> Modern meat is also unnnatural, engineered by the agriculture industry.

Aren't you conflating "natural" with safe/nutritious/good for you? Or am I
misreading your comment. (It seems to strongly indicate you believe that
"unnatural" things are bad for you.)

------
matt_wulfeck
This makes me remember the late Dr. Atkins of the "Atkins Diet" who was pretty
much the laughing stock of dietitians then and now.

Yet people that tried the diet have found life-long positive health impacts.
I'm one of these people.

I would also like to put some blame on so-called dietitians, who up until
very, _very_ recently would have warned you against a low carb diet.

Every dietician I talk to is so absolutely sure about what they recommend and
believe.

~~~
alecco
False dichotomy. Both sugar and saturated fats are bad. Processed foods in
particular.

Atkins died fat and with a heart problem. An extremist but not a scientist.

------
jbb555
There seems to be increasing evidence that high blood sugar over a long period
of time is very bad for you. That insulin response keeps this under control
mostly... but that it was probably never meant to be active all day, every
day. So eating lots of sugar (and carbs in general) at every meal is probably
long term, not the best thing you can do.

------
tlb
The sugar industry was also the main driver of the African slave trade. When
you have strong selection bias against morally principled people joining an
industry (as there must have been in, say, 1850) it's hard for an industry to
ever recover a moral compass.

~~~
r_smart
Maybe you have a lot of information that I don't (I'm hardly an expert here),
but describing it as the main driver seems like a stretch. In the Caribbean, I
can see your statement being true. But in the US, as I understand it, it was
more general agriculture / cotton. And so far as I know, a huge proportion of
slaves were sold into the Middle East, and I assume they didn't have a huge
sugar trade there.

------
truth_sentinell
This teaches among many lessons, one in particular: We can't take anything for
granted. A lot of people use research studies in arguments as it was the
absolute truth. The papers can be wrong, or even true but for a narrower
sample, or even worst, faked.

------
bonoboTP
The lecture "Sugar: The Bitter Truth" by Robert H. Lustig explains some
details about the harmful effects of sugar:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)

------
tomjen3
I am honestly mostly scared by how cheaply those scientists were brought. I
mean 50 grand?

~~~
WillPostForFood
Not even, the number is ~7,000, but the article is using inflation adjusted
dollars to make the number sound bigger.

It is also unclear whether they got that amount each, or in total.

~~~
sliverstorm
You realize the absolute number is virtually meaningless? Inflation adjusted
is the best number, with the caveat that your inflation index needs to be
good.

~~~
WillPostForFood
Not sure how it is better for the article to never include the actual,
factual, payment amount. If you have an agenda to minimize the number you only
print the original, if you have an agenda to maximize, you only print the
inflation adjusted.

It would be better for the article to include both. Because what happens is
people start throwing around the 50k number without the "inflation adjusted"
like in the parent comment.

~~~
r_smart
No, the inflation adjusted value allows a person reading it to compare it to
the buying power of the time they live in to understand how much money it
actually was. Having a monetary figure expressed in a time other than as an
analog to the present reduces the usefulness of the figure.

~~~
WillPostForFood
I'll take facts over context, but would be happy with both. I'm fully capable
of figuring out the inflation adjusted number, but now we don't actually know
what they were paid.

I also guarantee you they we will see secondary reporting of this article, and
the 50k number will be in it, and the inflation adjusted/today's dollars piece
will get lost.

~~~
r_smart
If you can convert inflation adjusted to today's money, why can't you do it
backwards?

To your second point, you're probably right. Journalism is in a sad state
these days.

~~~
WillPostForFood
It's not that you can't work in reverse and get an estimate, its just that you
can't know if it is accurate. What if the journalist made a mistake in their
inflation calculation?

They are clearly rounding to the inflation adjusted number, and we don't know
what year they received payment.

~~~
r_smart
That's a good point. Trusting your math of a selection of people that are
typically bad at math, and that have a bad track record of accuracy in
general, is probably not a good idea.

------
ScottBurson
This is the kind of thing I think of when people here on HN try to convince me
that glyphosate is safe. When so much money is at stake, corporations
naturally try to influence the science, and unfortunately, there are plenty of
poorly-paid and/or dubiously-ethical scientists in the world who will take
their money.

Under such circumstances I think we have to be massively skeptical of any
result that aligns with the business interests in question. When public health
is at stake, the burden of proof should fall very heavily on those claiming
their product is safe.

------
zizzles
Obesity as the end all be all measure of health is flawed and out-dated.

The real damage is being done silently, ie. cell damage, DNA damage, telomere
shortening, endocrine disruption.

Visual cues may or may not be there.

------
dxbydt
Honey is a strange alternative to sugar. For the past 2 decades, I have used
honey as the sole sweetener, though the rest of the family continues to
patronize sugar :( The trouble with honey is that it's seriously pricey, and
the community is a something of a cult - you have to know a lot of the
terminology, otherwise you'll walk out with sugar-water. I take an empty 1
gallon jar to the honey store in Sac, and pay $100 to fill her up. I have
experimented a lot with the cocktail over the years. Generally, avoid
anything"American" ie. sweet light colored honey. Go for the raw unfiltered
darkest thickest broth you can find. They have gigantic jars of various
colors, so I sample from the darkest ones. Then add a few grams of propolis
and a few scoops of nectar and a few combs. Top it off with manuka and part
with $100. Lasts 3 months. It tastes weird and too thick and gooey, but it's
an amazing product. All the debris floating around on it is supposedly packed
with enzymes etc.

~~~
jmcgough
There isn't a significant health benefit to using honey over refined sugars.
Sugar is sugar.

~~~
caw
Sugar is sugar, but honey is interesting in the flavors and aromas it can
provide outside of your standard white sugar.

Just to add if anyone is interested in honey as a sweetener - What dxbydt was
saying with honey being ~$8/lb is a good price for identifiable flower honey.
Wholesale is roughly $4-5/lb, depending on varietal.

There's a significant range in flavors and aromas depending on what type of
flower produced the bulk of the honey. Don't need to avoid anything on colors,
it's primarily based on what type of flower is used to produce the honey. Try
a sampler, most apiaries/honey specialty shops will sell you a small container
of each varietal they have. Avoid heat treated honeys, heating the honey to
have it pass through a filter will get rid of a lot of the aroma. You'll see a
lot of "raw, unfiltered" at specialty shops.

If you're interested, you can ferment meads with a minimum of ~1.5 pounds per
gallon, depending on how strong you want the resulting beverage.

------
newscracker
I watched this documentary titled "That sugar film" [1] a year or so ago. It
was quite an eye opener. Although I knew processed foods had a lot of sugar
(like we expect sodas and colas to have), what was shocking was the amount of
sugar added even in foods where you would never think of sugar as an
ingredient. Of course, this varies across different geographies and cultures,
but if people consuming processed foods spend some time reading the
ingredients in whatever they buy and learn more about them and the
proportions, it could help in bringing some changes (I realize this is a
rather simplified view). We also need more education and awareness to be
spread around to effect a change in people's habits.

[1]: [http://thatsugarfilm.com/](http://thatsugarfilm.com/)

------
kevin_thibedeau
Let's not forget how WW2 propaganda shifted blame to sugar. Where the
fictional notion of a "sugar high" was invented to connote an illicit
character that will get your children that much closer to the reefer madness.
All to manipulate the public into conserving sugar needed for the war effort.

~~~
thedaemon
A sugar high is not fictional. I do in fact get a sugar high. Just ask my co-
workers. I sometimes use a threat of eating a candy bar, which will make me
hyper before I crash.

------
gist
This was a great documentary on the subject, I saw it on Netflix I don't know
if it's there anymore though:

[https://vimeo.com/122387548](https://vimeo.com/122387548)

[http://sugarcoateddoc.com/](http://sugarcoateddoc.com/)

------
amist
What about the fat industry? Didn't they have enough money to pay for
scientists to shift the blame to sugar?

~~~
sosuke
I believe there isn't a fat industry, can you imagine manufacturing fat? Paid
for by the Fat for America Industry.

~~~
logfromblammo
What? Where do you think soybean, corn, Canola/rapeseed, peanut, cottonseed,
sunflower, safflower, olive, coconut, and palm oils come from?

Animal fats are rather expensive in comparison, but I can also buy pork lard,
beef suet, and butter rather easily.

The problem there might just be fragmentation. Growers of cane and beets (and
sorghum, too, I guess) have basically just one major homogenized end product:
refined sucrose. There are a few related products, like molasses, brown sugar,
and confectioners' sugar, and the stuff like bagasse, that tends not to be
seen by consumers, but refined sucrose is the moneymaker. Corn growers can
also side with the sugar lobby thanks to corn syrup and high-fructose corn
syrup.

There's definitely an _industry_ ($800M/year?), but it isn't one that has a
great common _marketing association_ around, to collect dues and pitch catchy
slogans that play well on television and radio.

The soy and Canola/rapeseed growers might come together to promote B20
biodiesel, though, while simultaneously bashing palm oil plantations. I can't
currently imagine anyone trying to convince me to eat more fats and oils in my
diet, at the expense of sugars. Low-carb is still largely seen as an
irresponsible, unhealthy, fad diet in the mainstream.

~~~
hx87
They're not as powerful as the sugar lobby, but they did manage to get out
recommendations that unfairly demonized saturated fats and promoted
unsaturated fats.

------
grexe
see also the really well done movie "That Sugar Film"
([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3892434/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3892434/))
where exactly this connection is laid out in the first part.

~~~
sethammons
It is available on Amazon Prime last I checked. I've recommended it many times
over to friends.

------
partycoder
First of all, there is no daily recommended value on sugar because that value
is 0.

Then, a can of regular Coca-Cola (and most sodas) has about 38g of sugar. 38g
doesn't sound like a lot, but would you take a cup of coffee with 8 teaspoons
of sugar? That's what 38g is, 8 teaspoons, for a single can. Many kids drink
multiple cans a day, with sugary cereals, pancakes with syrup, snacks, and
adding all that up they end up consuming over 100g and end up severe obesity
and diabetes.

------
Question1101
So food with sugar but also a decent amount of fiber is fine? Like vegetables,
certain fruit and whole grain bread?

What should the fiber:sugar ratio be? Broccoli has 1.7g sugar and 2.6 fiber
per 100g. Bananas have 12g sugar and 2.6g of fiber. I guess you should avoid
food that goes below 1:1?

~~~
seizethecheese
Glycemic index/load help a lot to answer these questions.

------
Cozumel
Can anyone recommend a 'healthy' alternative to sugar? Primarily for
sweetening Coffee.

~~~
asavadatti
Agave or Honey although they do impart some taste to the coffee

~~~
terio
I wouldn't recommend any of these either. They are rich in fructose.

------
aws_ls
pure gold comment by Eduard Fischer (in Reader's pick section):

"Last week while traveling in the US, I witnessed a mother place a cola soft
drink in front of a young child. The girl began to sip on the drink, the
volume of which I estimated to be about twice the size of the girl’s head. I
was tempted to make a remark, but remembered that I was in a foreign country
where the citizens are famously well armed and roughly half the folks eligible
to vote have lost their minds..."

------
AdmiralAsshat
We're going to need another Surgeon General's warning, it seems.

------
dennisgorelik
Sugar industry is guilty in that case, but let's not put all blame on them. It
is the whole society that wanted to believe that mass consumption of sugar is
OK.

------
cloudjacker
Well that escalated quickly

Only saw the documentaries a few months ago. I'm glad this awareness has
pushed for deeper more reputable investigation.

------
Ericson2314
I'm American and sugar doesn't taste good; I must be very lucky.

------
caub
how to fat industry shifted blame to sugar in return

------
AWildDHHAppears
This bad advice may have directly contributed to the deaths of millions of
people.

------
smnplk
you sir are my hero.

~~~
stevenwiles
please avoid making comments like this. you do not contribute to the
discussion and you embarrass yourself.

~~~
kahrkunne
please avoid making comments like this. you do not contribute to the
discussion and you embarrass yourself

------
aiyodev
The scientific consensus is that weight gain is caused by saturated fat.
Anybody who disagrees with the consensus is anti-science and a fat-denier. Any
scientists who disagree with the consensus must have being paid off by Big
Fat.

Even Crisco agrees that their products are the cause of Global Fattening and
is working on alternatives to oil. Companies that produce saturated fat
products should have to buy Fat Credits and fat skeptics should be thrown in
prison!

But what about all the actual scientific evidence that a low-carbohydrate
high-saturated fat diet results in weight loss? Well, I never said that weight
gain causes weight gain or a Global Fattening. What I said was it causes "Body
Change".

Body Change means eating saturated fat will make you become deathly skinny or
morbidly obese or grow a tail or get cancer or contract herpes or go blind or
a million other medical problems.

Basically, if something is wrong with your body, it's because of Body Change.
Child falls off jungle gym and breaks its leg: Body Change. Man dies of heart
attack in China: Body Change. Conjoined twins: Body Change. Down's Syndrome:
Body Change. Hot flashes: Body Change. Wet dream: Body Change. Body change
hides under your bed at night waiting to murder you with saturated fats.

Some people say that Body Change is idiotic and unscientific! I guess they
believe bodies never change. What morons!

/s

------
fastoptimizer
When in fact nothing can be blamed but our overconsumption of almost
everything but vegetables and fruits.

I eat about 70% from my calories in carbs (some are refined), but it's just
2500kcal calories per day. I'm pretty sure the fact that average US citizen
eats 3500kcal daily has more to do with anything than what particular
ingredient one eats.

edit: some irrational unscientific and anegdotal statements require me to
remove myself from discussion. thanks.. for the downvotes, I'm outta here
boys! :wink:

~~~
logicallee
this is almost certainly wrong. (That nothing can be blamed.) I can't eat much
sugar for medical reasons, so that means that entire aisles are basically
unavailable to me. things like cereals, cookies, cakes, lots of delicious
stuff. But there _is_ something or someone (or some process or some state of
affairs) to blame here.

Because check it out: stevia is delicious, and with splenda and all sorts of
other zero-calorie artificial sweetener choices (going back to saccharine) it
would be trivial to make almost all of those food choices in varieties that
are artificially sweetened. what do you want to bet that the high fructose
corn syrup or sugar industry has a say in directing the conversation that
leads to these foods simply not existing? They literally don't exist in
supermarkets: you make them at home.

why the fuck would an expensive premium food like this -
[https://www.specialk.com/en_US/products/protein-
cereal.html](https://www.specialk.com/en_US/products/protein-cereal.html) have
20% by weight in sugar! Generally speaking what I've just linked is a great
food, and it's premium and expensive and for those who are very health-
conscious. It hardly has any calories, converting by multiplying the suggested
serving by 3, it has only 360 calories in 100 grams, which contains 30g of
protein (so that if you further multiply by three to get to your daily intake,
you get to 90g of protein, enough for just about anyone, reaching only 1080
calories - so it seems great to me. you could literally consider this diet
food.)

But it has 21 grams of sugar in those 100 grams. (I happened to find someone
weighing 100 grams of cereal, though a denser one - here is what that looks
like: [http://blog.belm.com/wp-
content/uploads/cerealpannacotta1.jp...](http://blog.belm.com/wp-
content/uploads/cerealpannacotta1.jpg) \-- * EDIT: also found someone who
happened to weigh 20 grams of sugar, this is what that looks like:
[http://alcademics.typepad.com/.a/6a00e553b3da20883401a3fb659...](http://alcademics.typepad.com/.a/6a00e553b3da20883401a3fb6599c2970b-pi)
(that's about 5 cubes of sugar.)).

Why does it have 21% by weight sugar! Why not use an artificial sweetener?
Like, it's not even an option.

You can't really find stevia alternatives. The third ingredient in what I just
linked was Sugar. Here is someone asking them to include stevia:
[https://community.kelloggs.com/kelloggs/topics/special-k-
pro...](https://community.kelloggs.com/kelloggs/topics/special-k-protein-
stevia-not-sugar)

Like, what gives?

I realize that stevia might be expensive compared with sugar, but some people
would likely pay for that. You can't get foods made that way though, unless
you make it yourself.

why is that? There is someone to blame here. It's a dichotomy: you eat the 21
grams of sugar, or you don't eat the 100 grams of Special K Protein. It's not
about overconsumption: it's about a lack of choice. Why doesn't the
artificial-sweetener version exist, at all? There is something, or someone (or
an abstract economic process, or something) to blame here. While "blaming" an
economic process (or a lack of FDA mandate, or ... whatever) might sound
bitter due to the phrasing, we can still ask what leads to this state of
affairs. I don't usually like to play the "blame game" or put things in those
terms, but in this case, I'm missing out on a lot of foods, so yes, I'll do
it. If Coca Cola can do it, and get it everywhere, why can't dessert "foods"
like oreos or breakfast cereal, do it? They simply don't exist in artificially
sweetened versions. Why not?

~~~
brandon272
Coca Cola has a stevia version that seems to be very niche. I rarely see it,
nor have I tried it. But I wonder why it hasn't been pushed more, especially
in a market where your product is increasingly demonized because of the 30 -
40g of sugar each serving contains.

~~~
brianwawok
Don't move from sugar to fake sugar. Move from sugar to other flavors.

Using fake sugar is like a diet, and diets don't last. Lifestyle changes do.
Like making every thing you eat not need to be sweet.

~~~
logicallee
not true. you can drink diet coke or coke zero for decades and nothing bad
will happen.

why do you want to tell me not to eat dessert foods like american cereals for
breakfast, or oreos, in some artificially-flavored version. you're simply
wrong that this would make my change in lifestyle "not last." I'm not even
overweight.

~~~
brianwawok
Ultimately I only care insofar as I will be in the hook for your medical bills
in 20 years. It's your body.

