Don't rely on reading labels! Learn the underlying nutrition!

umayster
umayster Posts: 651 Member
edited November 22 in Food and Nutrition
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/28/how-healthy-foods-are-killing-you.html

Metabolic syndrome in sixty days due to eating foods labeled healthy! It just underlines how important it is to understand nutrition and how we got it wrong.

Replies

  • Kalikel
    Kalikel Posts: 9,603 Member
    I do eat granola bars. They're so good and filling. I don't pretend that they are a health food, but I eat them.

    They're in the Iffy category of foods I eat. Most of my food is healthy stuff, a few things are Iffy.

    I don't even read packaging for health claims. I read labels...but most of what I eat is healthy stuff, so I don't even read that many labels.
  • umayster
    umayster Posts: 651 Member
    edited July 2015
    I do eat granola bars occasionally, but I view it the same as eating a snickers bar.

    The killer of his diet is he was only eating 44t of added sugars - about 176g.
  • AlabasterVerve
    AlabasterVerve Posts: 3,171 Member
    edited July 2015
    It was 40 teaspoons of sugar. That's 160g or 640 calories of sugar a day. Some cereal, yogurt and a glass of juice was over 20 teaspoons of sugar for breakfast alone -- it wasn't an outlandish diet by today's standards at all.

    ETA: He also maintained his exercise regimen throughout the 60 days -- it wasn't a lot of exercise but he wasn't sedentary.
  • umayster
    umayster Posts: 651 Member
    edited July 2015
    AlabasterVerve wrote: »
    It was 40 teaspoons of sugar. That's 160g or 640 calories of sugar a day. Some cereal, yogurt and a glass of juice was over 20 teaspoons of sugar for breakfast alone -- it wasn't an outlandish diet by today's standards at all.

    ETA: He also maintained his exercise regimen throughout the 60 days -- it wasn't a lot of exercise but he wasn't sedentary.

    Oops, surprise, daily beast got it wrong, Wii edit my post.
  • nvmomketo
    nvmomketo Posts: 12,019 Member
    That looks like an interesting show. I'd really like to see it - I'll have to look for it...

    So CICO doesn't apply in this film? I'd suspected it wasn't equal when comparing high sugar or processes foods to unprocessed foods, but that really interests me - I'd love to show my boys that.

    Thanks for the heads up on this show. Looks like a good one to me.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    "Professor Laura A. Schmidt of UC San Francisco’s School of Medicine " - one of Team Lustig per chance ?
  • DeguelloTex
    DeguelloTex Posts: 6,652 Member
    He puts on a stunning 15 pounds in just 60 days while keeping his daily calorie count and exercise levels stable.
    No, he didn't. Or he had a pre-existing medical condition.
  • Hornsby
    Hornsby Posts: 10,322 Member
    edited July 2015
    He puts on a stunning 15 pounds in just 60 days while keeping his daily calorie count and exercise levels stable.

    Stable with what baseline though? If he gained 15lbs in 60 days, he was eating at a surplus...period. And most likely holding a lot of water from eating pre-packaged foods with lots of carbs/sodium.

    Either way, it's a movie designed to grab people's money. I am sure the truths will be very skewed as they always are in these types of docs.

  • gramarye
    gramarye Posts: 586 Member
    To speed up the disease process, he consumed twice as much added sugar as the average American: 44 grams per day.

    So, he deliberately altered his habits in a way to speed up inducing an illness, to create a film that proves that a certain habit induces an illness?

    I, for one, am shocked that he got the results that he deliberately set out to achieve!

    The idea that people exist solely on one type of food all the time is silly. It just proves that, y'know, a varied diet is good for your body. Not exactly groundbreaking stuff here.
  • rhyolite_
    rhyolite_ Posts: 188 Member
    So he ate at nearly 1,000 calorie surplus for 60 days (it's not physically possible for a healthy person to gain weight without eating more than he burns), gained 15 pounds, and I'm supposed to believe it's the sugar that caused his health problems? Not the rapid weight gain?
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    rhyolite_ wrote: »
    So he ate at nearly 1,000 calorie surplus for 60 days (it's not physically possible for a healthy person to gain weight without eating more than he burns), gained 15 pounds, and I'm supposed to believe it's the sugar that caused his health problems? Not the rapid weight gain?

    Yeah. Plus lots of packaged foods are heavier than what the label says too...
  • usmcmp
    usmcmp Posts: 21,219 Member
    I would be interested to see his calorie logs from 60 days prior and the 60 days of the experiment. I suspect that he was estimating that his calorie intake was the same as prior, when it was not.
  • AlabasterVerve
    AlabasterVerve Posts: 3,171 Member
    edited July 2015
    nvsmomketo wrote: »
    That looks like an interesting show. I'd really like to see it - I'll have to look for it...

    So CICO doesn't apply in this film? I'd suspected it wasn't equal when comparing high sugar or processes foods to unprocessed foods, but that really interests me - I'd love to show my boys that.

    Thanks for the heads up on this show. Looks like a good one to me.

    It was actually pretty terrible as far as these movies go, IMO. I love these sugar movies and the like but I couldn't stand it and found myself fast forwarding through parts just to get it over with. Someone interested in science or the successful MFP user is not the target audience.

    The kids might like it though -- there were some horrible "Mountain Dew Mouth" scenes with young people (term coined by dentists dealing with unprecedented levels of tooth decay). Kinda a scared straight moment, I guess.

    As for CICO, scientific rigor was not the aim of the program. Counting calories was presented like a foreign, burdensome thing and little effort was made to be precise.

  • umayster
    umayster Posts: 651 Member
    Metabolic syndrome has no proven cause. If you can prove that weight gain causes it, you may want to publish a paper to enlighten the medical community.
  • beemerphile1
    beemerphile1 Posts: 1,710 Member
    edited July 2015
    I never pay much attention to the front of a package. The front is designed by the marketing department and will have all the good buzz words on it. Apparently he was only looking at the marketing on the front.

    The back or side of the package has the ingredients and nutritional information. First thing I do is pick up a package and turn it around to read the important stuff.

    It is important that we dig beyond the cover and see what we are really buying, but it appears he had a predetermined outcome/goal.
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  • DeguelloTex
    DeguelloTex Posts: 6,652 Member
    AlabasterVerve wrote: »
    nvsmomketo wrote: »
    That looks like an interesting show. I'd really like to see it - I'll have to look for it...

    So CICO doesn't apply in this film? I'd suspected it wasn't equal when comparing high sugar or processes foods to unprocessed foods, but that really interests me - I'd love to show my boys that.

    Thanks for the heads up on this show. Looks like a good one to me.

    The kids might like it though -- there was some horrible "Mountain Dew Mouth" scenes with young people (term coined by dentists dealing with unprecedented levels of tooth decay). Kinda a scared straight moment, I guess.

    I have two teenage daughters, we buy two liters of Mountain Dew each week for each of them, plus a Monster on Wednesday and Sunday, and they have zero cavities between them.

  • AlabasterVerve
    AlabasterVerve Posts: 3,171 Member
    DeguelloTex wrote: »
    AlabasterVerve wrote: »
    nvsmomketo wrote: »
    That looks like an interesting show. I'd really like to see it - I'll have to look for it...

    So CICO doesn't apply in this film? I'd suspected it wasn't equal when comparing high sugar or processes foods to unprocessed foods, but that really interests me - I'd love to show my boys that.

    Thanks for the heads up on this show. Looks like a good one to me.

    The kids might like it though -- there was some horrible "Mountain Dew Mouth" scenes with young people (term coined by dentists dealing with unprecedented levels of tooth decay). Kinda a scared straight moment, I guess.

    I have two teenage daughters, we buy two liters of Mountain Dew each week for each of them, plus a Monster on Wednesday and Sunday, and they have zero cavities between them.

    Congrats on the healthy kids. :) I'm sure other parents will find that information interesting.
  • Pinkranger626
    Pinkranger626 Posts: 460 Member
    So... question..... He gained weight in the 60 days, ok fine, calorie surplus combined with increased carbs/sodium. But the article (I did not watch the movie... because I'm not particularly interested in investing more time into something that I know isn't really a legit study) stated that he gained weight. It also stated the other parts of the equation that equal metabolic syndrome, which he did not bother to document his befores and afters on anything but the weight and waist circumference. So how can they claim that he gave himself metabolic syndrome in 60 days if he doesn't have the symptoms that make it so?

    Another fear mongering avenue to confuse more people and keep the general population in the dark about the actual science and ways to reach health. This just makes me sad.
  • DeguelloTex
    DeguelloTex Posts: 6,652 Member
    AlabasterVerve wrote: »
    DeguelloTex wrote: »
    AlabasterVerve wrote: »
    nvsmomketo wrote: »
    That looks like an interesting show. I'd really like to see it - I'll have to look for it...

    So CICO doesn't apply in this film? I'd suspected it wasn't equal when comparing high sugar or processes foods to unprocessed foods, but that really interests me - I'd love to show my boys that.

    Thanks for the heads up on this show. Looks like a good one to me.

    The kids might like it though -- there was some horrible "Mountain Dew Mouth" scenes with young people (term coined by dentists dealing with unprecedented levels of tooth decay). Kinda a scared straight moment, I guess.

    I have two teenage daughters, we buy two liters of Mountain Dew each week for each of them, plus a Monster on Wednesday and Sunday, and they have zero cavities between them.

    Congrats on the healthy kids. :) I'm sure other parents will find that information interesting.
    Well, I spent the better part of a decade making sure they used an electric toothbrush at least twice a day, so they had dang well be in the habit by now. Well, that and the understanding that the Mountain Dew spigot gets turned off when the first cavity shows up.

    They're better at it than I was at their age, that's for sure.

  • nvmomketo
    nvmomketo Posts: 12,019 Member
    AlabasterVerve wrote: »
    nvsmomketo wrote: »
    That looks like an interesting show. I'd really like to see it - I'll have to look for it...

    So CICO doesn't apply in this film? I'd suspected it wasn't equal when comparing high sugar or processes foods to unprocessed foods, but that really interests me - I'd love to show my boys that.

    Thanks for the heads up on this show. Looks like a good one to me.

    It was actually pretty terrible as far as these movies go, IMO. I love these sugar movies and the like but I couldn't stand it and found myself fast forwarding through parts just to get it over with. Someone interested in science or the successful MFP user is not the target audience.

    As for CICO, scientific rigor was not the aim of the program. Counting calories was presented like a foreign, burdensome thing and little effort was made to be precise.

    Bummer. I was hoping it would be interesting. I'll still keep an eye open for it.

    Too bad he didn't make a point of counting calories better. If he did in fact increase his calories, the whole movie is a null point.
  • Hornsby
    Hornsby Posts: 10,322 Member
    edited July 2015
    Since he gained 15lbs in 60 days, the fact is proven that he ate in a surplus...
  • edwardetr
    edwardetr Posts: 140 Member
    xg007k4jbnty.jpg

    This is a can of tuna which, miraculously, is 99% fat free and simultaneously high in omega-3.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    umayster wrote: »
    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/28/how-healthy-foods-are-killing-you.html

    Metabolic syndrome in sixty days due to eating foods labeled healthy! It just underlines how important it is to understand nutrition and how we got it wrong.

    Most of my food doesn't have nutrition labels, but it seems pretty obvious that when people say "read the label" they mean the actual information about what the package contains, calories, carbs, protein, fat, and the types of fat and carbs, plus the ingredients, etc., not the marketing language.

    I hate advice that assumes I'm stupid.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited July 2015
    AlabasterVerve wrote: »
    It was 40 teaspoons of sugar. That's 160g or 640 calories of sugar a day. Some cereal, yogurt and a glass of juice was over 20 teaspoons of sugar for breakfast alone -- it wasn't an outlandish diet by today's standards at all.

    Perhaps not--lots of Americans eat very badly (although the article says it's twice as much as the average American even so)--but it sounds extremely high to me, and I'm typically in the "don't worry about sugar overmuch" camp. But for maybe a minority of people (endurance athletes with ridiculously high TDEEs, perhaps), I wouldn't consider that anywhere near moderation.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    DeguelloTex wrote: »
    He puts on a stunning 15 pounds in just 60 days while keeping his daily calorie count and exercise levels stable.
    No, he didn't. Or he had a pre-existing medical condition.

    Yes, I'd need to see the evidence of that.

    Sounds like SuperSizeMe for the anti-sugar era.
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  • griffinca2
    griffinca2 Posts: 672 Member
    You can't always buy something that doesn't have a label so I agree w/beemerphile1. I buy frozen veggies w/o added ingredients (they have a label) because they keep better. It's just my husband and myself so most fresh veggies don't keep well (and we eat them every night for dinner). Believe in KISS (keep it super simple); if you can't pronounce the ingredient or if there are more than five ingredients--there are exceptions. B)
  • AlabasterVerve
    AlabasterVerve Posts: 3,171 Member
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    AlabasterVerve wrote: »
    It was 40 teaspoons of sugar. That's 160g or 640 calories of sugar a day. Some cereal, yogurt and a glass of juice was over 20 teaspoons of sugar for breakfast alone -- it wasn't an outlandish diet by today's standards at all.

    Perhaps not--lots of Americans eat very badly (although the article says it's twice as much as the average American even so)--but it sounds extremely high to me, and I'm typically in the "don't worry about sugar overmuch" camp.

    American teens average 34 teaspoons of sugar a day now so not that much of a stretch really. It was a cringe worthy diet for sure but it was full of health washed products instead of typical junk food so I thought it was interesting and perhaps informative in that respect.
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