UCSF Professor of Pediatrics on Sugar

1235»

Replies

  • MrsBingley
    MrsBingley Posts: 145
    22 minutes in: "Before the advent of food processing, sugars available from fruits and vegetables afforded us about 15g of sugar per day."

    The yogurt I had last night had 15g of sugar in it.. which may explain why I immediately wanted to run back to the fridge and eat 5 more :-)
    Too bad the majority of those "sugar grams" are from milk rather than table sugar.
    Yep, I can't tell you how many times I've been tempted to binge drink that sugary milk ;)
  • LolBroScience
    LolBroScience Posts: 4,537 Member
    22 minutes in: "Before the advent of food processing, sugars available from fruits and vegetables afforded us about 15g of sugar per day."

    The yogurt I had last night had 15g of sugar in it.. which may explain why I immediately wanted to run back to the fridge and eat 5 more :-)
    Yep, I can't tell you how many times I've been tempted to binge drink an entire gallon of milk. It's always been a high sugar narcotic ;)


    Too bad the majority of those "sugar grams" are from milk rather than table sugar.

    ahahaha
  • ItsCasey
    ItsCasey Posts: 4,021 Member
    a lot of people are trying to avoid the personal responsibility route

    This is what pretty much every argument cloaked as a public health matter hinges on ... the increasingly accurate theory that people would rather have the government ban certain things than be adults and exercise some self-control. Sugar isn't dangerous to my health. I walk past multiple shelves of it nearly every time I go to the grocery store, and so far, not one of those bags has jumped off the shelf and attacked me. True story.

    Consuming sugar with reckless abandon and no regard for my body's actual nutritional requirements is dangerous to my health. The choice is mine.

    If you want to talk about how people are misinformed, great. Spend some tax dollars on educational programs for people who genuinely don't know how much they should be eating or how to balance their macronutrients or how to shop for groceries. But all the education in the world is not going to help a person who believes food is the problem, rather than their own food-related choices.
  • husseycd
    husseycd Posts: 814 Member
    I would generally agree that added sugar in processed foods is unnecessary and frankly I cook primarily from scratch so it's not really an issue for me...but really, it's the fear mongering whether it be sugar, carbs in general, fat...you name it...the idea that you can blame a singular thing on the obesity epidemic and other health issues when in reality there is a culmination of things that people need to deal with in order to prevent these issues...not just blanket cutting out macros and micros.

    I hear ya. However, IMO, many people are obese because they have difficulty moderating. Sometimes it's easier to blanket cut. If you cut hfcs from your diet you might be forced to make better decisions.

    Now, do I totally believe fructose causes all the problems it's blamed for? Not directly. Nor do I think it should be regulated as the good professor proposes. But we do have an obvious obesity problem in this country that appears to be spreading abroad wherever our SAD becomes the norm. I think it's worth looking a little harder at that diet to try to decipher what's changed in the last 30 years.
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
    I'm at the end of the talk, and I am starting to think the point he is hitting the best is that the sugary drinks are basically a recipe for disaster, not that sugar and fruit are evil.

    Growing up, my main sources of hydration were apple juice and orange juice, sometimes grape juice, Juicy Juice, etc. I NEVER EVER drank water. I was tiny.

    As an adult, I ONLY drink water 99.9999999999999% of the time and am having weight issues.
  • benol1
    benol1 Posts: 867 Member
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

    Oh yeah. It's an hour and a half long. It's a lecture from UCSF. About to put it on in the background while I work away.

    I already know that he's going to talk about the fact that calories alone don't drive weight loss, that in fact hormone balance drives what is done with the calories we put in, which in turn drives our weight loss or weight gain. Looking forward to what else the guy has to say.

    I already know that the title of this post alone is going to attract people who are ready to snark and deride me for daring to post something negative and God-forgive-me 'fear-mongering' about the all-holy substance that is sugar. Go ahead. This post isn't for you.

    It's for the person out there who is doing everything they are supposed to be doing according to the calories in/calories out philosphy and is still struggling. It's for the person who has had enough and is starting to question what we've always been told. It's for all the people who read these forums and usually don't comment.

    Happy listening, sane comments welcome :-)

    Thank you for this!
  • RunBrew
    RunBrew Posts: 220 Member
    Good grief.

    The obesity epidemic of modern times is caused by one basic underlying factor -

    Our caloric balance is no longer self-governing. We no longer have to invest 1,000 Calories to get a 1,500 calorie meal.

    For a while we got away with it, because for the most part even though energy expenditure wasn't required, financial expenditure was. Obesity was still financially out of reach for most. But the advent of cheap food (which yes, I will accept was made possible in part by HFCS) removed that governor too.

    Sure other things play a part - sweet things are tasty so we want to eat more, stress, limited time to prep food, etc.... But the reality is that if we can get past the self-balancing energy equation and to a position where we know how to balance it ourselves, you can beat obesity no matter what foods you choose to consume. Just look at the successful people on MFP, and the wide range of diets they enjoy.

    In short, as I see it there are three phases to governing the energy-balance

    1. Availability - the necessity of hunting and gathering greatly reduces net caloric intake.
    2. Financial - although food is readily available, it's still too expensive to eat sufficiently to become obese.
    3. Intellectual - now food is available and affordable, the individual must choose to voluntarily limit their intake and match it to their expenditure.

    As a society, with the dawn of the 'quantified self' we are in the process of shifting from stage 2 to stage 3.

    Any negative impacts that may or may not be caused by any particular food or nutrient, pales into insignificance in comparison.

    Well said.

    In addition to this I would point out that it really has little to do with anything being 'bad' for you. Animals are genetically wired to recognize sugar in food in order to identify good sources of energy for survival. The problem is, we never outgrew that evolutionarily. The brain is still primally wired to say 'Calories are hard to get, this tastes sweet, therefore, it has lots of calories, eat lots of it while you can, and store it for when we can't find any calories at all. Your 'animal brain' doesn't understand that the world is swimming in a sea of calories due to modern conveniences.

    HFCS isn't bad, its just readily available, cheap and calorically dense. This plays into phase 3 as described above in that before the invention of HFCS, sugar was less ubiquitous, and getting a surplus was more difficult than it is today. Even honey, molasses and sugar cane/beets only grew in part of the world and had to be shipped at great cost. Processed sugar allowed humans to obtain all the calories you can possibly want and because it comes in such a dense form and is in everything, you can eat a surplus pretty easily long before the chemical messengers reach your brain to say you've gotten a fill.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    I would generally agree that added sugar in processed foods is unnecessary and frankly I cook primarily from scratch so it's not really an issue for me...but really, it's the fear mongering whether it be sugar, carbs in general, fat...you name it...the idea that you can blame a singular thing on the obesity epidemic and other health issues when in reality there is a culmination of things that people need to deal with in order to prevent these issues...not just blanket cutting out macros and micros.

    I hear ya. However, IMO, many people are obese because they have difficulty moderating. Sometimes it's easier to blanket cut. If you cut hfcs from your diet you might be forced to make better decisions.

    Now, do I totally believe fructose causes all the problems it's blamed for? Not directly. Nor do I think it should be regulated as the good professor proposes. But we do have an obvious obesity problem in this country that appears to be spreading abroad wherever our SAD becomes the norm. I think it's worth looking a little harder at that diet to try to decipher what's changed in the last 30 years.

    I think this is a good place to start...much more productive than demonizing specific macro nutrients and micro nutrients.
    The obesity epidemic of modern times is caused by one basic underlying factor -

    Our caloric balance is no longer self-governing. We no longer have to invest 1,000 Calories to get a 1,500 calorie meal.

    For a while we got away with it, because for the most part even though energy expenditure wasn't required, financial expenditure was. Obesity was still financially out of reach for most. But the advent of cheap food (which yes, I will accept was made possible in part by HFCS) removed that governor too.

    Sure other things play a part - sweet things are tasty so we want to eat more, stress, limited time to prep food, etc.... But the reality is that if we can get past the self-balancing energy equation and to a position where we know how to balance it ourselves, you can beat obesity no matter what foods you choose to consume. Just look at the successful people on MFP, and the wide range of diets they enjoy.

    In short, as I see it there are three phases to governing the energy-balance

    1. Availability - the necessity of hunting and gathering greatly reduces net caloric intake.
    2. Financial - although food is readily available, it's still too expensive to eat sufficiently to become obese.
    3. Intellectual - now food is available and affordable, the individual must choose to voluntarily limit their intake and match it to their expenditure.

    As a society, with the dawn of the 'quantified self' we are in the process of shifting from stage 2 to stage 3.

    Any negative impacts that may or may not be caused by any particular food or nutrient, pales into insignificance in comparison.

Categories