Should sugar be controlled like tobacco and alcohol

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  • ashleyisgreat
    ashleyisgreat Posts: 586 Member
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    I think I need to go buy up a whole bunch of sugar so I can become rich when this happens.

    "The Gang Solves the Sugar Crisis."

    For all the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia fans lurking the forums tonight. Imagine it...
  • Wildflower0106
    Wildflower0106 Posts: 247 Member
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    wTOGI4P.jpg

    :flowerforyou:
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
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    I totally agree with policy solutions like this in general.

    Idk about banning (but am not immediately opposed to it), but a strong public education effort & good labelling of hidden sugar would be great, especially with so many metabolic problems going...

    There's no need for 10 grams of sugar in your average cup of canned tomato sauce, other than to hide the taste of preservatives.

    Tomatoes have naturally occurring sugars in them. Tomato sauce is a bunch of cooked down tomatoes, so the sugar is slightly more concentrated. Also, adding a pinch of sugar to homemade tomato sauce is a great trick to cut the acidity and balance out the taste of your sauce.

    Cooking--the art of processing your own foods.
    I think there's more than a pinch of sugar in the grocery store versions.

    Heinz sauce ingredients: "Concentrated Tomatoes (Contains 174g Tomatoes per 100mL), Sugar, Salt, Food Acids (Acetic Acid, Citric Acid), Natural Flavours (Contain Garlic). Contains 78% Concentrated Tomatoes."

    so what I'm getting from that is that 22% of that sauce is not actually tomatoes. Ingredients have to be listed in quantity order, and anything under 2% doesn't have to be listed at all.

    Yup. There's 2 1/2 teaspoons of it in *one cup*.
    You can by no sugar added jarred sauce.

    I never just pour jarred sauce directly onto my pasta. I buy the most basic one I can find and then add spices, protein and, yes, sugar to it. I come from a northern Italian family and we have always made a sweet sauce (southern Italians go for spicy).

    So what?

    In a large pot of sauce, I usually add at least a cup of sugar.
  • Wildflower0106
    Wildflower0106 Posts: 247 Member
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    I'm rarely for more government intervention in people's lives, but I would say that controlling the number of calories a person is allowed to consume a day will be far more effective.

    ooo..I know...we can put a chip in everyone's head and if you eat more than your alloted calories, it blows up. Anything short of that is meaningless.

    Hopefully people would be able to file for a caloric increase if one needed to. of course then there would need to be some sort of reviews board to vote on whether or not someone can have their increase. That would be a lot of red tape to go through but it would be better than having your head blown off,
  • dirty_dirty_eater
    dirty_dirty_eater Posts: 574 Member
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    Bought several pounds of sugar last night, in preparation for the inevitable regulation/taxation/demonizing.

    Thanks for the heads up.
  • Kamikazeflutterby
    Kamikazeflutterby Posts: 775 Member
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    I totally agree with policy solutions like this in general.

    Idk about banning (but am not immediately opposed to it), but a strong public education effort & good labelling of hidden sugar would be great, especially with so many metabolic problems going...

    There's no need for 10 grams of sugar in your average cup of canned tomato sauce, other than to hide the taste of preservatives.

    Tomatoes have naturally occurring sugars in them. Tomato sauce is a bunch of cooked down tomatoes, so the sugar is slightly more concentrated. Also, adding a pinch of sugar to homemade tomato sauce is a great trick to cut the acidity and balance out the taste of your sauce.

    Cooking--the art of processing your own foods.
    I think there's more than a pinch of sugar in the grocery store versions.

    Heinz sauce ingredients: "Concentrated Tomatoes (Contains 174g Tomatoes per 100mL), Sugar, Salt, Food Acids (Acetic Acid, Citric Acid), Natural Flavours (Contain Garlic). Contains 78% Concentrated Tomatoes."

    so what I'm getting from that is that 22% of that sauce is not actually tomatoes. Ingredients have to be listed in quantity order, and anything under 2% doesn't have to be listed at all.

    Yup. There's 2 1/2 teaspoons of it in *one cup*.

    Out of curiosity I entered my favorite homemade tomato sauce recipe into my recipes section. From the three sugar containing ingredients (roma tomatoes 80g sugar, onion 7g sugar, and pinot grigio wine 3g sugar) I got 23 grams of sugar per cup. There's 4-8 grams of sugar in one teaspoon (depending on grain size) so that's the exact same as your canned sugar example.

    Look, I've tried to find a way to say the following without somehow sounding condescending, I really have, because the point is important and I don't want you to lose it due to tone. This is the best I can do:

    If you don't like it, buy another brand. End of problem. If you don't want food with preservatives or packaged with preserving techniques, well, be prepared to cook a lot of things from scratch and to limit cooking techniques and ingredients to avoid accidentally extending the shelf life of your food. "Preservative" isn't necessarily "bad"--it's why we have the process of canning, smoking, curing... you get the idea.

    And if you're going to hate on all things sugar, learn about what you're against and how to really avoid it. Don't count on the government to regulate it for you.
  • JCES10
    JCES10 Posts: 37 Member
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    Pleasures of life are there for us (humans) to enjoy with moderation.
  • meeper123
    meeper123 Posts: 3,347 Member
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    oh great not the sugar is evil thing again don't you people talk about anything else lol
  • tilmoph
    tilmoph Posts: 72 Member
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    . I do not need the damn government trying to make better choices for me, and with the exception of the deeply mentally unwell (and even then, they should have family and doctors handling things they can't, with the government just making sure they're not being exploited), neither does anyone else.

    What do you think of the argument that your fellow citizens (or insurance-payers, idk where you live but w/e) maybe *do* mind paying for the consequences of (hypothetically) your bad choices? Maybe *they* need the government to make better choices for you, irrespective of your literacy.
    Since I'm paying into the private and government funded healthcare the same as anyone else, including paying any increases anyone else pays, I fail to see why it's any of their business why I would make use of the benefits I payed for. So no, no one else has an interest or has the moral authority to play mommy to me.

    That also covers half of why people on food stamps can be regulated more than people who aren't; they aren't paying into the system, they aren't paying for their own food, the state and federal governments are. Since this means they are relying on a form of charity, they have to accept that the giver of that charity can attach strings (like nutrient content or amounts of meat, cheese, veg, etc.) to what kind of charity is granted. The other half is to deal with the argument "they can't afford healthier foods". Fair enough, we have a system that can pay for the healthier food for them, and the moral authority, granted by their choices and circumstances, to fix that problem
  • Ophidion
    Ophidion Posts: 2,065 Member
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    There should be a logic question that must be answered before every forum post.

    This is brilliant. I think it'd cut down on the forum traffic by at least 50% though.

    I think you vastly overestimate the intelligence of the general population.
    I think the majority have been using this supplement lately...

    watch it I'm sure you will enjoy it.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9pD_UK6vGU

    ETA: OK for a looooonng time.
  • Minnie2361
    Minnie2361 Posts: 281 Member
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    Nearly 60 years ago tobacco companies began to be blamed for lung cancer and fought back. For years they tried to prevent governments from taking meaningful action , as late as 1994 their Ceos refused to take responsibility testifying "I believe nicotine is not addictive." a . Critics believe food companies may be behaving in a similar way.
    Documents uncovered at the University of San Francisco provide a possible answer. It is the location of thousands of papers relating to tobacco litigation. Hidden among them are lessons from the Tobacco Wars. When obesity crisis exploded in the 1990's one man a Philip Morris executive was paying close attention, cigarette companies were facing $365 billion bill for smoking related illness. he wondered if the food giant they owned Kraft may find itself a similar positon .
    Philip Morris executive warned them food companies would have to fight hard but can the trial lawyers be far behind.
    At the highest level executives were made aware of the parallels between tobacco and food.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1Ny4Et_NR0
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
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    What do you think of the argument that your fellow citizens (or insurance-payers, idk where you live but w/e) maybe *do* mind paying for the consequences of (hypothetically) your bad choices? Maybe *they* need the government to make better choices for you, irrespective of your literacy.

    Every single human being on the planet does SOMETHING that could potentially (and probably does) impact insurance rates. Or whatever.

    We all do SOMETHING. Even things that are healthy. I went rollerblading in June (exercise! healthy! good for your heart and your weight and whatever else!) and shattered my wrist. I had to have X-rays, surgery, physical therapy and I am still seeing the orthopedist.

    Should we ban rollerblading because it's dangerous and can impact insurance costs? My insurance paid the vast majority of the costs, including all of the X-rays and sugery.

    I don't smoke. I barely drink. NEVER drive drunk. I eat very healthy and have never been obese. And I wear my seatbelt in the car.
  • dbmata
    dbmata Posts: 12,950 Member
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    JFC people are such stupid children sometimes.

    ETA - let's just elect Feinstein queen, and wrap ourselves in bubble wrap to appease the dumb.
  • anemoneprose
    anemoneprose Posts: 1,805 Member
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    quickly, bc effed if i'm going to spend a whack of time discussing this, with people who utterly lack a sociological imagination:
    - yeah you can get low-sugar sauce; yeah i can read a label (too) -- many are too vague to be useful to most people; there is problem around an assymetry of information and lack of education
    - disagree that having $ = greater moral right to defining social goods, rights & responsibilities (what is this, 1500?)
    - breaking your arm roller blading =/= decades of care for chronic issues on the scale of prevalence (& cost) currently evident in western societies

    outie
  • DatMurse
    DatMurse Posts: 1,501 Member
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    there are reasons on why there are winners and losers
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
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    quickly, bc effed if i'm going to spend a whack of time discussing this, with people who utterly lack a sociological imagination:
    - yeah you can get low-sugar sauce; yeah i can read a label (too) -- many are too vague to be useful to most people; there is problem around an assymetry of information and lack of education
    - disagree that having $ = greater moral right to defining social goods, rights & responsibilities (what is this, 1500?)
    - breaking your arm roller blading =/= decades of care for chronic issues on the scale of prevalence (& cost) currently evident in western societies

    outie
    Congratulations on being so much smarter than the rest of us that you need the government to tell you what to eat.

    And what about people who continue engaging in dangerous behaviors that often lead to injuries? Runners have a lot of injuries, constantly over time that require health care. As do many other people who engage in athletic endeavors and continue doing so regardless of constant injury.

    Let's ban that. I'm sick of paying for all those pulled muscles and broken legs.
  • anemoneprose
    anemoneprose Posts: 1,805 Member
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    quickly, bc effed if i'm going to spend a whack of time discussing this, with people who utterly lack a sociological imagination:
    - yeah you can get low-sugar sauce; yeah i can read a label (too) -- many are too vague to be useful to most people; there is problem around an assymetry of information and lack of education
    - disagree that having $ = greater moral right to defining social goods, rights & responsibilities (what is this, 1500?)
    - breaking your arm roller blading =/= decades of care for chronic issues on the scale of prevalence (& cost) currently evident in western societies

    outie
    Congratulations on being so much smarter than the rest of us that you need the government to tell you what to eat.

    And what about people who continue engaging in dangerous behaviors that often lead to injuries? Runners have a lot of injuries, constantly over time that require health care. As do many other people who engage in athletic endeavors and continue doing so regardless of constant injury.

    Let's ban that. I'm sick of paying for all those pulled muscles and broken legs.

    % of runners? cost of injuries? % obese? % diabetic? false equivalence? ****ty analogies? baiting? ideological blindness? out out out
  • annamorrison90
    annamorrison90 Posts: 33 Member
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    agreed with using farm subsidies to grow organic.
  • Kamikazeflutterby
    Kamikazeflutterby Posts: 775 Member
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    quickly, bc effed if i'm going to spend a whack of time discussing this, with people who utterly lack a sociological imagination:
    - yeah you can get low-sugar sauce; yeah i can read a label (too) -- many are too vague to be useful to most people; there is problem around an assymetry of information and lack of education
    - disagree that having $ = greater moral right to defining social goods, rights & responsibilities (what is this, 1500?)
    - breaking your arm roller blading =/= decades of care for chronic issues on the scale of prevalence (& cost) currently evident in western societies

    outie

    Dude-- you're actually resorting to personal attacks about other people's perceptions as a justification for why you no longer need to make valid, coherent arguments or complete sentences.

    Now I give up.
  • BeachIron
    BeachIron Posts: 6,490 Member
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    Because regulating, taxing, age limits, bans and outlawing have been so effective with alcohol, Tabaco , illegal drugs and underage drinking? I can see it now, sugar cartels sprouting up, run by middle aged women with twinkie obsessions.

    Why oh why, can't people figure out this glaringly obvious piece of the "all you have to do is make a law and it will solve the problem" puzzle?

    But this thread is fun. I think it needs a tad more anger though. I mean SUGAR KILLZ! :sad:

    Now off to make my family HYOOGE at Dairy Queen . . . :wink:

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