"The problem with sugar is your problem with sugar"

Not all drugs are black tar heroine or crack cocaine and come with got-hit-by-a-train withdrawal symptoms. Alcohol and prescription medications are still drugs, and they can still cause withdrawal symptoms. The withdrawal symptoms vary depending on the specific substance due to how it interacts with a given individual, how much of a tolerance they have, and how much (and for how long) they've been consuming the substance. Even for the same substance, the withdrawal symptoms can vary from person to person. Even things like Tylenol and Ibuprofen can cause what is known as "rebound," or a returning of the symptoms they were taken to relieve, as an effect of stopping them, if you take them too often or for too long.

LOL at thinking alcohol detox tremors or oxy withdrawl are like going without carbs for a few days.

LOL at reading comprehension fail.

I never once said that. In fact, I very specifically said that not all substances have the same withdrawal symptoms as the hard drugs that everyone thinks about when they see the term "withdrawal."

just gonna bold the part where you say that alcohol and pill don't have bad withdrawl symptoms.

also I think you would be happier if you had some toast.

a) I'm quite happy, actually. Though I'd prefer people actually address the links I provided instead of resorting to logical fallacies. I'll also gladly pass on the toast, I prefer having skin clear of both eczema and acne.

b) I never said that alcohol and pills don't have bad withdrawal symptoms. Even the part you bolded does not say that. In fact, my point was the complete opposite - one does not need to consume illegal drugs to experience addiction and/or withdrawal symptoms. Often, when people think of withdrawal, they think of the dramatic "I feel like I got hit by a freight train" type of withdrawal that may include vomiting, shaking, migraines, etc, regardless of the substance being withdrawn from (and said substance can be something even as common and legal as alcohol or even over the counter meds). My point was that withdrawal from any substance may not be that extreme, but that doesn't mean it's not still withdrawal.

here's the thing - ingesting heroin all day is bad for your body. Ingesting carbs is not.

By your definition, the affects of taking anything out of your system is 'withdrawl' Dehydrated ? Nah, you're just going through "water withdrawl". Diabetic coma? "Insulin withdrawl".

The only reason you want to classify it as withdrawl is because you are hell-bent on classifying carbs/sugar as 'bad'. But I do not expect you to see the point.

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Therefore, it's not much of a stretch, let alone tinfoil hat territory, to think that a company like Nestle, Nabisco, or Frito-Lay would look at the fact that Phillip Morris toys with their ingredients in order to get more people to buy their product and get the people who are buying to buy more/more often, and start experimenting with their own, based on the fact that humans have evolved to go after things that taste sweet, salty, and fatty. Get some combination of all three that makes it very hard to resist, because it triggers a dopamine response far beyond what can be found in nature (where sweet, salty, and fatty are rarely found together in a single food item), and you can increase revenue. Like I said, business 101. It's not tinfoil hat, it's smart business.

If this were true then a specific combination of ingredients/proportions would appear over and over and over in foods. Does that happen? Nope.

So why would a food manufacturer go to the trouble and expense of researching to discover a different combination individually for each of its products, even though the optimal one is going to be the same for all of them?

There are too many variables for it to be an exact science. This is especially the case when humans are involved. Different things trigger different people. For example, I like peanut butter, but I know some people that get hooked on it and will eat a whole jar of it in one sitting, while I'm content with a serving. Add chocolate into the mix, though, and I'm a goner.

That said, there are still specific ingredients that show up in most things. It's generally some combination of salt, fat (often in the form of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, because they're cheap), and sugar (usually HFCS, because it's cheap and HFCS 90 tastes sweeter than sugar). This is largely the same combinations you'll find in "comfort food," too, though the store foods are more regimented in proportions (rather than "about a cup of this, about a teaspoon of that"). Food companies are simply leveraging the fact that humans are naturally attracted to sweet, salty, and fatty things. Combine them and you trigger a more intense reaction, prompting the consumer to favor that reaction over ones that provide a lesser reaction (it's also why people like to salt their food - it triggers a more intense reaction).

Besides, people like the illusion of choice, even when there isn't any (to compare - the auto industry is really only run by about half a dozen companies, despite the dozens of brands out there, and even The Big Three typically worked together to keep each other in business when one fell on hard times). It's good business practices to maintain that illusion of choice (for various reasons, not the least of which being brand recognition).

so, let's see if i have this correct...

- processed food is bad.
- food companies purposely make processed food addictive.
- you eat "primal".

here's my conclusion...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/c/confirmation_bias.htm

Yes, I eat "primal." I do so for my own health reasons, since I've found it's worked best at clearing up my skin and helping me to lose weight (and yes, I understand the calories in vs calories out thing; the primal eating framework has made it easier for me to eat within my daily calorie allotment without feeling deprived or starved). How I eat has little bearing on what I've said here.

I'd love to see a little research that states otherwise the things I've said here, as opposed to just ad hominem attacks, which is primarily what I've received. Even searching "food addiction doesn't exist" didn't really turn up anything at all (most went to fuzzy-matched sex addiction and other not-really-related stuff), so I welcome any studies that you've found that says otherwise.

Why wouldn't a company want to tweak the sugar, salt, and fat content of its food to maximize the number of people that buy it? Like I said, it's good business sense.

You'll also see that I don't blame the foods for people continuing to eat them. The responsibility still lies with the person consuming a given item to alter their habit. That doesn't mean the item doesn't have addictive qualities to it. Again, anything that triggers a dopamine response has the potential to be addicting. How the person reacts to the item's trigger determines whether or not the person will actually get addicted.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22647300
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/aug/20/food-addiction-exist-fat-sugar

"Food addiction" is not found in any diagnostic criteria for issues with food. Binge Eating Disorder was recently added to the DSM-V, however food addiction (or sugar addiction) is not recognized as a diagnosis because additional research needs to be completed before criteria could be formulated for future diagnostic purposes.

Therefore, it's not much of a stretch, let alone tinfoil hat territory, to think that a company like Nestle, Nabisco, or Frito-Lay would look at the fact that Phillip Morris toys with their ingredients in order to get more people to buy their product and get the people who are buying to buy more/more often, and start experimenting with their own, based on the fact that humans have evolved to go after things that taste sweet, salty, and fatty. Get some combination of all three that makes it very hard to resist, because it triggers a dopamine response far beyond what can be found in nature (where sweet, salty, and fatty are rarely found together in a single food item), and you can increase revenue. Like I said, business 101. It's not tinfoil hat, it's smart business.

If this were true then a specific combination of ingredients/proportions would appear over and over and over in foods. Does that happen? Nope.

So why would a food manufacturer go to the trouble and expense of researching to discover a different combination individually for each of its products, even though the optimal one is going to be the same for all of them?

There are too many variables for it to be an exact science. This is especially the case when humans are involved. Different things trigger different people. For example, I like peanut butter, but I know some people that get hooked on it and will eat a whole jar of it in one sitting, while I'm content with a serving. Add chocolate into the mix, though, and I'm a goner.

That said, there are still specific ingredients that show up in most things. It's generally some combination of salt, fat (often in the form of partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, because they're cheap), and sugar (usually HFCS, because it's cheap and HFCS 90 tastes sweeter than sugar). This is largely the same combinations you'll find in "comfort food," too, though the store foods are more regimented in proportions (rather than "about a cup of this, about a teaspoon of that"). Food companies are simply leveraging the fact that humans are naturally attracted to sweet, salty, and fatty things. Combine them and you trigger a more intense reaction, prompting the consumer to favor that reaction over ones that provide a lesser reaction (it's also why people like to salt their food - it triggers a more intense reaction).

Besides, people like the illusion of choice, even when there isn't any (to compare - the auto industry is really only run by about half a dozen companies, despite the dozens of brands out there, and even The Big Three typically worked together to keep each other in business when one fell on hard times). It's good business practices to maintain that illusion of choice (for various reasons, not the least of which being brand recognition).

You hit on the point but completely glossed over it. The important part is that the ingredients they use:
1- are cheaper
2- taste better

Nowhere in that equation is there any evidence of engineering anything to be "addictive" or control the behavior of consumers.

Any business that uses "equivalent but more expensive" ingredients, or ones that don't taste as good isn't going to survive competition. This hardly constitutes a mind-control conspiracy.

here's the thing - ingesting heroin all day is bad for your body. Ingesting carbs is not.

By your definition, the affects of taking anything out of your system is 'withdrawl' Dehydrated ? Nah, you're just going through "water withdrawl". Diabetic coma? "Insulin withdrawl".

The only reason you want to classify it as withdrawl is because you are hell-bent on classifying carbs/sugar as 'bad'. But I do not expect you to see the point.

Where in this thread did I ever blanket classify carbs/sugar as "bad"?

I didn't, because I don't believe that. I do believe that the amount that is ingested in the standard American diet is far too much (and that is bad), and that a low carb diet can help people who are overweight and/or dealing with metabolic issues. However, manipulating one's carb levels to help them achieve a particular goal is a tool, just like any other.

That doesn't change the fact that people commonly experience symptoms that overlap with withdrawal from other substances when they drop their carb intake. It doesn't really make it "good" or "bad," it just "is."

Also, if my analogy with known addictive substances is flawed, so is yours. Just like taking heroine all day, every day is bad for you, so is being dehydrated (and technically, so is eating too much sugar, it's just that the threshold for "too much" is far higher than that of heroine). Also, a diabetic coma is caused by both too much glucose in the blood (in this case, sugar is actually very bad), or too little glucose in the blood (in this case, sugar is very good), not by the amount of insulin in the blood, and while the symptoms do share some similarities to withdrawal (most notably, shaking, when blood sugar gets too low), the cause of the symptoms is not the body adjusting to the removal of a substance, but rather the deficiency or overabundance of one that is required at a certain level (ie - not too high, not too low). Additionally, water is an essential "nutrient," carbs are not (the body can manufacture glucose from fat and protein when it needs to).

"Food addiction" is not found in any diagnostic criteria for issues with food. Binge Eating Disorder was recently added to the DSM-V, however food addiction (or sugar addiction) is not recognized as a diagnosis because additional research needs to be completed before criteria could be formulated for future diagnostic purposes.

Ah, so it has to be in the DSM-V for it to exist. Got it. If I ever get a time machine, I'll be sure to tell that to Robert Gallo.

yup, missed the point completely.

Enlighten me, then.

You are not 'addicted' to something just because removing it from your body makes you feel like *kitten*, If that's the criteria, then I am addicted to water and diabetics are addicted to insulin.

I'm so confused as to why this is an important argument.

cause it's not :blushing:
hey look! a squirrel!

You hit on the point but completely glossed over it. The important part is that the ingredients they use:
1- are cheaper
2- taste better

Nowhere in that equation is there any evidence of engineering anything to be "addictive" or control the behavior of consumers.

Any business that uses "equivalent but more expensive" ingredients, or ones that don't taste as good isn't going to survive competition. This hardly constitutes a mind-control conspiracy.

palatable: verb. pleasant to taste

A food is palatable, or "tastes good," because it stimulates the release of dopamine. Highly palatable foods stimulate larger releases. If you want to get technical, it's the dopamine that people get addicted to. The external thing is just a means by which to get that high.

Everything a business does is for the purpose of controlling the behavior of consumers, but it's not "mind control," it's influence. That's the whole point of marketing, and that's also the point of making foods that are highly palatable - they influence you to buy more. Does it work for everything on everyone? No. Do people still have free will? Yes. Does it work some of the time? Yes, and the company's goal is to make it work more. Is it "evil"? Meh, not really. Again, it is what it is, and what it is is a good way to increase revenue.

it amuses me that you think businesses are these nefarious entities engaged in all sorts of secretive and dastardly enterprises...

...the businesses in my world simply try to bring better products to the market, cheaper and faster than their competitors, in order to meet customer demand. perhaps they are doing it wrong.

"Food addiction" is not found in any diagnostic criteria for issues with food. Binge Eating Disorder was recently added to the DSM-V, however food addiction (or sugar addiction) is not recognized as a diagnosis because additional research needs to be completed before criteria could be formulated for future diagnostic purposes.

Ah, so it has to be in the DSM-V for it to exist. Got it. If I ever get a time machine, I'll be sure to tell that to Robert Gallo.

While I was already aware of food addiction not being included in the DSM-V, the study that you posted up thread recommended that food addiction not be included in the DSM-V because "there is not sufficient (i.e., reliable and valid) data on its diagnostic criteria, we would not recommend adding "food addiction" as a diagnostic entity in DSM-V." There are too many variables. In order for people to receive any type of treatment for specific disorders it must be included in diagnostic manuals. (In the U.S., behavioral health uses the DSM-V and medical health uses the ICD)

What I understood from that paper is that "behavioral addiction" is not an officially recognized category of disease. Pathological gambling is the only behavior disorder to be categorized in the new category "Addiction and Related Disorders".

"The DSM-V Substance Use Disorders Workgroup [8] has recently proposed that the diagnosis of Pathological (Disordered) Gambling (table 6) be reclassified from Impulse-Control Disorders Not Elsewhere Classified’ to the novel category Addiction and Related Disorders [13]. Pathological (Disordered) Gambling was judged as having commonalities in clinical expression, etiology (including genetics), comorbidity, physiology, and treatment with Substance Use Disorders, thus warranting this reclassification [e.g. [14,15]. This proposal indicates a crucial turning point in the official psychiatric conceptualization of this disorder, which is additionally accompanied by the renaming of the diagnostic category. Currently, pathological gambling is to be the only behavioral addictive disorder within the novel DSM V diagnostic category ‘Addiction and Related Disorders’. However, this re-classification will undoubtedly boost research and discussions as to the delineation of additional behavioral addictions within this diagnostic category."

The study was based off of the proposed changes to the DSM-V and Gambling Disorder is classified under Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders. While there is no "behavioral addiction" section, many behaviors can be classified in other sections as appropriate.

I'm so confused...

Is or is not sugar da debil?

Please answer soon as it's almost time for dinner.

There's a difference between a teaspoon of honey (5g of sugar if we're nit-picking) and the sacred oreo (6g of sugar per cookie if we're nitpicking.)

For one, I can't put oreos in my tea.

Also, oreos don't help my seasonal allergies.

Since we're nitpicking here, neither does the honey.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11868925

http://www.webmd.com/allergies/features/does-honey-help-prevent-allergies

Interesting article even though it took the author a long while to GET TO THE POINT. Nice to know I can still have my cupcake in moderation of course, within my daily calorie limit. Also nice to know that sugar isn't some sort of "evil addiction" - I guess it is my mind and my taste buds that are addicted to sugar (sorry, no time to read the whole article right now, just skimmed through it). Thank you, what you have posted is helpful.