Scapegoat of this decade: Sugar.

Ed, so do you believe that it is a coincidence that the incidence of obesity started to rise so drastically with the advent of high fructose corn syrup in the U.S.? Do you think that we as a whole nation all the sudden decided to eat so much more and become diabetic from one day to the next?
Something drastically changed and one of the things that changed significantly is what we add to our food.
Look at the food labels.
And yes, I can imagine that there are many people that do polish away several soft drinks a day. And a lot of them are children. And if you pay attention you will notice how the food industry will market their sugar laden drinks (sports drinks , soda) and junk ( so called healthy cereal) to children. So I do not think that 6-7 non diet soft drinks or juices is that unrealistic for some. {In children, less would do the damage as they weigh less). You also have to consider that soft drinks are not the only things that contain HFCS . There are many other processed foods that do. And especially children that grow up in poor families do not necessarily have access to the best nutrition. Like I said, we are responsible for what we eat, but we as a society are also responsible to create an environment where people that may not have that much money should have access to decent food. And with the current policies we really belittle the real problem of obesity. The food industry really shirks its responsibility and lets society pay for the damage they cause by producing cheap and unhealthy food in order to keep their profit margin big (soda has a 90 % profit margin , fruits and vegetables 10% - the fruit and vegetable farmers get NO subsidies - imagine that). We as a society and individuals pay for this damage done by cheap inadequate nutrition by paying for increasing insurance premiums and sky rocketing medical costs. The food industry lobbies in Washington and makes sure that those who really advocate healthy nutrition get silenced while we as a nation get sicker and fatter every day. Our politicians and the USDA do not have enough backbone to do what would be in the public's best interest and subsidize what would be actually good for our health as a nation. Instead they subsidize what fills the deep pockets of some giants in the food industry that do not care what damage their products create. Along the way we damage not only the next generation, our biggest asset we have as a nation, but also our economy as we lose productivity, have rising healthcare costs and as employers contemplate moving jobs abroad because of rising health care premiums. We are way too short sighted when it comes to this issue.
I grew up in Europe, and I know that some of the additives that we are putting in our foods are not even allowed to be marketed there. We now have children that have type II diabetes, a thing that was not heard of a few years ago and many physicians fear that they will be the first generation with a shorter life span than their parents' generation. This is a huge problem and I do believe that HFCS is one of the culprits and needs to be addressed.

Just want to say I agree with all of this. You're the only person in here making sense, everyone else is blinded by the negativity that clinging to their precious added sugar causes. They can't imagine life without it, so they tear down those who knows the truth about how harmful it is.

You're very pretty, but you are wrong in this case.

I'll have to respectfully disagree.

Maybe you should try giving up sugar. You'll find that you'll feel better within a week, once your body purges itself of those toxins.

I'm sorry, I know that you are new, but I agree that you are totally wrong here.

However, you are very pretty :flowerforyou:

I'm pretty because I subcribe to a whole food diet that is low in added sugar. My hair is better than ever, my skin glows, my body feels amazing. Anyone could have these results if they were just willing to let go of their addiction to sweets and junk.

Correlation =\= causation

Honest question, and lets throw out type 1 diabetes from this. Do people who maintain healthy weights/body composition regularly develop insulin sensitvity/diabetes?

Man...this girls on a roll today ^^^^^

How do we trust someone with no face? It's always the faceless ones fighting the war against sugar.

And they often also have not made any progress in years, yet they hold the magic answer.

Really, straw man arguments guys? You don't like what someone's saying so you're going to attack them personally?

Just to clarify, my choosing to no longer log food or monitor my progress with MFP doesn't mean I've made no progress in years.

Also, never said I had the magic answer. It's hardly a revolutionary idea to think that sugar is unhealthy - it's pretty much basic conventional wisdom at this point.

You don't do yourselves any favours by attacking posters rather than actually involving yourselves in the real discussion.

What real discussion? Claiming that "conventional wisdom" agrees with you proves that sugar is 'unhealthy' is a real discussion?

Your whole "it's either healthy or unhealthy" mentality is a big bucket of fail known as false dichotomy.

also it's not conventional wisdom it's just a recent trend in the past decade or so. awhile back we thought whole eggs were bad remember?

Saying sugar's unhealthy isn't just my opinion; it's backed up by numerous studies.

I don't remember ANYONE arguing moderate amounts of sugar was unhealthy, by the way.

Right. So it's healthy in some quantities, and not healthy in excessive quantities.

Just like every other food.

Got it, thanks.

Question: Since this is supposed to be about moderation.... how much is moderate?

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter/HealthyDietGoals/Sugars-and-Carbohydrates_UCM_303296_Article.jsp

AHA is saying keep it to 100-150 calories of sugar a day, which comes out to like 25-38g a day.

So how much sugar is everyone eating?!

What counts as 'moderation?' Is it the 25g a day, which is apparently the recommendation of big American health institutes?

Checking out a few things and seeing that 1 pop tart gives you 17g, a banana gives you 14g, a regular-sized Snickers gets you 27g and a flavored Chobani greek yogurt will run you 19g.

Interesting to note.

I'd estimate my own sugar intake right around that 25-30g range per day, including fruit sugars.

Question: Since this is supposed to be about moderation.... how much is moderate?

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/NutritionCenter/HealthyDietGoals/Sugars-and-Carbohydrates_UCM_303296_Article.jsp

AHA is saying keep it to 100-150 calories of sugar a day, which comes out to like 25-38g a day.

So how much sugar is everyone eating?!

That's almost as relevant as this one:

I'm not sure I'm convinced that your graph of organic food sales' correlation to autism is relevant to the discussion of sugar consumption. I am, however, pretty convinced that a graph of US sugar consumption over time is relevant to the discussion.

And now I am convinced that you cannot tell the difference between correlation and causation :flowerforyou:

Propaganda, really? Is that what we call personal opinions based on scientific studies. Also, yes, they're blog posts, but did you notice the part where I specifically stated that there are usually links directly within the blog to the science it's based on? Are textbooks now propaganda simply because they are a bringing together of information in one easy to access place? At least read things before you start making unintelligent criticism.

In late, but yes - that's almost exactly what we call the bolded.

CONCLUSION:

There is no support from the human literature for the hypothesis that sucrose may be physically addictive or that addiction to sugar plays a role in eating disorders.