View Full Version : 60 minutes show on sugar
Did any of you happen to catch last night's (Apr. 1) show on sugar? I was doing a few chores at the same time, but I caught the gist. The doctor, who seems to have some decent support from the medical field, claimed that sugar was not just the cause of obesity and type 2 diabetes, but also causes cholesterol problems, heart disease, certain types of cancer, and stroke. It went WAY beyond any sugar warnings that I've seen in mainstream news. He was proposing that products with high amounts of processed or raw sugar are toxic, addictive, and should have warning labels just like alcohol and tobacco.
I maintain a decent weight and get routine exercise, but also have a sweet tooth. Not soft drinks, but cookies, candy bars and such. The program was rather sobering.
I had to re-watch it to see what I missed. If you are interested and can deal with a few short commercials, the episode is here: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7403942n&tag=contentMain;contentAux
Thank you, Rogar. Watching now.
Yes, I did see it. The evolutionary history of why we crave sweet stuff really makes sense to me. I do like a lot of sweet things, but have really curbed my sweet tooth. For instance, I used to love ice cream but now if I have a craving I use a melon baller to scoop out one scoop.
I have long ago given up on sweetened drinks of any kind and only drink water, or carbonated water with lemon. Like any obnoxious convert, I can't get over how so many people just can't seem to get by without this crappy sugar water that didn't even exist a few decades ago.
Jack LaLanne used to say "If man made it, don't eat it," and I think that that's a pretty simple rule to follow, if not particularly easy.
Back in the mid 90's, I followed a low fat diet to try and reduce my cholesterol. Everyone was jumping on the low fat bandwagon at the time, so it was easy to find low fat foods then (and I didn't yet have my aversion to processed foods). It wasn't until later that I realized that sugar was being used to fill the void of fat. My cholesterol did not go down at all (and I think it might have gone up slightly) even though I was eating a low fat diet, and almost no dairy, butter or fatty meats. Now I know why.
I saw it and even checked out the you tube mentioned: Bitter Truth. It is long so I will have to watch in segments as I can. Luckily, I don't have a sweet tooth at all.
When one food item is made out to be The Devil, I immediately set aside the information as probably tainted with prejudice.
Of COURSE we shouldn't nurse sodas all day like tiny babies sucking on a teat. For god's sake, that's just common sense. Same for the endless list of processed foods that most Americans eat.
Iris, I'm with you. We're far to complex a biological being for one food to be either the devil or silver bullet. That said, highly processed foods like alcohol are clearly bad in quantity.
I tend to believe that various conbos of food are either healthy or not... Since in my life, at least, refined sugar tends to also come with fat, it's the double whammy that does me in. I have a huge sweets addiction, ice cream being my favorite drug, er, treat.
ApatheticNoMore
4-2-12, 11:38pm
When one food item is made out to be The Devil, I immediately set aside the information as probably tainted with prejudice.
+1 not that I think sugar is exactly health food but yea ...
If man made it don't eat it ..... but what about if BEES made it? :laff: (ok been enjoying some honey recently)
Tussiemussies
4-2-12, 11:48pm
I follow Dr. Mercola by email and by Facebook and he announced this show. I didn' t get to watch it but have cut out mostly all items out of my diet that have sugar and/or any form of it. I really do feel much better these days. I did cut it out because my mother recently became diabetic although it is not genetic in our family and my husband also became diabetic as well. So I am determined to stay sugar free!
We still have dark chocolate regularly in our house, though we have pretty much cut out most other things with sugar in them. I did make some muffins this weekend -- for a dozen good sized muffins I used less than 1/4 of a cup of sugar, plus mashed-up bananas and chocolate chips. I found them to be pretty much irresistable, so won't be making that again for awhile! I stopped putting sugar in my coffee a year ago. Rarely buy ice cream any more. Eat relatively few processed foods, so I think our intake has dropped substantially.
lhamo
I watched it, and had read the news on this a few months ago. Here is an older summary of Lustig's work and recommendations:
http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2009/06/8187/obesity-and-metabolic-syndrome-driven-fructose-sugar-diet
"Lustig prescribes four simple guidelines for parents coping with kids who are too heavy:
Get rid of every sugared liquid in the house. Kids should drink only water and milk.
Provide carbohydrates associated with fiber.
Wait 20 minutes before serving second portions.
Have kids buy their “screen time” minute-for-minute with physical activity.
Fructose is abundant in fruit. Fruit is fine, Lustig says, but we should think twice before drinking juice or feeding it to our kids. The fiber in whole fruit contributes to a sense of fullness. Lustig says it is rare to see a child eat more than one orange, but it is common for kids to consume much more sugar and calories as orange juice.
Eating fiber also results in less carbohydrate being absorbed in the gut, Lustig notes. In addition, he says, fiber consumption allows the brain to receive a satiety signal sooner than it would otherwise, so we stop eating sooner.
Exercise burns only a modest amount of calories, Lustig notes. But it does have other benefits. Exercise improves insulin sensitivity in skeletal muscle, lowering insulin levels in the bloodstream. Exercise reduces stress and, therefore, reduces stress-induced eating, according to Lustig. Lastly, exercise increases metabolic rate.
The directive to balance active play with computer, video and TV time is the most difficult one to comply with, Lustig says. But failure to limit sugar intake appears to be the most predictive of poor weight control in children, he adds."
The research result that sugar is a primary food for many tumors was also discussed in the book Anticancer by David Servan-Schreiber. If you look through pubmed, there are articles going back at least to 2002 that indicate an increased risk of CHD due to sugars... and if you read the articles, you can see why it is so difficult to isolate dietary factors in disease. In one i read, a "low-sugar" diet was compared to a "high-sugar diet." But the breakfast in the "low-sugar" option consisted of orange juice, wheat flakes, and dairy milk - all containing various sugars, just not sucrose (although there is probably some sucrose in the flakes, too).
More recently, this was published:
http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20120312/1-sugar-sweetened-drink-a-day-may-raise-heart-risk?page=2
"Men Who Drank 1 Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Daily Had 20% Higher Risk of Heart Disease Than Non-Drinkers... [factors include:] increased body weight, an immediate effect [of drinking sugar-sweetened beverages]. The second thing is blood lipids. It increases triglycerides and decreases HDL...The drinks also increase inflammatory indicators linked with heart disease, he says, such as C-reactive protein. That has been found, he says, not only in his study but also in several others."
I missed the special, but thanks to you Rogar, I just finished watching it. Very enjoyable. I've been slowly (but surely) reducing my sugar intake, and so glad I am. I remember having a conversation with someone (a few years back) related to sugar, and her words to me were, "sugar is a killer". I never thought much of it at the time, but it's pretty hard looking past all the evidence and findings that are starting to surface, and at such an alarming rate.
If man made it don't eat it ..... but what about if BEES made it? :laff: (ok been enjoying some honey recently)
If I remember correctly, the guy said there really isn't any difference between HFCS and other simple sugars, which I assume includes not only cane sugar but honey and syrups like maple syrup ( which I LOVE on oatmeal). Looking back to the fatty cheese burger discoveries in the 70's to present day, it seems like it has been a pretty wild ride finding the best diet. Between the 60 minutes show and everything else out there, I'm pretty convinced that sugar isn't just the next trendy "devil" food out there, but a real health issue. I almost wonder if the next shoe to drop will be highly processed carbs like white flour.
Michael Pollan's guidelines make sense to me...
Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. "When you pick up that box of portable yogurt tubes, or eat something with 15 ingredients you can't pronounce, ask yourself, "What are those things doing there?" Pollan says.
Don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can't pronounce.
Stay out of the middle of the supermarket; shop on the perimeter of the store. Real food tends to be on the outer edge of the store near the loading docks, where it can be replaced with fresh foods when it goes bad.
Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot. "There are exceptions -- honey -- but as a rule, things like Twinkies that never go bad aren't food," Pollan says.
It is not just what you eat but how you eat. "Always leave the table a little hungry," Pollan says. "Many cultures have rules that you stop eating before you are full. In Japan, they say eat until you are four-fifths full. Islamic culture has a similar rule, and in German culture they say, 'Tie off the sack before it's full.'"
Families traditionally ate together, around a table and not a TV, at regular meal times. It's a good tradition. Enjoy meals with the people you love. "Remember when eating between meals felt wrong?" Pollan asks.
Don't buy food where you buy your gasoline. In the U.S., 20% of food is eaten in the car.
The funny thing is I recall my grandparents eating tons of sugar in the baked good they routinely made - pies, cakes, preserves, etc. yet they all died in their 80s and 90s. It was considered normal to have some sort of dessert with supper and I don't think diabetes was a very common disease back then.
People used to work their butts off! Not like me who spends waaaay too much time on the computer and watching tv. Day to day life I think was more arduous. Does anyone else agree??
The funny thing is I recall my grandparents eating tons of sugar in the baked good they routinely made - pies, cakes, preserves, etc. yet they all died in their 80s and 90s. It was considered normal to have some sort of dessert with supper and I don't think diabetes was a very common disease back then.
That's exactly what I think. Our great grandmothers would most certainly recognize sugar.
I don't know that they ate "tons" of it though, since it was a precious commodity. Certainly they were not sedentary. Their intake of fat was high, too--but their lifestyle wore it off of them.
Sugar is not The Devil. The thing about little kids sipping fruit juices 16 hours a day has been out there for years, everyone should know by now that's wrong.
Well, I was curious and looked it up. In 1915, about the time my grand parents were young folks, the national average sugar consumption per person was 15 or 20 pounds. They did indeed live into their eighties. In 1967 it was about 100 pounds per person. In 2003 it was close to 150 pounds per person. I think the 60 minutes and other studies use controlled test methods and modern medical analytic techniques and focus not only on soft drink mania as other forms of sugar consumption. They do say that within limits it isn't a problem. Though soft drinks are an obvious big culprit. HFCS has become so cheap it is in a lot of things you wouldn't expect, like bread and peanut butter
Though soft drinks are an obvious big culprit. HFCS has become so cheap it is in a lot of things you wouldn't expect, like bread and peanut butter
I gave up HFCS for Lent a couple of years ago and I literally had to learn how to cook. Now it's a little better, but at that time, there was literally nothing in the supermarket, aside from fresh produce and meat and fish, that didn't have HFCS in it. I had to hunt down bread from a local farm market because not one loaf of bread in the supermarket was HCFS-free. I had to make all my own "convenience" dishes like stuffing. I could not believe how ubiquitous it was.
I think the problems is multifold: sugar is in everything (look at tomato sauce, for instance!); people are eating more often and in larger quantity, and often when they're probably not hungry because its there sweet treats are no longer just treats but a matter of course. I recently saw somewhere a comparison of sugar levels in about 6 different prepared foods such as bread and cereal, from when they we;re introduced to today, and they had all increased. I myself find the sugar+fat combination to be very addictive, and I feel much better when I don't eat sugar.
I noticed a behavioral impact of sugar in my DD at a fairly young age, maybe 2 or 3. I know studies go both ways on this --- but I think it's because of the high level of sugar in the everyday diet of most kids. I think that if the background were reduced, the effect would be much more obvious -- and I wonder how many kids are receiving medications to control behavior when they just need to eat some real food for breakfast or lunch.
Mighty Frugal
4-4-12, 12:39pm
You all have inspired me. Typically I put a juice box for both my boys snacks/lunch at school. It's 100% fruit juice and very convenient. But I will switch that to water in reusable water bottles.
My kids rarely get pop-perhaps once a month or less. but they are both candy addicts! We have a bowl of gummy this and gummy that in our cupboard and they ask for a treat almost daily. I am very bad at giving in to their pleas because I grew up very poor and only had treats after Halloween.
But I am now only going to let them have one treat a week. This week I gave them one on Monday and told them nothing more because they will get tons of treats on Easter...
After Easter I am throwing out those treats in the cupboard
I found bread-I think its a Kosher egg bread (?) that only has 4 ingredients and I don't believe sugar is one of them. Will check tonight
This scares me as I am a big time sugar addict. Just love sweet!!! I gave up chocolate for Lent and have every intention of getting myself into a chocolate coma come Easter Sunday. But perhaps after that I will try to rein in my sugar consumption as well...sigh....
I haven't watched this yet, but I plan to!
Consuming too much sugar has so many detrimental affects on our health that it would seem reasonable to assume that only eating a little of it/in moderation is common sense! BUT, since it is rife in products it really doesn't belong in (why is American pre-packaged sliced bread so sweet? And why are so many cereals marketed as being 'healthy' laden with sugar?); in cheap products that cash-strapped people might go for and in so many convenience foods that we eat regularly, it's maybe not so easy to avoid if you're not particularly health-conscious or an avid food-label-scrutinizer.
I LOVE sweets and have a little something sugary every day. But since I don't want to rot my teeth or weaken my immune system, I try to limit my consumption.
My great-aunt, whom I adored, was just a paragon of cheer and moderation and good living. I spent my summers with her in this idyllic cottage on the CT shore. We ate very regularly, routinely, and very well, albeit simply. She had a Russell Stover's box of chocolates in the drawer in her living room table, and every evening, she'd ask me to get her her "little black pill." She's have ONE chocolate--every night. She died at 92. She lived on her own until the very end; her only daily medication was an aspirin; she dressed well, looked great, and stayed engaged in life.
Moral of the story: Take one Russell Stover chocolate QD (once a day) for a long life and good health.
Mighty Frugal
4-4-12, 4:19pm
My great-aunt, whom I adored, was just a paragon of cheer and moderation and good living. I spent my summers with her in this idyllic cottage on the CT shore. We ate very regularly, routinely, and very well, albeit simply. She had a Russell Stover's box of chocolates in the drawer in her living room table, and every evening, she'd ask me to get her her "little black pill." She's have ONE chocolate--every night. She died at 92. She lived on her own until the very end; her only daily medication was an aspirin; she dressed well, looked great, and stayed engaged in life.
Moral of the story: Take one Russell Stover chocolate QD (once a day) for a long life and good health.
:) Totally going to follow this advice! Your story was so sweet and tranquil. I'll bet those summers will forever be in your memory. Thanks for sharing
If I remember correctly, the guy said there really isn't any difference between HFCS and other simple sugars, which I assume includes not only cane sugar but honey and syrups like maple syrup ( which I LOVE on oatmeal).
Honey isn't a simple sugar. Here's a quote from one of my favorite books on herbalism, Herbal Antibiotics by Stephen Harrad Buhner:
"Honey, often insisted to be just another simple carbohydrate (like white sugar) actually contains, among other things, a complex assortment of enzymes, organic acids, esters, antibiotic agents, trace minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, hormones, and antimicrobial compounds. One pound of the average honey contains 1,333 calories (compared with white sugar at 1,748 calories), 1.4 grams of protein, 23 milligrams of calcium, 73 milligrams of phosphorus, and 16 milligrams of Vitamin C, and vitamin A, beta carotene, the complete complex of B vitamins, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, magnesium, sulfur, chlorine, potassium, iodine, sodium, copper, manganese, high concentrations of hydrogen peroxide, and formic acid. Honey, in fact, contains more than 75 different compounds...."
I doubt that all of that is metabolized in the same way as refined sugar or HFCS.
Honey has also proven useful for external and internal ulcers, burns and other wounds, and respiratory ailments. I've been taking three to six tablespoons of raw honey a day and my allergies are all but gone.
So there. :~)
People used to work their butts off! Not like me who spends waaaay too much time on the computer and watching tv. Day to day life I think was more arduous. Does anyone else agree??
I agree. Our sedentary lifestyle also plays a large part in the epidemic of osteoporosis in this country. Sitting at a computer all day and watching TV at night is an unhealthy way to live. Many people also choose passive activites for the weekend, such as going out to dinner and catching a movie afterward. We seem to think "leisure" translates into doing not much of anything.
Rather than quote your later post, I also agree about the "hidden" sugar in foods. In addition to the bread and cereals you mentioned, there's a rather large amount in regular peanut butter, most yogurt, and many prepared foods. I've even gotten supposedly healthy gluten-free bread that was too sweet because a lot of fruit juice was used in the recipe. These foods sell, so there's nothing to deter food companies from continuing to load ordinary food with sugars.
Honey's fine as long as it is honey! Sadly, there are unscrupulous beekeepers who feed their bees on bee candy, and not just in the winter because they've taken all the honey. Bee candy is mostly HFCS, so the "honey" produced from this is not the nutrient-dense version made when bees are feeding on flower nectar. Then there's processing, where the honey is heated to high temperatures and often has water added before being strained and poured into jars. Honey from China is often tainted with lead and antibiotics, and then there's plain old counterfeit honey; around 1/3 of the honey eaten in the USA is Chinese in origin, although it's often routed through other countries. Chinese honey is banned in Europe. http://grist.org/food-safety/2011-08-18-honey-laundering-tainted-counterfeit-from-china-in-us/
Another thing: bee candy/syrup, which may be tainted with pesticide, is now suspected of being a cause of bee colony collapse. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/04/06/common-pesticide-implicated-bee-colony-collapse-disorder/
It's better to buy honey in the comb from a local beekeeper who's not feeding bee candy.
Honey isn't a simple sugar. Here's a quote from one of my favorite books on herbalism, Herbal Antibiotics by Stephen Harrad Buhner:
"Honey, often insisted to be just another simple carbohydrate....
So there. :~)
I won't belabor the issue, but since I looked it up...the dried weight of honey is 96% simple sugars. I guess I will leave it up to someone else to decide if it is metabolized differently or has health benefits that outweigh the risk, but it's mostly glucose and other simple sugars witht small amounts of other ingredients.
ApatheticNoMore
4-10-12, 11:32am
With honey, unless you are eating it in baked goods or something, there is also the fact that you are unlikely to eat very much of it at a time. It's too intense really.
I have been taking too much sugar since quite a long time in the shape of soft drinks but I exercise and I am trying to keep myself in shape.I shall watch the 60 minutes show.I think I must do itrrrrr.Thanks for sharing.
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