Sugar Blues

[catherine]

My coffee--with canned coconut milk--is gagworthy. When it's over, I will knock somebody down to get to a cup of sweetened coffee with cream.

I gave up sugar for Lent one year. I actually love Lent for the 40 days of discipline it offers.. I always use it in almost a secular way to challenge myself in one way or another. So, I gave up sugar (and sugar substitutes) completely. The ONLY permanent outcome of that exercise was that I never, ever, could to back to putting sugar in coffee, and that definitely means no sugar, no Equal, no Stevia, no sweetener. After 40 days, sugar in coffee became gagworthy.

But don't ask me to give up my half-and-half!

[JaneV2.0]

Ha--Catherine, from your lips to God's ears! I only like tricked-out coffee. Maybe I'll use one drop of liquid Sucralose instead of three, but I think I'd rather take a caffeine pill than drink this stuff unsweetened.

[CathyA]

I've noticed that since I've been drinking coffee (with some caffeine....maybe 1/3), my appetite for sugar goes up. I think if I could quit caffeine, then sugar would be easier to quit. Dang..........guess I have 2 addictions!

[Rosemary]

now, we have the same wiring, but sweets/fats/salt are everywhere in unlimited amounts.

Yes -- and I think this is what is really at the root of the rise in obesity. The hyperavailability of cheap calories - all day long, every day - that reward our brains. These cheap calories are added to what might otherwise be healthy foods - e.g. canned beans, tomato sauce, etc - because of both of those reasons - they are cheap, and they make people crave more.

I have had to cut most sugar out of my diet - although it still calls to me in its various incredibly palatable forms, too much of it truly makes me feel ill. So although I haven't eliminated it completely, I choose carefully how I want to allot my limited sugar capacity.

Also, I think the Indian tradition of serving meals that contain all the tastes really helps with sugar cravings. Having a little sweetness in or beside dinner makes me feel like the meal is complete, and not desire any dessert.

[JaneV2.0]

Cheap calories from sugar and other carbohydrates and "grazing" have certainly done us no favors, and one leads to the other. It takes diligence to eliminate it all. There's sugar in salt, for example.

[JaneV2.0]

I just watched Brain Change on PBS--Dr. David Perlmutter, author of Grain Brain. His focus is on avoiding dementia and other brain-related conditions using diet. He advises avoiding sugar, among other things. It's worth watching.

[Spartana]

The "sugar" you often find in most processed foods and sodas is often in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It is extremely prevalent in all kinds of foods you'd never even think of as sweetened (breads, chips, etc...). Seems that because HFCS either can't be processed by the liver (or is processed in a different way) than table sugar (which is made up of equal parts glucose and fructose - and the fructose is at lower levels than in HFCS) it can lead to a disease called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). That disease acts just like the alcoholic version of fatty liver disease (the kind you get from drinking too much alcohol). Both can lead to scaring of the liver (and fat fills in the damaged areas and covers the liver), liver cirrhosis, liver cancer, and eventually liver shutdown and death without a transplant. Apparently it is the number one disease in America and something like 30% of Americans have NAFLD. It's also the number one reason for liver transplants. So now I check the labels on everything (and I mean everything) I eat so that I can limit my intake of HFCS (I already have a damaged liver from what is probably an autoimmune disease). So the sugar you are eating and drinking may actually not be table sugar but something much much worse. This is also true for fructose (the sugar found naturally in fruit). But people generally can't eat the same amount of fructose found in the lower levels in fruit as they can in things sweetened with HFCS so unless you drink a lot of fruit juice (which is also often sweetened with HFCS) then it's OK on the liver for most people. I have reduced my fruit levels a lot recently in any case but still eat a fair amount of it.

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/WBL02191...our-Liver.html.

[Rosemary]

My understanding is that there is not a lot of difference chemically between HFCS and sucrose (table sugar). Both are close to 50% each glucose and fructose. There is another, much higher-fructose, type of corn syrup that is not as common in food products.

I am not saying that HFCS is good - it is a very highly-processed product. I am just saying it's probably not a lot worse than table sugar. People consume too much of both, and since many Americans eat a lot of processed foods and HFCS is cheaper for manufacturers, they get a lot of HFCS. Both have a strong impact on blood sugar and thus cause the body to release insulin, store excess as glycogen, etc. Diabetes is also very common in countries that consume most of their sugar in the form of sucrose.

[Spartana]

My understanding is that there is not a lot of difference chemically between HFCS and sucrose (table sugar). Both are close to 50% each glucose and fructose. There is another, much higher-fructose, type of corn syrup that is not as common in food products.

I am not saying that HFCS is good - it is a very highly-processed product. I am just saying it's probably not a lot worse than table sugar. People consume too much of both, and since many Americans eat a lot of processed foods and HFCS is cheaper for manufacturers, they get a lot of HFCS. Both have a strong impact on blood sugar and thus cause the body to release insulin, store excess as glycogen, etc. Diabetes is also very common in countries that consume most of their sugar in the form of sucrose.

You may be right as I've only recently heard about the potential health issues and difference between HFCS, regular corn syrup, and table sugar. My basic understanding is that HFCS is a blend of corn syrups that have certain enzymes added to them that converts some of their glucose to fructose - thus making it not only higher in fructose than table sugar, and with a higher percent of fructose to glucose (55%/42% with the rest being water and some by products), and about 10 times sweeter. I also read that those enzymes cause some kind of carbolic chemical reaction in the body that regular doesn't, making it so that your body doesn't feel like it is getting enough sugar, thus causing you to want more. Again, that's just what I've read. Just finished a whole about it - as well as other types of sugars - but can't remember the name rigth now. Here's a study at Princeton - http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/a.../S26/91/22K07/

Personally this is why I think it's a problem - because it is now in everything!! from Wikipedia:

Prior to the development of the worldwide sugar industry, dietary fructose was limited to only a few items. Milk, meats, and most vegetables, the staples of many early diets, have no fructose, and only 5–10% fructose by weight is found in fruits such as grapes, apples, and blueberries. Molasses and common dried fruits have a content of less than 10% fructose sugar. From 1970 to 2000 there was a 25% increase in "added sugars

[Rosemary]

Interesting study, Sparkana. That one certainly did find a difference under similar circumstances, with the sugar even being dissolved in solution to make it into a syrup of its own. I suspect that any enzymes in the HFCS would be denatured in foods that require baking or other heat treatment, but that probably doesn't include sodas, which must deliver the vast majority of HFCS to Americans.

Here are some more studies:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17234503 ("These short-term results suggest that, when fructose is consumed in the form of HFCS, the measured metabolic responses do not differ from Suc[rose] in lean women")
http://advances.nutrition.org/content/4/2/236.long (Notes that the HFCS used in baked goods is 58% fructose; This is a detailed review article and summarizes findings to date, noting that more study is needed and no direct links have been proven.)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3491004/ ("Similar decreases in weight and indices of adiposity are observed when overweight or obese individuals are fed hypocaloric diets containing levels of sucrose or high fructose corn syrup typically consumed by adults in the United States.")

...there are many more... with results all over the place. Obviously, it is a complex issue and it is difficult to design a study that can examine all possible variables, particularly when you consider how obvious it is that genes play a role in our response to diet and likelihood of developing insulin resistance, leading to further weight gain.

...but I think avoiding both table sugar and HFCS is a safe approach!
The data I've seen that plots either the consumption of sodas or total calorie intake along with obesity over the years between about 1975-present shows a really consistent correlation.