Pure White and Deadly - The Sugar conspiracy (or why the world's obese) ...

[subaqua]

Richard Carmona, ex-Surgeon General of the United States says different “Because of the increasing rates of obesity, unhealthy eating habits and physical inactivity, we may see the first generation that will be less healthy and have a shorter life expectancy than their parents."

which might not be a bad thing. as harsh as it sounds. survival of the fittest rather than the fattest.

my wife sdoesn't understand the sugar thing , low fat , low fat low fat is what she was indoctrinated with. me i try to limit mine and the kids sugar intake.

I started to write the sugar percentage on things- "healthy cereal" that has 15% sugar FFS . that really wound her up

 

[Julia9054]

Wish I knew how to give up sugar. Bloody love the stuff!

 

[phil_hg_uk]

Wish I knew how to give up sugar. Bloody love the stuff!

Yes so did I. The first couple of weeks are the worst but it is a lot like giving up smoking, I still get the odd craving for a fag but I know that if I had one it would taste disgusting and make me stink so I dont do it and I dont want to have to go through all the withdrawals again.

 

[srw]

Richard Carmona, ex-Surgeon General of the United States says different “Because of the increasing rates of obesity, unhealthy eating habits and physical inactivity, we may see the first generation that will be less healthy and have a shorter life expectancy than their parents."

I hope that my (fairly) subtle highlighting helps to point out where you've gone wrong, and why you're not actually disagreeing with me.

 

[phil_hg_uk]

[QUOTE 4230317, member: 259"]Seriously? you have had withdrawal symptoms from sugar?[/QUOTE]

Yes seriously if you suddenly cut it out of your diet you can get withdrawal symptoms.

 

[phil_hg_uk]

[QUOTE 4230347, member: 259"]But you have sugar in fruit, veg ,and meat. Is it really possible to get ill if you stop eating it? (Serious question)[/QUOTE]

Yes it is, the more you eat in the form of sweets, sugary drink etc the more you want and when you are used to a high level and then stop you can get all sorts of symptoms like headaches, tiredness, trouble concentrating etc that can last for a couple of weeks. I was as surprised as you are when I cut down I didnt think it would make the sort of difference it has but I had all sorts of unexpected things happen.

 

[Hill Wimp]

I decided to try to cut down on sugar in feb this year after having a high result in an annual blood sugar test at the doctors. I read a few books about it and watched a couple of documentaries & decided that a lot of the problems I felt I had were probably down to eating to much sugar.

I had already given up junk food ( mcdonalds, buger king, kfc that sort of thing ) 8 years ago and also stopped drinking soft drinks & fruit juice anyway but I was eating a lot of ready meals, sweets & cakes, so on the 1st of march I gave up eating all ready meals and sweets & cakes & went for food with a lower sugar content. I have to say at this point I do not necessarily buy the foods that are sold as low sugar I read the label & decide for myself, I also avoid all low fat versions of food as they as mostly just stuffed full of sugar to make them edible. The most useful bit of information I had found from all the reading & watching docs was how to tell how much sugar a product contained in a format I could really use, I mean its all very well saying this has 20 grams of sugar in it but I cant relate to that but if you say that had 5 teaspoons of sugar in it I find that much easier to understand.

The first thing I noticed about cutting down on sugar is how quickly you suddenly start to lose fat you can notice it on a daily basis, in actual weight I have lost 7 pounds give or take a fluctuation of 2 pounds but I can notice that I am a lot thinner in the face and I am losing my bloated stomach and have dropped about 3 inches from my waist in just over 5 weeks, I have previously tried to achieve this with exercise alone and didnt get anywhere with it I got fitter but not any thinner. The withdrawal symptoms have been quite similar to when I stopped smoking a few years ago & I get the odd cravings for sweets sometimes but not often, but the up side is I am not hungry after a meal and I dont constantly crave snacks and dont have a pudding after every meal as I dont always feel hungry enough to eat one also I can have a small breakfast then go out cycling then still not need my next meal for a few hours after that & I dont need to take snacks or gels with me on a normal say 25 mile ride as I dont get hungry.

I have not been doing as much exercise as I would normally do since I started this as I have been very busy with work but I will start back with using the treadmill and cycling more often & see where we go from here.

My advice for anyone thinking along the same lines is give up sugary drinks, including fruit juice, & dont think you are going to lose weight stuffing your body full of diet versions of those drinks either and cut right down on sugar in everything else. I was shocked when I experienced the withdrawals as I didnt think i had that much of a problem and also it is shocking when you stand in a shop and realize that almost everything in there is jammed full of sugar and you cant eat any of it. However the upsides are no craving for food/sweets, improved sense of taste and the loss of weight not to mention saving money I am spending a lot less on food now than I was.

Here are some of the books & docs I read:

Docs:

Fed up 2014 -
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y647tNm8nTI&list=FLdf6l_t-IOgr-j3Jt_AZsqw&index=4


Sugar: The Bitter Truth - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM&list=FLdf6l_t-IOgr-j3Jt_AZsqw&index=6

Books:

What Can I Eat? Sugar Free Diet - I really like this one as it is a really great guide to the sugar content of loads of foods - http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Can-Su...1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o01_

Sweet Poison - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sweet-Poiso...1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o01_

Pure, White And Deadly: How Sugar is Killing Us and What We Can Do to Stop It - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pure-White-...1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_

Fat Chance: The bitter truth about sugar - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fat-Chance-...1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o01_

David Gillespies book Sweet Poison is very good and a real eyeopener.

 

[Amanda P]

My take on all this is that if food comes in a packet with a traffic light panel on it telling you how much fat, salt, sugar etc it contains, you probably shouldn't be eating it no matter what that label indicates.

That's because it'll be to some degree processed - and that's at the root of a lot of this. Anything from a food factory will be prepared not to maximise its taste, healthiness or anything else the marketing puff might tell you. It'll be tuned to extract the maximum money from you the consumer while being put together at the absolute minimum cost to the producer. Food you prepare yourself from scratch is almost always fresher, cheaper, better-tasting and better for you. Give up eating the stuff in packets and you'll be a whole lot better off in almost all departments.

Ok, I know this is a generalisation and there are many exceptions. And yes, I eat a few things like bread and porridge oats and stuff like that out of packets with traffic light labels on. But as a general guiding principle, it seems to work. It's hard to mess much with a carrot. Or an apple. Or an egg.

 

[machew]

[QUOTE 4230347, member: 259"]But you have sugar in fruit, veg ,and meat. Is it really possible to get ill if you stop eating it? (Serious question)[/QUOTE]
There are many sugars, however the main two which are probmatic are Fructose, this has a low GI of anywhere from 15 to 19. Fructose is metabolized differently to sugar and glucose and doesn't trigger the hormones that regulate appetite and food intake – which some research suggests means that it's much more likely to be converted into body fat. Note too that it has other drawbacks, such as causing abdominal discomfort
Glucose has GI at the maximum of 100. It is the standard by which other carbs are ranked. At 100, this means that glucose is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream and stimulates a fast insulin response. Glucose powder is not as sweet as regular white sugar so is fed to invalids as they can take in more food without being put off by the excessive sweetness.
Athletes often notice glucose (under the term dextrose so you don't associate it with glucose or sugar!) marketed to them to use when they need instant energy. Like glucose jelly beans, it will quickly raise blood glucose levels and replenish blood glucose. Glucose is the simplest form of sugars and is the sugar in blood, your body's primary source of energy.

All sugars and carbs are converted by the body in to glucose. However this takes energy so the more complex the sugar or carb the lower the GI number the longer and "more expensive" in energy terms it will take to convert in to glucose

 

[Stephenite]

A large carrot weighs c.100g and, according to Wiki (etc.), contains 5% sugar. 5g of sugar is a little more than a teaspoons worth. If I eat 5 carrots a day will I get fat?

 

[classic33]

A large carrot weighs c.100g and, according to Wiki (etc.), contains 5% sugar. 5g of sugar is a little more than a teaspoons worth. If I eat 5 carrots a day will I get fat?

Depends on if you do anything to get rid of what you've eaten.

 

[Wafer]

I find healthy life expectancy a much more interesting figure than life expectancy. We may be living longer, but what state are we in? As things like work environments have gotten safer and medicines improved we aren't suffering those things as badly so yes, overall 'healthier', now it's more like style issues.

There's large inequality in the UK between the poorest and richest in terms of healthy life expectancy with poorer groups spending a larger proportion of their lives in poor health. Part of this is due to diet and over time is going great to be placing greater demand on health and social care services.

Saying sugar is the main problem seems too simplistic just as calorie counting is and I think dismissing the problems because we living longer so it can't be that bad is also short sighted.

 

[Illaveago]

I have been reading some of the comments and trying to remember times growing up through the 60's through to the 80's. We and our parents were hell of a lot more active than we are today. The number of fat or obese children at school could be counted on one hand. Yes we had fizzy drinks, sweets, crisps, perhaps not as many as kids do today, but as I say we were a lot more active. A walk to school, followed a quick game before school started, break time another game of running across, British Bulldog. Dinner time was an hour of further running about of some kind. Then home time another walk or cycle home, homework, and then cycle back to your mates for another several hours of running about.
My parents had a similar active day but without the running across. My dad would cycle to work in a factoy come home in the evening and then work on his garden or in his shed.
As my my wife has just said to me, the portion sizes we eat are bigger than what our parents ate, so combining these things it would go some way in explaining the increase.

 

[Lpoolck]

With all these sugary energy gels that the pro peloton are taking do you think that we will be seeing adverts in 40 years time from industrial disease solicitors akin to the current ones wanting anyone who has worked with asbestos or worked down a mine? I don't.

 

[Illaveago]

I was given one of those so called energy things, it was like eating wall paper paste.