7 replies to this topic

[Mark]

Ok, so I am having a bit of a disagreement with my cousin about Sugar.
she is a subscriber to the view that Sugar is the biggest evil of the modern diet.
and she (and my uncle) are encouraging me to give up all sugar in my tea.

for instance, i went down to the supermarket and bought a brand of mayonnaise which had the lowest energy per 100g on it, and apon coming home found that she relegated my mayonnaise to the general bin of 'stuff that is sh.t'.
why? because even though it had lowest energy (97% fat free marked on it) it still had added sugar content.
she was advising me to get 'whole egg' mayo, with double the energy but near zero sugar content.

I dont get it, apon what rationale is sugar bad period?

but then again, I suppose the 'Fat is evil' thing also has had its lime light.

the orthodox dietry reccomendation is 'calories in, calories out', Do i believe that is the key to dieting successfully?
there was the atkins 'low/no carb buzz' was he right or wrong?
I am starting to form the oppinion that few people have any real precise knowledge as to what is good/bad with respect to dieting.

i dont know.

there was a woman who I used to work with who used to be a coffee fiend, but apon reading some book decided that there was no way she was adding sugar to her coffee anymore.

anyway, I was wondering if there was anyone who subscribed to the 'sugar is evil' view that I am painting who would be prepared to argue that it is indeed evil.

[Goose]

I think the general idea is to eat healthy, and do active stuff. Moderation.

Eat chocolate, But only as a sometimes food.

I will argue that too much sugar is evil. It'll kill you it will.

[Steel Samurai]

. . . Sugar is arguably the healthiest sweetener you can buy, with the possible exception of honey. Diet drinks, for example, contain aspartame in lieu of sugar, which metabolizes into formaldehyde when ingested. Formaldehyde is the same chemical used to preserve fish and frogs for biology, and is a known carcinogen. High Fructose Corn Syrup, the most pervasive sweetener especially in soft drinks has been linked to increased obesity rates when consumed in large quantities as opposed to natural cane sugar.

Your sister is, if you'll excuse my saying so, an uneducated dumbass. Eat what you want. Calories in calories out is still perfectly accurate. The only caveat I would add is this: sugar is a very simple carbohydrate, meaning that its molecular structure is not all that complex and the energy in it gets released all at once. This is why you get a rush of energy from eating a candy bar. More complex carbohydrates such as potatoes, bread, and other starches will break down more slowly, giving you energy throughout the course of a few hours rather than all at once.

[Wolf O'Donnell]

The problem with sugar is that its empty calories. It's calories without feeling full, so you can consume far more calories than you initially thought. If you exercise regularly, it shouldn't be a problem.

[Selena]

*cracks knuckles* Prepare for an essay, since I've had many adventures with diet due to a medical problem that prevents me from eating like 'normal' people. I used to think the low-carb thing was nonsense until I actually tried it.


Simple sugars and carbohydrates are the worst part of the modern human diet. Not because they're sugar, but because people eat them excessively. Sugar in one form or another is consumed at every meal and every snack break. Sugar is a lot like sodium. You don't need much of either, but the Western diet allows you to eat 10+ times more than you actually require. You don't need to eat over 100 grams of carbohydrates a day (you technically don't have to eat any). Even if you have a fair amount of complex carbs in your system, a good amount of insulin is almost always pumping through your veins due to how often sugar/starchy foods are consumed. The diets of healthy traditional peoples do not have anywhere near the amount of carbohydrates or sugar that the Western diet does. Throw in pastries, treats, candies, any drink other than water or tea, and you're eating a freakish amount of this stuff. So it's no surprise that diabetes is so widespread, regardless of whether or not HFCS is out there to act as a damage amp.

Sugar exists naturally in fruits and various vegetables, and you should be eating those things. Granted, the fruit you buy at the supermarket has been crossbred to be abnormally sweet, but you take what you can get. But that's where your primary sugar source should be coming from - natural foods rather than baked goods, pastas, or other carbohydrate bombs. And you don't need to be adding sugar to anything. Tea is healthy, but only if it's taken straight. Honey is a natural sweetener, but people wouldn't have been having it traditionally on a frequent basis because omg bees.

You don't notice how sugar effects you until you go without it, then try to add it back in. You know how, when you were little, you might have eaten so much candy that you got sick to your stomach? That's what happens to me when I eat the 'regular' amount of sugar. I nearly hurled after having a small milkshake for the first time in a year, for example. Your body builds up a resistance to sugar if you eat it all the time. Same with salt - go without salt for a long time, and then typical junk foods seem unbearably salty.

Sugar isn't bad by default, but it's something worth avoiding. Concentrate on whole foods if you have the money. The reason carbs are so widespread is because they are the human equivalent of dogfood - they don't cost much, can be enriched, can be easily shoveled out to the masses to ensure they're getting enough calories, but don't exactly come with the same nutrients as traditional foods. Your dog would really like some steak, but who other than Oprah has the money for that?


However.

The best diet is one that you can maintain. If you can't live that way for the rest of your life, it's not a diet worth being on. Low-carb diets are exceptionally hard compared to other ones. Because carbs are everywhere in society. If you don't have the willpower for a low-carb diet, then you shouldn't be on it. If you need sugar, eat it. Just in moderation.




I don't know if anyone's interested in how the body reacts to different diets, but if you are, see the spoiler tag for what I went through in finding a sustainable diet after I was diagnosed with celiac disease (meaning I can't eat wheat/barley/rye or anything with flour in it, lest my immune system start attacking me like a rabid dog). It was fascinating for me, at least. You know, ignoring the occasional state of agony.

Diets mentioned in the tag would be:

- Vegetarian
- Low carb, low fat.
- All meat.
- Low carb, high fat.
- "Hunter-Gatherer" diet.

Spoiler

Vegetarian Diet: Perfectly fine, but somewhat boring.
I was essentially a vegetarian before I discovered I had celiac disease. I'll ignore the years when I was truly sick, since there's an obvious bias there! Before that time, my disease either hadn't triggered or wasn't noticeable. Typical foods were: salads, soups, bread, pasta/rice dishes, lots of fruits and veggies, the occasional bite of candy here and there. I did still eat meat every once and a while, but I'd grown to hate the taste of it. My steaks were always well done at home thanks to my mother's cooking, so they were gross, and chicken was always too bland for me.

This diet was perfectly fine and I did stay fairly trim on it. However, now that I can look back after comparing other diets, I can safely say that my energy levels were very low. I'm sure it's true that vegans and vegetarians live longer than others if they do the diet correctly, but I would equate it with a 'slow burn.' Like an oil lamp set to its dimmest setting, allowing it to stay lit longer. Low cholesterol levels, plenty of vitamins, but low energy compared to later diets.


Low carb, low fat: OMG do NOT this.
When I first figured out I had celiac disease (which would be a hives outbreak and sickness following the consumption of bread after a week of abstaining from wheat), I went on a low-carb and low-fat diet. I ate salads, low-carb vegetables, and lean meat. And that's it. Minimal fat. Mostly what was in the meat. Of course, I'd done this stupidly and recklessly. There's such a thing called "rabbit starvation." You can eat all the low-carb veggies and lean meat you want, even until your belly is ready to burst, but you will enter a state of starvation due to lack of fat. And lack of calories, since vegetables have very few, and lean protein fills you up too quickly to eat enough calories of it. After a week, I became very sick and didn't know why. My intestines were not digesting or breaking down the food. Why? Because my colon had shut itself off due to lack of nutrients.

I went "...oh" after a little while, and recalled the concept of rabbit starvation from an episode of either Survivorman or Bear Grylls. I immediately started eating sausage, fat, and drank a bit of olive oil (x__________________x). Problems went away in a day, and I happily dismissed this diet forever more.

Learned that lean protein fills you up faster than carbohydrates and keeps you full longer. 200 calories of lean chicken will last you for several hours, while 200 calories of complex carbs will not go the same distance.



All-meat/Carnivore diet: Awesome, but impossible in modern society

Energy levels through the ROOF. You will backflip over entire buildings and play catch with boulders. I loved this so much, but 1) it's expensive and 2) it cannot actually be done in modern society. Why? Because in order to get all your vitamins and nutrients, you need to every part of an animal. Brains, heart, liver, kidneys, intestines, all of it. Stores only sell some of these things. Liver and kidneys, mostly. Liver contains more vitamin A than salad does. In fact, it contains so much that you have to be careful about how much you eat, because you'll be eating 1000% of your daily vitamin A requirement before you know it.

I was eating lean meats for snacks. Fattier meats for meals. Started eating liver, bone marrow, whatever other organs I could find. Chicken only with the skins on - especially chicken thighs. Lean meat is hard to eat due to how concentrated the protein is. A pound of chicken breast goes down with a fight. Actually, I couldn't typically eat that much lean meat in one go. A pound of ribeye steak with the fat left on? That was easy enough. I got home from work, threw a bison of beef steak on the grill until it was medium-rare, then ate about a pound of it for one meal. If not more than that. Cracked open the bone, scooped out the marrow, ate that down. A bit of liver mixed in with regular meat. But had to take a few vitamin supplements because not all organs were available to buy.

Lots of seafood, especially salmon, as well, to get an omega 3 and omega 6 balance. That and I really like salmon.

You will enter a state called ketosis. This occurs when you do not eat sugar. You body starts making its own sugar by converting protein into straight glucose, which is the liver's job. Entering ketosis is an uncomfortable process. You will feel week, you will likely have a headache, and a general sensation of not feeling well. This is probably why people think eating carbs is essential, but this is what happens when your body converts into sugar-generation mode, since everything must change a bit. It goes away in a few days, and never bothers you again so long as you maintain the diet. Exiting ketosis - going back to sugar eating mode - can be just as uncomfortable, but also goes away after a few days.

Like I said, energy levels through the roof with this diet. I felt amazing. I slept without trouble and woke up fully rested. It's hard to describe, but it was kind of like going into predator-mode. I could be sitting and working on something and then I'd just start having an energy build up that demanded "Run, run, oh my god, you need to run somewhere and chase something NOW why aren't you hunting go go go!" So I was jogging on a regular basis and otherwise hopping around like an idiot in order to burn off all the energy. Easily distracted by small, running animals. The buffalo down the street started to look more tasty than cute. o__o

Also a pleasant (or distracting) side effect: Sex drive also through the roof. Yes, that's basically the carnivore diet in a nutshell. Steak, running, sex, sleep. That's mostly what you want on the carnivore diet. At least for me. Too expensive, though, and impractical, so I don't recommend it unless you just want to experiment.



Low-carb, high-fat: Good enough, but a little restrictive.
Lots of vegetables again, but still eating high fat meats and other such things. Your main source of calories is animal meat/fat, but volume-wise, you're eating more vegetables than anything else. They just have very few calories. Lots of nuts and seeds. Celery with peanut butter. Apples, berries, jerky. This is a fair balance - you don't have the insane hyperactivity of the carnivore diet, but you also aren't as laid back as the vegetarian diet. Energy to function on a daily basis and feel good. No real problems with it. Though sometimes hard to maintain, as carb-heavy fruits and veggies can be appealing.


"Hunter-Gatherer" diet: Current diet.
It's a silly name, but it basically means the diet traditional people would eat. You eat meat, fat, nuts/seeds, fruits and vegetables. You don't pay much attention to carbs anymore, but if you do the diet right, you aren't eating many anyway. My meals are typically meat and veg stir-fries, while snacks are fruits, jerky, and/or nuts. I get full easy and don't feel the need to overeat. Unless I eat a fair amount of fat, I'm always under my daily calorie limit, which allows me to lose weight. You feel very lean. You get basically all of your vitamins and nutrients. You're supposed to avoid grains and dairy (foods of the agricultural revolution). I obviously avoid grains because of my health issue, but I cheat when it comes to cheese. I mainly eat it for the calcium, because I'd rather not take supplement pills every day, and I don't eat too much of it. I don't drink milk. I drink water and plain tea, and that's it.

Very simple, so you might get bored, but I'm fine with it. Cheat every once and a while, but who doesn't? Nothing bad enough for me to ruin everything. "Cheating" to me is having a bit of white rice or a few small candies, so I think I'm fine.

Feel healthy, good energy, not as restrictive as traditional low-carb, and easy to follow now that I'm in a pattern. The amount of protein and fat in my diet seems to be improving my skin, hair, and nails. Lots of potassium from fruits and berries. Too much sugar makes me sick, and too much sodium is just... ugh.

Calories in, calories out is the general rule of thumb. But doesn't work for everyone, so it's not universal.

[Egann]

Really, I think that most of the problem with "X is evil" diets is that almost all of our food is industrially processed and, all things being equal, industry likes to cut corners to lower prices.


For example, I'm holding in my hand a can of porn and beans. Ingredients? Beans, water, high fructose corn syrup, salt, spices, and some other trace ingredients including food coloring. Now how is that different from your generic baked beans recipe? Well, it's got beans, water, MOLASSES, spices (mustard and ginger) and salt.

In this case, notice two things. First, the HFCs-Molasses substitution. Molasses has the flavor you're going for...but it's $20 a gallon while light HFC's are $8 a gallon. To make up for the flavor and color lost here, they had to increase the spice and the salt content, then add food coloring to make it look right. Cheaper, but less flavorful and much less healthy. This is corporate cooking in a nutshell. Almost everything commercially processed has had a major flavor ingredient substituted away for something cheaper. Usually, it's a sweetener, and either sugar or molasses is replaced with HFC's. Regardless, the lost flavor has to be made up for by increasing salt content; salt is a flavor amplifier, so it will cover up the fact that there is less flavor to begin with.

The moral of the story is that in your home kitchen, you probably could do anything you want with sugar and salt and still wind up with a better tasting, healthier dish; your kitchen is small-scale, and can afford to use more powerful ingredients because the marginal cost is hardly any different relative to your household budget. On an industrial scale, that's not true. At home, for example, you could MASSIVELY up the flavor by substituting the water with beef stock. For a corporation, that would be heresy because the water is a main ingredient and beef stock is many, many times more expensive than water. Before you buy processed food, take a look at the ingredients list and compare it with Betty Crocker. It'll be most enlightening.

Edited by Egann, 25 October 2010 - 11:04 AM.

[Jasi]

Can I just be immature for a sec and say

For example, I'm holding in my hand a can of porn and beans. [emphasis added]

BAHAHAHAHAHA.

So since I now feel obligated to say something of substance:

Yes, basically what everyone has said here I agree with. Sugar is okay in moderation. Personally, I'm not inclined to eat a lot of sugar anyway. I lost a lot of my sweet tooth during the past few years. I am a big fan of eating as few processed foods as possible, and I like to cook everything as much from scratch as is feasible. I mean, I'm not milling my own flour or even cooking my own tortillas, but I try to get all the ingredients I use in my cooking in its simplest form. No premade chocolate chip cookies, no premade spaghetti sauce, no mixes...I even like to make my own lemonade (I should probably try this with orange juice too). Like Egann said, this is going to inherently make your food a lot healthier.

Nothing is "bad, period". Everything is bad in excess, including sugar. It's just that things like fat and sugar (and salt) are the easiest to overindulge in, and so they get the most attention. As Selena said, it's in our genetic code to eat as much of these things as possible; it's vestigial from when we had to compete for our food. The obesity crisis is kind of a side effect of America's general prosperity, and this overabundance of food that we have. Now we need to exercise the self-control necessary to lead a healthy lifestyle despite our instincts, kind of like how we have to have enough self-control not to try to have sex with everyone that is attractive to us.

Moral of the story? Eat your vegetables; they're delicious.

P.S. Selena, I found your personal dieting history fascinating. Thanks for the tidbit

Edited by Jasi, 25 October 2010 - 11:11 AM.

[Showsni]

...and don't forget sugar is bad for your teeth. (Surprised no one's mentioned that yet...)

There's such a thing called "rabbit starvation." You can eat all the low-carb veggies and lean meat you want, even until your belly is ready to burst, but you will enter a state of starvation due to lack of fat.