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from the sweets-for-my-sweet,-sugar-for-my-honey-The-Drifters-1961 dept.
Lustig, the maverick scientist, has long argued that sugar is as harmful as cocaine or tobacco – and that the food industry has been adding too much of it to our meals for too long.
If you have any interest at all in diet, obesity, public health, diabetes, epidemiology, your own health or that of other people, you will probably be aware that sugar, not fat, is now considered the devil's food. Dr Robert Lustig's book, Fat Chance: The Hidden Truth About Sugar, Obesity and Disease ( http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jan/25/fat-chance-robert-lustig-review ), for all that it sounds like a Dan Brown novel, is the difference between vaguely knowing something is probably true, and being told it as a fact. Lustig has spent the past 16 years treating childhood obesity. His meta-analysis of the cutting-edge research on large-cohort studies of what sugar does to populations across the world, alongside his own clinical observations, has him credited with starting the war on sugar. When it reaches the enemy status of tobacco, it will be because of Lustig.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/aug/24/robert-lustig-sugar-poison
I think moderation is the key. What do you think ?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday August 27 2014, @01:33PM
"I think moderation is the key."
WRT diet, tradition is a better idea. Evolution gave you a body designed to eat meat and natural plants, not a diet consisting primarily of refined sugar and grains and beans.
From what I remember of recent archeological research the primary dietary difference between our species and neanderthal species is ours eats quite a bit of fish. You're evolved to eat it, so eat fish.
Diet's a long term thing and doing something stupid short term once in awhile is fine. So I'll eat a slice of birthday cake, knowing that its a dumb idea. Or I'll wrap my meat and vegetables in a tortilla even though a tortilla is a ridiculously unnatural food, its at least small in mass, volume, and nutrients compared to what I wrap up inside it.
People who follow their ancestors 250K+ year old diet are healthy and skinny and feel great and live a long time. Folks who follow the modern "people of walmart" diet or a fad diet don't turn out as well.
(Score: 1) by arashi no garou on Wednesday August 27 2014, @02:39PM
So you're basically saying the "paleo diet" is the best way to eat healthy. But you end with this:
Folks who follow the modern "people of walmart" diet or a fad diet don't turn out as well.
I'm not saying you're wrong, it makes sense and sounds like a healthy diet, as long as one gets the right balance of vitamins and nutrients. But it is my understanding that the paleo diet is an unhealthy fad, just like the gluten-free diet for non-celiacs, and various other high protien/low nutrient diets making the rounds.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday August 27 2014, @03:26PM
"But it is my understanding that the paleo diet is an unhealthy fad"
If its a fad, its a 200K year old fad which had great results. Can't say that for a diet of corn syrup, sugar, grains, or processed junk.
I am curious how not eating gluten containing grains could be unhealthy. Folks who are allergic to gluten seem to do quite well, excellently, in fact, without gluten. Its hardly a trace element or required amino acid, so crossing it off the list simply can't cause any negative health effects.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 27 2014, @04:27PM
Please share with us the life expectancy of its followers over that 200Kyear span. Feel free to include figures like the proportion of its followers who reached 60 whilst still being fit and healthy, say? Reputable sources only, please.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday August 27 2014, @04:49PM
No problem, I've got google. You should give it a try.
Theres a nice article behind a paywall for most people at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11817904 [nih.gov]
"This paper examines these topics and attempts to show that none of them justifies a priori dismissal of the evolutionary approach to preventive medicine. Evolutionary health promotion may ultimately be invalidated because of its falsification by experiment or because another theory accords better with known facts, but these commonly held prejudices should not forestall its thoughtful consideration and investigative evaluation."
Supposedly this is discussed at
http://paleodiet.com/life-expectancy.htm [paleodiet.com]
although as you can guess given the URL it might have a slight bias (LOL)
Wikipedia, which is only a semi-reputable source, discusses the topic at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy [wikipedia.org]
One problem is if you want to feel good about yourself you pick metrics that make you feel good. Pretty much, if you survive childhood, which is easy now and very difficult in the past, and as a woman avoid dying in childbirth, again a bit of a challenge in the olden days, and you avoid dying in the bubonic plague or cholera, thank you civil engineers, you'll pretty much die in your 60s and that's been more or less constant over human history. So paleo diet / lifestyle + civil engineers + medical doctors = modern or better lifespan.
Its "well known" that agriculture lead to physically stunted people compared to HG lifestyle, although ag supports more sickly people per acre and strongly supports military action.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 27 2014, @06:35PM
[If] you avoid dying in the bubonic plague or [of] cholera, thank you civil engineers
Cholera? OK. (Water-borne.) [google.com]
How so with the rat-borne pestilence?
...and if our ancestors hadn't been so damned superstitious, they wouldn't have killed off nearly all the cats in Europe (the standard "familiar" of a "witch"), and perhaps the vermin problem wouldn't have happened in the first place.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday August 28 2014, @03:32PM
"How so with the rat-borne pestilence?"
At least outside the "urban areas" we have trash collection rather than tossing trash in the streets (which feeds the rats) and it goes to a sanitary landfill which is not an oxymoron if you consider how they could be...
In my little subdivision I'm not sure where rats would live, what they'd eat.
(Score: 1) by Whoever on Thursday August 28 2014, @01:32AM
I think that modern expected lifespan is actually significantly higher than 60 for those people that make it into their early 20s. What I have to look forward to, I don't know. Already well past 30 and most of my grandparents and parents made it into their 90's.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday August 28 2014, @10:25PM
Are you sure that's an improvement - are you an alcoholic Chinese coalminer, or something?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by arashi no garou on Wednesday August 27 2014, @07:52PM
If its a fad, its a 200K year old fad which had great results.
Except it's not. [scientificamerican.com]
I'm not saying you're wrong about sugar and other processed foods; indeed, they are not healthy for us compared to natural or raw foods. But we aren't cave people. We've evolved over the years and adapted to advances in food processing, storage, and preparation. Finding the proper diet is a different process for each individual, no single diet plan is going to be as healthy for one person as it is for another. I'm sure the so-called paleo diet is helpful for people with certain metabolisms, but it's certainly not for everyone.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Kell on Wednesday August 27 2014, @02:47PM
Diet's a long term thing and doing something stupid short term once in awhile is fine.
I like to say that a diet is a thing you have, not a thing you do. Healthy eating is a lifestyle decision, not a temporary arrangement. If someone has with the misconception that after you lose weight you can go back to 'normal' eating, then they're just going to end up where they started - afterall, that "normal" diet is what got them there in the first place!
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday August 27 2014, @02:53PM
"you can go back to 'normal' eating"
You can, but only like one meal a month. So I'll eat grandma's homemade birthday cake on my kids birthday. However, tastes change, and after getting used to real food, I feel like puking after eating that frosting, although I wouldn't tell grannie that.
There is one aspect of sugar being like a drug, that if you're off it long enough for the tolerance to drop, some "normal" American diet food is just too sugary gross to eat again.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday August 27 2014, @03:39PM
I don't think we should repeat all the past, but we probably should have a closer look and learn from it. To be honest, I had to wiki the term "paleo diet" first. According to wikipedia, this diet allows for unlimited dried food. I think this does not match the diet of our ancestors: Fruits, dried or otherwise, were mainly available in autumn, when most animals have to gain some weight to prepare for winter. In winter times, these fruits were scarcely available. Interestingly, when you subtract the dried fruits, paleo diet is pretty close to low carb; only that low carb diets propose to add vitamins and minerals, which seems to be a good idea considering that we want to achieve a slightly higher live-span than our ancient ancestors.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Wednesday August 27 2014, @04:27PM
Any reason, why you think that there were insufficient fruits so they'd be available 'till spring?
And regarding preservation techniques:
(Food Preservation [wikipedia.org])
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Thursday August 28 2014, @06:49AM
The paleolithic diet [wikipedia.org] refers to a time that ended 10.000 years ago. The starter of this thread even mentioned a time 250.000 years ago, but for the sake of argument I will stick to the period mentioned on wikipedia.
Reference 3 in that article is dead, reference 2 is not based on any artifacts/evidence but rather a conjecture. Both refer to meat, not dried fruits, and I never doubted that people in that time ate meat in winter-times; if it was preserved or fresh doesn't make that much of a difference until we start discussing salt-consumption etc.
Sugar [wikipedia.org] (in crystalline form) is known since ~450AD. Before that, sugar was not used in any relevant amounts, and afterwards usage also developed slowly since it was very expensive. That was more or less the point of the article. Honey [wikipedia.org] is used by humans since at least 8.000 years ago, and I would assume it was eaten even long before that, but I doubt it was available in big enough quantities to preserve fruits for the whole winter.
Is 6.000 years too late for the discussed time-frame.
Again, no more accurate information is given on the time frame.
All in all, I think at the time most of human genetic properties developed (>10.000 years ago), carbohydrates were not available in significant quantities, except maybe for fresh fruits in autumn.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Thursday August 28 2014, @11:26AM
Well, the other drying techniques were just for reference, but drying came about
. Good enough?
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Thursday August 28 2014, @11:45AM
For the reference frame of the paleo diet according to the wiki link it depends, if these drying techniques were successfully applied to fruit or only to fish and meat, how far spread their usage was, and how extensive it was used. But generally, yes, since I brought the figure 10.000 years into this discussion and you exceed this time-frame, it is relevant.
Still, the 10.000 years time-frame from the wikipedia article seems to be intended to mark an order of magnitude rather than a accurate point in time, so I reserve the right to not fundamentally change my opinion ;-)
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Friday August 29 2014, @03:17AM
The ballpark is ~14k, though, since it's 12k B.C. and we're in 2k A.D. Anyway, a shame that there's no time-machine to check the facts ; )
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Wednesday August 27 2014, @04:22PM
" Evolution gave you a body designed to eat meat and natural plants"
Doesn't the paleo diet kind of presume that evolution stopped 100,000 years ago?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 27 2014, @05:42PM
More like 10,000 years ago.
Oh, and not necessarily stopped, just not significantly moved on.
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Wednesday August 27 2014, @06:30PM
It pretty much did. Physically modern humans are not that different from what we were 100,000 years ago. Yes there have been some small changes in that time, like the amount of melanin in your skin and maybe some antigen proteins in your blood (some think blood types were caused by adaptations to local diet). But for the most part Humans have not significantly changed in well over 100,000 years. The thing that sets us apart is what we know, not what we are.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Thursday August 28 2014, @01:06PM
It seems like I remember reading an article, probably linked to from that other site that said the opposite. I thought I read that although outwardly people haven't changed much there actually seems to have been an acceleration of genetic change since the onset of civilization. Sorry, I haven't had enough caffeine to go find it. It does make sense though, we are living in a completely different environment, shouldn't we be adapting?
(Score: 2) by keplr on Wednesday August 27 2014, @04:30PM
Evolution gave you a body designed to eat meat and natural plants
And only intended you to survive in this mode for some thirty years--if evolution could be said to "intend" anything (it can't, really). You're using a variation of the naturalistic fallacy. It's possible, is actually obviously true, that certain "unnatural" behavior modifications can increase health, happiness, and longevity. Reducing meat and dairy, as long as you don't fill the gap with carbohydrates, appears to be imminently healthier than the paleo fad according to actual medical research. Which isn't to say that high animal product diet can't help people lose weight; I'm sure it can, I've seen it work, but that doesn't make it healthier. And it's an abject failure when your circle of concern regarding diet expands to include considerations of ethics.
I don't respond to ACs.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by istartedi on Wednesday August 27 2014, @06:03PM
Evolution gave you a body designed to eat meat and natural plants, not a diet consisting primarily of refined sugar and grains and beans.
Don't trust evolution. It doesn't care about you. It only cares about the survival of the species as a whole. If there were a diet
that allowed you to have 10 babies and die at the age of 30, evolution would probably be just fine with that.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Wednesday August 27 2014, @08:05PM
Diet and physiology are topics where we should dump equality and relativism and follow our ancestors. Many people have alcohol, lactose and pork protein intolerance because it wasn't in their ancestor's diets. An out of place diet of rice or maybe beef and corn may lead to more subtle problems. For example, people who adopt an Occidental diet are more likely to get certain types of cancer.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by Teckla on Thursday August 28 2014, @04:05PM
I don't like fish, plus, we've put so much mercury into the ocean ecosystem through coal burning, that eating a lot of fish may not be that healthy anymore...