Refined sugar. Your input! Is it the bad guy in obesity

I cut out pretty much all sugar that i could control out of my diet a few years ago. I mainly did it because i cant stand the taste of sugar in coffee and it grew into a distaste of sugar in most things. After cutting out the sugar for at least 6 years now, i've seen zero benefits. I didn't lose weight or gain weight, i didnt feel like i was lacking energy or bursting with it.

Dont get me wrong, i still have sugar in my diet with the occasional chocolate bar or when i use it in cooking and i have no problem with whatever sugar is at hand.

I do feel childhood obesity is abit of a problem that could very easily be solved. When i was at school i had no cookery lessons and only one hour of PE a week. If we had cookery as a lesson, teaching kids how to have fun while cooking, it will give them a good start in life to cook good food at home rather than reach for the takeaway menu. I also think that a mandatory 1 hour PE lesson per day should be introduced, i know i would have hated it while i was at school, but thats because i was a fat kid haha.

 

Sugar is an essential nutrient. It's very difficult to get enough calories to maintain good health without some form of carbohydrate.

Our bodies are well-adapted to processing carbohydrates. In the end, they all end up as simple sugars. The difference is the rate at which the are absorbed and how quickly they raise the blood sugar level which is why we don't classify some sugars as "healthy" and others as "unhealthy". We classify them based upon their glycemic index which is a measure of how quickly they cause a rise in blood sugar.

The problem with the modern diet isn't about the type of sugar, it's about the amount of sugar.

 

I eat whatever I want. Refined sugar? Yeah sure! I try to maintain a balanced diet and I exercise, so why not eat something sweet now and then!

As for childhood obesity, I blame the parents and society in general. The parents should teach the child to maintain a balanced diet and keep them healthy, until they are old enough to make their own choices. I mean, my parents had two rules that relate to this: always eat all your food, even if you don't like it and always do some form of exercise. It worked for me!

 

I think that some sugar is very bad (High Fructose Corn Syrup, I'm talking to you.) But, we need sugar in our diets. We need the carbs and things like that to keep us going. If you cut carbs out, you'll go nuts (literally - you can't function.)

A balanced diet, unless otherwise stated, is very important. Some people change things up for different reasons. A friend at work said her friend was diagnosed with cancer. She started eating very naturally and cut out all sugar, and it is helping (However, she still has natural sugar - so fruit, etc.)

Childhood obesity is a very interesting thing. Yes - part of it is laziness. However, there's also a lot of factors. First, kids don't just go outside anymore. Can you imagine if some kids went outside and were hurt? That parent would be all over the news! "Idiot parent let kids outtside - they get hit by truck. Stable condition!" I mean, that wouldn't work. Also, a lot of parents work or have almost no income.

You can prepare meals, but you can't buy the best quality food. Sorry, but who wants rice every second of the day?

Dieting takes a conscious effort. There's absolutely nothing you can do until someone wants to do it. You could take away all food but bread and water, and that "fat" person would still gain weight. But, the minute they make a decision, they will drop the pounds.
So it isn't just about the parents. It's the schools that call hog-slop "vegetables!" I don't think P.E. is the answer, because I f*cking hated it...until we did the obstacle courses or went out and explored. (On holidays, my PE teacher in elementary school would set up the gym to be a themed obstacle course. It was so much fun!) I HATED any type of contact sport. I can't imagine if I had the chance to do what I liked every time PE came around. Maybe I would have enjoyed being active.

So, the moral of my story is - you have to find the passion within you to be healthy. There's really no amount of sanctions that can inherently change you. It might jump start something, but it comes from within.

 

I think the reason high fructose corn syrup gets a bad rep is because it's in pop. I mean it is bad but there's a reason why it's bad. There's people that only drink pop. They won't even drink tap water. You're talking an extra meal and a half in calories every day that goes right through you and doesn't make you feel full at all. I think it's bad that sugar gets so much attention 'cause we also eat a lot more starch every day than we need too. Worse, a lot of our starch is fried. French fries, pizza dough, hot wings, fried rice, chips, you can't get away from it. So you get the calories from the starch, and the fat calories on top of it.

It's way hard to find things that are less than 1/3 fat calories and only 1 meal's worth of calories in fast food. Usually you have to ask for veggie versions. And then if you exercise and you don't wanna feel like crap the next day you need protein. So I just make stuff at home more.

I don't know what to do about kids. I think it's great that they have k'nect and wii fit and motion plus now. Hopefully they start moving around more.

 

High fructose corn syrup and other refined sugar additives have no nutritional value, high energy density, very little to no contribution to satiety, and a very high glycaemic index.

Starchy foods on the other hand will almost always have some nutritional benefit, some impact on satiety, and a lower GI. You're going to get a lot more benefit from eating a potato compared to drinking a can of coke. Obviously eating too much starchy food is going to be bad for you, but I don't think it's anywhere near as bad a culprit as refined sugar additives in soft drinks and the like.

 

The problem I have with starches, is that they're always coupled with fats, especially in fast food. I mean you need fat, but there's a reason people go on insane diets like Atkins to trigger ketosis. No matter how long it takes you to break down a sugar, you're still going to break it down before you break down any fat. The fat provides its own calories, about 9 per gram, which get added to the starch calories. The net result is people eating way more than 70 g fat in a day and way more as far as total calories than they need.

I mean you're right that side by side you've gotta look at how your body breaks down sugars vs starches and the GI is a good way to do that. But I think starch + fried is a combo that's just as bad as refined sugars. And honestly, french fries are about as filling as pop just for me. McDonalds actually makes me hungrier some times.

 

Sugar: The Bitter Truth - UCSD-TV - University of California Television

 

Refined sugar is terrible for you. Humans were not meant to process it. Cutting it out is one of the best things you can do if you are trying to change your diet and maintain a healthier physique.

 

There's another thread in which stevia was being discussed. I was disappointed to see it referred to as both a chemical and artificial sweetener. http://emptyclosets.com/forum/health-well-being/73348-stevia-instead-if-sugar.html

For those who don't know - stevia is not like other sweeteners, not from a chemical perspective. It's a plant with unusual sweetness that can be consumed in the natural form. Since it is green and has an odd taste, it is usually sold in the extract form instead (as a white powder or a clear liquid) as an alternative sweetener. More recently, it's being mixed with various ingredients to make it easier to measure, but the more pure extract is still available. I use both the ground leaves and the extract.

For a diabetic, being able to have a healthy way to sweeten coffee or add other treats to a restrictive diet is not a trivial matter. Stevia can make that possible. Plus, I just saw on Wikipedia (and I didn't check for other references yet):

 

I know what you mean, and fried fatty foods are a bad everyday food, but if I got to choose between cutting out an equivalent amount of energy from either fried fatty foods or added sugar, I'd choose the sugar for the reasons I stated above. Fried stuff is bad, but at least it brings some benefits to the table with it. Pure starch may as well be refined sugar, but you're never going to encounter pure starch - it's always going to be in something like a vegetable or rice, which invariably have benefits such as vitamins or fibre. Even if it's fried, it'll still be of some benefit to your body, unlike refined sugar which is just an empty energy hit.

Of course cutting down both is best though .

As for McDonalds making you hungry afterwards it's probably because most of their stuff is very salty and will leave you craving. You should be able to counter the effect if you make sure you drink enough water with it.

 

the main effect of eating processing sugars is on insulin levels, bananas for example will raise insulin levels, which then crash, stimulating hunger. Sugars are quite bad at giving satiety, the insulin up/down cycle is what stimulates eating. Fats and proteins, on the other hand do promote satiety, you simply can't gorge on fats in the same way.

Another nasty side effect of insulin is that it inhibits lipolysis, or the breakdown of fats for energy, so the fat gets stored instead.

 

I wasn't gonna post on this thread, but I had to point out that your signature is awesome. Do You Realize?? is a great song!

 

I think it's more how much people eat than what. Portion sizes in America are obscene.

 

The more you refine a food, the worse it becomes. For example, fruit is healthy, 100% fruit juice is sort of a gray area (depends who you are asking), and high fructose syrup (the sugar in fruit) is bad. They all contain fructose, but the more you strip down and refine the source the worse it becomes, because you remove the other elements that slow down the digestion process and contribute to nutrition (in this case, fibre and other nutrients). But the same goes for white flour, saturated fats like margarine, etc.

I'm certainly not perfect, but I try to buy my food in as near to its original state as possible. One thing that does make me crazy is how often you see heavily refined crap marketed as healthy; granola bars come to mind. But that's another rant for another time...

In short, while I don't think refined sugar is good for you, I think it is just one player among many heavily refined foods that so heavily predominate our food supply. I think a focus on natural foods and moderation is key, as well using critical thinking and not assuming something is healthy because it is marketed as such.