Random article propagation: Sugar

[derakon]

Link

In summary, there's some (non-conclusive, but strong) evidence to suggest that it's specifically sugar (cane sugar, high fructose corn syrup, no difference), and not just overconsumption of calories, that causes diabetes and in turn leads to obesity. The pathway looks like this:

• Large amounts of glucose and fructose are imbibed in a short

Comments

Sugar

[derakonsdad]

I agree with the general concept. Moreover it's hard to ignore that the obesity epidemic started about the time industry discovered they could save money by converting sucrose (a single disaccharide) into two monosaccharides, thus doubling the sweetness. Unfortunately, fructose enters metabolic pathways at a different, less regulated, level than glucose, which may account for some of it's adverse affects.

[homebrewgirl]

My general take on food is that the less processed the food I eat, the better. Of course not everyone has time to fix food from scratch every day, and in fact I buy frozen veggies for meals and prefer organic carrots for the simple fact that I feel better about leaving them unpeeled (at this point I never know how long I have until S starts pitching a fit about the fact that I'm not holding him while I cook, so any corners I can cut help). I have to admit I was taken aback, though, when I glanced at the label on a can of tomatoes and discovered that it included HFCS. Tomatoes! I was really disappointed about that.

Sorry for being late to the party, I haven't checked LJ in a few days.

[derakon]

Yeah, sugar and/or HFCS are in everything, since it's dirt-cheap, we generally don't object to the flavor, and it acts as a preservative. It's very hard to avoid the stuff these days.

I was talking to a Russian coworker awhile back and she commented that cake recipes in America are incredibly sweet. She had made a cake for a Japan benefit bakesale and said she used something like five times as much sugar as she would back home because otherwise people complained that it wasn't sweet enough. And our apples are also apparently all very sweet, even the tarter variants like Granny Smiths.