Good video: Transfats & sugars are the real killers

[shadow9d9]

Yup. And as others have mentioned, it's not like the sugar content itself is hiding - manufacturers are required to print it on every label. But the other sneaky thing they do is use ridiculous small portions. "Oh, these cookies only have 6 grams of sugar! Wait, PER COOKIE?!" Haha.

Right. The serving size is just as important as the content. I still consider this all pretty basic, even to a non super health oriented person. It is just common sense. All the info is there if people want to spend two seconds and an ounce of brain power.

It is just that it doesn't matter how they label the sugar as long as the sugar is all included in the X grams section.

 

[Kaido]

Also, in terms of managing sugar intake through government or other regulation: a couple years ago, the company I work for banned the use of all tobacco products on the property. If you wanted to take a smoke break, you had to drive offsite to do it, which wasn't easy because I think most shop workers only get like 10 minutes per break. However, the government has also shown us the details on the health impact of smoking, so we know exactly how bad it is for us. And the company was getting hit hard on health insurance to the point where it was affecting how much it cost to have healthcare coverage in the company.

They started offering stop-smoking programs and other free incentives and a surprisingly amount of people reduced or quit smoking. I have several friends at work who actually quit - they knew they needed to, but didn't quite have the motivation or discipline until a strong form of help was offered. I'd be curious to see how people's diets would change if companies replaced vending machines with fresh juice bars and perhaps offered free healthy lunches instead of people driving to the nearest fast-food restaurants at lunchtime. Everyone loves free, so I'd be a lot of people would take advantage of it just because it was available. Plus your workers would be healthier, more alert & awake, equating to more productive etc. from having an improved diet. Changing people's habits is hard, but with the proper incentives, you can make a lot of headway!

 

[Kaido]

Per cookie isn't as bad as some things like bags of chips. Serving size: about 8 chips. Servings per container: about 2.3... Yeah, that isn't deceptive at all.

I do like that sodas and candy bars are now coming with easy to spot nutritional information (even if it is only calories as of now) on the packaging for the entire amount.


I am still upset that "zero" calorie labeling is allowed. It just has to be below 5 calories per serving...

Haha, 8 chips is like one handful

 

[Kaido]

Right. The serving size is just as important as the content. I still consider this all pretty basic, even to a non super health oriented person. It is just common sense. All the info is there if people want to spend two seconds and an ounce of brain power.

It is just that it doesn't matter how they label the sugar as long as the sugar is all included in the X grams section.

It absolutely is common sense, but if you've ever worked retail, you'll exactly how uncommon common sense really is :biggrin:

I don't know a single person other than myself IRL who reads serving sizes, btw. Basic? Yes. Common sense? Absolutely. Actually used? Judging by the "70% of Americans are overweight" statistic, heck to the no And that's part of why I think we need some additional oversight. There have been a few articles floating around saying that sugar is more addictive than cocaine. If that's really the case, then you need an intervention to curb the addiction. Heck, we've made plenty of progress with smoking - I had asthma growing up; going to restaurants with smoking sections stunk because the smoke would still filter to the non-smoking section of the room & make me cough. I'm not up-to-date on the smoking laws these days, but I think here in Connecticut it's not even legal to smoke in a public building anymore.

 

[ewdotson]

Now, serving size is something I'll agree with you on food manufacturers being deliberately deceptive about.

 

[shadow9d9]

It absolutely is common sense, but if you've ever worked retail, you'll exactly how uncommon common sense really is :biggrin:

I don't know a single person other than myself IRL who reads serving sizes, btw. Basic? Yes. Common sense? Absolutely. Actually used? Judging by the "70% of Americans are overweight" statistic, heck to the no And that's part of why I think we need some additional oversight. There have been a few articles floating around saying that sugar is more addictive than cocaine. If that's really the case, then you need an intervention to curb the addiction. Heck, we've made plenty of progress with smoking - I had asthma growing up; going to restaurants with smoking sections stunk because the smoke would still filter to the non-smoking section of the room & make me cough. I'm not up-to-date on the smoking laws these days, but I think here in Connecticut it's not even legal to smoke in a public building anymore.

70% of people are overweight because food tastes good and their lives are difficult... so they turn to food. They don't read the labels because they don't care and/or they don't WANT to know how bad it is for them.

Smokers still smoke despite the abundance of information available, even at a very early age, regarding how dangerous it is. You can only do so much.

When it comes to food, it is all about whether people want to be healthy versus want the pleasure associated with eating bad food.

 

[Batmeat]

I stand corrected, which is fine. It has been a while since school for me.

 

[SP33Demon]

Right. The serving size is just as important as the content. I still consider this all pretty basic, even to a non super health oriented person. It is just common sense. All the info is there if people want to spend two seconds and an ounce of brain power.

It is just that it doesn't matter how they label the sugar as long as the sugar is all included in the X grams section.

I thought most packaging now has to have total sugar so they cannot do the "divide by servings" trick to lower the grams of sugar that is printed on the package - at least for items with small amounts/servings. I just looked at my ice cream package and that has 12 servings so it didn't provide the total. But I think beverages are now required to.

But you're right, I almost always look right at the grams of sugar and then look at servings. Then I'll check for trans-fat/saturate and not worry about the rest.

 

[SP33Demon]

There are some fucked up sugar names from the link that Kaido provided. If you know even 80% of these then you're probably a chemist. WTF
Amasake (different language?)
Azucar moreno (assuming that spanish for brown sugar)
Candy Floss
Cellobiose
Chicory
Cornsweet 90
D-arabino-hexulose
Date sap
Dextrin
Dextran
Diastatic malt
Diatase
Disaccharide
D-fructofuranose
D-mannose
D-xylose
ECJ
Ethyl maltol
Florida Crystals
Free Flowing
Fructamyl
Fructosan
Glucodry
Glucoplus
Glucosweet
Gur
Hydrogenated starch
Hydrogenated starch hydrosylate
Hydrolyzed corn starch
HSH
Inulin
Isomaltotriose
Isosweet
Jaggery
Jaggery powder
Lactitol
Levulose
Lesys
Maldex
Maldexel
Malitsorb
Maltisweet
Maltotriitol
Maltotriose
Maltotriulose
Mannitol
Meritose
Meritab 700
Misri
Mizuame
Morena
Mycose
Mylose
Nigerotriose
Oligosaccharide
Panela
Panocha
Piloncillo
Promitor
Rapadura
Raffinose
Shakar
Sirodex
Soluble corn fiber
Sorbitol
Sorghum
Taffy
Tagatose
Treacle
Trehalose
Tremalose
Trimoline
Triose
Trisaccharides
Xylose

 

[shadow9d9]

I thought most packaging now has to have total sugar so they cannot do the "divide by servings" trick to lower the grams of sugar that is printed on the package - at least for items with small amounts/servings. I just looked at my ice cream package and that has 12 servings so it didn't provide the total. But I think beverages are now required to.

But you're right, I almost always look right at the grams of sugar and then look at servings. Then I'll check for trans-fat/saturate and not worry about the rest.

Yeah. In the end, if someone is interested in knowing, they can figure it out.

The hard part for people is that it feels good to eat bad food. Sugar is addicting. Unlike other addictions, we HAVE to eat, so they can't just walk away from everything related. People get so much enjoyment out of it, that the idea of giving up their favorite foods/desserts or eating smaller portions is just not going to happen.

 

[Kaido]

Yeah. In the end, if someone is interested in knowing, they can figure it out.

The hard part for people is that it feels good to eat bad food. Sugar is addicting. Unlike other addictions, we HAVE to eat, so they can't just walk away from everything related. People get so much enjoyment out of it, that the idea of giving up their favorite foods/desserts or eating smaller portions is just not going to happen.

And I think that's what makes it worse - and everyone is busy, so taking the time to figure out each individual food item's nutritional content when you don't really know what you're looking for or how to apply it is a roadblock. I typically eat 20 to 25 different types of food in a day, although nearly all of my stuff is "natural" (ex. portabella mushroom, avocado, ground beef, sweet potato for one meal). It's a lot of data and it's not like there's a simple guide at the end of each supermarket aisle explaining how to use that nutritional information in small words & large print, haha.

 

[Kaido]

There are some messed up sugar names from the link that Kaido provided. If you know even 80% of these then you're probably a chemist.

Now imagine you have food allergies and have to figure out which ones of those come from stuff that makes you sick to consume. It's a royal pain! Lately I've just accepted that I can only really introduce one new food item into my diet at a time to see if it really, truly doesn't bother me, because if I don't recognize an ingredient I have to go and research it, or risk a headache or stomachache or worse.

Fortunately I have a good base of recipes that my body can handle, and I've learned how to eat a lot more natural foods (meats, veggies, fruits, etc.) and have developed a taste for vegetables (not that I didn't eat them before, but currently my standard breakfast is my Chump Burger - portabella cap on the bottom filled with homemade guacamole, a hamburger patty on top of that, and then topped with mashed sweet potato - it's awesome with garlic salt, btw! - which is probably a lot more vegetables than I was getting in the past!).