DailyDirt: Salt, Sugar, Fat… Yum?
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Certain things are almost guaranteed to taste good to us — salt, sugar and fat are just a few examples of ingredients that most people enjoy and (sometimes) can’t stop themselves from eating. Eating anything in excess can be bad for you (see the “truckload of vegetables” debating technique), but people seem to especially focus on salt, sugar and fat. Here are just a few links that provide some data points on the health effects of these three tasty food items.
- For decades, we’ve been told that our salt intake was probably too high, but a recent study — spanning 50 years and over 45 countries — concludes that dietary salt intake is normal at around 2,600 mg to 4,800 mg per day (versus the US recommendations of no more than 2,300 mg per day for a healthy person). This conclusion suggests that our salt intake is regulated by physiology and biological need, not by how much salt is in our food. [url]
- Various kinds of processed sugars seem to be an increasing part of the modern diet, and sugar intake correlates with obesity rates across many countries. Should we try to restrict sugar intake with taxes or allow more artificial sweeteners on the market? Or..? [url]
- It’s a myth that eating fat will make you fat — eating an excess of calories from any source (eg. carbohydrate, protein, alcohol) makes you fat. In fact, the percentage of calories from fat from our diets has actually gone down in the US over the last 30 years, but obesity rates are clearly much higher. [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Filed Under: calories, diet, dietary recommendations, fat, food, health, hfcs, moderation, myth, obesity, salt, sugar
Comments on “DailyDirt: Salt, Sugar, Fat… Yum?”
Low fat
The low fat craze created the obesity epidemic. Food with fat removed tastes terrible, so producers responded by upping the sugar. Sugar is terrible for you, but wasn’t too bad when the only place it existed was in the sugar bowl on your table. Now it is everywhere. Fructose (which is 50% of sugar) can only be digested in the liver, and contributes to belly fat. Good job, government busybodies, and your “suggestions” for good food. You’ve screwed up an entire generation.
Re: Low fat
@ “The low fat craze created the obesity epidemic.”
That plus concurrent computer and television crazes where snacks are consumed continually in front of entertainments, and almost no one does real work. But you’re certainly right that the advertising of low-calorie and healthful foods is a big cause, as everything corporations actually do is always opposite the benefits they state.
Once upon a time in a pleasant land now far far away, nutritionists were concerned with health. But that was before corporations put stock prices and profits above all.
Soy products were a big push in the 1970’s too; that’s usually filler having feminizing estrogens besides apparently fools your body into a sense of being hungry for longer, and more often — half hour later, you’re hungry again. Even McDonald’s burgers used to be good before soy was put in; now I wouldn’t advise you touch anything from fast food joints unless literally starving.
Not all sugars are good: avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup.
I was out of the US somewhat during the time HFCS was substituted into soft drinks for real sugar, and noticed the change. Coca-Cola used to be delicious. (You can now in this area get Mexican product having REAL sugar; everyone I know agrees it’s better.) HFCS is not only highly processed in unnatural ways, but just doesn’t taste right.
Unless you’re a corporatized weenie resolved to remain blind, it’s easy to find reasoned links of HFCS to obesity and bad health. Corporatized processing of foods is far too extensive to even outline, so I’ll just say: corporations aren’t at all concerned for your health, kids, only with profits; if they can tweak taste or ingredients so you buy more, or make it cheaper substituting chemicals and fillers, then so long as doesn’t too provably kill you they’ll do it.
incentives & news
If there’s a reduction in ethanol in gasoline (I hope), the corn lobby will be looking for other ways to handle this year’s corn glut. Even more so if the price of cane sugar goes up, which looks likely.
“Fire Consumes Brazilian Sugar Mega-Terminal, 180,000 Tons Destroyed”
http://gcaptain.com/fire-consumes-brazilian-sugar/
Salt and calories
Two problems with this:
1. Comparing recommended salt between nations where very hard physical work is the norm (and salt needs, due to sweat, etc., are very high) to the average American is naive. It is like saying apples are “similar” to oranges.
2. Alcohol does NOT result in fat, just fast-burning calories. True, if you eat and drink, you tend to use the alcohol calories and store the food calories, but then, if you live in space, breathing is a problem.
Confusion
Well, I used to think that only the total amount of calories mattered. However recent studies (and some old ones too) have shown that excess carbohydrate intake has the most impact on fat deposition.