Interesting radio piece: should sugar be regulated?

primesuspect

Food for thought:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201202172

MrTRiot

There's more dangerous things then just plain sugar. If they want to regulate anything it should be aspartame as it's proven to be fatal in large doses.

fatcat

only if they regulate fat people have to run 5 miles/day..

Mt_Goat

They should leave sugar alone. Taxing it without taxing other sweeteners is stupid but none of it needs to be taxed. The thing that needs to be eliminated is HFCS!

pigflipper

How about we just watch what we eat and accept some personal responsibility for our actions?

Thrax

How about we just watch what we eat and accept some personal responsibility for our actions?

Ding.

shwaip

Rather than banning it, lets stop subsidizing corn syrup and let sugary foods increase in price relative to more healthy options.

Tushon

Rather than banning it, lets stop subsidizing corn syrup and let sugary foods increase in price relative to more healthy options.

Second ding!

Basil

If they want to regulate anything it should be aspartame as it's proven to be fatal in large doses.

So is water :P

MrTRiot

If they want to regulate anything it should be aspartame as it's proven to be fatal in large doses.

So is water :P

Water doesn't put holes in your stomach.

Garg

The personal responsibility bit obviously isn't working. Even if we weren't concerned for the welfare of others that seemingly can't help but make bad diet decisions, given that their choices drive up health care costs for all of us, something has to be done. I'd say eliminating subsidies for corn syrup is prudent.

AlexDeGruven

If they want to regulate anything it should be aspartame as it's proven to be fatal in large doses.

So is water :P

Water doesn't put holes in your stomach.

I'll take "Missing the point" for $800, Alex.

_k

Eliminating HFCS subsidy will have no effect on its use. It was not the reason for its introduction initially.

Ryder

Uh.. what? If you eliminate something, then how do you use it at all?

shwaip

If they make HFCS illegal, then only criminals will have HFCS.

Thrax

If they want to regulate anything it should be aspartame as it's proven to be fatal in large doses.

So is water :P

Water doesn't put holes in your stomach.

Neither does aspartame. And now I proceed with a hijack:

Independent researchers, and the FDA, have been attempting to establish a conclusive link between Aspartame and cancer (or other crippling illnesses) for quite some time. The link remains completely inconclusive. The public outrage, however, stems from faulty studies conducted in the 1960s, and echoed again by the same researcher (John Olney) in the 1990s.

Numerous in vitro genotoxicity studies, animal carcinogenicity studies and human epidemiologic studies have consistently failed to prove the results conveyed by Olney.

You can read about these studies yourself:
http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10408440701516184
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/supporting/pub/1641.htm
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273230002915424
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1998/aspartame-0916.html

In fact, the Annals of Oncology from Oxford have thoroughly concluded that John Olney's data was scientifically unsound (source: http://bit.ly/u26qf1), and contaminated by what's called the "ecological fallacy." This same sentiment has played out with independent researchers at the European Food Safety Administration (EFSA), FDA and even the National Cancer Institute.

Much of this outcry is also owed to one Betty Martini, who in 1996 went public with allegations that aspartame was responsible for a host of issues ranging from lupus to multiple sclerosis (source: http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blasp.htm). Though she claimed to be a researcher working in this field, investigation into her background uncovered the fact that she was not a doctor, and had no scientific accreditation of any kind. The American Council on Science and Health had this to say in 1999, to drive the point home:

"MS and lupus have been around a lot longer than aspartame has, and repeated scientific studies have found no connection between the sweetener and such symptoms."

Sadly, your sentiment echoes many of the sentiments that Martini manufactured, and was subsequently unable to substantiate to any conceivable level of scientific rigor. Most attempts to discredit aspartame as an artificial sweetener are often accompanied by few to no sources with data, much less the medical rigor demanded of a claim like you've made. Worse yet, we have no method by which we might prove that the anecdotal stories that have triggered the aspartame panic are even TRUE.

Of course it's easy to dismiss the need for proof with a legion of anecdotal beliefs like this one, and it's equally easy to dismiss the science I've provided as the symptoms of a massive global conspiracy to line the pockets of big business by hiding the dangers of aspartame.

However, I ask everyone to critically think about the EVIDENCE I have provided, and to weigh the probability that some sort of global conspiracy has been kept a secret by tens of thousands of researchers for more than forty years. The obvious answer is that the probability is vanishingly small. As vanishingly small as the cancer/disease risk aspartame represents to humans versus any other food.

PirateNinja

DON'T HATE ON CORN SUGAR!!!

Another ding for personal responsibility and no regulation.

Tushon

K was trying to say that the calories presented by HFCS would still be present in foods through sugar or other similar substances.

Thanks for the details, Thrax. I was getting ready to look stuff up but you have thoroughly summed it up.

ardichoke

Who cares about bogus health concerns anyway.... aspertame just plain tastes bad. Long live splenda.

_k

What I mean is that the food production industry started using HFCS because of the ability to control the sweetness instead of being stuck with cane sugar and its relatively static sweetness by comparison. Add the issues with farming sugar cane it is a great business choice.

ardichoke

What issues with farming sugar cane? You just plant it on sand or dirt next to a water square.... voila! Sugar cane.

Winfrey

If you want to "buy local" which seems to be all the crazy these days, HFCS is what you are getting.

As far as government regulated sugar: let's not.

RahnalH102

They should put the effort into something a bit more important than sugar. What should I put more effort into: security, economy, social issues, or a sub-factor that may contribute to problematic healthcare? ... Hmm I think I worded that kinda against my point. Regardless, I believe there are bigger issues than this that should be focused on first, then get nit-picky.

Food for thought:

Is that supposed to be a pun?

Garg

Eliminating HFCS subsidy will have no effect on its use. It was not the reason for its introduction initially.

I'm not interested in eliminating the consumption of HFCS, merely increasing the price of goods made with it. Possibly making Pop-Tarts more expensive than strawberries by doing so.

_k

But those sugars aren't even in the same realm; like taxing gas to make people use diesel.

MrTRiot

Decades of studies saying a subject causes/doesn't cause harm, doesn't exactly mean it's true. Take a look at the McGill studies of asbestos.

Despite those studies being "proven" false on multiple occasions by multiple institutes the Canadian government is willing to spend over 50 million dollars to reopen the Jeffery Mine in Asbestos, Quebec. Even though I agree with asbestos causing cancer it is still being disputed by upper levels of government.

Aspartame is in the same boat essentially. I think it's harmful and have refused to touch it. I personally think it's a marketing ploy to say "0 calories, 0 sugar" even though there are health effects. Everytime I've drank it I've felted bloated and uncomfortable. I may be wrong many years from now but for the time being I'd like to think there are two sides to this story. One that thinks aspartame is bad for you and one that says it's a good way to diet.

edit: 500th comment since 2004. Awwww yaaaa

Mt_Goat

How about we just watch what we eat and accept some personal responsibility for our actions?

When is the last time anyone here has read the ingredients on much of what is in the grocery store? If you go by front label banners like "Natural" or "All Natural Ingredients" then you better think twice and check out the ingerdients!!! Since going on my diet 6 1/2 months ago and loosing 68 pounds, which puts me at my ideal fighting weight, I have been reading the lables of EVERYTHING I buy, even if it says 100% on the front label (you will be surprised). The food industry in the U.S. is out of control with their use of fillers and ingredients that the human body or any species on Earth was not designed to eat. Some of it looks like stuff you would need to have a major in chemestry to understand and some just looks like a normal derivitive of stuff we are familiar with. Big no-no's for me are words like "hydrogenated", "processed", "palm oil", "whey" (its not what you think!), and anything that wasn't in Webster's prior to WW-II for starters. People in the U.S. really need to be re-educated on what to and not to eat as the prepared and processed foods have taken over. Between our more chaotic lifestyles and the growing seeminly insideous useage of crap used in manufacturing what most call food this country has gotten itself into a real pickle (oh yeah, those are good for loosing weight). We need to just leave the processed, canned, boxed and frozen foods on the shelves and "Shop the walls" of the grocery store. There is nothing short of some canned vegetables, whole grain flour, sugar (in moderation) and frozen fruit and vegetables on the shelves in the center of the store that we should eat. Watch what you eat and get a reasonable amount of excercise and you will do well. First it does take some conscious effort and determination to stick to it. If anyone here has traveled outside the U.S., not just on the North American continent you will recall that little to nothing is packaged and ready to eat like here. You will also notice that the local population does an enormous amount of walking! We have all gotten to where we lead more sedintary lifesyles and expect food to come from a restaurant or a package for the convenience that I simply just call LAZY. The bottom line is that if people eat the way the should and put some quality back in their lives the prepared food industry will go broke or adapt into something better!!!!!

Garg

But those sugars aren't even in the same realm [...]

I'm not sure what you mean.

Zuntar

Zuntar bows to Mr. MT_Goat.

Sad truth: it is expencive to eat heathy.

AlexDeGruven

Which, interestingly enough, brings us back to the subject of subsidies.

The reason crappy foods are less expensive is partially due to subsidies for grains (wheat and corn, primarily) and sugar. Eliminate those subsidies, and the costs of a lot of things goes way up in comparison to their healthy counterparts.

Snarkasm

Thereby making it harder to eat in general, never mind healthier.