Anti-Sugar Zealots Really Need To Change Their Game Plan

[Renew Deal]

Last edited Sat Jan 26, 2013, 08:48 AM - Edit history (1)

Coca-Cola, you may have seen, is running a new ad campaign that touts the company’s efforts to reduce obesity. Wait. What? Coca-Cola, the world’s #1 soda king, is waxing about the healthiness of its product line? Yes. Yes it is.

The critical consensus: the ads are well-produced (and almost creepily convincing) but they completely sidestep Coca-Cola’s role in the obesity epidemic.

In an op-ed at Forbes, Rick Berman agrees that the ads are misleading, but he has some pointed words for anti-sugar activists: if they want to counteract Coca-Cola’s campaign, they need to stop suggesting “draconian proposals” such as bans and taxes, and focus more on outreach. Berman, serving in the role of Executive Director of the Center for Consumer Freedom, says change should be driven by — no surprise — the choices of consumers. After all, that’s why Coca-Cola has released healthier products to begin with: the company responded to the demands of more health-conscious consumers.
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http://blogs.hbr.org/morning-advantage/2013/01/morning-advantage-anti-sugar-z.html

A different point of view...

[Kalidurga]

1. Are you freaking kidding me? Anti-sugar zealots ????

There is nothing wrong with having a small amount of sugar in a diet. But, it is a hard fact that too many people eat too many sugar calories. And worse they are in the form of HFCS most of them. And it's killing us. And the people that are speaking up about the problem are, zealots????

People understandably want gun law reform when they learn about the carnage guns cost in this country over 40,000 needless death's each year. And yes gun reformers are often called anti-gun zealots, but I can't think of too many publications that would use that as a headline describing gun law reformers. Sugar is a known cause for obesity that leads to health problems including early heart attacks. Heart disease and heart attacks kill over 100,000 people every year. That doesn't include the numbers of people who are killed from diabetes and complications of diabetes. Or people who die from complications from asthma, or an impaired immune system or any of the other countless health problems linked to sugar intake. Zealots, that want to stop all this needless suffering indeed.

[Renew Deal]

8. The person that wrote this is a denier and obfuscater like the global warming deniers.

People aren't anti-sugar. They are anti- high fructose corn syrup which is literally a poison. The original writer (Rick Berman) is bordering on evil for his shilling. So is Kevin Evers for not making it clear that he disagrees.

[Paulie]

12. I'm anti fructose. Glucose is fine

Has to be otherwise living would be a bit of a hardship.

[hfojvt]

19. people who say things like

"are you freaking kidding me" and use multiple question marks for emphasis DO certainly seem like zealots.

And so do people who say things like "bordering on evil".


How about I dust off the old pro-choice argument?

If you are against HFCS, then don't drink it.

Otherwise, you ought to get off your high horse, where you get to make choices for other adults about things that effect THEIR health.

[Kalidurga]

21. Yep HFCS is definitely worse...

Because it sets up a situation where when it is consumed it makes people more hungry rather than less. But, sugar isn't much better. I grew up drinking Kool-aid made with sugar somehow even that would keep us coming back for more, it's like it did nothing to make us less thirsty. And calling people zealots for pointing out the facts is just incendiary.

[Paulie]

2. Once everyone knows that fructose is a poison, then it won't matter.

[GaYellowDawg]

5. The problem is NOT that. Fructose is NOT a poison at reasonable levels.

Fructose is found in all kinds of fruits naturally. It's been a part of the human diet for a very long time. Excessive intake of fructose - or, for that matter, sucrose - is the problem.

The guy did a reasonable job with his explanation of metabolism, but neglected to mention that glucose-6-phosphate gets converted into fructose 6-phosphate in the second step of glycolysis in the course of normal metabolism. He just skipped over the steps of glycolysis and went from glucose to pyruvate. As detailed as he was in other steps, this omission had to have been intentional. And it would have been very helpful for him to demonstrate that fructose metabolism does not involve direct phosphorylation to this glycolysis intermediate because hexokinase IV has a much lower affinity for fructose than does fructokinase.

The real problem isn't that fructose is a poison. It's not. It has bad effects at higher than normal levels. So does salt. So does vitamin A. Hell, so does water (look up dilutional hyponatremia some time).

Now, before you get the idea that I don't mind high fructose corn syrup, I do. I think its overuse makes it the single most harmful food additive present in the USA's diet in the past 30 years. Its ubiquity (and ubiquity at high levels) makes it a legitimate concern. The biggest 2 issues with fructose are 1) it's not involved in insulin or satiety responses; 2) its metabolism leads to triglyceride formation.

However, fructose is not a poison. Neither is cholesterol, which brings me to this: I think that fructose and sucrose should be treated in the same fashion as cholesterol. You're going to take in as much as you need (and there is a legitimate glycogen replenishment role for fructose) with a reasonable diet, but adding a bunch of sucrose or fructose is the dietary equivalent of drenching everything in alfredo sauce. Why do I quibble with "poison"? Because at normal levels - not our modern diet - it's not. Tell people the facts - that it is beneficial for the diet in very small amounts, like cholesterol, but is extremely harmful at higher levels. People can understand that. Tell them that it's poison, and you're either misinformed or you're exaggerating. It gives HFCS manufacturers ammunition because they can cast their opponents as ideologues.

Oh yes, for the record: Florida didn't win a national championship in football until 1996. Damn the Gators and their Gatorade.

[Paulie]

6. But as he pointed out, fructolysis happens only in the liver. That glycolysis has a step

with fructose-6-phosphate as an intermediate product, his point is around the amount of substrate and where it is metabolized; as his explanation of this difference between glucose, fructose (in sucrose form) and alcohol demonstrates.

That we have so much fructose hidden in the american diet we don't have a "normal or reasonable level" of getting it just in naturally occurring forms (as in whole fruits). HFCS is just cheaper sucrose, and with the push for "real sugar" in products because of the distraction of HFCS being bad nothing really has changed, except for maybe content shrinkage within packaging of these products to hide the increased costs. It's not like HFCS is like a transfat, though giving the amount we eat it has harmful effects as you mentioned.

Getting to "normal levels", that's the big problem. Because we have a new normal, and have since Nixon.

I had to look up the history of Gatorade, I just remember my brother in law in the 80's, who was a runner, always had the green stuff in the fridge: http://www.gatorade.com/history/

[KittyWampus]

3. when I was growing up, having a soda was a treat every once in a while. It was definitely NOT normal

to drink it every day, all day long. And it doesn't even matter if it's HFCS or sugar. Steady intakes of sugar is only mildly less bad for you than HFCS.

[TexasProgresive]

7. My friends and I would walk miles along "Chef Menteur" highway in New Orleans.

Scavenging pop and beer bottles so we could buy a soft drink to share.

Any sugar we got was burned up in the hunt. A game of tag, red rover, mother may I or baseballIf more than took care of any left over.

[etherealtruth]

20. Exactly ...

... because of that, i never acquired a taste for soda (I actually, actively dislike the stuff).

thank you mom and dad!

[Archae]

4. Rick Berman is a industry whore.

He's a lawyer working for corporations who starts up these "grass-roots" sounding organizations that are nearly always just him and his corporate pimps.

http://www.bermanexposed.org/

[sendero]

9. I am not particularly anti-sugar..

... but I am damn sure anti-HFCS. Trying to act like HFCS is actually food is fooling only the ignorant.

[whistler162]

10. What we need to ban is DiHydrogenMonoxide!

NOW that is a deadly substance.

[edhopper]

11. I wonder where his group gets it's funding.

Oh! from these guys;

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/CCF_funding

Coca-Cola Company $200,000 $200,000
Excel/Cargill $100,000 $100,000 $200,000
Monsanto $200,000 $200,000
Tyson Foods $100,000 $100,000 $200,000
Wendy's International, Inc. $200,000 $200,000
Outback Steakhouse $164,600 $164,600
Pilgrim's Pride Corp. $100,000 $100,000
HMS Host Corporation $50,000 $25,000 $75,000
RTM, Inc. $64,872 $64,872
White Castle System $43,872 $43,872
Perdue Farms, Inc. $40,000 $40,000
Hatfield Quality Meats $33,700 $33,700
Brinker International $25,000 $25,000
Quantum Foods $18,000 $18,000
Standard Meat $17,500 $17,500
Applebee's International, Inc. $15,000 $15,000
Coldwater Seafood $15,000 $15,000
P.F. Chang's China Bistro $15,000 $15,000
Performance Food Group $15,000 $15,000
Rare Hospitality $15,000 $15,000
Marie Callendar Pie Shops $11,900 $11,900
Advantica Restaurant Group $10,000 $10,000
National Steak and Poultry $10,000 $10,000
Packaging Corporation of America $10,000 $10,000
T. Marzetti Company $10,000 $10,000
Trinchero Family Estates $10,000 $10,000

[upi402]

18. ^ + 1,000 n/t

[Demo_Chris]

13. I like sugar. I dislike the crusaders who know what's best for me

[Lex]

14. The average American consumes 150 lbs of sugar per year–compared to just 7 ½ lbs

consumed on average just a couple of hundred years ago.

I don't think sugar should be outlawed or banned, but the people who aren't paying attention to how much sugar they are eating, it is probably killing them slowly. Or maybe not so slowly.

[ananda]

15. Coke uses caffeine and corn syrup.

It is VERY addictive and adds to carb cravings, an endless cycle.

[yardwork]

16. Coke has millions of dollars to spend on these kinds of campaigns.

Think about it.

Coke is not some little mom and pop business. They are a huge global enterprise with resources greater than most countries. Do you really trust everything that they say? Sure, the packaging is pretty and the ads are appealing. They hire the smartest advertising people and graphic artists to make sure you like it. They have lots of psychologists on the payroll too, to make sure that those advertising campaigns and astroturf campaigns convince people that sugar is wonderful.

[upi402]

17. propaganda works

always has.

people will never figure it out, it seems.