<story><title>The Sugar Conspiracy</title><url>http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>torgoguys</author><text>&amp;gt;If man made it, don&amp;#x27;t eat it&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s way too simple. It&amp;#x27;s a kind of naturalistic fallacy as applied to food.&lt;p&gt;If you think your produce area is where you should be getting your calories (not disagreeing), it fails the &amp;quot;if man made it, don&amp;#x27;t eat it&amp;quot; test spectacularly. Basically everything you see there has been shaped by man. A (stunning) example: one species of plant, brassica oleracea, has been selectively (i.e., artificially) bred to produce a wide range of different cultivars including, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, broccoli, kohlrabi, brussel sprouts, and more. NONE of these produce items are &amp;quot;natural.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Getting back to the linked article a bit, if you think fructose is bad, you should know it is very natural. Obviously it occurs in fruits and honey has more fructose than refined sugar and about the same as high fructose corn syrup.&lt;p&gt;(As a side note, I&amp;#x27;m of the opinion we &lt;i&gt;should&lt;/i&gt; be engineering foods to make them better for us. We as a species have been doing similar things to our food for thousands of years.)</text></item><item><author>leonroy</author><text>Jack Lalanne (American fitness guru) stated &amp;quot;If man made it, don&amp;#x27;t eat it&amp;quot;. I recall reading that and scratching my head at the sheer number of food products that encompassed. I thought it a rather presumptuous statement.&lt;p&gt;Five years later and after many books and articles on nutrition I now fully agree with him. When I hit the grocery store I skip the middle aisles and head straight for the fish and meat counter or the fresh fruit and veg section.&lt;p&gt;My only (dietary) vices are coffee and the odd glass of wine (both very much man made).&lt;p&gt;I think that the human body has evolved to run on a certain fuel and of course we adapt but it takes time. Grains and milk are relatively recent to our diet (past 10000 years) so you will see some people who can and some who can&amp;#x27;t digest them. Sugar however and all the other myriad man made products on store shelves are even more recent and apart from as occasional treats should really be avoided.&lt;p&gt;As an aside one incredibly beneficial thing people can do for their health is exercise. The lymphatic system which helps rid the body of waste substances is &amp;#x27;pumped&amp;#x27; by respiration and physical activity. If you want to eat that cupcake or enjoy that cold glass of beer be sure to exercise it off. It really is incredible how effective exercise can be at covering a multitude of dietary sins!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jawilson2</author><text>&amp;gt;  it fails the &amp;quot;if man made it, don&amp;#x27;t eat it&amp;quot; test spectacularly. Basically everything you see there has been shaped by man. A (stunning) example: one species of plant, brassica oleracea, has been selectively (i.e., artificially) bred to produce a wide range of different cultivars including, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, broccoli, kohlrabi, brussel sprouts, and more. NONE of these produce items are &amp;quot;natural.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;re overthinking this. &amp;quot;Is this food packaged and processed with preservatives, a list of 40 ingredients, and has a shelf life of 6 months to 5 years? Then I&amp;#x27;m not buying it. Is it meat or product? It&amp;#x27;s ok.&amp;quot; This is referring pretty specifically to Franken-foods, not GMOs (which I too think are a great idea, and essentially optimizing our agricultural practices over the last 20,000-whatever years).</text></comment>
<story><title>The Sugar Conspiracy</title><url>http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>torgoguys</author><text>&amp;gt;If man made it, don&amp;#x27;t eat it&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s way too simple. It&amp;#x27;s a kind of naturalistic fallacy as applied to food.&lt;p&gt;If you think your produce area is where you should be getting your calories (not disagreeing), it fails the &amp;quot;if man made it, don&amp;#x27;t eat it&amp;quot; test spectacularly. Basically everything you see there has been shaped by man. A (stunning) example: one species of plant, brassica oleracea, has been selectively (i.e., artificially) bred to produce a wide range of different cultivars including, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, broccoli, kohlrabi, brussel sprouts, and more. NONE of these produce items are &amp;quot;natural.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Getting back to the linked article a bit, if you think fructose is bad, you should know it is very natural. Obviously it occurs in fruits and honey has more fructose than refined sugar and about the same as high fructose corn syrup.&lt;p&gt;(As a side note, I&amp;#x27;m of the opinion we &lt;i&gt;should&lt;/i&gt; be engineering foods to make them better for us. We as a species have been doing similar things to our food for thousands of years.)</text></item><item><author>leonroy</author><text>Jack Lalanne (American fitness guru) stated &amp;quot;If man made it, don&amp;#x27;t eat it&amp;quot;. I recall reading that and scratching my head at the sheer number of food products that encompassed. I thought it a rather presumptuous statement.&lt;p&gt;Five years later and after many books and articles on nutrition I now fully agree with him. When I hit the grocery store I skip the middle aisles and head straight for the fish and meat counter or the fresh fruit and veg section.&lt;p&gt;My only (dietary) vices are coffee and the odd glass of wine (both very much man made).&lt;p&gt;I think that the human body has evolved to run on a certain fuel and of course we adapt but it takes time. Grains and milk are relatively recent to our diet (past 10000 years) so you will see some people who can and some who can&amp;#x27;t digest them. Sugar however and all the other myriad man made products on store shelves are even more recent and apart from as occasional treats should really be avoided.&lt;p&gt;As an aside one incredibly beneficial thing people can do for their health is exercise. The lymphatic system which helps rid the body of waste substances is &amp;#x27;pumped&amp;#x27; by respiration and physical activity. If you want to eat that cupcake or enjoy that cold glass of beer be sure to exercise it off. It really is incredible how effective exercise can be at covering a multitude of dietary sins!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>slacka</author><text>&amp;gt;If man made it, don&amp;#x27;t eat it&lt;p&gt;I think a better heuristic, is &amp;quot;Just eat what your great-grandma ate&amp;quot;. Or avoid the middle of the supermarket as much as possible.&lt;p&gt;Simply eating more fat and less sugar&amp;#x2F;carbs, I have lost 10+ pounds and feel much better. These nutrition fads have done more harm than good. My mother switched from butter to Crisco when I was a kid, then she banned salt from the house, and bought (high sugare, low fat) snack wells for us. All based on poor&amp;#x2F;pseudo science.&lt;p&gt;The diabetes and obesity are modern problems caused by a diet that our bodies haven&amp;#x27;t evolved to handle.</text></comment>