Why I said sugar was poison

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Bill Glasheen
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Why I said sugar was poison

Post by Bill Glasheen »

In a previous thread, I introduced an article from Nature which showed that artificial sweeteners weren't doing what we hoped they would do - lower blood sugar. The culprit was the increase in certain gut bacteria which were modifying body chemistry. Subsequently I got scolded by someone who was aware of my consumption of Diet Dews. Yes, I drank a lot of them. I still drink a few here and there. My response? I will acknowledge that artificial sweeteners are "poison" (in her words) if she will acknowledge that sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, and other ways to sneak simple sugars in EVERY processed food are equally "poisonous" - if not much worse.

Here's a lecture given by a published scientist (not some quack on YouTube) which gives the whole story. Take an hour out of your day some time and watch it. It's informative, entertaining, and fascinating. And while this guy also throws the "poison" word around perhaps a bit too much, his story is as valid as any I've seen on the whole diet issue.

WARNING - THE BIOCHEMISTRY IN THE MIDDLE WILL MOSTLY GO OVER YOU HEAD!

Bear with him through it all. It's worth it.

Bill

.... Sugar: The Bitter Truth
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Re: Why I said sugar was poison

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One final note...

The big problem with arguments about food is that it gets political. If you hadn't noticed, this guy is a west coast flaming liberal. Not a problem... some of my best science friends are on the liberal fringe. I worked with two of the founders of a mathematical risk adjustment system which helps monitor "fair payment" in health care (by how sick people are). Both were academics, and both were as liberal as they come. One I learned not to talk with about the subject of politics. The other - now the head of biostatistics at U Mass - was and still is delightfully engaging. We agree to disagree, and go from there.

The clue to me was this guy's hate of Nixon. Understand I have no love for the man. But he kept coming back to him again and again (jokingly so) as the root of all evil. Then he blew it... He described Nixon's "War on Poverty." Sorry... I didn't just fall of the turnip truck. That was a Lyndon Johnson "Great Society" program, and one that had god-awful unintended consequences such as the destruction of the black family as we know it. Oye!

The problem with the sugar thing is what to do about it. Robert Lustig, as did my liberal biostats friend Arlene Ash , implied that government was the solution to the problem. Maybe... and maybe not. The flip side is a Ronald Reagan who tells us that government isn't the solution; government is the problem. By the time you have porkbarrel programs going full force in Congress, you end up with money stabilizing the price of corn in key political states (ever hear of Iowa?) which of course is the source of high fructose corn syrup. Oh yea... *that* crop. And you have government making us turn corn to ethanol at a return energy rate of virtually zero. But we keep those corn farmers voting for those politicians, so... And we keep the price of food stable at the market, so... Indeed, government often is the problem.

As soon as you bring politics in this, minds often are shut. The thing is, science exists with or without the politics that happen around it. The same is true with martial arts for that matter. Most of us in the 1980s through the first part of this century just wanted to learn karate, but that meant we had to live with the soap opera of human existence here and across the pond. Next thing you know, you have petty rivalries and nothing good coming of it.

In the end, the facts remain. Every day I look at the ever-increasing obesity, metabolic syndrome, and Type II epidemics in this country. Any day of the year we can walk into a Walmart and see what clearly is an offense to human vision walking all about us. Sorry... I know that's not politically correct, but neither is an early death or a horrible living existence on those drugs that George says are evil through his anti-pharma friend.

There's a right way here. My opinion is we must first get our own houses in order. Live the way you expect of others. Exercise, eat right, have good relationships, and have fun in life. And don't be a b1tch to all the vices around you. Who is in control anyhow?

Some vices? Sure... as long as we engage with eyes wide open.

- Bill
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Re: Why I said sugar was poison

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I'm Robert Lustig and I'm here to recruit you in the war against bad food.
I want to thank Susan and her tirade against my personal habits for getting me off my rear to share this. I know this isn't the response she expected, but it's all good. We all mean well, and we're all on the same team.

I'm challenging readers here. George?? Others?? Did anyone take an hour out of their time to watch this lecture to UCSF medical students? In my opinion if we're teaching Karate Do, then it's incumbent upon us to know this topic. You need to sit down and absorb the whole thing. The real message comes at the end, but you need to have him walk you through an hour of science to believe it.

Please don't be intimidated by the detail. We're all here to learn. And don't worry... I've had biochemistry (and am a member of alpha chi sigma chemical professional fraternity) and I've watched this whole thing three (3) times to be able to absorb the detail. Like a good book (e.g. George's first Uechiryu Karatedo), I'll be perusing through this at least a few dozen more times to pick up more detail.

And of course the science will continue to evolve. But movers, shakers, and leaders in martial arts need to challenge themselves with the best available information. I for one thank Van for leading me to Joseph E. LeDoux's reasearch on fear. It's had a dramatic impact on both my understanding and teaching of martial arts. And I thank many others (e.g. Rory or Raffi or Dr. King) for bringing me down other paths and fleshing out what I practice and share.

- Bill
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Re: Why I said sugar was poison

Post by Bill Glasheen »

This is the end game we want to avoid. FYI, I'm doing a *lot* of work professionally (on very large populations) to keep people away from this state. It's a hot topic, as preventing Metabolic Syndrome potentially means keeping people away from Type II diabetes.

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..... UCTVPrime -- The Metabolic Syndrome

We have an absolute epidemic of metabolic syndrome in this country. It's a ticket to a very poor quality of life and an early death.

- Bill
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Re: Why I said sugar was poison

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Re: Why I said sugar was poison

Post by gmattson »

Great subject Bill and I am very pleased that you are helping people with the problem.
GEM
"Do or do not. there is no try!"
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Re: Why I said sugar was poison

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I found this, which should give pause to anyone using Agave.
Beware of natural sweeteners, too. Agave products boast a higher fructose content than high-fructose corn syrup! For a sweet treat, use up to a teaspoon of honey no more than once a day.
FYI, honey has both glucose and fructose in it. And it's mainly simple sugars.
Typical honey analysis:[46]

Fructose: 38.2%
Glucose: 31.3%
Maltose: 7.1%
Sucrose: 1.3%
Water: 17.2%
Higher sugars: 1.5%
Ash: 0.2%
Other/undetermined: 3.2%
Its glycemic index ranges from 31 to 78, depending on the variety.[47]
It's no panacea just because it's "natural." But it's a lesser of many evils.

Also... NEVER GIVE HONEY TO A BABY!!! Infants can get botulism poisoning from honey.

- Bill
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Van Canna
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Re: Why I said sugar was poison

Post by Van Canna »

Scary stuff. So what is one to do if wishing his bitter coffee a bit sweetened?
Van
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Re: Why I said sugar was poison

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Van Canna wrote:Scary stuff. So what is one to do if wishing his bitter coffee a bit sweetened?
Back when I was in graduate school, I was friends with one of the professional photographers of the local town newspaper. I had just bought a Nikon FM (a fully manual SLR camera) and was interested in getting better at taking good pictures. He hooked me up with this wonderful book, which was kind of like the Book of Five Rings of photography. Given the many additions now available, you can see how it's become a classic.

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The lessons taught in this book have helped me see data differently at work, see kata moves differently in the dojo, and see problems differently in life. Among the many lessons taught by Freeman Patterson is the art of "thinking sideways."
THINKING SIDEWAYS pages 27 to 37

I have always thought of spiders' webs covered with dewdrops as celestial jewellery, although until a few years ago I photographed them only as if they were architectural forms. I would position my tripod and camera at an appropriate distance, usually filling the picture space with a web in order to show its lines and shape, and use maximum depth of field to ensure sharpness of linear detail. I guess I thought this was the way I should do it, or, perhaps, the way viewers wanted to see it. I had accepted this way of seeing webs as my own.

One autumn morning, when webs were hanging thick in the wet bushes and grasses behind my house, 1 awakened to the realization that all my photographs of spiders' webs looked the same. They were entirely documentary. Beautiful, yes! Expressive of how webs make me feel, no! There was nothing wrong with what I was doing, but a lot wrong with what I was not doing; so I decided to look at webs in ways that I had never considered before. I didn't know what I was going to do, but simply decided to follow each new idea that occurred to me.

To begin, I placed my camera to one side of a web and focused on the nearest edge. I also switched from maximum to minimum depth of field. Instead of architecture, I saw jewels — at last I was seeing a web the way I felt about it. This was the beginning of a significant change. It was the start of what has become, for me, a kind of visual love affair with spiders' webs.

Next...
My point? Why not rethink the problem?

Craving sweet is something we as children are born with. Putting a damper on those tastebuds and neural pathways and discovering both new taste buds on your tongue while generating new neural pathways and brain synaptic patterns is part of what we *can* do as adults - with a process and discipline. It's kind of like doing the counterintuitive in Uechi Ryu where we embrace the pain in kotekitae, and become friends with contact. We learn the difference between good pain and bad pain, and soon develop an addiction for the endorphins released when we work hard. Once in this new space, we look back where we were and wonder why it took so long to experience the paradigm shift.

I've done things like this with my boys all their lives. I introduce them to all sorts of different foods. I throttle back on the sweet and salty, and make them at least *try* all sorts of new foods. It takes time. Sometimes it takes complete abstinence from sweet to quiet the urge for stupid-simple and "hear" what else our tongue detects in all sorts of food.

One of the things which really helped me in transforming to a better eater was to get away from the concept of denial. For every thing I removed from my diet, I would add one or two new and exciting things. For example... bye bye to sugar; hello to sriracha sauce. Mmm...

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Like Pavlov's dog, just looking at that bottle makes me salivate. Why? Bill Glasheen's self-imposed operant conditioning. 8)

I highly recommend you plunge into myriad versions of The Mediterranean Diet. So much good food there... and so good for you. The solutions are right in your neighborhood. Denial? Forgetaboutit! Enjoy your food!

- Bill
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Bill Glasheen
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Re: Why I said sugar was poison

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I crawled underneath a web and shot up at it (no easy matter, I discovered, after destroying several webs!). Later, I hauled my close-up equipment out of the closet — extension tubes, close-up lenses, and what-have-you, and started using them in combinations that I'd never tried before. I made no effort to preconceive the kind of pictures I could make as I selected, for example, an 80-200mm zoom lens to be used with an extension tube behind it and a close-up lens in front. I simply put the equipment together, went out, and started crawling through the grass. I overexposed and underexposed. I put everything in focus, then threw everything out of focus. The fact that many of the photographs might be visual disasters didn't concern me. I wasn't after masterpieces; I was looking for new starting points. I wasn't seeking solutions to old problems, but welcoming new ones.
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Re: Why I said sugar was poison

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Most people reason deductively much of the time, and most photographers see that way. We have a premise or dominant idea, whether or not it is consciously determined, and we proceed along a line of thought that develops logically the implications of that idea. Eventually, we reach a conclusion. It's a closed process. Seldom do we look sideways, that is, search for other premises or new beginnings. We avoid introducing new factors, technical or emotional, into our photography for fear that we won't be able to control them.

A good way to break the grip of an idea that controls the way you see and photograph is to pretend that it doesn't exist.You must break the rules.

Exercises in thinking sideways
Draw up a list of some photographic rules; then go out and break them.
A sample list might look like this.
Rule 1. Always hold your camera steady.
Rule 2. Be sure the centre of interest is in sharp focus.
Rule 3. Follow your light meter.
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Re: Why I said sugar was poison

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Here's an example of thinking sideways. Do you think Ken Block uses the traction control that comes with his vehicle? We wouldn't want the car to skid now, would we? :twisted:

..... KEN BLOCK'S GYMKHANA SIX -- ULTIMATE GYMKHANA GRID COURSE

So... how come he doesn't lose control? Ask a physicist. 8)

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Re: Why I said sugar was poison

Post by Bill Glasheen »

Nature's desserts. These will make you live longer - if consumed "as is." Go for all the colors of the rainbow, and you will get all those hidden phytonutrients.

DO NOT JUICE!!!!!!! You need the fiber.


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Re: Why I said sugar was poison

Post by Van Canna »

Good stuff, Bill.
Van
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