The FastDay Forum

Thanks for the heads-up on carb sane - I must admit I am a bit nervous of Taubes even though I rate Attia. Jimmy Moore sounds an interesting case...

[janeg]

I don't know enough about the sugar and fat debate to contribute meaningfully to it but I have to agree with TML and Pete about portion sizes. It is my bug bear and drives me daft! I've written about it before on various threads; the continual pressure to upsize- "chips with that ma'am?" em, no- it's a sandwich with plenty of bread- why would I need crisps or potatoes with it?
One restaurant that we go to occasionally now has steaks begining at 400g- that's a pound of dead animal! Now I was lead to believe that red meat portions are 4oz!
Snack/bite sized cakes in cafes are easily enough for 2
Fish suppers ( AKA fish and chips ) in Scotland have 2 humungous dods of fish and a small field of tatties as chips- again , easily serves 2.
I do wonder what power we as consumers have to reverse this trend...

I know we're going a bit off thread, but I had similar thoughts last night whilst watching "The Men That Made Us Fat" (or thin, I can't remember which).

The programme tried to lay the blame firmly at the door of the food industry, and annoyingly portrayed us humans as some kind of mindless automatons, wandering around in a daze shoveling chips and cakes into our mouths. Surely we're more than that? I agree that we are fighting our animal instincts to eat when food is available, but surely the higher brain functions can beat the reptilian? They also keep saying that eating less and exercising more has been shown to not work in numerous studies..... What studies? Every slim person I know apart from one maintains their weight through eating sensibly and exercising. I know one person who cannot put on weight, that's it.

Anyway, the conclusion that I came to was that even in comparatively recent times when food was plentyful, people were not so fat because you generally had to make the food yourself. Hence, you would only have time to make a cake or biscuits etc at the weekend or for special occasions. Similarly portions and frequency of eating would be affected due to the hassle of making everything from scratch. The food I make at home sometimes maybe has a few too many carbs, but never has sugar or trans fatty acids etc.

Convenience food removes that hassle and increases the time available to eat. It obviously doesn't help that most of these foods contain quite a lot of sugar. But consumers want convenience and tasty foods, so why on earth would the food industry try and sell us what we don't want. They would go out of business. The food industry cannot save us just by reducing sugar as it's only part of the problem. We can only save ourselves through the higher brain functions winning, leading to good choices, which hopefully leads to good habits. The modern first world is most definitely stacked against us, but that doesn't mean we can't beat it.

Bordergirl, when I was growing up, we had snacks and dessert every day. BUT, snacks were fruit and dessert was small and healthy. Also, dinner's size was half of lunch's size.
Janeg, speaking of fish&chips, have you noticed the size of the large portion? It is HUGE!!! Two people can eat it and still have leftovers!!!

And fruit is good for you??

It definitely is good for me, Pete.

Fruit in its natural form = OK

Fruit juice = bad (except tomato)

Fruit in its natural form contains natural fibre which is beneficial.

A glass of orange juice has got rid of much of the fibre and contains the juice of 3 fruits.

Three times the sugar, less fibre and nearly as much sugars as a can Of coke.

I like fruit the way they come from the tree/plant. Orange juice is for vodka (and hotel breakfasts).

Fruit in its natural form contains natural fibre which is beneficial.

Ditto with sugar cane.

For my purposes, I'm not too concerned about whether Lustig and Taubes are right, although I believe they are. I certainly believe Lustig makes a powerful point when he compares the 2 graphs of HFCS and obesity.

But I just apply common sense: as with going long periods without food - as with only exercising when we were hungry, searching for prey, it's the same with sugar.

The only time we ate something sweet was when we came across some honey. Otherwise, it never happened. So our bodies are just not used to sugar - certainly not the amounts we have available today.

So, yeah, the toxic truth about sugar, alright!

Thanks for the heads-up on carb sane - I must admit I am a bit nervous of Taubes even though I rate Attia. ...

Conside doing a search for "Taubes" at Peter Attia's site. I think you'll be surprised with the results.

And then maybe this link from a Google search:

http://www.theharcombedietclub.com/foru ... ane-asylum

There are many evils of the things we consume, sugar is only one of them. I think I'll chose my toxin to be worried about. Sugar will not be one of them at this time.

There is so much info flying around, quiet dizzying really.

Breadandwine wrote.............

"But I just apply common sense"....................

Amazing how sensible that comment is, says it all for me,

Ballerina x

I'm not sure this is the best thread for this, but here goes: an interview ith Dr. Robert Lustig: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/1 ... ealth&_r=0