Fructose

Sure most of you have seen this, and if you haven't you probably still know the basics! But here is a scientific explanation of why a calorie is NOT a calorie! 

just realised I am not allowed to post a link!  Google Sugar, the bitter truth on YouTube, Dr. Lustig. 

Thank you for this.  There is so much that has been sold to us as healthy.  This is a wonderful reminder. 

It's frightening, isn't it!  I think the US govt bodies sold the low fat thing, just like the UK one did. And now all this information, based much more on science than just the opinions of the 1980/1990 orthodoxy, is saying that that approach was part of the cause of, not a solution to the obesity epidemic.

I bought into it all! Cut back on animal fat like butter, moved to substitutes which were supposedly healthier! You know all those transfats! But, of course, they were vegetable based so simply had to be better! Um!

and I bought into the simplistic "a calorie is a calorie" view. In fact, I think I may have argued in the past with those who said all calories were NOT the same. 

It really brings home the old philosophy that a fact is only a fact until it is proved not to be a fact!  

And now we have the dichotomy of "old school" nutritionists selling the low fat orthodoxy whie others preach the low fructose line. Meanwhile we the people get fatter!

Why are we not allowed to post links?  

I know it's against TOS to do it to other WLS sites, but I just posted a link to http://www.shrinkpictures.com/ for someone to put their avatar up - I doubt a YouTube video about fructose is a competititor for OH!

Once upon a time we weren't allowed to. Obviously now we are! But most people are able to google if interested so I will leave it as it is. 

We can post a link... You can't because of your computer ? 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Here is another article from NY magazine... Very interesting - and very long. 

Good. Next time I will. Having had a long time away, I was not aware things had changed. 

We can post links to articles, or other info - but not links for other support forums or links that promote your business or trying to sell anything. 

Thanks, that makes total sense, I thought it was a blanket ban. 

A bit more on topic, perhaps...

I haven'****ched the video yet, but I've done a (very) little bit of research on Dr. Lustig and his theories. From what I see so far, he's doing the same thing that's been done previously: demonizing one food component and blaming it for obesity. We saw this with carbs, we saw this with animal fats. Now the demon is sugar.

Contrary to what Dr. Lustig says at one point in one of his videos, our bodies DO need sugar. Our cells run on glucose. Breast milk, a baby's first food, has lactose in it. Fructose is nothing more than a sugar found mostly in fruits. Now, if he wants to talk about how sugar has been put into just about every processed food known to man, then I can get on board. Food companies figured out that sugar tastes good, we're wired to like sweets, and they then proceeded to bombard us with it. But fructose itself is not why we're fat. Too much fructose, along with all other kinds of sugars, sure. But not just plain fructose in and of itself.

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." It still holds as great advice. We need a variety of foods in our diets, preferably as fresh and unprocessed as possible. Part of the problem in the obesity epidemic has come from the loss of our ability to identify just what "food" is. IMO, a quart of strawberries is food, with all the fructose therein. A Hungry Man dinner, with its huge portions and excessive sugars and chemical additives, should not be considered food. We need to learn to shop the outside aisles of the grocery stores and prepare (and be satisfied with) smaller portions of minimally processed food.

I understand the desire to point to one thing and say "Aha! That's the problem!" But obesity is much more complicated than that, I'm afraid.