After reading the various posts on the potential damage of BPA, and the number of members who are avoiding it by switching to metal water bottles, I ran across an article in the New York Times with the provocative title “Is Sugar Toxic.” The article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?_r=1&ref=sugar

The article talks about Dr. Robert Lustig's firmly held and data supported theory that sugar—both High Fructose Corn Syrup and Sucrose (table sugar) are toxic because of the way it is metabolized by the body. The latest numbers seem to show that we Americans consume about 141 pounds of sugar per person per year. His theory and supporting data are contained in a 2009 lecture of about 1.5 hour duration, and may be found here: http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=16717 and on You Tube (link from the Times article). I recommend watching it and I got several more gray hairs while doing so.

OK, here is my question. If we are going to change our habits and preps because of BPA leaching into our food and water from the container(s), what about changing the food in the containers to avoid the threat of long term damage to our health caused by the sugar? What about letting our kids consume it?

I don't have the science to tell if Dr. Lustig is really on to something or not, but I respect the knowledge of the folks in this forum, some of whom I'm sure do. And this could really impact your survival and that of your family.

What do you all think?

What do I think?

Throw enough money at me and I will prove whatever you want is true/false/an urban legend/hazardous to your health/fattening/causes cancer...

I'm sorry, I'm not a lab rat with perfect genes. I think probably 85% of all studies do exactly what the financiers want them too.

And for that matter, living is the leading cause of death.

Anything is toxic - it is just a question of getting the wrong doze. Even drinking too much water will kill you.

Sugar and glocose syrup: Harmfull when consumed in abundance - absolutely. But toxic? Wrong use of the term, IMHO.

I have to get going, so I'm not going to your links. The corn industry seems to be the only place that claims that chemically-processed HFCS is just like sugar, other studies say that it's only broken down by your liver (unlike sugar).

HFCS has two things going for it: it's cheap (heavily subsidized, taxpayers pick up the real costs at both ends), and it is shelf stable, extending the shelf life of packaged foods. Just how old ARE those Twinkies, anyway? And it's in EVERYTHING! Read the labels. Trying to avoid it is really difficult.

HFCS has virtually replaced sugar in the processed food industry since the late 1970s. Sugar and fat have been around for a long time, but it's been just for the last 30 years or so that you've seen so many 300-lb young people. And the same with Type II Diabetes.

That said, too much of anything is usually a bad thing.

Sue

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

As shown in the Youtube presentation, then it depends on which sugar molecule you mean, whether is is lactose, fructose, sucrose, glucose, etc. The relationship between over consumption of fructose with the corresponding lack of dietary fibre consumption as a brake to the toxic effects of fructose would it seem make Dr Lustig's assertion that fructose is indeed a toxic substance at the quantities being consumed leading to long term health issues. The biochemical metabolic pathways for each carbohydrate were particular interesting.

What the MD failed to mention was that the same food industry corporation executives involved in this toxicological actuary time bomb are also executives for the health insurance, medical and pharmacological industries. So a win, win for these folks. These folks might not be fat, but you can't say there not happy.

I wonder if there really is a market opportunity for Glucazade port (for top endurance athletes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4c-rSmBjEw

But with Fructose (HFCS for the US market) instead of the Glucose and it should of course include some Aspartame and some Caffeine for that Buckfast double edged effect. Should be able to sell a few packets of aspirin as well on the same supermarket shelf.

Most of what you need to know about HFCS and sugar:

http://scienceblogs.com/neurotopia/2009/03/hfcs_the_good_the_bad_and_the.php

It certainly seems to be the fructose that is the most problematic, due to the different chemistry it is subjected to in the liver. What I had failed to get was that sucrose is half fructose and half glucose, and the body splits it apart, so you end up with some good (glucose) and some bad--fructose. So that is why Dr. Lustig said that HFCS and table sugar were equally bad--both were (round numbers) half fructose.

As for P&P (profit and politics), he touched on that also. No comment.

Art in Fl's article was interesting also, but if I read it correctly, it downplays the Fructose problems because the Fructose is consumed in combination with other things. I think the different bio-chemical pathways in the liver for Fructose seem to argue against that theory.

Somehow, I think consuming 10's of pounds of fructose every year for many years is being shown to be a really bad idea.

FWIW, there's a guy named Don Gorske who eats 2 Big Macs a day and has eaten over 25,000 so far. In his radio interview yesterday he said he never over eats, rarely eats it with fries, and only eats one or two meals a day. Apparently he's not overweight and is in relatively good health. Go figure.

A good example of the maxim; 'there is no such thing as an unhealthy meal; only unhealthy diets'. It's the overall diet that counts, not one meal.
As for the sugar article; I stopped reading at the headline; it was obviously nonsense to call anything we consume so much of as 'toxic'.
And whenever you see the words 'a study proves that' the most important word was 'a'. One study of anything proves nothing. People make mistakes, fake results, misinterpret results. Only repeated independent verification proves anything.
Look at the government approved bodies web pages to see the consensus. I've seen scores of newspaper articles saying 'a study proved chocolate (or alcohol) is good for the heart'. Then I look at the British Heart Foundation web page and it advises avoiding both.
qj


>FWIW, there's a guy named Don Gorske who eats 2 Big Macs a day and >has eaten over 25,000 so far. In his radio interview yesterday he >said he never over eats, rarely eats it with fries, and only eats >one or two meals a day. Apparently he's not overweight and is in >relatively good health. Go figure.

Best quote I've heard in a long time. Of course, one could expand "diet" to "lifestyle, genetics, economic situation, and living location" to make it even more realistic. People like sugar. Therefore they will attack something of insignificent risk while continuing to partake in activities with much larger detrimental effects such as consumption of sugar. It's because we are human.

-Blast