- Friday, February 29, 2008
- Purdue Study on Sugar
- Posted by Zach in News
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When I was a kid, I used to sneak into the dining room with a spoon. I would glance over my shoulders, and if no one was looking, I would eat several spoonfuls of sugar … because it’s good! Sugar tastes great! Strangely though, when I lift my voice in praise of sugar, I’m shouted down by anti-sugarites. “It’s not good for you,” they say. The contempt that people sprinkle on sugar is inexcusable.
Sugar walks about with a smile saying, “Hello, I should very much like to be friends.” Instead of receiving an open armed welcome, anti-sugarites scream and dive out of windows into the deadly arms of artificial sweeteners. They’re like Gertrude, exchanging Hamlet’s noble father for sinister Claudius.
“This was your husband,–Look you now what follows:
Here is your husband, like a mildew’d ear
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?”This month, Purdue University published a study by Susan E. Swithers and Terry L. Davidson. Basically, from what I gather, it concludes that natural sugar interacts with our bodies in a way that helps us feel full. Low calorie artificial sweeteners hijack our chemistry and we eat more because we don’t feel full. This is what happened to the rats in the Purdue study. Low calorie sweeteners caused them to eat more. Basically, drinking Diet Soda makes you go back for seconds, but if you crunch down a box of sugar cubes, you’ll wipe your mouth and say, “I can’t eat another bite.”
This is how the smart folks say it:
“[T]he data clearly indicate that consuming a food sweetened with no-calorie saccharin can lead to greater body-weight gain and adiposity [I think this means fat. As near as I can discover, it speaks of the tissue where fat is stored] than would consuming the same food sweetened with high-calorie sugar.”
According to the Sugar Association, “Sugar is all natural and only 15 calories per teaspoon and makes many … healthy foods palatable.” They go on to say that “eating less and increasing activity is the only proven way to lose weight and maintain long-term weight loss. There are NO LOW-FAT, LOW-CARB, LOW-GI short cuts.”
So the anti-sugar Fascists need to back the train up. I’m talking to you June 17, 2007 CBS News Segment on Sugar! O shame where is thy blush? (I should note that the Sugar Association doesn’t need any help defending the virtue of natural sweetener.) Here’s a spoonful of indignation from their PR department:
“Although the Sunday Morning segment on sugar was designed apparently to be inflammatory with its exaggerated use of certain categories of foods and overweight people, it does the American public a tremendous disservice when a well-respected news show uses sensationalism to promote viewership instead of providing balanced, science based information to help your viewers make informed decisions. The American public is the real victim.”
BAM! EAT IT!
Due to the courageous efforts of some, the tide is starting to turn. Before long, I’ll be able to join those conversational circles where people talk about healthy things.
PERSON 1: Last night, I ate a salad with sprouts and ginger soy dressing.
PERSON 2: Oh, that sounds sooo good. I ate a carrot dipped in goat oil and sprinkled with dandelion petals. It was delicious.
ME: I bet it wasn’t as delicious as the pound of fudge I ate from Grandma’s Cheese Barn.(High fives all around)
So grab a the sugar bowl and a spoon, or join me for a late night doughnut run. Sweets to the sweet. Hold the guilt.
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9 Responses to “Purdue Study on Sugar”
omg zach!! you’re such a dork!! lolz
what does sugar have to do with art seeeeeeriusly. I mean it;s like sugar is sweet and all but ccome on. u are cute tho.
Can you rite about van goh some time? He’s totally my most favorite artist. His painting are so emotive– it’s like looking at a firery sunset everytime. Unless it’s the hands of peasants or potatoes or something. I mean eww, right?
To my knowledge, sugar has very little to do with art, with the possible exception of Tom Stoppard’s radio play “Artist Descending a Staircase”. (In the play, a character decides that the best way art can effect the masses is to be edible–”Let them eat art.”) Basically, because the blog is about to be reinvented, nobody pays much attention, and I just write whatever I want. So, let’s say I wanted to write about moon colonization, or contrast the Depression era’s problem-solving-optimist-hero with the Baby Boomer’s problem-marinating-self-absorbed-hero, or whatever … I just type up some what not and presto! A blog post that five people read! As far as Vincent Van Gogh is concerned, I fear I don’t know much about him, and nothing I could write would approach your barely contained enthusiasm toward his work.
I’m sure that for someone who has never struggled with weight (and I’ll bet 5 bucks — no, 10! — you’re one of that fortunate crowd, you lucky guy), it’s easy as well as nostalgic to wax eloquent about sugar. Sugar doubtless has many excellent qualities, but it’s just like anything food-related — it’s not WHAT you eat, it’s what ELSE you eat. Which is what I think they were saying — I dunno. (I’m not a scientist, I am a musician, and in my case they’re mutually exclusive.) Everyone is on a “diet,” whether it’s balanced or not, which is why things like the so-called “lo-carb shortcut” do actually work, for however small a space of time. (Besides, there are a lot of folks for whom it would be rather idiotic to devour that great-sounding fudge or sugar cubes, or what have you — with which I’m sure you will agree.)
Not that I’m completely defending the “anti-sugarites” — a title of which I’m often deserving, peccavi, peccavi — but it’s just that in this age of instant communication, low energy, and overbooked schedules, those of us with metabolisms having more in common with the tortoise rather than the hare are eager to try anything that might solve part of the problem — even if it does get in the way of childhood memories.
Cheers,
AGB
My grandpa used to have sugar cubes in the barn to feed horses- but I used to eat them instead. I’m right there with you Zach!
Three cheers for sugar! As a side note: according to the Peoples Pharmacy, a spoonful of sugar is a cure for hiccoughs too. Could that be considered a ‘heath benefit?’
Um . . . I meant ‘health benefit’ - I’m not sure what a heath is or if it is beneficial for anything anyways . . .
I think a heath is an area of uncultivated land. And I’m not at all surprised that sugar is both a heath benefit, and a health benefit because it’s really special stuff.
‘Sweets to the sweet’. Wasn’t that for Ophelia’s funeral? However, since there is little evidence that her death had anything to do with sugar (or saccharin-laced products), I guess it’s appropriate.
Thank you, Zach!
There is so much health and food-related paranoia these days, and with it, people with such strong opinions. It’s become absurd: Sugar free, fat free, gluten free, etc! We can’t create anything better for us than what we naturally evolved to digest, in my book. Sugar is simply the fastest way to glucose, which is the fastest way to energy, resulting in short, quick bursts, and then a crash when it’s used up. It’s got it’s uses, just like everything else.
I’m like Anna– ‘metabolism of a tortoise’– but that just means I’m built to conserve fat, and can’t be extreme in my eating without greatly gaining weight. And if I do, then that’s my fault, not sugar’s.
Great post once again!