Chapter 23

Pg. 299 "The sugar industry is one of the most egregious villains in the bunch. Based on our current recognition of sugar's toxicity and their responses to litigation thus far, one might assume that Big Sugar learned its tricks from Big Tobacco. But it's actually the other way around--the Sugar Research Foundation was founded in 1943, and one of its executives, Dr. Robert Hockett, peddled his manipulation tactics to the Tobacco Industry Research Committee in 1954. In any case, the playbooks are almost identical--deny, deflect, distract, delay. The entire processed food industry has adopted this policy. Some tactics involve influencing scientists, others influence public opinion, and even more influence governments and the courts."

Pg. 302 "It turns out that sugar has two effects on weight gain. One is an immediate function, where year by year consumption predicts year by year weight gain; the second function is what your mother ate before you were even born. As explored earlier, the mother's consumption of sugar reaches across the placenta, goes to the liver to turn sugar into liver fat, and to the pancreas to make extra insulin, which drives fetal fat cell development. This is why obesity rates keep going up in the US, even though sugar consumption has dropped slightly in the last decade--the current generation is still paying for the previous generation."
Interesting stuff. I gained some weight over the past decade and the major difference to my eating habits before was that I'd added deserts to my meals - something I'd never done growing up. I never had a sweet tooth until I started ordering desert at restaurants. I swore it off about a year ago and the results are pretty astonishing. Also, after moving to Europe, I noticed when visiting back home that every restaurant meal (and pretty much anything you buy at the grocery store outside of produce) tastes sweet because of added sugar. It wasn't as obvious before.
What is obvious is that sugar is a killer and not enough people talk about this.  
2021-08-08 21:52:24
Sugar is a killer--that's essentially the premise of this book. I finally finished it and will be adding my final book darts. Scary stuff how the perverse incentives have aligned to create the food state that the US is in.
2021-08-08 22:12:51
Yup - added helpers are the doctors. I fired one of my endos after she told me I needed to eat 45g of carbs with each meal. I wouldn't recommend that even to someone who isn't diabetic. It is crazy out there. People that don't teach themselves about health are fighting a losing battle. 
2021-08-09 02:38:17

Metabolical - Book Darts