UKBouldering.com
the shizzle => bouldering => Topic started by: Bonjoy on January 22, 2024, 01:10:33 pm
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I've heard it said that some top end US sponsorship deals have grade based payment clauses.
If true this would certainly create perverse incentives, drive grade inflation at the top, and put all the pieces in place for some interesting encounters with 'alternative facts' when the euros turn up.
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Imagine losing $5k cause will came and downgraded sleepwalker :lol: you’d be fuming!
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Imagine losing $5k cause will came and downgraded sleepwalker :lol: you’d be fuming!
Hope he has good insurance, for when the inevitable grade defamation case hits the courts...
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I wonder how these contracts work with downgrades and FAs... Would love to read over one
Edit, and upgrades tbf. Woods has had a few go in each direction (sleepwalker and the game both possibly due to hold erosion vs hypno and ice knife)
Edit again got my dates wrong on ice knife and hypno so removed the incorrect info
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Mammut have a hitlist
Sleepwalker - $10k sit $15k
Alphane - $15k
Burden of dreams - used to be $20k but you only get $15k now
West side story - $25k
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I've heard it said that some top end US sponsorship deals have grade based payment clauses.
If true this would certainly create perverse incentives, drive grade inflation at the top, and put all the pieces in place for some interesting encounters with 'alternative facts' when the euros turn up.
That is daft, but the same exists surely to a certain degree in Europe as well. No one gets into the news for putting up an 8B+/9a but for an 8C+/9b you get mentions in all media. No mentions = no cash.
Its all fun and games until the Belgians turn up and piss on your boulder/multi-pitch.
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Mammut have a hitlist
Sleepwalker - $10k sit $15k
Alphane - $15k
Burden of dreams - used to be $20k but you only get $15k now
West side story - $25k
$20k for Backflip sit (including danger bonus)
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I've heard it said that some top end US sponsorship deals have grade based payment clauses.
If true this would certainly create perverse incentives, drive grade inflation at the top, and put all the pieces in place for some interesting encounters with 'alternative facts' when the euros turn up.
That is daft, but the same exists surely to a certain degree in Europe as well. No one gets into the news for putting up an 8B+/9a but for an 8C+/9b you get mentions in all media. No mentions = no cash.
Its all fun and games until the Belgians turn up and piss on your boulder/multi-pitch.
Until they don't, and Caldwell laughs all the way to the bank.
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I've heard it said that some top end US sponsorship deals have grade based payment clauses.
If true this would certainly create perverse incentives, drive grade inflation at the top, and put all the pieces in place for some interesting encounters with 'alternative facts' when the euros turn up.
A recent episode of Careless Talk suggested Will had been very successful at maxing out his grade-based incentives from Adidas (if I recall correctly, may have been a different podcast but name checks-out)
A canny athlete manager would include a clause in his contract incentivising provocative downgrades! ;)
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Mammut have a hitlist
Sleepwalker - $10k sit $15k
Alphane - $15k
Burden of dreams - used to be $20k but you only get $15k now
West side story - $25k
Can someone please put out a $100k contract on Shadowplay
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I've heard it said that some top end US sponsorship deals have grade based payment clauses.
If true this would certainly create perverse incentives, drive grade inflation at the top, and put all the pieces in place for some interesting encounters with 'alternative facts' when the euros turn up.
That is daft, but the same exists surely to a certain degree in Europe as well. No one gets into the news for putting up an 8B+/9a but for an 8C+/9b you get mentions in all media. No mentions = no cash.
Its all fun and games until the Belgians turn up and piss on your boulder/multi-pitch.
Until they don't, and Caldwell laughs all the way to the bank.
True that, but anything that survives an Ondra onslaught, should live forever.
I have long hypothesised that the very real threat of Ondra onsighting your 9a with ease keeps grades somewhat honest in Europe up until about 9a. Witness the mayhem when he turned up in RRG.
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Mammut have a hitlist
Sleepwalker - $10k sit $15k
Alphane - $15k
Burden of dreams - used to be $20k but you only get $15k now
West side story - $25k
Can someone please put out a $100k contract on Shadowplay
Surprised Bosi/Aidan havent put some time into it
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Mammut have a hitlist
Sleepwalker - $10k sit $15k
Alphane - $15k
Burden of dreams - used to be $20k but you only get $15k now
West side story - $25k
Can someone please put out a $100k contract on Shadowplay
Bosi said its possible no? Would a repeat even if not climbed how John claimed with his Vague layback comments change people's perceptions? Curious...
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I remember chatting to a Slovenian climber pre instagram, and they got extra cash from their federation for climbing hard routes and boulders (think it started at Font 7c+ then), so cash for grades deffo not a new thing.
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Mammut have a hitlist
Sleepwalker - $10k sit $15k
Alphane - $15k
Burden of dreams - used to be $20k but you only get $15k now
West side story - $25k
After topping out a boulder in Font, I looked across to see a beautifully wrapped pastry carefully perched on the far end of said boulder. As I slowly moved towards it, a pair of hands suddenly appeared on the lip below, followed by a heel and eventually half a torso as someone tried desperately to mantle it out. Face inching towards their prize, closer and closer, until a sudden gasp of despair erupted as they plummeted back down away from glory.
It took all my restraint to not sneak away with the pastry myself. After all, why not? I did make it to the top.
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I've heard it said that some top end US sponsorship deals have grade based payment clauses.
If true this would certainly create perverse incentives, drive grade inflation at the top, and put all the pieces in place for some interesting encounters with 'alternative facts' when the euros turn up.
Just chipping in here as someone who deals with these contracts:
- Yes, these clauses exist and yes I agree with the perverse incentives argument.
- It is difficult because bonus clauses can incentivise some climbers and help the brand but I think where it works best is on hard repeats (for example Will doing Burden deserves a bonus of some element).
- Where it gets messy is on first ascents because as you said, it can encourage athletes, even subtly to 'give it a pop' at a harder grade and see where it sticks.
I think for a lot of the elite folk, it is one factor amongst many when considering a grade but it is a factor.
Another line of thought is to give it a hard grade to encourage wads to come and try it. If Honey Badger was a 9A, I am sure you would have had travelling Wads desperately trying to dry it off last year but at 8C+? Maybe less of a prize but that is what Will genuinely thought it was at that grade so stuck with it.
As a climbing fan, any lever which brands can support athletes to go and push the limits of the sport is no bad thing and with limited other funding streams to support Will, Aidan, Simon et al to try and push the limits then I am for it but .... with a asterisk attached. :lol:
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Thanks for the insight Matt.
How would it have worked if an althete upgraded or downgraded a hard repeat (such as burden) compared to if they made no comment to suggest a grade change? Genuinely curious on that personally.
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Thanks for the insight Matt.
How would it have worked if an athlete upgraded or downgraded a hard repeat (such as burden) compared to if they made no comment to suggest a grade change? Genuinely curious on that personally.
Short answer: contracts are rarely that detailed to reflect on something like this. If the ascent made a load of news then it would make less of a difference regardless.
Some contracts I have seen have 1st Ascent bonuses, some have 'hard ascent' bonus (which grading changes over time as sport progresses) but all are pretty flexible in my experience if the ascent is notable amongst the community.
For example, Terranova, by rights should not be pretty notable on paper as it is a pretty ugly traverse at 8C but its mystique (largely thanks to Will's attempts granted) means that it would be a major ascent now if pulled off.
Downgrade clause: I have not seen a contract with that level of detail (yet), however, if you have a downgrade clause then again you would just open yourself up to perverse consequences again, most notably that Nico Pelerson would start rolling up to crags in a Bentley.
All this is one of those - 'it isn't perfect but it just about works' tools.
On a wider note, I think as the number of 8C+/ 9A boulders increases across the world and the number of ascents grow, there will be a time for a proper conversation on the appropriateness of grading at the top end. 8C+/9A are beginning to feel like blunt tools to describe the breadth of problems sitting at those grades at the moment.
However, gaining a consensus on that view seems difficult and we probably need to wait a couple of years when we have more good problems at that grade and more climbers with experience and the CV at that level to reflect on it properly.
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Performance bonuses incentivise grade inflation, but is there any evidence it has actually happened (at the top end where this is relevant)? It seems balanced by the risk of a downgrade keeping people honest. Naturally, there are many examples where grades have indeed come down since the FA (e.g. better beta), but all the current 9A proposals, for example, seem well founded based on level of effort and the ability of the ascensionists.
It's possible that the performance bonuses actually provide a necessary upward force on grades, otherwise we end up with no one wanting to take the risk of proposing a big number. I wonder if performance bonuses were prevalent at the time 8C was (allegedly) getting ever harder with no one wanting to propose 8C+?
Either way, i'm all for rock climbers getting paid. In other 'core' sports (e.g. skateboarding), it's less taboo to take a cheque from over-caffeinated sugary drink company.
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Super interesting, thanks for the insight Matt.
What do you think would be a better tool than the blunt tool of 8C+/9A grade out of curiosity
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Either way, i'm all for rock climbers getting paid. In other 'core' sports (e.g. skateboarding), it's less taboo to take a cheque from over-caffeinated sugary drink company.
It's not really tabboo in climbing, is it? It seems like basically all pro-climbers are either working with Red Bu|l or Tenzing these days, though I guess Red Bu|l's pockets stretch a little deeper
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Performance bonuses incentivise grade inflation, but is there any evidence it has actually happened (at the top end where this is relevant)? It seems balanced by the risk of a downgrade keeping people honest. Naturally, there are many examples where grades have indeed come down since the FA (e.g. better beta), but all the current 9A proposals, for example, seem well founded based on level of effort and the ability of the ascensionists.
It's possible that the performance bonuses actually provide a necessary upward force on grades, otherwise we end up with no one wanting to take the risk of proposing a big number. I wonder if performance bonuses were prevalent at the time 8C was (allegedly) getting ever harder with no one wanting to propose 8C+?
Either way, i'm all for rock climbers getting paid. In other 'core' sports (e.g. skateboarding), it's less taboo to take a cheque from over-caffeinated sugary drink company.
I think the major issue around all of this is what I have flagged earlier in that the whole 8C+/9A problems are all getting a bit messy and whether any incentives (and other factors which I flagged such as honeypot grading, where you are encouraging people to even try a problem) that help contribute to this.
But in a wider holistic matter, you are correct - it's all good forum baiting fun.
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I think it's to be expected that sponsors will look for objective criteria for the support they offer. At least these metrics are rewarding hard climbing, as opposed to solely relying on social media data, which is probably the main other measurable and host to its own set of perverse incentives.
As Liam's post suggests, arguably the top end benefits from pressures balancing against the tendency for competitive downgrading/undergrading. So perhaps this doesn't result in inflation at the top after all, or the inflation is the sort needed for grades to increase in line with ability.
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Either way, i'm all for rock climbers getting paid. In other 'core' sports (e.g. skateboarding), it's less taboo to take a cheque from over-caffeinated sugary drink company.
It's not really tabboo in climbing, is it? It seems like basically all pro-climbers are either working with Red Bu|l or Tenzing these days, though I guess Red Bu|l's pockets stretch a little deeper
I distinctly remember controversy surrounding Ashima's Coca-Cola deal. A quick search returned this article:
https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/opinions/coca-cola_and_climbing_-_a_bittersweet_collaboration-9358
It's not the most scathing article ever, but it wouldn't even be a consideration in other sports. Also, this statement is laughable: "Of course, there is also the fact that the product itself is unhealthy and filled with sugar and chemicals."
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Either way, i'm all for rock climbers getting paid. In other 'core' sports (e.g. skateboarding), it's less taboo to take a cheque from over-caffeinated sugary drink company.
It's not really tabboo in climbing, is it? It seems like basically all pro-climbers are either working with Red Bu|l or Tenzing these days, though I guess Red Bu|l's pockets stretch a little deeper
I distinctly remember controversy surrounding Ashima's Coca-Cola deal. A quick search returned this article:
https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/opinions/coca-cola_and_climbing_-_a_bittersweet_collaboration-9358
It's not the most scathing article ever, but it wouldn't even be a consideration in other sports. Also, this statement is laughable: "Of course, there is also the fact that the product itself is unhealthy and filled with sugar and chemicals."
Yeah, Ashima took a bit of a hit by being the first climber to get sponsored by Coke and took a bit of a hit for it.
Seems to have been normalised now and also climbing audiences are so much wider than now that despite a loud minority, people are more accepting of these kinds of sponsors.
Whether you think it is right or not is down to personal tastes and the behaviour of the brands themselves. Having worked with over-caffeinated sugary drink company for years now, they truly are a class leader in protecting and supporting athletes so I will always support their presence in climbing.
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The major energy drink companies do seem to be very good at looking after their athletes. I know personally a BMX rider who has had multiple private surgeries and rehab paid for by Monster on top of their usual support.
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I wonder if Tomoa is still a Snickers Hero https://www.instagram.com/p/CcxbCRXPOJP/
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Slightly on topic, but another take on this was the FA bounty competition ($1000 for 8A and $5000 for 8B is not too shabby).
https://vimeo.com/301555462
Although you'd be slightly annoyed if your secret FA proj appeared on the bounty list and Jimmy Webb swooped in to casually take the FA and also claim a cash prize for it too!
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I’ve still got 20 quid for anyone who can flash applied stress at burbage, so far no one who’s tried it has managed it :lol:
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Whether you think it is right or not is down to personal tastes and the behaviour of the brands themselves. Having worked with over-caffeinated sugary drink company for years now, they truly are a class leader in protecting and supporting athletes so I will always support their presence in climbing.
I had this debate with GME regarding their new investment in the Bora cycling team. I'll caveat what I say next with what that confirmed was that I'm an idealist through and through and it's easy enough to have these opinions when such a company aren't offering you any form of cash towards your preferred hobby/career; to put it bluntly, you indirectly benefit from their sponsorship don't you? They're not doing this out of the good of their heart or some love of whichever sport they're dealing with (even if that sport (or participants) takes some kind of benefit from their money), it's simply business. Whereas the product they push is loaded with sugar and their target market isn't middle aged Dads who boulder/used to boulder. I'm sure the cigarette companies did plenty for F1.
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Whether you think it is right or not is down to personal tastes and the behaviour of the brands themselves. Having worked with over-caffeinated sugary drink company for years now, they truly are a class leader in protecting and supporting athletes so I will always support their presence in climbing.
I had this debate with GME regarding their new investment in the Bora cycling team. I'll caveat what I say next with what that confirmed was that I'm an idealist through and through and it's easy enough to have these opinions when such a company aren't offering you any form of cash towards your preferred hobby/career; to put it bluntly, you indirectly benefit from their sponsorship don't you? They're not doing this out of the good of their heart or some love of whichever sport they're dealing with (even if that sport (or participants) takes some kind of benefit from their money), it's simply business. Whereas the product they push is loaded with sugar and their target market isn't middle aged Dads who boulder/used to boulder. I'm sure the cigarette companies did plenty for F1.
Not sure you can put cigarettes and sugary drinks in the same category…
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Not sure you can put cigarettes and sugary drinks in the same category…
Don't know if you have seen this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fed_Up_(film)
But it might be worth a watch. Pretty insidious. Excess sugar in your diet is really bad for you long term!
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It's a touch OTT at times but still a good message. Not sure where you can watch it anymore. Used to be on Netflix.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCUbvOwwfWM&ab_channel=RADiUS
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Excess sugar in your diet is really bad for you long term!
So quite different from the cigs which are bad for human health at any quantity in any time frame...
I think Ding's comment is entirely reasonable. (I'm not saying food producers are angels.)
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I actually mostly agree with Dingdong’s comment.
I just wanted to highlight just how bad too much processed sugar is. And how the behaviour of the sugar industry mirrors a lot of how cigarettes were/are marketed too. I think people still overlook it sometimes.
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Available here bjut not brilliant quality. Worth noting that this documentary is now 10 years old. Interesting to see if it's predictions are on track.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8fz4ha (https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8fz4ha)
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I can't but help thinking that it is crazy to look to individual climbers for moral leadership. Nothing I've learned about climbers would lead me to think that is a good idea.
I suspect that demands that sponsored climbers should weigh their monetary benefits vs what is good for society in large stems from a liberal delusion of how the world works.
If refined sugar or tobacoo or weed or whatever is bad for health then we should demand regulation on how it can be sold, distribued and marketed rather than asking individual climbers to turn down sponsorship.
More on topic: Cash for grades is the only thing that can explain some grades given by FA parties on certain multipitch sport routes.
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I feel like the multipitch grading issue is more centred around risk tolerance/exposure tolerance and how this affects perception of difficulty. For the athletes who are less adapted to the big alpine walls I can see how it would result in a shift of perceived difficulty. If you’re very well adapted to that environment then that factor isn’t present and the route feels soft (which it is).
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I actually mostly agree with Dingdong’s comment.
I just wanted to highlight just how bad too much processed sugar is. And how the behaviour of the sugar industry mirrors a lot of how cigarettes were/are marketed too. I think people still overlook it sometimes.
'Too much', or 'excessive' amounts of anything are bad, literally by definition! Do you think that eating lots of sugar is bad because it isn't very satiating and therefore can more easily lead to over consumption of calories, or do you think sugar is bad independently of the calories it contains? If the former then I would tend to agree, but if the latter then I disagree because the balance of research doesn't support this claim.
All carbohydrates break down into sugar in the body. "But it's the type of sugar and the rate at which blood sugar rises that matters" I hear you cry. The most demonised form of sugar, fructose, is actually low on the glycemic-index, so how does that add up? Whilst some animal studies have shown that supraphysiological doses of fructose could cause fatty liver and obesity independently of caloric intake, systematic reviews and meta analyses on actual sugar/fructose intake in humans demonstrate that it has no effect on bodyweight when exchanged for other non-sugar carbohydrates and calories remain equal. Here is one exmaple: https://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.e7492
And what about exchanging sugar for dietary fat (e.g. Keto)? No difference in bodyweight or fat mass when sugar is substituted for dietary fat or protein under conditions of energy balance or in an energy deficit: ( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18779274/ , https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/145/3/459/4743683 , https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3740086/ )
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses have shown no effect from sugar on cardiovascular disease risk factors, glycemic control, blood lipids, etc when substituted for other carbohydrates: (https://www.cmaj.ca/content/cmaj/189/20/E711.full.pdf , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6247175/ , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5174149/ )
I haven't seen any systematic reviews or meta-analyses showing sugar or fructose to be fattening independently of the calories they contain. Therefore, I don't think there's any issue with climbers putting on a R3d Bu11 hat and taking a salary considering that their audience will tend to watch what they eat to some extent (probably avoiding over consumption), and exercising (climbing) regularly. For the record, I think that most people should limit sugar intake because it can lead to over consumption of calories, but it doesn't need to be avoided. The last sentence probably aligns with your views as well?
It's difficult to avoid the hysteria surrounding sugar because diet has become so tribal, and there's a lot of money to be made from selling books or Netflix documentaries. Keto zealots will shout about how bad carbs/sugar are, vegan zealots will shout about how bad meat is, fasting zealots will shout about autophagy, and so on... The truth is that all of these diets can be healthy and none are inherently good or bad. There are healthy populations in various regions around the world eating wildly different diets. One common denominator is that the current 'western diet' and lifestyle (I hate to use this phrase as it tends towards conspiracy) does seem to be uniquely unhealthy. However, sugar intake has actually dropped significantly over the last 20 years (including soft drinks) while obesity and type 2 diabetes have continued to increase (i'm getting bored of looking through my saved study references now, but it's out there if you're interested...). The cause is clearly not just one thing. Hyper-palatable processed foods (generally these have a mix of carbohydrate and dietary fat), more sedentary lifestyles, chronic stress, etc...
By the way, I don't doubt that there are poor business practices from 'big sugar'.
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All carbohydrates break down into sugar in the body. "But it's the type of sugar and the rate at which blood sugar rises that matters" I hear you cry. The most demonised form of sugar, fructose, is actually low on the glycemic-index, so how does that add up?
The other 50% of white sugar, glucose, gets full marks on the GI scale though
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To be honest I don't really have any axe to grind here. My diet certainly isn't the healthiest. I also agree people tend to get hysterical about the whole thing. It was just in the context of Paul B saying that the way sugary drinks company behave and market their essentially very unhealthy products, isn't that dissimilar from tobacco companies. I tend to agree and get quite disheartened by the number of young people drinking them every day (sometime multiple). I think its easy to dismiss the long term damage they do, especially for kids and young adults. But I'm certainly no saint.
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All carbohydrates break down into sugar in the body. "But it's the type of sugar and the rate at which blood sugar rises that matters" I hear you cry. The most demonised form of sugar, fructose, is actually low on the glycemic-index, so how does that add up?
The other 50% of white sugar, glucose, gets full marks on the GI scale though
Yet doesn't result in negative outcomes independently of calories intake as discussed.
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'Too much', or 'excessive' amounts of anything are bad, literally by definition! Do you think that eating lots of sugar is bad because it isn't very satiating and therefore can more easily lead to over consumption of calories, or do you think sugar is bad independently of the calories it contains? If the former then I would tend to agree, but if the latter then I disagree because the balance of research doesn't support this claim.
Looking back at this I obvious agree 'too much' anything is obvious bad by definition. But its much easier to get 'too much' of some things than others. And it's very easy to end up with too much sugar/calories in your diet because of how they are pushed at you. But likewise I think the same thing happens with 'healthy foods/diets' too. And they are often marketed as a quick fix or shortcut to being healthier.
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I think Liam's reply contains a lot of good points but isn't the whole story with sugar. He focussed on 'fattening' and 'weight gain', but these aren't the only health metrics that matter and that sugar has been linked to. Inflammation for e.g. is another health measure excess sugar is implicated with.
The main issue is 'excess', not 'sugar' per se. But excess is a problem with sugary soft drinks because:
The soft drinks industry, supported by the sugar industry, has understandably done a very good marketing job with sugar - a simple example - drinking a can of original Red Bu|l provides the same grams of sugar as drinking an equivalent volume of orange or apple juice. This is true and fair. What isn't apparent from that fact is:
- few young people, except perhaps children of a few nutcase fruitarians, consume apple or orange juice in the volume they consume Red Bu|l and equivalent sugary soft drinks.
- the freshly squeezed apple and orange juice industry hasn't allocated the same resources and effort into sponsorships of high-profile influencers and marketing in a mission to create a market for their product, that Red Bu|l has done for its product.
- there is a sugar levy on sugary soft drinks for good sound scientific reasons. Red Bu|l comparing one sugar-levied sugary soft drink - apple juice - with another sugar-levied sugary soft drink - red bu|l - is comparing one thing you shouldn't frequently drink a lot of with another thing you shouldn't frequently drink a lot of.
Nothing about slagging off red bu|l or equivalent soft drinks is logical when looked at in isolation, but I think the damage done to young people* by them consuming sugary soft drinks is greater than the sum of the apparent parts. I wonder how Liam or others would think about a climber being sponsored by Bet365 or pr0nHub. Nothing about having a flutter on the horses or a look at pr0n is damaging in moderation. You can break down the individual parts of the supposed damage down by excess gambling or excess pr0n viewing and conclude that there should be no harm done by those products.
The issue is that for a great many impressionable people who follow 'influencers', moderation is difficult in the face of determined, intelligent, very well-funded marketing and omnipresence of the product in the places they frequent.
My idealistic opinion of climbers who've chosen to take the money from the sugary soft drinks industry is lower than if they weren't shilling this particular product. But I'm also a realist.
Details of the UK's sugar levy on soft drinks: https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/article/explainer/sugar-tax#:~:text=The%20levy%20is%20paid%20to,8g%20of%20sugar%20per%20100ml
''Why was it introduced?
The SDIL was introduced as an anti-obesity policy. It was central to the 2016 Childhood Obesity Strategy,[3] and was informed by proposals from public health experts[4] [5] [6] and high-profile campaigners.[7] Alongside its importance for public health, supporters emphasised its potential economic benefits through reducing obesity-related NHS expenditure and wider associated barriers to labour market participation.[8]''
* and adults, but they're adults so should know better.
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I’ve always believed, vaguely, that naturally occurring fructose (fruit and some veg). is not harmful because it’s consumed with fibre and cellulose and minerals and so on, whereas as an additive consumed in a refined form, it’s pretty dire.
A quick google throws up this perspective from the Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/21/fructose-poison-sugar-industry-pseudoscience
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I think Liam's reply contains a lot of good points but isn't the whole story with sugar. He focussed on 'fattening' and 'weight gain', but these aren't the only health metrics that matter and that sugar has been linked to. Inflammation for e.g. is another health measure excess sugar is implicated with.
The main issue is 'excess', not 'sugar' per se. But excess is still a problem with sugary soft drinks because:
The soft drinks industry, supported by the sugar industry, has understandably done a very good marketing job with sugar - a simple example - drinking a can of original Red Bu|l provides the same grams of sugar as drinking an equivalent volume of orange or apple juice. This is true and fair. What isn't apparent from that fact is:
- few young people, except perhaps children of a few nutcase fruitarians, consume apple or orange juice in the volume they consume Red Bu|l and equivalent sugary soft drinks.
- the freshly squeezed apple and orange juice industry hasn't allocated the same resources and effort into sponsorships of high-profile influencers and marketing in a mission to create a market for their product, that Red Bu|l has done for its product.
- there is a sugar levy on sugary soft drinks for good sound scientific reasons. Red Bu|l comparing one sugar-levied sugary soft drink - apple juice - with another sugar-levied sugary soft drink - red bu|l - is comparing one thing you shouldn't drink much of with another thing you shouldn't drink much of.
Nothing about slagging off red bu|l or equivalent soft drinks is logical when looked at in isolation, but I think the damage done to young people* by them consuming sugary soft drinks is greater than the sum of the apparent parts. I wonder how Liam or others would think about a climber being sponsored by Bet365 or pr0nHub. Nothing about having a flutter on the horses or a look at pr0n is damaging in moderation.
The issue is that for a great many impressionable people who follow 'influencers', moderation is difficult in the face of determined, intelligent, very well-funded marketing and omnipresence of the product in the places they frequent.
My idealistic opinion of climbers who've chosen to take the money from the sugary soft drinks industry is lower than if they weren't shilling this particular product. But I'm also a realist.
* and adults, but they're adults so should know better.
I did cover some other health metrics, but lets do inflammation since you mentioned it. Sugar does not appear to increase inflammation in the absence of a caloric surplus:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28492492/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31067015/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24787494/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19631353/
It's worth noting that ALL foods are inflammatory when eaten to excess.
But I pretty much agree with everything else you've said.
Regarding my opinion on sponsorship from Bet365 or pr0nHub, for some reason those trouble me more, but I can't think of any rational reason why that is. I'm a boxing fan and Bet365 sponsor lots of boxing content I watch, so it's completely illogical that it would trouble me more in climbing. I wonder what odds I can get on Bosi smashing Return of the Sleepwalker within 10 sessions?
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I’ve always believed, vaguely, that naturally occurring fructose (fruit and some veg). is not harmful because it’s consumed with fibre and cellulose and minerals and so on, whereas as an additive consumed in a refined form, it’s pretty dire.
A quick google throws up this perspective from the Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/21/fructose-poison-sugar-industry-pseudoscience
Increasing fibre is associated with better health outcomes across the board.
As for the Guardian article, here is a comprehensive debunking of Robert Lustig's claims from a professional dietitian (Layne Norton PhD) and a cancer researcher (Joe Zundell). All sources are referenced. It's a very good listen, so if you are interested in this topic, wait until you have an hour to listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZPKTaVB1IU
Lustig is completely wrong on much of what he says and appears to have fabricated evidence.
Layne Norton's personality can be slightly annoying at times, but in my decade plus of being interested in diet stuff, I think he puts out the best and most balanced opinions broken down in a way that's easy to understand. He isn't aligned to any one type of diet and has changed his mind on a few things in the time I've been aware of him when faced with compelling evidence. He has many good videos worth watching.
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The issue has become too religious and too many people are entrenched.
I've also been interested in this subject for over a decade, it's one of those topics that seems to have a true answer but lots of noise from vested interests. I own a copy of the original book that started this all off - John Yudkin's Pure White and Deadly. As you probably know the current dietary battleground mostly stems from a battle of theories in the 70s between Professor Yudkin (excess refined sugars are 'bad') and Ancel Keys (excess fat is 'bad').
Keys 'won' the narrative with much support from the cereal industry - fat was bad, low fat was 'good'. Sugar filled the void that fat vacated. And rest is history. Except that was wrong or at least it's far more nuanced than that. Keys has also been accused of manipulating evidence in support of a bias, and now we're trying to untangle the truth of a healthy diet but in a landscape of much noise from competing interests.
Anyone interested in this stuff should read Yudkin's books and studies, and then read Ancel Keys studies, and then read meta studies of the competing theories.
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I tried cutting sugar out of my diet completely this January and I’ve never felt so depressed. Re-introduced a little bit and hey presto my mood is way better. I like the stuff.
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I tried cutting sugar out of my diet completely this January and I’ve never felt so depressed. Re-introduced a little bit and hey presto my mood is way better. I like the stuff.
;D Amazing. I like sugar too. We're literally evolved (along with lots of other primates) to want to eat high calorie sweet foods (i.e. fruit). Just naturally their wasn't that much available compared to modern diets.
Fruiting plants, the original sugar pushers, all to get to what they really want, seed dispersal. We've been played!
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I tried cutting sugar out of my diet completely this January and I’ve never felt so depressed. Re-introduced a little bit and hey presto my mood is way better. I like the stuff.
I could same exactly the same thing about consuming alcohol in moderation. I love it and it makes me feel a bit 'less' if I can't do it. But I don't believe it would be a positive for climbers to receive funding to push marketing of alcoholic drinks to impressionable younger viewers via their content and clothing.
The issue isn't the substance per se, it's the pushing of a substance to excess leading to negative outcomes.
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I’ve always found the gradual seeping in of mainstream sponsorship a bit icky (like when Saltburnesque university ski club my name is Rupert and that’s my dad’s yacht pastel rugger shirt mongers Fat Face started sponsoring Steve Mac) but I’ll reluctantly admit it’s largely an unfairly prejudicial and unrealistic response based on wistful daydreams about the good old days of climbing being a niche lifestyle for weirdos who slept with MOACs under their pillows whilst dreaming about eating fake malt loaf dog turds like Johnny and Paul.
But considering how virtually every racing driver / mountain biker / bmx person / skier / snowboarder never appears without at the very least a giant baseball cap scrawled with logos which look like rejects from the 1995 version of Wipeout, I think climbing has got off pretty lightly.
If my 9 year old watches a Bobat video then asks for a can of Tenzing, I will probably reluctantly buy it for him before reminding myself that it could be so much worse. Like announcing that he’s moving to Dubai to work in luxury real estate so he can afford the giant I’m a dickhead watch he saw Lewis Hamilton advertising…
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I tried cutting sugar out of my diet completely this January and I’ve never felt so depressed. Re-introduced a little bit and hey presto my mood is way better. I like the stuff.
I could same exactly the same thing about consuming alcohol in moderation. I love it and it makes me feel a bit 'less' if I can't do it. But I don't believe it would be a positive for climbers to receive funding to push marketing of alcoholic drinks to impressionable younger viewers via their content and clothing.
The issue isn't the substance per se, it's the pushing of a substance to excess leading to negative outcomes.
I don't think this is a fair equivalence. Alcohol is a drug and a known carcinogen. Sugar isn't inherently unhealthy as discussed.
Yes I know there was a study showing a very small amount of wine was ok.
edit - sorry if it seems i'm nitpicking everything you say. I'm not meaning to and I've appreciated your input. Balanced debate is good.
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I’ve always found the gradual seeping in of mainstream sponsorship a bit icky (like when Saltburnesque university ski club my name is Rupert and that’s my dad’s yacht pastel rugger shirt mongers Fat Face started sponsoring Steve Mac) but I’ll reluctantly admit it’s largely an unfairly prejudicial and unrealistic response based on wistful daydreams about the good old days of climbing being a niche lifestyle for weirdos who slept with MOACs under their pillows whilst dreaming about eating fake malt loaf dog turds like Johnny and Paul.
...
If my 9 year old watches a Bobat video then asks for a can of Tenzing, I will probably reluctantly buy it for him before reminding myself that it could be so much worse. Like announcing that he’s moving to Dubai to work in luxury real estate so he can afford the giant I’m a dickhead watch he saw Lewis Hamilton advertising…
I know it's tongue in cheek, but those are completely different levels of personal impact.
If someone was just as concerned about their offspring becoming a rich twat and wanting a big watch and a yacht, as they were about their offspring developing obesity or other life-long poor health, than I'd think they had their priorities mixed up:
One is a cultural / tribal snobbery issue (yes I know buying a big rolex or a yacht has impacts far beyond the dent to your wallet like every other consumable).
One potentially has a real impact on health, especially younger people's health, which will influence their whole lifetime - and by extension the health service, which we all know is overwhelmed by a population in poor health which can in part be linked to consumption of the 'typical' diet.
As the saying goes: 'a healthy man wants a thousand things, a sick man only wants one'.
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I'm sure I'll get shat on for this, but i don't view the pursuit of wealth (whether to buy trinkets or otherwise) particularly good for the mental health of the individual in question, unless they happen to be one of those clever/jammy/good-enough-at-manifesting-success (delete/ insert your own as appropriate) enough to obtain their goals and then be sufficiently satisfied with their lot.
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Liam, no worries I agree balanced discussion is good.
I'd point out that the RDA for free sugars is 30g per day for adults, 24g for children aged 7-10 and 19g for children aged 4-6 .
That's an insanely low level which is v.easy to go over* every day after day, every week, every year. Without reading the specific studies you link, are you aware of how many are based on consumption of 'only' the RDA...
* One the easiest and quickest ways to exceed it would be to drink a sugary soft drink containing 27g of free sugars, red bu|l for e.g. On top of the free sugars we'll all be consuming via our normal diet.
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It was intended as tongue in cheek, but there is a moral component to all this as well. If we’re going to talk about the insidious influence of the sugary drink industry on children, it’s not too far-fetched to make comparisons with… actually, it’s fine. I’m just going to save this for a dinner party when I end up sitting next to someone telling everyone about how their fourteen year old really wants to work in asset management.
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You're right of course, in part (about potential impacts of wealth accumulation). If I was the person in that dinner party my retort would be 'money gives you independence and the ability to make good or bad choices. Chronic ill health, doesn't'.
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I tried cutting sugar out of my diet completely this January and I’ve never felt so depressed.
Hardly surprising, your microbiome isn't going to appreciate a change that drastic.
Reducing sugar was a game-changer for me a few years back (that and making sure when I do eat a load of it that it's after or alongside a good intake of fats and proteins). No more abrupt debilitating energy crashes and needing to eat every 20 minutes. But everyone's different.
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“An asset manager who was found dead in his Wallingford home is suspected to have died from a gunshot wound, a court has heard.”
“Former Polar Capital fund manager xxx xxxxxx, 36, was found dead last May following his discharge from a psychiatric hospital.”
“ xxxx xxxxx, a portfolio manger at Visium Asset Management, was found dead in his home, apparently having committed suicide.”
“ The sudden death of a Toronto hedge fund manager has led to an OSC probe into millions in losses the fund appears to have run up.”
“A hedge fund manager at New York investment firm Paulson & Co fell to his death from a Manhattan hotel on Monday in an apparent suicide.”
Although I’m not saying that any of these people initially drew their motivation from wealth accumulation via childhood exposure to luxury watch advertising…
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For that to have any meaning firstly you'd need to know the figures relative to suicide rates in other occupations.
Then, your logic is :'high suicide rate and poor mental health outcomes in occupation 'x' therefore occupation x is bad'
How about following your line and applying it to doctors...
Doctors and other medical professionals have a higher than average suicide rate than the overall population (https://www.abetternhs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Doctors-suicide-Gerada-2018.pdf). Globally. By around 2 to 5 times.
Therefore becoming a doctor or medical professional, according to your line of argument, is 'bad'. Which is obviously a flawed line of argument.
This isn't about suicide rates or mental health is it. It's about your attitude and beliefs towards money.
Totally off topic now.
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If my 9 year old watches a Bobat video then asks for a can of Tenzing, I will probably reluctantly buy it for him before reminding myself that it could be so much worse. Like announcing that he’s moving to Dubai to work in luxury real estate so he can afford the giant I’m a dickhead watch he saw Lewis Hamilton advertising…
:lol: :lol:
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Liam, no worries I agree balanced discussion is good.
I'd point out that the RDA for free sugars is 30g per day for adults, 24g for children aged 7-10 and 19g for children aged 4-6 .
That's an insanely low level which is v.easy to go over* every day after day, every week, every year. Without reading the specific studies you link, are you aware of how many are based on consumption of 'only' the RDA...
* One the easiest and quickest ways to exceed it would be to drink a sugary soft drink containing 27g of free sugars, red bu|l for e.g. On top of the free sugars we'll all be consuming via our normal diet.
I had a quick flick through some of the studies I posted to see if I could find a quick answer and this is the first one I came to where it's presented within the abstract itself: (https://www.cmaj.ca/content/cmaj/189/20/E711.full.pdf). The difference in the median total sugar intake between the groups was 72g.
I think you'd find the Layne Norton video interesting that I posted on the previous page, he really goes into detail on a lot of this.
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Sorry Pete - I honestly wasn’t trying to have a personal dig and actually I do mostly agree with what you said about money. It’s not really good or bad - it’s what you do with it, how you consume it, and where it comes from that’s important. A bit like sugar…
I’m just interested in people’s motivations, and the effect that exposure to motivating factors has on people, esp kids at an impressionable age. I kind of agree with jwi that eg rules about marketing potentially problematic products to kids should be top down, but the way in which that kind of marketing happens now is evolving at a very rapid pace, and eg Tik Tok (which itself will prob be left behind for the next new thing imminebtky) is a bit of a Wild West that most adults don’t have a clue about.
I’ve been trying to write a (fictional) thing about a very successful (on paper) fitness influencer who is a product of taking all this stuff as motivation / leveraging (his word not mine) every pithy motivational self-improvement nugget / turning himself into a product for mass consumption… but at what cost? And so, of course, I am interested by how the presentation and messages of commercial content aimed at young people has an effect on them.
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No worries, and that sounds an interesting project. You're probably aware of Bryan Johnson - a real life example of the sort of character you're creating.
edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Johnson
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Was gonna post this earlier then changed my mind.
Seeing as Yudkin and Keys were mentioned I've changed my mind again... some might find it interesting.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin
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Was gonna post this earlier then changed my mind.
Seeing as Yudkin and Keys were mentioned I've changed my mind again... some might find it interesting.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin
Lustig has been thoroughly debunked (by data from meta analyses and randomised human controlled trials) and has most likely fabricated evidence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZPKTaVB1IU
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Was gonna post this earlier then changed my mind.
Seeing as Yudkin and Keys were mentioned I've changed my mind again... some might find it interesting.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin
Lustig has been thoroughly debunked (by data from meta analyses and randomised human controlled trials) and has most likely fabricated evidence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZPKTaVB1IU
I only said some might find to the article interesting ( particularly the history side). I didn't say it was science.
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I tried cutting sugar out of my diet completely this January and I’ve never felt so depressed. Re-introduced a little bit and hey presto my mood is way better. I like the stuff.
Could you define what sugar means to you in this context? Are you sure you were hitting adequate calorie intake?
My experience has been that I wasn’t eating enough when removing it due to being used to energy dense foods. Adding more fats fixed this and improved satiation considerably for me.
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I avoided anything that obviously had sugar in it. The only sweet thing I ate was the odd Nakd bar before a climbing session. Tbh I cycle commute 4 x pw (30 mins each way), run 3 - 4 x pw and climb 3 - 4 x pw. I was struggling to eat enough I think, though was having bacon and egg on toast for lunch some days instead of my usual peanut butter on toast. I eat tons of nuts. Didn’t feel under fuelled really.
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I'm sure the cigarette companies did plenty for F1.
The thread has moved on quite a bit since my post but it wasn't necessarily intended to label Cigs and 'Big Sugar' as one and the same in terms of harm ( :worms:), more that it was probably inconceivable at one time to consider sports/motorsport without their involvement whereas I hope (idealistically as JWI pointed out) that people would recognise the negative impacts of such sponsors and look elsewhere (again, easy to say when nobody is offering you a case of over-caffeinated sugary drink company and a big fat cheque).
The other point was simply that them looking after their people is just good business, protecting their investment in what is a form of advertising which they have already sunk money, rather than altruistically through some form of positive culture. The same is true for my wife who has private healthcare through work. She had an injury this year which resulted in a fractured shoulder and after A&E treatment the NHS appointment was 1-month in the future. Through work she was seen in a matter of days and she was already receiving physio by the 1-month mark. That benefit meant that her employer minimised lost time from her injury (and the positive benefits of that being on offer allows her employer to attract the kind of employees they want).
Incidentally, I go through a horrendous amount of sugar (in the form of gels and electrolyte drinks). I also drink Coke (affectionately termed a Red Ambulance) if anyone wants to point out my hypocrisy on such issues.
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Surely top climbers should be sponsored by weight loss drugs and radical diet programs?? At least that would be spot on for the target market...
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I tried cutting sugar out of my diet completely this January and I’ve never felt so depressed.
Hardly surprising, your microbiome isn't going to appreciate a change that drastic.
Reducing sugar was a game-changer for me a few years back (that and making sure when I do eat a load of it that it's after or alongside a good intake of fats and proteins). No more abrupt debilitating energy crashes and needing to eat every 20 minutes. But everyone's different.
I cut out obvious sugar in September, excepting a hot chocolate once a day max. It took some discipline to maintain at first, but feels fine otherwise. By ‘cut out’ I mean no obvious sources such as sweets, bars etc, basic muesli rather than processed cereals, meals mostly properly prepared from ingredients. Obviously eliminating sugar would be nigh on impossible given its ubiquity in tinned food, sauces and everything even vaguely processed. Nor would it be desirable to cut out fruit and starchy vegetables, obviously.
I’m happy to continue like this.
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I might have missed it but no-one seems to have mentioned how bad sugar is for your teeth.
I don’t eat sugar (or more accurately, sugary snacks, obviously there’s some form of sugar in most food) at the start of the year, til at least the end of February, sometimes til Easter, which is when I become much more active again. Like quitting anything after about three weeks the habit has become not doing it rather than doing it and you can continue indefinitely. But fuck doing it indefinitely because sugar’s nice.
R e d Bull are going to have to sponsor a hell of a lot of climbers to get kids off that Prime stuff.
Climbers don’t seem to be that affected by all the money R e d Bull pump into sponsorship do they? Has anyone else ever seen a climber drink one (or any fizzy pop for that matter) at the crag or wall? My mate has the most incredibly sugar-based diet and I’ve only known him to drink pop while climbing twice- once when we found an unopened can at the crag and once when he found a reduced bottle of cherryade when buying sandwiches.
It’s ridiculous that UKB still auto-censors R e d Bull when the only person who ever wanted it quit the forum years ago and it stops us posting working links to Reel Rock videos.
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Climbers don’t seem to be that affected by all the money R e d Bull pump into sponsorship do they? Has anyone else ever seen a climber drink one (or any fizzy pop for that matter) at the crag or wall?
People doing sports are obviously not the target audience for sugary drinks. They are used to sell a image of this form of candy as a somewhat healthy harmless upper to a mass market audience. If an athelete uses it, how bad can it really be for the body?
It’s ridiculous that UKB still auto-censors R e d Bull when the only person who ever wanted it quit the forum years ago and it stops us posting working links to Reel Rock videos.
No, it is funny. Keep it! It is lore!
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My partner and I drink it and other overly caffinated beverages
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I suspect if I were in a position to be sponsored, I doubt my morals would extend to saying no to generous, high-profile money from over-caffeinated sugary drink company. It sounds like athletes get a better deal from them than many places, including medical insurance, and scratching a living as a pro athlete must be hard enough. I do find it troubling how ubiquitous it is though.
As a teacher I've seen the effect that sugar marketing has. Kids genuinely believe that drinking over-caffeinated sugary drink company will help them to concentrate in class and do better. These are often the same kids whose parents send them to school with no breakfast (which is worryingly common in some schools). I've had kids throw up on me because they've chugged 2 Lucozades for breakfast. One lad had 5 Mars bars for his lunch - he bounced off the walls for 10 minutes before I had to ask the TA to take him for a run around the building. He had no idea that this might be bad for him, and I had to talk him through what he should eat for lunch and why all that sugar had ended up with him misbehaving. He was 16, and somehow all of the healthy eating messages had passed him by, but he actually responded really well and started showing up with fruit instead.
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I suspect if I were in a position to be sponsored, I doubt my morals would extend to saying no to generous, high-profile money from over-caffeinated sugary drink company. It sounds like athletes get a better deal from them than many places, including medical insurance, and scratching a living as a pro athlete must be hard enough. I do find it troubling how ubiquitous it is though.
As a teacher I've seen the effect that sugar marketing has. Kids genuinely believe that drinking over-caffeinated sugary drink company will help them to concentrate in class and do better. These are often the same kids whose parents send them to school with no breakfast (which is worryingly common in some schools). I've had kids throw up on me because they've chugged 2 Lucozades for breakfast. One lad had 5 Mars bars for his lunch - he bounced off the walls for 10 minutes before I had to ask the TA to take him for a run around the building. He had no idea that this might be bad for him, and I had to talk him through what he should eat for lunch and why all that sugar had ended up with him misbehaving. He was 16, and somehow all of the healthy eating messages had passed him by, but he actually responded really well and started showing up with fruit instead.
Agree with your first paragraph but there’s 0 evidence other than 1 study from the 70s which has pretty much been debunked showing that sugar causes hyperactivity in children…
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I suspect if I were in a position to be sponsored, I doubt my morals would extend to saying no to generous, high-profile money from over-caffeinated sugary drink company. It sounds like athletes get a better deal from them than many places, including medical insurance, and scratching a living as a pro athlete must be hard enough. I do find it troubling how ubiquitous it is though.
As a teacher I've seen the effect that sugar marketing has. Kids genuinely believe that drinking over-caffeinated sugary drink company will help them to concentrate in class and do better. These are often the same kids whose parents send them to school with no breakfast (which is worryingly common in some schools). I've had kids throw up on me because they've chugged 2 Lucozades for breakfast. One lad had 5 Mars bars for his lunch - he bounced off the walls for 10 minutes before I had to ask the TA to take him for a run around the building. He had no idea that this might be bad for him, and I had to talk him through what he should eat for lunch and why all that sugar had ended up with him misbehaving. He was 16, and somehow all of the healthy eating messages had passed him by, but he actually responded really well and started showing up with fruit instead.
Agree with your first paragraph but there’s 0 evidence other than 1 study from the 70s which has pretty much been debunked showing that sugar causes hyperactivity in children…
Regardless of the mechanisms at play behind the hyperactivity, mars bars for apples is a good switch in my book and I'd commend Wil on how that situation was handled. It sounds like you had a very positive impact on that kid that will probably improve his quality of life significantly. That's what teaching should be all about.
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So R e d Bull make a drink now do they? I thought they were a charity sponsoring High Testosterone Outdoor Crazy Shit!
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Agree with your first paragraph but there’s 0 evidence other than 1 study from the 70s which has pretty much been debunked showing that sugar causes hyperactivity in children…
And yet the first study on the google results for "blood sugar spike behaviour" is https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16005606/
I don't have the time or inclination to dig into this (and I can see plenty of newspaper articles backing up your statement), but it seems extraordinary to claim that energy levels are not influenced by diet and/or that energy levels do not influence behaviour... they certainly influence mine, though of course energy levels are about more than whether you smashed in 5 mars bars...
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Agree with your first paragraph but there’s 0 evidence other than 1 study from the 70s which has pretty much been debunked showing that sugar causes hyperactivity in children…
And yet the first study on the google results for "blood sugar spike behaviour" is https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16005606/
I don't have the time or inclination to dig into this (and I can see plenty of newspaper articles backing up your statement), but it seems extraordinary to claim that energy levels are not influenced by diet and/or that energy levels do not influence behaviour... they certainly influence mine, though of course energy levels are about more than whether you smashed in 5 mars bars...
Unfortunately I can’t read the full study but it’s quite well known that the sugar/hyper myth is just that, a myth and that usually it’s parents placing their preconceived expectations of the effects of sugar on their kids, really children have a shit ton of energy and if you try and make them sit still for hours a day they’re going to want to bounce around, obviously not all children are the same but you can’t expect them to behave like adults, while sugar can of course give you “energy” it doesn’t necessarily mean it will make you hyperactive and unable to focus etc.
Some studies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3133757/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3598008/
Of course eating sugar in high quantities is bad for kids but there isn’t really any evidence that it makes kids hyper
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while sugar can of course give you “energy” it doesn’t necessarily mean it will make you hyperactive and unable to focus
If I eat a five pack of cookies in one go I sometimes literally can't focus my eyes properly. Does that count? :lol:
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Agree with your first paragraph but there’s 0 evidence other than 1 study from the 70s which has pretty much been debunked showing that sugar causes hyperactivity in children…
And yet the first study on the google results for "blood sugar spike behaviour" is https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16005606/
I don't have the time or inclination to dig into this (and I can see plenty of newspaper articles backing up your statement), but it seems extraordinary to claim that energy levels are not influenced by diet and/or that energy levels do not influence behaviour... they certainly influence mine, though of course energy levels are about more than whether you smashed in 5 mars bars...
Unfortunately I can’t read the full study but it’s quite well known that the sugar/hyper myth is just that, a myth and that usually it’s parents placing their preconceived expectations of the effects of sugar on their kids, really children have a shit ton of energy and if you try and make them sit still for hours a day they’re going to want to bounce around, obviously not all children are the same but you can’t expect them to behave like adults, while sugar can of course give you “energy” it doesn’t necessarily mean it will make you hyperactive and unable to focus etc.
Some studies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3133757/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3598008/
Of course eating sugar in high quantities is bad for kids but there isn’t really any evidence that it makes kids hyper
A quick read of that first study suggests that what it's saying is:
Sugar consumption DOES have a link to hyperactive behaviour, but NOT to ADHD?
"Simple sugar consumption may cause hyperactivity, given that snacks containing high sugar content cause massive secretion of insulin from the pancreas, resulting in hypoglycemia [9]. This stimulates an increase in epinephrine, leading to activation of nervous reactions and hyperactivity disorder behaviors [9]. In other words, elevated intake of snacks might increase the potential of nutritional imbalance, lower emotional intelligence [10-11], and ADHD [12-14]. A recent study on sugar consumption suggested that higher consumption of sugar is positively correlated with a higher level of hyperactivity and attention deficiency similar to ADHD [1,9,11,15]. However, it is still controversial whether or not there is an association between ADHD and sugar consumption."
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while sugar can of course give you “energy” it doesn’t necessarily mean it will make you hyperactive and unable to focus
If I eat a five pack of cookies in one go I sometimes literally can't focus my eyes properly. Does that count? :lol:
I ate a 10 pack last week and was fine, this might be a you thing Alex :lol:
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Agree with your first paragraph but there’s 0 evidence other than 1 study from the 70s which has pretty much been debunked showing that sugar causes hyperactivity in children…
And yet the first study on the google results for "blood sugar spike behaviour" is https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16005606/
I don't have the time or inclination to dig into this (and I can see plenty of newspaper articles backing up your statement), but it seems extraordinary to claim that energy levels are not influenced by diet and/or that energy levels do not influence behaviour... they certainly influence mine, though of course energy levels are about more than whether you smashed in 5 mars bars...
Unfortunately I can’t read the full study but it’s quite well known that the sugar/hyper myth is just that, a myth and that usually it’s parents placing their preconceived expectations of the effects of sugar on their kids, really children have a shit ton of energy and if you try and make them sit still for hours a day they’re going to want to bounce around, obviously not all children are the same but you can’t expect them to behave like adults, while sugar can of course give you “energy” it doesn’t necessarily mean it will make you hyperactive and unable to focus etc.
Some studies:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3133757/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3598008/
Of course eating sugar in high quantities is bad for kids but there isn’t really any evidence that it makes kids hyper
A quick read of that first study suggests that what it's saying is:
Sugar consumption DOES have a link to hyperactive behaviour, but NOT to ADHD?
"Simple sugar consumption may cause hyperactivity, given that snacks containing high sugar content cause massive secretion of insulin from the pancreas, resulting in hypoglycemia [9]. This stimulates an increase in epinephrine, leading to activation of nervous reactions and hyperactivity disorder behaviors [9]. In other words, elevated intake of snacks might increase the potential of nutritional imbalance, lower emotional intelligence [10-11], and ADHD [12-14]. A recent study on sugar consumption suggested that higher consumption of sugar is positively correlated with a higher level of hyperactivity and attention deficiency similar to ADHD [1,9,11,15]. However, it is still controversial whether or not there is an association between ADHD and sugar consumption."
The same study:
This study did not observe any link between dietary behaviors and ADHD in school age students. The first reason for consuming sugar in both the risk and normal groups was taste, whereas the second reason was hunger for the ADHD group (44.4%) and boredom for the normal group. As a result, dietary behaviors involving regular eating of meals that can eliminate hunger should be recommended to prevent overconsumption of sugary snacks by children.
Several recent studies suggested that ADHD development is related with consumption of coloring agents and preservatives in processed food [6,26]. ADHD could also be connected with intake of simple sugar [26]. Based on this, we compared the levels of sugar consumption between the normal and risk groups. Unexpectedly, the risk group consumed less fruits than the normal group and obtained almost the same amounts of sugar from the other types of snacks as compared to the normal group. Therefore, we concluded that the total consumption of simple sugar from snacks is not associated with ADHD (odd ratio = 0.317, P > 0.05). This result does not support a previous study in which a large amount of sugar consumption caused hyperactivity [6]. Similar to our results, a study by Wolraich et al. [16] that investigated the effects of sugar on behavior and learning competence in 32 hyperactive boys aged 7 to 12 suggested that sugar intake (1.75 g/kg of body weight) has no influence on attention and learning competency.
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Agree with your first paragraph but there’s 0 evidence other than 1 study from the 70s which has pretty much been debunked showing that sugar causes hyperactivity in children…
This kid did actually have ADHD, although he was unusually hyperactive that day, regardless of whether the sugar caused it.
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As a long life ADHD sufferer it always annoyed me when people blamed sugar for my outbursts :lol: if only I’d been medicated properly when I was a wee child
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As a fellow life long sufferer, do you find the medication helps. Do you notice any adverse effects?
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I opted not to take any as i wasn't diagnosed until adulthood, at this point i've just learnt to live with it... I did self medicate with cannabis for a long time though but stopped due to anxiety... gotta love the brain...
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My other half likes Coco Cola and confectionary so I include it when I do the grocery shopping. I steer clear of drinking or eating that stuff myself though.
Population health would be much improved if we all ate veg, seeds, fruit, meat etc and drank tap water or milk. I thought that was very well supported by evidence (happy to be corrected though).
I sort of think people should be free to buy unhealthy stuff to some extent. I wonder though whether advertising it is OK. A bit like my view on gambling I guess.
I'd be in favour of having all food and drink advertising banned. It's not clear to me that there is any societal benefit to food and drink advertising. If people want to eat junk food, they are perfectly capable of doing so without adverts. Stuff such as carrots and tap water don't have copyright or whatever and so don't really get advertised. Adverts tilt preference towards the ultra-processed branded stuff that harms us.
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ADHD aside, cause that's a different case, are we really saying that filling kids up with sugar doesn't make them behave differently, in what we might call a "hyperactive" way? Cause that would seem to fly in the face of all observable evidence.
Kids with ADHD may behave in that manner regardless I agree, but I think Rocksteadys reading of that study is correct.
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ADHD aside, cause that's a different case, are we really saying that filling kids up with sugar doesn't make them behave differently, in what we might call a "hyperactive" way? Cause that would seem to fly in the face of all observable evidence.
Kids with ADHD may behave in that manner regardless I agree, but I think Rocksteadys reading of that study is correct.
Yes ADHD aside that is indeed the case, there’s no proof that giving kids sugary stuff makes them “hyper” it’s an old wives tales
https://www.eatright.org/health/wellness/healthful-habits/sugar-does-it-really-cause-hyperactivity#:~:text=The%20Sweet%20Truth,without%20proving%20sugar%20causes%20hyperactivity.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20130722-does-sugar-make-kids-hyperactive
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What about the people (adults, including in this thread) who say they cut down sugar and now don't have a peaks in energy followed by periods of tiredness/low energy? Is it not similar in children, and that's what gets labelled as "hyper"?
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I think there’s a difference between having some extra energy to work for a few more hours in the afternoon or give their project two more goes Vs hyperactivity which is usually just down to kids being excited and playing (which is what kids do) - I think the whole sugar/hyper thing is so ingrained that everyone assumes the correlation. Also kids can be just as hyper without eating sugar?
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I can see lots of support for your position on the first page of Google so can see where you're coming from but I'm sceptical, mostly because it fails the common sense test. As Alex says, "it seems extraordinary to claim that energy levels are not influenced by diet and/or that energy levels do not influence behaviour."
I actually think the example of a kids party, which is the one used by a lot of the sites on Google p. 1, is a poor one because it's highly likely they would be hyper anyway. The more relevant example is Wils one, notwithstanding the ADHD.
Im going to take some convincing that a load of kids smashing sugar in through their lunch break and then behaving poorly post lunch are unconnected events, basically. Also there appear to be studies that say the opposite of the received wisdom, namely the one Alex found for one.
I'm unlikely to spend hours delving into this unless I get really bored but it's interesting, because I can see the same things you can on Google.
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ADHD aside, cause that's a different case, are we really saying that filling kids up with sugar doesn't make them behave differently, in what we might call a "hyperactive" way? Cause that would seem to fly in the face of all observable evidence.
Kids with ADHD may behave in that manner regardless I agree, but I think Rocksteadys reading of that study is correct.
Yes ADHD aside that is indeed the case, there’s no proof that giving kids sugary stuff makes them “hyper” it’s an old wives tales
https://www.eatright.org/health/wellness/healthful-habits/sugar-does-it-really-cause-hyperactivity#:~:text=The%20Sweet%20Truth,without%20proving%20sugar%20causes%20hyperactivity.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20130722-does-sugar-make-kids-hyperactive
I might have read those 2 articles incorrectly but they don’t seemed to referenced academic papers.
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ADHD aside, cause that's a different case, are we really saying that filling kids up with sugar doesn't make them behave differently, in what we might call a "hyperactive" way? Cause that would seem to fly in the face of all observable evidence.
Kids with ADHD may behave in that manner regardless I agree, but I think Rocksteadys reading of that study is correct.
Yes ADHD aside that is indeed the case, there’s no proof that giving kids sugary stuff makes them “hyper” it’s an old wives tales
https://www.eatright.org/health/wellness/healthful-habits/sugar-does-it-really-cause-hyperactivity#:~:text=The%20Sweet%20Truth,without%20proving%20sugar%20causes%20hyperactivity.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20130722-does-sugar-make-kids-hyperactive
I might have read those 2 articles incorrectly but they don’t seemed to referenced academic papers.
The bbc article links paper in the text itself:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/391812
Conclusion. —The meta-analytic synthesis of the studies to date found that sugar does not affect the behavior or cognitive performance of children. The strong belief of parents may be due to expectancy and common association. However, a small effect of sugar or effects on subsets of children cannot be ruled out.(JAMA. 1995;274:1617-1621)
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Climbers don’t seem to be that affected by all the money R e d Bull pump into sponsorship do they? Has anyone else ever seen a climber drink one (or any fizzy pop for that matter) at the crag or wall?
As a wall manager who sells that stuff: yes climbers drink it. We sell more over-caffeinated sugary drink company than Monster, but I think compared to the rest of society, a lot less at least. Here in Norway the market of energy drinks has outgrown the soda pops, but we sell almost as much water.
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I play magic the gathering at patriot games in Sheffield centre and trust me, no one drinks more monster or over-caffeinated sugary drinks than nerds :lol:
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I've missed ukb.
I love the fact that the conversations spread across the various threads.
I have a feeling that this one could end up breaking the record for topic splits since it really needs at least one more
Back on (not yet split) topic. If I give my son sugary drinks does that mean I can take him to the wall in the evenings like other parents do with their offspring, or will he remain a sleepy wee thing needing 11-odd hours sleep a night despite being almost 10 years old?
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You aren't the only one thinking this about kids at the wall. My 9 year old needs to be on bed at 8 and asleep by 8:30 otherwise there would be no hope of him being awake enough for school.
9-11 hours is recommended for that age group. Always amazed talking to other parents how many other kids seem to go to bed at 9:30-10.
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You aren't the only one thinking this about kids at the wall. My 9 year old needs to be on bed at 8 and asleep by 8:30 otherwise there would be no hope of him being awake enough for school.
9-11 hours is recommended for that age group. Always amazed talking to other parents how many other kids seem to go to bed at 9:30-10.
Absolutely
We only get the odd family session at the weekend, otherwise it's still alternating nights. No complaints at all with our lot, merely an observation, although it does mean I'm more inclined to be pissed off with other parents down the wall on a weeknight, if their kids are running wild when I know mine is either in bed or getting ready for bed. I'm sympathetic at weekends though ;D
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Most be you Brits.
I remember a few weeks ago in Tenerife, no matter what time in the night you're out, there's always some Brits with their toddlers along.
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Most be you Brits.
I remember a few weeks ago in Tenerife, no matter what time in the night you're out, there's always some Brits with their toddlers along.
Presumably sponsored by R@d B&ll
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I suspect if I were in a position to be sponsored, I doubt my morals would extend to saying no to generous, high-profile money from over-caffeinated sugary drink company. It sounds like athletes get a better deal from them than many places, including medical insurance, and scratching a living as a pro athlete must be hard enough. I do find it troubling how ubiquitous it is though.
As a teacher I've seen the effect that sugar marketing has. Kids genuinely believe that drinking over-caffeinated sugary drink company will help them to concentrate in class and do better. These are often the same kids whose parents send them to school with no breakfast (which is worryingly common in some schools). I've had kids throw up on me because they've chugged 2 Lucozades for breakfast. One lad had 5 Mars bars for his lunch - he bounced off the walls for 10 minutes before I had to ask the TA to take him for a run around the building. He had no idea that this might be bad for him, and I had to talk him through what he should eat for lunch and why all that sugar had ended up with him misbehaving. He was 16, and somehow all of the healthy eating messages had passed him by, but he actually responded really well and started showing up with fruit instead.
Agree with your first paragraph but there’s 0 evidence other than 1 study from the 70s which has pretty much been debunked showing that sugar causes hyperactivity in children…
Totally agree that sugar doesn't cause ADHD but I don't think that's what Wil was implying; more that it causes a spike in energy which affects behaviour which isn't actually "hyperactivity" within the definition of the "disorder" but is often colloquially described as "hyper".
The anecdotal evidence for sugar driving...let's call it excitable behaviour in children is simply massive. Talk to literally any parent and they'll give you an example.
I'm interested in this though as I've been very anti-sugar when it comes to what my daughter eats, albeit that's perhaps more down to other concerns around processed food. E.g. I was pretty shocked to find that when she joined her current nursery it was standard practice after lunch to have a pudding, which was almost always some variation of highly processed something or other. We put our foot down and now she literally has a "special dietary requirement" which means she has fruit instead! Mental, I thought.
Anyway going back a long, long way to Liam's original post...
I actually mostly agree with Dingdong’s comment.
I just wanted to highlight just how bad too much processed sugar is. And how the behaviour of the sugar industry mirrors a lot of how cigarettes were/are marketed too. I think people still overlook it sometimes.
'Too much', or 'excessive' amounts of anything are bad, literally by definition! Do you think that eating lots of sugar is bad because it isn't very satiating and therefore can more easily lead to over consumption of calories, or do you think sugar is bad independently of the calories it contains? If the former then I would tend to agree, but if the latter then I disagree because the balance of research doesn't support this claim.
All carbohydrates break down into sugar in the body. "But it's the type of sugar and the rate at which blood sugar rises that matters" I hear you cry. The most demonised form of sugar, fructose, is actually low on the glycemic-index, so how does that add up? Whilst some animal studies have shown that supraphysiological doses of fructose could cause fatty liver and obesity independently of caloric intake, systematic reviews and meta analyses on actual sugar/fructose intake in humans demonstrate that it has no effect on bodyweight when exchanged for other non-sugar carbohydrates and calories remain equal. Here is one exmaple: https://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.e7492
And what about exchanging sugar for dietary fat (e.g. Keto)? No difference in bodyweight or fat mass when sugar is substituted for dietary fat or protein under conditions of energy balance or in an energy deficit: ( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18779274/ , https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/145/3/459/4743683 , https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3740086/ )
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses have shown no effect from sugar on cardiovascular disease risk factors, glycemic control, blood lipids, etc when substituted for other carbohydrates: (https://www.cmaj.ca/content/cmaj/189/20/E711.full.pdf , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6247175/ , https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5174149/ )
I haven't seen any systematic reviews or meta-analyses showing sugar or fructose to be fattening independently of the calories they contain. Therefore, I don't think there's any issue with climbers putting on a R3d Bu11 hat and taking a salary considering that their audience will tend to watch what they eat to some extent (probably avoiding over consumption), and exercising (climbing) regularly. For the record, I think that most people should limit sugar intake because it can lead to over consumption of calories, but it doesn't need to be avoided. The last sentence probably aligns with your views as well?
It's difficult to avoid the hysteria surrounding sugar because diet has become so tribal, and there's a lot of money to be made from selling books or Netflix documentaries. Keto zealots will shout about how bad carbs/sugar are, vegan zealots will shout about how bad meat is, fasting zealots will shout about autophagy, and so on... The truth is that all of these diets can be healthy and none are inherently good or bad. There are healthy populations in various regions around the world eating wildly different diets. One common denominator is that the current 'western diet' and lifestyle (I hate to use this phrase as it tends towards conspiracy) does seem to be uniquely unhealthy. However, sugar intake has actually dropped significantly over the last 20 years (including soft drinks) while obesity and type 2 diabetes have continued to increase (i'm getting bored of looking through my saved study references now, but it's out there if you're interested...). The cause is clearly not just one thing. Hyper-palatable processed foods (generally these have a mix of carbohydrate and dietary fat), more sedentary lifestyles, chronic stress, etc...
By the way, I don't doubt that there are poor business practices from 'big sugar'.
I think this is absolutely spot on. However, meanwhile in the real world sugar is just about the cheapest and most ubiquitous foodstuff you can find which makes it virtually impossible for anyone to keep anywhere near to the RDA. This is the problem, not that it's inherently bad for you. Thus, it is utterly routine for it to be consumed to excess by virtually everyone. Yes it's dropped recently, but from an extreme high.
But I also completely agree there are many other things at play in the increase in obesity, like sedentary lifestyles (even in supposedly active people), chronic stress (big one), massive marketing of hyper palatable and cheap food, etc.
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I've always been fairly suspicious of any sort of kids' excitability effect driven by sugar. It's one of those things parents love to say, eg "oh, they're all on a massive sugar high" as if sugar induces some kind of intense, crack-like euphoric rush. Sometimes kids gorge themselves on sweets and cake at a party then run around like lunatics with their friends, which they'd probably still do if they'd had celery and hummus instead. And sometimes they eat ice-cream and chocolate and fall fast asleep.
As far as ADHD is concerned, I'm not really comfortable with it being discussed slightly flippantly alongside this sort of thing, because it's vastly more nuanced that just uncontrolled / an excess of physical energy, and it gets quite frustrating when there's a sense it's being (unintentionally) trivialised. Part of the reason mine went undiagnosed for so long (and why I'm a bit tetchy about it) was because my hyperactive symptoms are largely unrelated to motor activity.
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Apropos of nothing, while I was waiting for my partner to collect a parcel at the BP garage/Spar near me I wandered round the aisles. Normally I’m just in and out so don’t really pay much attention, but f*** me I was appalled at the offering. I mean I know petrol stations aren’t health food shops but still. It was just brightly coloured energy drinks, chocolate bars, crisps and sweets as far as the eye could see. I guesstimated 95% of what that place sells is either pure sugar, ultra processed crap, tobacco or vapes.
Just what a healthy population needs.
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Climbers don’t seem to be that affected by all the money R e d Bull pump into sponsorship do they? Has anyone else ever seen a climber drink one (or any fizzy pop for that matter) at the crag or wall?
As a wall manager who sells that stuff: yes climbers drink it. We sell more over-caffeinated sugary drink company than Monster, but I think compared to the rest of society, a lot less at least. Here in Norway the market of energy drinks has outgrown the soda pops, but we sell almost as much water.
Brunost is the real way to carb load anyway :punk:
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I was looking forwards to this thread, what a shambles.
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However, meanwhile in the real world sugar is just about the cheapest and most ubiquitous foodstuff you can find which makes it virtually impossible for anyone to keep anywhere near to the RDA. This is the problem, not that it's inherently bad for you. Thus, it is utterly routine for it to be consumed to excess by virtually everyone. Yes it's dropped recently, but from an extreme high.
Broadly agree with your thoughts but find this an odd statement. I personally make all food from scratch simply because this is the cheapest way. 1-2 fruits or vegetables per meal, some kind of carb and a protein source. Sourdough bread (the cheapest way to eat good bread ). I treat sugar similarly to alcohol in that it’s something I enjoy sometimes because food isn’t just about nutrition.
I agree that hidden sugars in pre prepared foods is problematic but I disagree that it’s the cheapest way to eat. This statement has always baffled me.
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I agree that hidden sugars in pre prepared foods is problematic but I disagree that it’s the cheapest way to eat. This statement has always baffled me.
This is a whole other side topic re: costs of cooking from scratch vs a ready meal bunged in the microwave. Same goes for homemade sourdough bread vs the cheapest white sliced stuff. Once you factor in the luxury of the time it takes to prepare, oven/hob costs, and some pricey store cupboard flavourings that are usually taken for granted I’d be surprised if it still works out cheaper.
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I agree that hidden sugars in pre prepared foods is problematic but I disagree that it’s the cheapest way to eat. This statement has always baffled me.
This is a whole other side topic re: costs of cooking from scratch vs a ready meal bunged in the microwave. Same goes for homemade sourdough bread vs the cheapest white sliced stuff. Once you factor in the luxury of the time it takes to prepare, oven/hob costs, and some pricey store cupboard flavourings that are usually taken for granted I’d be surprised if it still works out cheaper.
My average meal cost for the last three months was something like 1,50 - 2€ ink. all ingredients.
No I didn’t eat a lot of meat :)
I appreciate people have different lives and timeframes. I don’t personally feel like I spend a lot of time on food prep. Maybe 45 mins a day.
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As far as ADHD is concerned, I'm not really comfortable with it being discussed slightly flippantly alongside this sort of thing, because it's vastly more nuanced that just uncontrolled / an excess of physical energy, and it gets quite frustrating when there's a sense it's being (unintentionally) trivialised. Part of the reason mine went undiagnosed for so long (and why I'm a bit tetchy about it) was because my hyperactive symptoms are largely unrelated to motor activity.
Well yes, this is kind of why I weighed in as from my read literally no one suggested sugar causes or exacerbates ADHD symptoms but we then got into a load of studies proving that it doesn't. I.e., we're all very much on the same page there!
However, meanwhile in the real world sugar is just about the cheapest and most ubiquitous foodstuff you can find which makes it virtually impossible for anyone to keep anywhere near to the RDA. This is the problem, not that it's inherently bad for you. Thus, it is utterly routine for it to be consumed to excess by virtually everyone. Yes it's dropped recently, but from an extreme high.
Broadly agree with your thoughts but find this an odd statement. I personally make all food from scratch simply because this is the cheapest way. 1-2 fruits or vegetables per meal, some kind of carb and a protein source. Sourdough bread (the cheapest way to eat good bread ). I treat sugar similarly to alcohol in that it’s something I enjoy sometimes because food isn’t just about nutrition.
I agree that hidden sugars in pre prepared foods is problematic but I disagree that it’s the cheapest way to eat. This statement has always baffled me.
Note I said foodstuff. Perhaps ingredient would have been a better word.
Agree with Ali's points.
Also agree that people absolutely could make the time to cook food but it's considerably easier to buy a ready meal for, say £1.50 and cook that in 2 minutes.
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I see food prep time as fun time.
It's certainly cheaper as a recreational activity than yachting or horse racing or whatever.
If you can get to Lidl in time to get their £1:50 veg boxes, fresh produce is crazy cheap. Even if you can't, it's not hard to be pretty cost effective. I get the 7kg sacks of potatoes, the special offer fruit and veg etc. You can cook wonderful meals for a couple of £ per person in well under an hour.
I guess people are too busy watching Bakeoff and Masterchef to cook themselves though.
I really think marketing ploys are behind what I see as a catastrophic health crisis brought about by junk food.
There's a great podcast about processed food -the nutrion, sociology, psychology etc https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0c98bfy
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If you go to India or Pakistan, you see people cooking amazing food with just some scrap metal as utensils, an open fire, and extraordinarily cheap ingredients.
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I'm not sure if people intend it, but a lot of the "it's so cheap to cook healthy meals from scratch" chat could come from a Lee Anderson speech.
The issue is not the cost of the food itself. It is time, paying the electricity and gas bills, having the necessary pots, pans and ingredients. It's enormously simplistic to just point to a cheap veg box from Aldi.
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Food prep doesn't have to be expensive or time consuming but it does take planning and initial effort to do it cheaply and quickly. I am time poor, make most of my meals from scratch, and typically spend 2-3 hours a week on food prep.
With Lidl's veg boxes, and Aldi's Super 6 of cheap fruit and veg, you can get a good variety of affordable fruit and veg. The big supermarkets do a lot of variety of frozen fruit and veg that are a good option for the time poor or those who struggle to eat fresh food before it goes off. A lot of fresh ingredients can be frozen too, so stocking up when things are on offer is an option.
Store cupboard ingredients don't have to be expensive either. I get all my dried herbs and spices from an Indian supermarket, where a 500g bag of spices will be cheaper and higher quality than a 10g jar from Tesco. They also do a huge range of tinned beans and pulses for <40p each, or cheaper if you're willing to use dried (I'm too time poor to go for dried a lot of the time). Staple "ethnic" ingredients that the big supermarkets charge a big premium for are very cheap. Rice and grains bought in bulk are half the price of the big supermarkets.
For Chinese/Japanese/Korean ingredients, I go to a Chinese supermarket that is cheaper and better than you get from the big supermarkets.
For fresh herbs, wait until a supermarket has a pot on quick sale. Repot it, and a lot of herbs will last 1+ years if grown on a windowsill, or indefinitely in a garden. Mint, thyme, rosemary and chives are indestructible in a garden, no matter how much you neglect them.
For meat eaters, some butchers do a freezer box of assorted meats that work out cheaper than supermarkets.
I make as many portions as I can fit in the pan/dish. Eat 1 today, 1 or 2 in the fridge for tomorrow or the day after, and the rest go in the freezer so you always have a variety of meals ready to just reheat when you don't have time to cook.
I have a number of quick and easy meals that I can make in very little time if I get back late from the wall and need something ASAP. A delicious ramen bowl is ready in the time it takes to soft boil some eggs. When I make gnocchi, I do it on an industrial scale and freeze portions, which can be turned into a meal in 5 minutes. Lots of pasta dishes can be made in the time it takes to boil some pasta. Soups and slow cooker meals may take a while to cook, but typically only 5-10 minutes of active time.
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I'm not sure if people intend it, but a lot of the "it's so cheap to cook healthy meals from scratch" chat could come from a Lee Anderson speech.
The issue is not the cost of the food itself. It is time, paying the electricity and gas bills, having the necessary pots, pans and ingredients. It's enormously simplistic to just point to a cheap veg box from Aldi.
Most of my meals are cooked using some combination of a 20 year old wok, 20 year old saucepans, and 20 year old oven dishes. All of which were bought on a very tight student budget.
A lifetime of cooking equipment can be acquired for nothing or next to nothing on marketplace etc. My scales, mixing bowl, baking tins, tagine, gas barbecue and panini maker were all free.
I have some luxuries, but they aren't essential. The slow cooker was less than £20 6 years ago. Lidl were selling them for £15 a few weeks ago.
The energy difference between cooking from scratch vs cooking/reheating ready meals isn't that great. For half of the year, it's approximately zero because you save on heating costs.
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I'm not sure if people intend it, but a lot of the "it's so cheap to cook healthy meals from scratch" chat could come from a Lee Anderson speech.
The issue is not the cost of the food itself. It is time, paying the electricity and gas bills, having the necessary pots, pans and ingredients. It's enormously simplistic to just point to a cheap veg box from Aldi.
Exactly this, and a thousand other things that many take for granted - the time and mental energy to even think about your diet critically, the knowledge about how to cook things (having either been raised in a household where healthy meals are a thing or somehow learning this independently), the proximity to a supermarket (you're much more likely to live in a food desert if you're on a lower income) and ability to get there (owning a car or having decent public transport), that supermarket not being a less time-efficient option than the corner shop and all of its junk, the time to be able to shop multiple times a week in order to have the fresh veg in or ability to store plenty of frozen stuff, being in a position where 30-60 minutes spent prepping and cooking isn't an enormous chunk of your free time, not having a million other things to do such that chucking something in the oven or microwave is more time-efficient than chopping veg because it allows you to do some of your other household jobs while the food is cooking... There are a lot of things that make it difficult to eat both healthy and cheap: some are obvious, some aren't, but the fact that you're able to do it doesn't mean that others are lazy or stupid for not being able to. It may point to the difficulty of their lives, the relative ease of yours, or both.
Also, the idea that people are too busy watching TV to cook healthy meals is uncharacteristically ungenerous of you stone, and a bit 'millennials could afford a house if they stopped having avocado toast and takeaway coffee'.
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There are so many things in sdm's post that many could just not consider. I make that 4, possibly 5 different shops you go to to get your ingredients. What if you don't have the time, or a car to get there? What if you have to move house frequently so can't buy a shit load of pots and pans? What if you haven't got a big freezer, or indeed a freezer at all? Not to mention that you are clearly incredibly knowledgeable about food preparation and storage. I'm privileged in a million different ways and I'm frequently too tired/have too many other things to do to cook as you do. Or, of course, I'm just lazy.
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We can come up with a million ways that families can eat healthily on the cheap and without a huge time investment, but it's irrelevant.
Huge generalisation incoming that might seem a bit mean, but I think there's a lot of truth to it: fat families with fat parents and fat kids don't see it as a problem to solve. It's just their normal lived life (probably like many of their peers/community) and the way they eat is just the way they eat. To them, athletic bodied people are 'others', perhaps even 'unrealistic ideals', but certainly not something they consider becoming.
If a Buddhist Monk were judgemental, they might look at most of us reading thinking 'look at these silly people shortening their lives with stress, living in a rat race in pursuit of material things'. They might have a point, but our 9-5's, career progression and mortgages are just how we live, like many of our peers and we don't see it as a problem to solve. It's just normal life. Unfortunately, obesity is also completely normalised now; it's unusual not to be obese in some communities!
The only solution to the obesity problem that I see (on a population scale) would be the government doing what they did with smoking. That could mean banning the sale of shit food in certain environments, enforcing generic packaging with graphic photos of heart disease and cancer, increasing tax (unsure on this one), mass education, actually prioritising it in schools, age restrictions, etc. It sounds and probably is unrealistic but it's the only way.
In reality, what will happen is we'll slowly lose the NHS and health care insurance will be dependent on BMI... (Shudder)
PS. All this is based on very half baked ideas that you can probably poke a lot of holes in.
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I’m gonna go out on a limb here, but from your post sdm it sounds like you’re maybe single and don’t have kids? Apols if I’ve got that wrong. All the things you mention re: shopping and batch cooking I used to do, and still try to whenever I can. But these days I just find it becoming more and more unrealistic as life gets in the way and/or I prioritise other things. And that’s with both me and my partner mostly wfh.
For a large family ‘batch’ cooking probably means having leftovers for maybe one meal the following day if they’re lucky. Unless your portion size is that of a mouse. It’s all very well shopping for fresh ingredients and batch cooking for a single person or even a couple, but for a family of 4 or 5 the idea you could cook and store meals for days in advance seems very optimistic to me. Unless you dedicated an entire day at the weekend to it, or one parent doesn’t work of course.
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There are so many things in sdm's post that many could just not consider. I make that 4, possibly 5 different shops you go to to get your ingredients. What if you don't have the time, or a car to get there?
My location does make it easier to keep costs down. Although I do have a car, I don't need one to achieve this. Living in a rural area without a car would be totally different.
I live in postindustrial 2 up 2 down terraced land. There's certainly areas that are more deprived, but it is not a rich area. There's big Asian, Middle Eastern, East African and Eastern European populations here, so the cheap ethnic stores thrive.
Our bus service is awful, I'm glad I've never had to use it. If you don't have children in tow, escooter rental here works out less than half the price of buses. A lot of people here who don't have cars rely on the escooters.
I go to a supermarket about once per week. I switch between them as different ones are good/cheap for different things. I only go to the Chinese one maybe twice a year, to stock up on products that last. I go to the Indian one more frequently, because it's only on the next street.
What if you haven't got a big freezer, or indeed a freezer at all?
All of my white goods, my TV, TV stand, 2 sofas, 2 beds and 2 wardrobes were free too.
Not to mention that you are clearly incredibly knowledgeable about food preparation and storage.
I went away to uni with zero cooking knowledge. We learnt to cook because as a household, we couldn't afford not to. We lived almost entirely off yellow sticker reductions, and it was a 30 minute bike ride up the steep Bristol hills from the supermarket.
I'm privileged in a million different ways and I'm frequently too tired/have too many other things to do to cook as you do. Or, of course, I'm just lazy.
I completely get this as well. I'm not saying that it's easy to make food how I do. I understand why a lot of people can't or won't do what I do.
When I've been through particularly busy times at work, I've found it easy to fall into bad habits with food. It's so much harder to plan things when you're tired, hungry, stressed and short of time.
But when I've done that, it has cost me more time and more money overall.
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Sorry to pick on you, Stone, but it's crazy to me how far you will deceive yourself to give the benefit of the doubt to someone trashing the rock at Almscliff, but simultaneously anybody who isn't cooking everything from scratch - using scrap metal as a frying pan if necessary - is lazy.
Dead easy to spot the people without kids here. We never eat ready meals that go in the microwave, but we do use shortcuts for some stuff. Stir fry sauces, fish cakes that just need to go in the oven. Between two parents' jobs, swimming lessons, Rainbows, cricket/climbing wall with the eldest, my climbing, her hockey, play dates and parties, supervised reading every night, reading to them every night, and the housework, somewhere along the way we gave up on the idea of keeping our own sourdough starter. What a terrible excuse for the middle class we are.
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I’m gonna go out on a limb here, but from your post sdm it sounds like you’re maybe single and don’t have kids?
Correct ;D. I'm impressed that people with young kids have the time or money to do anything.
I do know people who have 2 young kids, manage to cook everything from scratch, do all the parenting things, and both parents work full time. But they're the exception, and I don't know how they manage it.
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Also, the idea that people are too busy watching TV to cook healthy meals is uncharacteristically ungenerous of you stone, and a bit 'millennials could afford a house if they stopped having avocado toast and takeaway coffee'.
I was going to write the same, last thing I would have expected from Stone from his posting history!
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If you go to India or Pakistan, you see people cooking amazing food with just some scrap metal as utensils, an open fire, and extraordinarily cheap ingredients.
Most food preparation in South Asia is done by either women, or domestic servants*. I am very confident about this as I have lots of in-laws in the Indian subcontinent and this is exactly what happens in their homes, which I have visited many times. I’ve also done a bunch of work trips to obscure and very non-touristy parts of rural India and Pakistan and seen how this gender divide works - we visitors are powerful and important so the men speak to us, the women bring us food and then disappear again.
This whole set up is predicated on patterns of female employment and status which haven’t existed in the U.K. for a very long time.
The only thing that’s spot on about this post is that the food they make is absolutely amazing.
* Sometimes the domestic servants are men… but who do you think oversees them?
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Its not about whether stuff is free, although you are clearly a FB marketplace/gumtree power user SDM!
Its about whether you have the space for it and the money to run it/fix it when they break. In an ideal world I would like to have a big chest freezer so I have more options for cooking, but theres nowhere to put it so its not an option. Not hard to see how similar might apply to even having a freezer in the first place. If its a choice between fridge and freezer fridge wins every time.
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I'm saying the ultra-processed food industry is inflicting mass harm on hundreds of millions of people.
Evidently, I came across as blaming the victims of that. That was a communication failure on my part -sorry.
The ultra-processed food industry uses an arsenal of tactics, including misinformation. I don't feel regret at trying to resist them.
I think it is a disgrace that people in the UK are in poverty. I also think eg Jack Monroe is totally correct in saying that ultra-processed food is best avoided even if you are in poverty.
I also think that much of the problem is that we have been peddled the notion that food prep is a chore rather than a joy to be cherished. I've never had children but I still have happy memories of joining in with food preparation as a young child and of cooking large family meals by myself as a tweenager. I've seen my nephew and niece doing the same. So I really don't think eating real food is only an option for households without children.
PS I do like watching Masterchef. I admit it's lazy of me to watch TV (and post on here etc)
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I have a memory of Stone cooking himself large amounts of boiled potatoes and rice whilst we talked about the most cost efficient food calories available to us
Sitting in front of his Wild Country Quasar (I think)
this wasn't recently
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Most food preparation in South Asia is done by either women, or domestic servants........
......This whole set up is predicated on patterns of female employment and status which haven’t existed in the U.K. for a very long time.
I think my greatest cooking inspiration was a neighbour when I was growing up. She was from India and had moved to the UK with her husband as a young couple. She worked full time but cooked utterly amazing food, with incredible speed. I think the key thing was having a relatively small repertoire of dishes, but having all of them perfected and so practiced that they could be cooked effortlessly.
I've aspired to copy that approach myself, inspired by her.
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[I think the key thing was having a relatively small repertoire of dishes, but having all of them perfected and so practiced that they could be cooked effortlessly.
How did you know it was effortless, rather than an extremely difficult and unfair effort she was making under the weight of considerable social and familial expectations and which she felt she had to grin and bear because divorce was not an option? Is this not a textbook example of really under-rating women’s labour?
I’d also take issue with the notion of cooking Indian/Bangladeshi/Sri Lankan food as mastering a small number of dishes - we are talking about sophisticated and varied food cultures here.
Btw I not only enjoy watching Masterchef, I even once cooked a dish from the show… :smartass:
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How did you know it was effortless, rather than an extremely difficult and unfair effort she was making under the weight of considerable social and familial expectations and which she felt she had to grin and bear because divorce was not an option? Is this not a textbook example of really under-rating women’s labour?
Well it seemed to be done with in a similar style etc to eg Adam Long demonstrating Deliverance. She would rustle it up whilst chatting away and appeared to revel in the mastery of it.
My better half doesn't cook. My sister doesn't cook (her partner does all of their cooking). I suppose if I had the same antipathy to cooking that my other half does, then things would be different for us. Now you point that out it seems pretty obvious!
I do think it is messed up though how cooking has been relegated from being a fun thing that can be joyful to master to being considered a dumb chore. I think the processed food industry makes an effort to perpetuate that.
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You don't think it could relate to the specialist society? I'm always surprised how many people can't fix things that break down in their house, because they're a plumber's job or a carpenter. But then I have been happy about people still knowing how to cook and look at it as only a chefs speciality. But maybe that's changed in some places already.
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If it doesn’t go in the air fryer or microwave, I can’t be arsed when I’m alone. Macros are right, reasonable balance of vitamins and minerals; I usually make it taste pretty good with minimal seasoning. I’ll cook for the family when I’m home (Mrs OMM don’t cook).
On the other hand, I can pretty much fix anything round the house except complex electronics, but I can change a PCB. I ask the kids for software stuff… 🤣
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You don't think it could relate to the specialist society? I'm always surprised how many people can't fix things that break down in their house, because they're a plumber's job or a carpenter. But then I have been happy about people still knowing how to cook and look at it as only a chefs speciality. But maybe that's changed in some places already.
I think you're totally correct.
The issue though is that people employing plumbers etc doesn't lead to a huge health crisis. I think evidence is mounting that people moving away from cooking from scratch is leading to a huge health crisis. The raw economics behind it drives convenience food to being effectively toxic food. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0c98bfy
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How did you know it was effortless, rather than an extremely difficult and unfair effort she was making under the weight of considerable social and familial expectations and which she felt she had to grin and bear because divorce was not an option? Is this not a textbook example of really under-rating women’s labour?
Well it seemed to be done with in a similar style etc to eg Adam Long demonstrating Deliverance. She would rustle it up whilst chatting away and appeared to revel in the mastery of it.
I hate to break your orientalist fantasy but have you ever heard of the phrase “keeping up appearances”? Has it ever occurred to you that an Asian family might want to look a particular way for their white neighbours in the considerably less tolerant 70s and 80s?
It’s the “small repertoire of dishes” that gives it away. Desi food is usually served with many more different items than is usual in European cuisine, if someone only does the same three or four things then they’re essentially making the same dinner over and over again. I know women who do exactly this, and who hate the chore they are tasked to do by the weight of expectations. It does look skilled from the outside, but you’re not seeing the full picture. (And I bet you never saw the man cook, wonder why eh?)
I do think it is messed up though how cooking has been relegated from being a fun thing that can be joyful to master to being considered a dumb chore. I think the processed food industry makes an effort to perpetuate that.
People have preferences and are not just the playthings of enormous corporations. I sometimes wonder where the profoundly illiberal views you propound in your posts come from. Maybe it’s this assumption?
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Sean, I totally appreciate that you have massively more experience and insight into South Asian culture than me. As you say, it is quite possible that I totally misinterpreted the situation at that neighbours. Anyway regardless of whether it is based on my misconceptions or on reality, it inspired me to learn to cook a small set of dishes really well and really fast, from scratch, and I enjoy doing that and people have told me it tastes good. They are cheap and include lots of different veg, wholefoods etc.
I'll ask my mum about that neighbour's cooking next time I chat with her. She was a pretty close friend of my mum's.
It is possible that the neighbour wasn't following traditional ways of doing things. She always made pretty much square chapatis. That seems to me the sign of someone who's a bit of a maverick. When I ate there, we didn't ever have numerous dishes. It was generally just chapatis and one pulse or vegetable dish. Sometimes paratha or samosas but my recollection is that those would just be on their own. I'll ask my mum.
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People have preferences and are not just the playthings of enormous corporations. I sometimes wonder where the profoundly illiberal views you propound in your posts come from. Maybe it’s this assumption?
Sean, it's really worth checking out that podcast I keep linking to. The presenter is an obese public health expert and clinician. He basically is saying that he was successfully manipulated by enormous corporations. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0c98qw1
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Stone FWIW my partner's from Pakistani heritage and you haven't said anything that would offend her. Making chapattis is an amazing skill she is proud of. The enjoyment of cooking for others is the same whatever ethnicity you are. Only thing is that although delicious it's not necessarily a healthy diet - have you ever had a Pakistani desert?
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Nothing Stone said was remotely offensive, I just think using an anecdote like this without considering the wider social context is a bit short sighted. We have tons of evidence from social sciences on the one hand to numerous writers or artists on the other about the patriarchal nature of South Asian society and how this impacts food culture. To hold those societies up as an example of food production that we should copy is to ignore all that stuff for a fantasy.
For sure making a good roti is an awesome skill and one that anyone should be proud of (my own mother in law certainly is), and enjoyment of cooking for others is a human thing. But there’s also an additional layer of expectation and subtle coercion going on around women’s cooking that perhaps we should be aware of before berating some people or holding others up as examples? I’ve also seen this amongst older generations in my own family so it’s not as if it’s something British people are immune from either.
Also, all this talk of “mastery” alongside “quickly cooking a limited number of dishes” is nonsense. Mastery lies in breadth as well as depth. That’s the whole point of the excellent skill tests in Professional Masterchef - can they do all of the things we’d expect a chef to do, as the title says, it is literally a show about kitchen mastery!
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This thread has so far covered:
Elite athlete grade payments
Grade defamation
Bosi on shadow play
36chambers almost stealing a pastry
Whether sponsorships by cigarette and sugar companies are bad
ADHD
Sugar effect on children's behaviour
Difficulty in cooking Asian food
Stone being offensive
:lol: never change UKB
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On reflection, I don't even know why I mentioned that the neighbour was from India. It's pretty irrelevant really, especially if, as Sean says, the points I took from the experience aren't something that can be taken from the South Asian cooking culture in general.
I should have just said she was a neighbour and family friend, who cooked a few amazingly delicious dishes, incredibly well, from scratch, incredibly quickly.
Oh....I see, I was digging myself further into a hole after saying something else about cooking in India :) .
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To hold those societies up as an example of food production that we should copy is to ignore all that stuff for a fantasy.
No, when it comes to eating, you should copy France. Productions, culture, etc. As should most European countries (bar maybe Greece, I do not know enough) who wants their citizens to live longer, healthier lifes.
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This thread has so far covered:
Elite athlete grade payments
Grade defamation
Bosi on shadow play
36chambers almost stealing a pastry
Whether sponsorships by cigarette and sugar companies are bad
ADHD
Sugar effect on children's behaviour
Difficulty in cooking Asian food
Stone being offensive
:lol: never change UKB
having not read the thread in its entirety - it was quite fun looking at this list and trying to figure out each segue.
Some are obvious but some are more fun, e.g.:
Grade defamation -> Bosi on shadow play = "but what about the G?! He's a magician."
Bosi on shadow play -> 36chambers almost stealing a pastry = "personal beef with Bosi"
Sugar effect on children's behaviour -> Difficulty in cooking Asian food = "badly behaviour children can't cook Asian food well"
Difficulty in cooking Asian food -> Stone being offensive = "I hear you're a racist now, Stone" or "Stone implying that the above-mentioned badly behaving children are terrible, terrible people".
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To hold those societies up as an example of food production that we should copy is to ignore all that stuff for a fantasy.
No, when it comes to eating, you should copy France. Productions, culture, etc. As should most European countries (bar maybe Greece, I do not know enough) who wants their citizens to live longer, healthier lifes.
But why do they have 5 pharmacies in every small village and sell mostly homeopathic stuff..
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But why do they have 5 pharmacies in every small village and sell mostly homeopathic stuff..
Because you can go into any of those pharmacies and get your prescription medicine whitin 24 hours, and they have to make money somehow. Why not fleece the idiots?
Has nothing to do with their food.
But poor French people live longer and are less obese than rich Americans. Rich French people live very long lives indeed.
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I subscribe to a foodie substack called Vittles. Here’s a recent, thoughtful article on UPF’s https://open.substack.com/pub/vittles/p/the-hater-ultra-processed-foods?r=4n4mm&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
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But why do they have 5 pharmacies in every small village and sell mostly homeopathic stuff..
Because you can go into any of those pharmacies and get your prescription medicine whitin 24 hours, and they have to make money somehow. Why not fleece the idiots?
Has nothing to do with their food.
But poor French people live longer and are less obese than rich Americans. Rich French people live very long lives indeed.
I always though the Italian diet was the one to be revered for long life?
Interestingly (tangent alert), the French have much lower drunkeness than another parts of Europe, because alcohol is frequently consumed with food, but they actually have much higher rates of liver disease. All from memory, but I'm pretty sure studies will back up my infallible memory :lol:
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Slightly on topic, but another take on this was the FA bounty competition ($1000 for 8A and $5000 for 8B is not too shabby).
https://vimeo.com/301555462
Although you'd be slightly annoyed if your secret FA proj appeared on the bounty list and Jimmy Webb swooped in to casually take the FA and also claim a cash prize for it too!
Thanks for reminding me of this, lovely video.
Although it was $5,000 overall, I.e. $1,000 per problem. Still looks like a pretty good way to make a living :sick:
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Apropos of nothing, while I was waiting for my partner to collect a parcel at the BP garage/Spar near me I wandered round the aisles. Normally I’m just in and out so don’t really pay much attention, but f*** me I was appalled at the offering. I mean I know petrol stations aren’t health food shops but still. It was just brightly coloured energy drinks, chocolate bars, crisps and sweets as far as the eye could see. I guesstimated 95% of what that place sells is either pure sugar, ultra processed crap, tobacco or vapes.
Just what a healthy population needs.
:agree: , forgot to reply at the time but I had exactly the same experience a few years ago popping into the BP garage at the Mottram traffic jam. I looked at colossal wall of confectionary next to the counter whilst trying to find a slightly more suitable snack, and thought "Fuck me this is just so much toxic shit with no nutritional value whatsoever". Don't get me wrong I will treat myself to some toxic shit with no nutritional value whatsoever (a bit of chocolate here and there, occasional soft drink, a few sweets rarely - in the context of it being a small and rare amount in addition to a broadly balanced diet) so I'm no puritan, but the sheer amount of objectively damaging pseudo-food was quite dismaying.
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Smoking is estimated to cost the NHS £2.5 billion every year, equivalent to 2% of the health service's budget. (https://ash.org.uk/uploads/SocialCare.pdf)
but
Obesity costs the NHS around £6.5 billion a year and is the second biggest preventable cause of cancer. (https://healthmedia.blog.gov.uk/2023/06/07/government-plans-to-tackle-obesity-in-england/)
Q: which one is the Prime Minister not campaigning to reduce consumption for this week?
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Apropos of nothing, while I was waiting for my partner to collect a parcel at the BP garage/Spar near me I wandered round the aisles. Normally I’m just in and out so don’t really pay much attention, but f*** me I was appalled at the offering. I mean I know petrol stations aren’t health food shops but still. It was just brightly coloured energy drinks, chocolate bars, crisps and sweets as far as the eye could see. I guesstimated 95% of what that place sells is either pure sugar, ultra processed crap, tobacco or vapes.
Just what a healthy population needs.
:agree: , forgot to reply at the time but I had exactly the same experience a few years ago popping into the BP garage at the Mottram traffic jam. I looked at colossal wall of confectionary next to the counter whilst trying to find a slightly more suitable snack, and thought "Fuck me this is just so much toxic shit with no nutritional value whatsoever". Don't get me wrong I will treat myself to some toxic shit with no nutritional value whatsoever (a bit of chocolate here and there, occasional soft drink, a few sweets rarely - in the context of it being a small and rare amount in addition to a broadly balanced diet) so I'm no puritan, but the sheer amount of objectively damaging pseudo-food was quite dismaying.
I travel very rarely nowadays, but I was gobsmacked at how different a small supermarket in southern Spain was (that was eight years ago, apparent they are following us now). They had globe artichokes, cuttle fish, etc etc. The guy I was with was put out that they didn't have any ready made pasta sauce sugary crap.
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Smoking is estimated to cost the NHS £2.5 billion every year, equivalent to 2% of the health service's budget. (https://ash.org.uk/uploads/SocialCare.pdf)
but
Obesity costs the NHS around £6.5 billion a year and is the second biggest preventable cause of cancer. (https://healthmedia.blog.gov.uk/2023/06/07/government-plans-to-tackle-obesity-in-england/)
Q: which one is the Prime Minister not campaigning to reduce consumption for this week?
This week sunak did a BBC interview where he said he fasts for the first 36 hours of the week so he can gorge down on sweets the rest of the week, unbelievable.
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I travel very rarely nowadays, but I was gobsmacked at how different a small supermarket in southern Spain was (that was eight years ago, apparent they are following us now). They had globe artichokes, cuttle fish, etc etc. The guy I was with was put out that they didn't have any ready made pasta sauce sugary crap.
This is jumpers for goalposts stuff surely, its hardly surprising that a supermarket in southern spain had globe artichokes given they are local to there! Ditto cuttle fish, I'm shocked that somewhere near the Med had a good selection of seafood.
Obesity costs the NHS around £6.5 billion a year and is the second biggest preventable cause of cancer.
So whats the biggest preventable cause of cancer then? Oh right, its smoking, which in fairness the government are attempting to outright ban for future generations.
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This week sunak did a BBC interview where he said he fasts for the first 36 hours of the week so he can gorge down on sweets the rest of the week, unbelievable.
Just in case anyone else wants to try this, there is nothing unique about fasting that is beneficial for weight loss, cardiovascular risk factors, inflammation, or appetite control when average calorie intake is equated (e.g. intermittent fasting vs normal calorie restriction).
Meta analysis (42 papers and 27 randomised controlled trials were included): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35531785/
However, the proven number one factor in determining weight loss outcomes is adherence to the diet, so do whatever allows you to restrict calories. If that's fasting for you, great. I like IIFYM ('if it fits your macros') - yesterday, I ate a big slice of cake that my son baked, yet I remained approximately at energy balance for the day.
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I could in no way fast for 36 hours, I’d be so grumpy :lol:
I just thought it was kinda bad for the PM to be pushing that kinda rhetoric on BBC about smashing all the sweets
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So whats the biggest preventable cause of cancer then? Oh right, its smoking, which in fairness the government are attempting to outright ban for future generations.
I hate smoking, but I would not vote for a ban on it. The reduction in smoking over the last 30 years has been one of the biggest successes for population heath, achieved largely via education, tax, etc (there were many factors). Prohibition of substances on the other hand has a less than stellar track record (see alcohol and other recreational drugs).
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Fair enough, thats a point of debate, I was more responding to mjr's point that the govt was doing nothing about obesity when its the 2nd biggest cause of cancer, which loses salience given that they are trying to do something about smoking, which is the number 1 cause of cancer, despite the advances that you've alluded to. For me that and banning disposable vapes are really positive policies (slim pickings admittedly).
It will be interesting to see if they get that legislation through before they get kicked out in the autumn.
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I agree with Liam on the obesity topic. I think for a lot of people, they think being fat is basically fine and normal and to be athletic is very different and other. I'm not sure how we change that but I think it is essentially normalised to be overweight in our society. And I don't think shaming people for it would help. Ideally we'd try to adjust diets and exercise on a macro-scale and push society towards a more healthy balance.
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This is jumpers for goalposts stuff surely, it’s hardly surprising that a supermarket in southern spain had globe artichokes given they are local to there! Ditto cuttle fish, I'm shocked that somewhere near the Med had a good selection of seafood.
Those kinds of posts should only be made if you’re willing to reference the female labour force participation rate and compare it to the UK’s. French regulations were suggested above and, whilst I suspect they are good, my first instinct was to see what proportion of French women work as compared to here. No prizes for guessing what I found…
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I don't understand what you're getting at, I'm prob being thick; could you expand?
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A bunch of men discussing increasing the unpaid work that is usually more of a burden to women isn’t an edifying sight, but acknowledging that might make it a little more palatable.
That was some of the subtext behind the excellent Vittles article that Falling Down posted above. Also sits behind this article which isn’t really about food, but about work:
https://open.substack.com/pub/vpostrel/p/three-important-facts-that-affect?r=5v9r&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
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I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't understand what that's got to do with whether Spanish shops are more likely to sell particular products? Did you quote the wrong post?
Unsurprisingly, I don't notice a major difference in Spanish (or French) supermarkets vs the UK in terms of product offerings. But then I tend to shop in Lidl/Carrefour in Spain and Aldi/Sainsbury's in the UK, so I wouldn't really expect to. Ditto for France. My experience of small village shops in Spain is also that they're pretty bad for buying healthy food.
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What Barrows said. Whats that got to do with globe artichokes?
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Why does a society with higher rates of women working have shops selling slightly more convenience foods? I am a little surprised at your naïveté here… or perhaps you genuinely believe that housework is no longer gendered?
I mean, I don’t see that much difference between French/Spanish and U.K. supermarkets either, but others do and the differences at the margin have to come from somewhere. I’m just not that into hand waving comments about “culture”.
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SpiderMonkeys point is that globe artichokes and cuttlefish are not rarer delicacies in a country where they are local food, which hasn't got anything to do with female participation in the Labour force
(Yes in the UK it is approx 20% higher than Spain/France)
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Did UKB just 'jump the shark'?
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I was more confused by the jumpers for goalposts reference. Is there an alternative meaning to the fast show joke? Or did I just not get that joke in the first place and I’ve been using it wrong this whole time? :slap:
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Good to know that the aforementioned junk food garages are doing it to smash the patriarchy
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I bet there are plenty of mothers and fathers in the UK who would prefer to not be working and looking after their kids and laboriously cooking globe artichokes instead, but have to work because pay is so shit and housing is so expensive!
But anyway about them cuttlefishes
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SpiderMonkeys point is that globe artichokes and cuttlefish are not rarer delicacies in a country where they are local food, which hasn't got anything to do with female participation in the Labour force
(Yes in the UK it is approx 20% higher than Spain/France)
Hmmmm I wasn’t referring to that, but to Stone’s “jumpers for goalposts” post… but also, local production is surely a very small part of why we eat what we eat? Especially in a highly urbanised country that imports 46% of its food. We could have cuttlefish if we wanted it, no? Just like we have tuna or anchovies.
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I was more confused by the jumpers for goalposts reference. Is there an alternative meaning to the fast show joke? Or did I just not get that joke in the first place and I’ve been using it wrong this whole time? :slap:
I've got no idea what I was talking about anymore really but I've always used 'jumpers for goalposts' as shorthand for excessive nostalgia; ie, when people are looking back to a simpler time, when kids played football in the streets, nobody locked their doors, in the style of those 'ooo remembers proper bin men' local facebook groups! In this context I thought Stone's post could be paraphrased as 'back in the day shops sold proper food' and I was gently ribbing this.
Just gone and rewatched the fast show clip though, brilliant!
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Ah, I get seankenny's point now... though like I said, I don't notice a meaningful difference in shops between the countries in question.
I don't notice a major difference in Spanish (or French) supermarkets vs the UK in terms of product offerings. But then I tend to shop in Lidl/Carrefour in Spain and Aldi/Sainsbury's in the UK
I just realised that this is not quite true... Euro Aldis are terrible, unlike UK Aldis. But Euro Lidls are good, just like UK Aldis :shrug:
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Ah, I get seankenny's point now... though like I said, I don't notice a meaningful difference in shops between the countries in question.
If you choose to go to shit shops that’s your choice, the supermarket I went to in Briancon had 3 cheese aisles and two sausage aisles, absolutely outstanding! Think I saw a cuttlefish too.
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But then you have to compare to Waitrose... (Caveat, I'm not familiar with how many cheese isles Waitrose has, though I guess less than 3 still!)
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This is jumpers for goalposts stuff surely, its hardly surprising that a supermarket in southern spain had globe artichokes given they are local to there! Ditto cuttle fish, I'm shocked that somewhere near the Med had a good selection of seafood.
Much of the seafood they eat in Spain is caught in the UK. I used to climb with someone in Portland who used to work crab fishing. He said all the crabs they caught were put on lorries and sent to Spain. Same with fancy white fish from Scotland.
Globe artichokes grow well in the UK. I used to grow them when I had an allotment.
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in the style of those 'ooo remembers proper bin men' local facebook groups!
Great article on the rise of "binmenism" (probably what SM had in mind when he posted):
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/nov/15/who-remembers-proper-binmen-facebook-nostalgia-memes-help-explain-britain-today
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Seans point about cooking from scratch being a form of patriarchal oppression may be true in some circumstances but it needn't be.
Like I said, I do our household'd cooking and food shopping (I'm male with a female partner). Same with my brother who does the cooking for his wife and kids. We both have jobs.
I also did a lot of cooking as a child. So child care can consist of having kids cook for the adults.
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So child care can consist of having kids cook for the adults.
That's not my definition of childcare. A child cooking roughly doubles parental workload.
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I've always used 'jumpers for goalposts' as shorthand for excessive nostalgia; ie, when people are looking back to a simpler time, when kids played football in the streets, nobody locked their doors,
In this context I thought Stone's post could be paraphrased as 'back in the day shops sold proper food' and I was gently ribbing this.
Ah cool yeh that’s the way I use it. Good to know I don’t have to go back and correct a few decades of my (terrible) jokes!
For some reason I read it as used like ‘comparing apples with oranges’ :slap:
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So child care can consist of having kids cook for the adults.
That's not my definition of childcare. A child cooking roughly doubles parental workload.
💯💯💯
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So child care can consist of having kids cook for the adults.
That's not my definition of childcare. A child cooking roughly doubles parental workload.
Absolutely. Cleaning effort alone must at least triple.
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I'm not familiar with how many cheese isles Waitrose has, though I guess less than 3 still!)
A whole archipelago. Apparently.
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I'm not familiar with how many cheese isles Waitrose has, though I guess less than 3 still!)
A whole archipelago. Apparently.
:great:
Amazing. That's one of the best typos ever.
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:slap: :lol:
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So child care can consist of having kids cook for the adults.
That's not my definition of childcare. A child cooking roughly doubles parental workload.
💯💯💯
When I was thirteen I started to cook for my younger sisters and my father. My father did the washing-up. My mom has told me that was one of the reasons she could travel to uni in another city during the weeks to take classes to change career. I'm sure she put in quite some time shopping and planning the meal though. I got a list of dishes and recipes for every week.
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When I was thirteen I started to cook for my younger sisters and my father. My father did the washing-up. My mom has told me that was one of the reasons she could travel to uni in another city during the weeks to take classes to change career. I'm sure she put in quite some time shopping and planning the meal though. I got a list of dishes and recipes for every week.
Can’t have been that much work laying out some smoked fish and flatbread 😄
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So child care can consist of having kids cook for the adults.
That's not my definition of childcare. A child cooking roughly doubles parental workload.
I used to cook unsupervised from age 10 onwards. I'd call everyone when the food was ready and they'd eat it. And I'd clean up. How is that "doubling parental workload"?
Anyway, my main point is that what is messed up is viewing cooking as being "workload". Cooking with kids or other family members can be fun, just like playing football with them or whatever.
Obviously, with little kids, safety is important. I remember my brother getting very angry with my mum when he saw my three year old nephew stood on a chair to reach the worktop, with a chef's knife chopping carrots. My mum said my brother was being ridiculous because he and me had been doing the same at that age. I agreed with my brother.
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So child care can consist of having kids cook for the adults.
That's not my definition of childcare. A child cooking roughly doubles parental workload.
I used to cook unsupervised from age 10 onwards. I'd call everyone when the food was ready and they'd eat it. How is that "doubling parental workload"?
Anyway, my main point is that what is messed up is viewing cooking as being "workload". Cooking with kids or other family members can be fun, just like playing football with them or whatever.
Obviously, with little kids, safety is important. I remember my brother getting very angry with my mum when he saw my three year old nephew stood on a chair to reach the worktop, with a chef's knife chopping carrots. My mum said my brother was being ridiculous because he and me had been doing the same at that age. I agreed with my brother.
It depends on the individual child and on the child's age. A 10 or 13 year old will be capable of more and require less hands-on childcare. A 6 year old will be different, a toddler or baby different again. We bake with our 4 and 6 year olds and I will get them to help me cook if I have time, but it is more work and I certainly couldn't let them crack on alone.
Also, in this context I believe work is defined as that which you could pay someone to do for you. It sounds like you love cooking, that's great, many people do not (personally I like "occasion" cooking where you're doing something new or special. I don't like day-to-day cooking).
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Anyway, my main point is that what is messed up is viewing cooking as being "workload". Cooking with kids or other family members can be fun, just like playing football with them or whatever.
I think most other people’s point is that if both parents are working then time is limited and for kids of a certain age it would come down to a choice between playing football etc with them or cooking with them. And given you need to eat several times a day just to exist then it’s easy to see why shopping and cooking becomes seen as “workload” alongside the laundry and cleaning. Clearly it’s easier for cooking to be fun if you do it occasionally and when time is unlimited.
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[...]
Can’t have been that much work laying out some smoked fish and flatbread 😄
Hah. Fair enough.
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I've got a 10 page essay on all these points brewing in my head, but just can't seem to get the time to do it justice.
Let's say I'd kick off with saying that getting women into the workplace has been a massive failure......
....because we forgot / didn't consider that we'd need to actually totally change our relationship with work, parenting, cooking, family living etc. *
It would then drift through the idiocy of our inflationary housing market that benefits no one....
Maybe touching on 4 day weeks...
Then the fact in many of my friends' relationships then man does the cooking...
But I'm to busy cooking, charity board meetings, training, saving the planet form climate change to do it justice.
I had written this, and wanted to review/ edit / expand but never got there:
We need the split of the split of the split at this point....
If we talking about healthy eating, self cooked meals from scratch I would argue the majority above a certain level of income / living standards (and I know it's brutal below this) have the equipment to make the meals, and even taking gas/leccy into account I just can't bring myself to believe that it's not at least roughly cost neutral to make it yourself over buying ready meals.
So if we're trying to fix the the issue below that level, it's a chronic issue and a political choice to be where we're at. The poverty issue needs fixed which would go hand in hand with better food, but I agree, just saying "cook it yourself" when life is depressingly challenging probably is not going to do much.
However, for the vast bulk of society not cooking food is a choice. Yes, those hours need to come from somewhere, and with stressful jobs, kids etc.etc. it's not always easy but you can always shove netflix on, or listen to a podcast...hell...listen to one in another language - win win! It can be your 45 minutes of "mindfullness" for free...
I'm in the fortunate position that I only work 4 days a week - but I didn't get there by chance, I pushed my last employer to do it (despite their reservations) and it went well for them! I forgo fancier cars, and expensive meals out and other luxuries (well, this year's a but different as I picked up a nice contract) but it's a CHOICE to have massive TV, BMW, bigger house etc. etc. and you CHOSE to work a higher pressure job to fund those things - most people should work less and make more time for things like cooking - it's all very good for the soul and body.
What I find shit is that supermarket have destroyed the food system and wrapped it all in plastic, so you really have to go out your way in a lot of places to find good quality vegetables that actually taste of things and have good nutrient levels.
Like Mischa I bake a sourdough a week (although slacking a bit recently as I ran out of flour and kept forgetting to buy more). Costs about £1/loaf for around 600gr and is 100% organic, and therefore much more nutritious. We also buy one a week with our veg box as a luxury. On an average week we spend £22 on our veg box, box of organic eggs and sourdough. We top that up with around £30 of shopping. We make the choice, even though it's bloody expensive, to have organic yoghurt as we eat it every day and the environment is important to us. So there you go, if we don't eat out, or make any special meals we spend around £25-30 each per week (oh, forgot about the bi-monthly wholefoods order - that's another £150, so another £10/wk. £30-£35/week for mostly organic and 100% self cooked meals. We'll treat ourselves every couple of weeks to a takeaway pizza or falafel or something...
Now....having said all that, and the fact it's definitely a choice...I know how incredibly DIFFICULT it is to get started because of what's actually available, and what the job market is like, and what culture is like. It's a big shift, but it's totally doable.
No doubt my middle class, no kids, privilege will oozing out of this....
That said, to counter a previous point about driving to various shops - in Glasgow at least, our most deprived areas have a massive array of well stocked, cheap and diverse grocery shops within a 15 minute cycle. It's actually much harder in the more estate-ey or suburban places, where the car is king.
Make of all that what you will.....
* before any explodes in flames, I'm not for one minute suggesting we shouldn't have encouraged, removed barriers/ promoted women not having kids / getting back to work after....just that the way we have gone about it is totally fucked. There's not enough slack in the system to do it all properly, because we've built a system that means everyone needs 2 x 5 day a week jobs to live in an area where the schools are good (oh yeah, that was page 6)......
AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHH
And 9 more pages......
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I do most of the cooking in our house as I’m retired and my other is still working. I have all the time in the world to do the shopping and plan meals and cook but I don’t enjoy doing it.
It’s on a par with cleaning and ironing in my eyes.
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I still can't believe most households actually need 2 x 5 days of income (saying that in a household with 2 toddlers and my wife being a full time student on maternal leave)
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Fultonius “ There's not enough slack in the system to do it all properly, because we've built a system that means everyone needs 2 x 5 day a week jobs to live”. That’s pretty much the thrust of the Vittles article I linked further up and it brings in schools and hospitals too.
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That’s pretty much the thrust of the Vittles article I linked further up and it brings in schools and hospitals too.
Thanks for the nudge, I didn’t click through when you first posted
This creates a sense of urgency that keeps us focused on food as the issue, rather than the social, political, and structural forces that shape our lives and our experiences of well-being. Instead of rallying against systematic underfunding and the backdoor privatisation of healthcare, we’re occupied with finding minimally processed alternatives to Dairy Milk.
I still can't believe most households actually need 2 x 5 days of income (saying that in a household with 2 toddlers and my wife being a full time student on maternal leave)
Are you in the UK or elsewhere? Obviously this depends largely on the single salary too right!
And need covers a lot of ground, like I could move to a £60k terrace in Lancashire somewhere and we could probably do with one salary then, do we need to live in a nice village?
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processed alternatives to Dairy Milk.
Futile. There is no adequate alternative to the ambrosia that is Dairy Milk. The closest is almond white chocolate Choceur from Aldi (which ought to be a listed Class A substance).
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I thought the Vittles article was really great. I read various suggestions for getting people to cook, started thinking “which policies would actually work for this” and went down a similar rabbit hole to Fultonious.
On the question of 2x5day incomes, I find often this discourse misses out that some people just want to do hard things at work. Running a hospital, producing the news, making partner at a law firm, these things aren’t just about the money but also achievement and influence. (Okay maybe the last one is about the money… :) )
To quote the article I linked to, the whole shape of working life, at the level of the career as much as the week, is out of whack for women who want kids, or rather it forces decisions on women that men are exempt from:
“Some careers are “greedy,” to use economist Claudia Goldin’s term. Greedy jobs are distinct from jobs that require child care during predictable work hours. They demand long hours, on-call work schedules, or frequent travel. They do not easily accommodate the demands of family life, which has its own greedy demands. Greedy jobs are often the highest paid or most prestigious in a particular field, industry, or society. For couples raising children, it’s generally the case that only one partner can successfully pursue a greedy job. The other will either take time out of work altogether when children are young or pursue a less greedy career. If both partners wish to pursue greedy jobs, they will likely not have children. If a woman is pursuing a greedy job and her husband a regular one, kids are also less likely.”
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Those are great points Sean.
I'm still thinking a good solution is to have a small repertoire of dishes that are so practiced, they can be cooked almost blindfolded, at great speed. Cooking like that becomes a sort of zen like chill time. The chopping knife is whirling away as the mind decompresses.
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I suppose the thread drift from R3d Bull to rotis isn’t that big, really.
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Fultonius “ There's not enough slack in the system to do it all properly, because we've built a system that means everyone needs 2 x 5 day a week jobs to live” compare well with the tribe.
Fixed that for you Fultonious. Most of how people choose to live boils down to maintaining status relative to their tribe. It’s a never-ending game unless you suss out nobody else cares about your status (job, house, car, qualifications, education, income, wealth) as much as you, and everyone else is too busy caring about their own relative status just as much.
That’s the system, the incentives are perverse if happiness/good health is your goal.
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Fultonius “ There's not enough slack in the system to do it all properly, because we've built a system that means everyone needs 2 x 5 day a week jobs to live” compare well with the tribe.
Fixed that for you Fultonious. Most of how people choose to live boils down to maintaining status relative to their tribe. It’s a never-ending game unless you suss out nobody else cares about your status (job, house, car, qualifications, education, income, wealth) as much as you, and everyone else is too busy caring about their own relative status just as much.
That’s the system, the incentives are perverse if happiness/good health is your goal.
Someone's been drinking the Morgan Housel koolaid :lol:
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Lessons in how to be satisfied from the man with a billion in the bank from his stock escapades 😄
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Sounds like we need to dissolve the people and elect a new one. Ideally with a preference for a limited range of food and no interest in doing anything that other people do.
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Someone's been drinking the Morgan Housel koolaid :lol:
True, but if it's good wisdom...
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On R4 just now, 'food for life' by Tim Spector. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vtnc
11mins19secs: ''One of the unhealthiest things we can do is consume sugar, in sweetened fizzy drinks. This is now strongly linked to risk of obesity, type II diabetes, and heart disease. ''.
Then goes on to explain why artificial sweeteners replacing sugar in drinks (such as Red Bu|l zero sugar) don't change the risk for obesity despite the calorie reduction, and suggests this is to do with gut microbiome negatively affected by sweeteners.
Which is why I have such a low opinion of climbers who choose to take money to market Red Bu|l / sugar-sweetened drinks to young people. :thumbsdown:
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It was Tim’s DOACEO talk that prompted me to try cutting out sugar.
However, I fear he comes across as too ‘extreme’. Most people can’t imagine surviving on a diet of salad, seeds and fermented carrot. The bit where he’s talking about fermenting bits of veg in a jar had me chuckling. Does he do any exercise?!
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I subscribe to a foodie substack called Vittles. Here’s a recent, thoughtful article on UPF’s https://open.substack.com/pub/vittles/p/the-hater-ultra-processed-foods?r=4n4mm&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Missed this first time around, thanks FD. As usual...."it's not so simple".
What is very simple though, is that cooking as much yourself as you can is almost never going to be worse than eating UPF.
My partner is vegetarian, and we have the odd "beyond burger" because they're damn tasty and it saves me buying meat ones AND veggie ones. I'm sure they're unhealthy....but it's a dirty treat... (good meat is probably much healthier, time will tell)
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It was Tim’s DOACEO talk that prompted me to try cutting out sugar.
However, I fear he comes across as too ‘extreme’. Most people can’t imagine surviving on a diet of salad, seeds and fermented carrot. The bit where he’s talking about fermenting bits of veg in a jar had me chuckling. Does he do any exercise?!
Oh god yeah fuck that. I think it's an overton window thing though with coming across extreme, although it might put some people off even bothering. If it leads to cutting down sugar intake then that's a win. The most interesting part for me is all the microbiome evidence emerging for individual response to foods.
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It’s possible I might be falling into the Thunderbeest camp of having lived outside the UK for too long and am skewed by examples of families existing under a better social system and wage model.
If people don’t know how to make basic food (despite the internet providing a million different extremely simple meal options), how can that change?
If processed food offers a convenient but overall negative experience, how can that change?
I grew up in a single parent (mother) household where my mother worked part time. As a result I was encouraged to help cook from a young age and because we didn’t have much money I learnt how to do it cheaply from raw ingredients because whether people like the statement or not it’s the most price effective way to cook.
The UK has huge issues surrounding wage stagnation, soaring house prices and a very poorly regulated rental market. This creates the ‘wage slave’ mentality where people try to follow the path of their parents and end up locked into a huge amount of debt and time commitment in demanding jobs that don’t pay adequately to service the debt, keeping the spiral going. This links into a lot of the issues mentioned previously plus Sean’s excellent points on the shift of the gender roles.
However these very real problems don’t magically make it hard or complex to cook good basic food. Simple recipes based around pasta/rice//flour/potatoes, seasonal vegetables and a cheap protein source require very little equipment, and take very little time to prepare. We don’t have to lie to ourselves about healthy food somehow being ‘hard’ to make when the actual draw on time availability lies elsewhere.
I’m not suggesting I have answers to these problems but I dislike the desire to deny the obvious. By far the biggest issue here is that people are finding it necessary to work too much for too little money. Having lived in other countries where this is demonstrably not the case it starts to look more and more like a governmental/cultural choice rather than simply the way things are.
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On R4 just now, 'food for life' by Tim Spector. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vtnc
11mins19secs: ''One of the unhealthiest things we can do is consume sugar, in sweetened fizzy drinks. This is now strongly linked to risk of obesity, type II diabetes, and heart disease. ''.
Then goes on to explain why artificial sweeteners replacing sugar in drinks (such as Red Bu|l zero sugar) don't change the risk for obesity despite the calorie reduction, and suggests this is to do with gut microbiome negatively affected by sweeteners.
Which is why I have such a low opinion of climbers who choose to take money to market Red Bu|l / sugar-sweetened drinks to young people. :thumbsdown:
The artificial sweetener bit is nonsense.
There's nothing inherently wrong with sugar sweetened fizzy drinks if consumed within a balanced diet (they will not cause obesity, type II diabetes, or heart disease in these circumstances as I've previously provided evidence for); however, I agree that for many people they will contribute towards a being in a calorie surplus and therefore will cause cause obesity, type II diabetes, and heart disease... Fine, no problems there.
However, to say that replacing sugar with artificial sweetener in drinks (such as Red Bu|l zero sugar) doesn't change the risk for obesity, despite the calorie reduction, due to the impact on gut microbiome couldn't be more wrong. It is an outright lie and is shit, dangerous advice.
To explain why this is such shit advice, it's important to understand why individual mechanisms (e.g. artificial sweetener increasing a particular microbiota species) are basically irrelevant. This was explained to me with a great analogy: imagine you are invested in a mutual fund that contains hundreds of stocks. Do you care about the fact that a handful of stocks go down by X% if the overall mutual fund goes up by Y%? Obviously not, and foods are like this. You can find individual mechanisms demonstrating negative impacts for literally every type of food. So how do we determine the actual effect of artificial sweeteners in normal doses (because the dose makes the poison, even for water) in humans? Answer: sensible human studies.
And what do the human studies say? Artificially sweetened beverages consistently produce better weight loss results when compared with sugar sweetened beverages and either the same or better weight loss results when compared with water. Similarly, artificially sweetened beverages provide improvements in cardiometabolic risk factors (most likely due to the improved weight loss). Artificially sweetened beverages do not elevate blood glucose levels.
The below are either randomised human controlled trials or meta analyses:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41366-023-01393-3
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26708700/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35285920/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29760482/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24944060/
And in other human studies based on survey data:
no association with cancer risk: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36500986/
Most of how people choose to live boils down to maintaining status relative to their tribe. It’s a never-ending game unless you suss out nobody else cares about your status (job, house, car, qualifications, education, income, wealth) as much as you, and everyone else is too busy caring about their own relative status just as much.
That’s the system, the incentives are perverse if happiness/good health is your goal.
I do buy into this idea though! I'd rather have money in the bank that no one knows about than a fancy car!
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Some "greedy" jobs, on that topic, are socially very important and yet not well paid. Teaching, Nursing etc.
In our society if you want to do a job that is directly needed and valuable, you are probably poorer in time and money for it. That is a problem.
Essentially all this ties into; our society is inequal and not usefully productive or particularly good at providing a high standard of living and one of the many consequences of that is that it is unhealthy too.
If education, healthcare, work life balance, productivity and economic equality were better in this country than we'd be healthier too. Unfortunately to do that we'd need to shift some of the entrenched attitudes we have of well I'm not prepared to sacrifice any more of my lot for overall gain so we have just descended into a rather dysfunctional form of shit, expensive, inequal and ill.
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On R4 just now, 'food for life' by Tim Spector. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vtnc
11mins19secs: ''One of the unhealthiest things we can do is consume sugar, in sweetened fizzy drinks. This is now strongly linked to risk of obesity, type II diabetes, and heart disease. ''.
Then goes on to explain why artificial sweeteners replacing sugar in drinks (such as Red Bu|l zero sugar) don't change the risk for obesity despite the calorie reduction, and suggests this is to do with gut microbiome negatively affected by sweeteners.
Which is why I have such a low opinion of climbers who choose to take money to market Red Bu|l / sugar-sweetened drinks to young people. :thumbsdown:
The artificial sweetener bit is nonsense.
There's nothing inherently wrong with sugar sweetened fizzy drinks if consumed within a balanced diet (they will not cause obesity, type II diabetes, or heart disease in these circumstances as I've previously provided evidence for); however, I agree that for many people they will contribute towards a being in a calorie surplus and therefore will cause cause obesity, type II diabetes, and heart disease...
Yeah, but who does that?
I applaud your references to studies and, I'm not going to lie, it's challenging some things I held as "commonly understood and agreed understanding" but I don't have the time to look into it for now.
The only comment I'd like to say to counter your stance (you're not a sugar company shill are you??!! ;-) ) is that nutritional studies are highly liable to bias, it's been shown over and over again that the studies are usually funded by either sugar companies, or sweetener companies and that the conclusions often aren't borne out by the numbers in the studies. There's a lot of junk science out there! (not saying your links are junk - I haven't scrutinised, just that junk exists and we can all be swayed by it)
So, I'm not intending to "rubbish" your standpoint, I'm going to look into that myself when I get the time, but I do think your language is too "sure".
We cannot say:
The artificial sweetener bit is nonsense.
All we can say is that the studies you've read indicate that XYZ... A new study could come along next week and completely change our understanding.
100% cherry picking, but I can quite quickly find some studies to counter your points:
https://www.purdue.edu/hhs/news/2019/05/study-soft-drinks-including-diet-sodas-contribute-to-increased-sugar-intake-and-total-calorie-consumption-in-children/
And people that consume a high quantity of UPFs (FDs article notwithstanding), on average, consume 500 calories more...
https://clinicalcenter.nih.gov/about/news/newsletter/2019/summer/story-01.html#:~:text=The%20answer%20was%20a%20definite,faster%20rate%20and%20gained%20weight.
So, while your studies may show that on a calorie controlled diet sugar or sweetened drinks don't make any difference to weight loss/ gain, they may be missing a link to increased appetite and therefore calorie consumption, which as you've shown has all the usual downsides.
Debate is good.
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The only comment I'd like to say to counter your stance (you're not a sugar company shill are you??!! ;-) ) is that nutritional studies are highly liable to bias, it's been shown over and over again that the studies are usually funded by either sugar companies, or sweetener companies and that the conclusions often aren't borne out by the numbers in the studies. There's a lot of junk science out there! (not saying your links are junk - I haven't scrutinised, just that junk exists and we can all be swayed by it)
I'm an engineer in a completely unrelated field. Sometimes I drink sugar free cordial juice from Aldi, so that's my bias. It's worth noting that the results I've provided are clear and consistent across ALL meta analyses that I've seen on this topic. The study published in Nature that I posted was funded by a company with vested interest; however, it was a well designed and well executed study where the execution, data collection and data analysis were overseen by an independent third party, the authors of the study contractually retained the right to publish the data no matter the outcome, and the study participants were well paid (essentially requiring external funding). On this basis and the fact that it fits with most other data on this topic, criticizing the funding source would probably say more about the bias of the person doing the criticising.
So, I'm not intending to "rubbish" your standpoint, I'm going to look into that myself when I get the time, but I do think your language is too "sure".
We cannot say:
The artificial sweetener bit is nonsense.
All we can say is that the studies you've read indicate that XYZ... A new study could come along next week and completely change our understanding.
100% cherry picking, but I can quite quickly find some studies to counter your points:
https://www.purdue.edu/hhs/news/2019/05/study-soft-drinks-including-diet-sodas-contribute-to-increased-sugar-intake-and-total-calorie-consumption-in-children/
And people that consume a high quantity of UPFs (FDs article notwithstanding), on average, consume 500 calories more...
https://clinicalcenter.nih.gov/about/news/newsletter/2019/summer/story-01.html#:~:text=The%20answer%20was%20a%20definite,faster%20rate%20and%20gained%20weight.
So, while your studies may show that on a calorie controlled diet sugar or sweetened drinks don't make any difference to weight loss/ gain, they may be missing a link to increased appetite and therefore calorie consumption, which as you've shown has all the usual downsides.
Debate is good.
My language isn't too sure at all. I absolutely can refute "artificial sweeteners replacing sugar in drinks (such as Red Bu|l zero sugar) don't change the risk for obesity despite the calorie reduction" because the results are absolutely clear that this is in fact nonsense. The results I've provided are from systematic reviews and meta analyses; these results aren't going to change in future when the same tests are performed under the same circumstances. Cherry picked studies providing alternative results do not alter this fact as they would have been included in the meta analyses if they were of sufficient quality.
So, while your studies may show that on a calorie controlled diet sugar or sweetened drinks don't make any difference to weight loss/ gain, they may be missing a link to increased appetite and therefore calorie consumption, which as you've shown has all the usual downsides.
You've misunderstood. The studies show that artificially sweetened beverages do make a difference to weight loss (better weight loss when compared with sugar sweetened beverages and the same or better when compared with water) because they reduce calorie consumption (i.e. not on a calorie controlled diet). These are clear and consistent results.
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The artificial sweetener bit is nonsense.
There's nothing inherently wrong with sugar sweetened fizzy drinks if consumed within a balanced diet...
...
However, to say that replacing sugar with artificial sweetener in drinks (such as Red Bu|l zero sugar) doesn't change the risk for obesity, despite the calorie reduction, due to the impact on gut microbiome couldn't be more wrong. It is an outright lie and is shit, dangerous advice.
So a professor of genetics whose specialism is nutrition and the gut microbiome, and who's made it his career to study how food impacts our health, says unequivocally that you're wrong about sugar.
I know that doesn't mean there isn't nuance, and I know it isn't as black and white as 'sugar=bad'. But for you to claim so stridently that 'there's nothing inherently wrong with sugar' is v.misleading imo.
Same for sweeteners. You should debate with the scientists - not me - who say pretty clearly that sweeteners do impact the gut microbiome, which in turn impacts health. Spector has a twitter and a linkedin, why don't you present your case to him, with those studies linked, and see if he replies? You'll get a far better answer than on here.
edit: I notice you're focussing on calorie reduction (from drinking sugar-free with artificial sweeteners) - but calories isn't the direct mechanism at work. The mechanism proposed as I understand it is to do with how sweeteners affect appetite/satiation which in turn affects eventual total calorie consumption. i.e. 2nd/3rd order effects.
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So a professor of genetics whose specialism is nutrition and the gut microbiome, and who's made it his career to study how food impacts our health, says unequivocally that you're wrong about sugar.
Tim Spector says that calorie restriction doesn't work. Meta analyses show that this statement is incorrect. He says that exercise doesn't help us lose weight. Meta analyses show that this statement is also incorrect. Smart people can still display cognitive dissonance. I can find you Nobel Prize winners who think climate change isn't real, but i'll stick with the consensus. I said that sugar does tend to make people fatter, so I think you've misunderstood my argument. Consuming sugar doesn't make me fatter or unhealthier because I control for it. That's what I mean by the 'sugar isn't inherently unhealthy independently of the calories it contains' claim.
While the gut microbiome likely does have an effect, it's clearly smaller than the energy balance effect in relation to artificially sweetended beverages. Why? Because that's what the meta analyses show.
Same for sweeteners. You should debate with the scientists - not me - who say pretty clearly that sweeteners do impact the gut microbiome, which in turn impacts health. Spector has a twitter and a linkedin, why don't you present your case to him, with those studies linked, and see if he replies? You'll get a far better answer than on here.
I didn't previously make any claims about the gut microbiome. If artificial sweetener has an effect on the gut microbiome, which negatively impacts health, it must be a relatively unimportant effect because systematic reviews and meta analyses show all the positive things I've already discussed above (and we will get to again below). Remember the mutual fund analogy.
edit: I notice you're focussing on calorie reduction (from drinking sugar-free with artificial sweeteners) - but calories isn't the direct mechanism at work. The mechanism proposed as I understand it is to do with how sweeteners affect appetite/satiation which in turn affects eventual total calorie consumption.
I'm assuming here that you're intending to say that through some mechanism, artificially sweetened beverages tend to increase total calorie consumption? If only we had some data on that.... Oh wait we do, and it's completely the other way around.
Meta analyses:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32216045/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41366-020-00704-2
randomised clinical trial:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26708700/
Am I saying that there are no negative effects associated with artificial sweeteners? No.
Am I saying that artificial sweeteners consumed in normal doses do not appear to lead to negative health consequences and more often than not are shown to actually have positive health effects as a result of calorie restriction? Yes.
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Liam, I know we're mostly interested in humans here rather than mice, but it is much much easier to study mice than humans (you can control their environment and have them all of the same inbred strain etc).
Such a study with mice found that artificial sweetners screwed up their gut microbiome and that caused them to become diabetic. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13793
I fleetingly looked at the first link in your list (the International Journal of Obesity randomised trial). My first thought was that people who already were obese perhaps already have very messed up gut microbiome. So the damage is already done, and artificial sweetners can't cause much additional wreckage. That's quite different from saying that if all Shauna Coxley fans were to start drinking over-caffeinated sugary drink company Zero, it would be harmless for them.
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Liam, I know we're mostly interested in humans here rather than mice, but it is much much easier to study mice than humans (you can control their environment and have them all of the same inbred strain etc).
Such a study with mice found that artificial sweetners screwed up their gut microbiome and that caused them to become diabetic. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13793
I fleetingly looked at the first link in your list (the International Journal of Obesity randomised trial). My first thought was that people who already were obese perhaps already have very messed up gut microbiome. So the damage is already done, and artificial sweetners can't cause much additional wreckage.
Ok, you have a hypothesis based on rat data. Now remember the dose makes the poison, so have you checked if it's a dose applicable to humans? Why don't you follow through with this hypothesis and see what the actual human trials show (preferably meta analyses to avoid unintentional cherry picking)? There's absolutely tons of human data in relation to artificial sweeteners spanning over decades. Maybe if you find it yourself you will believe it more than me linking to it.
That's quite different from saying that if all Shauna Coxley fans were to start drinking over-caffeinated sugary drink company Zero, it would be harmless for them.
I didn't.
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Tim Spector says that calorie restriction doesn't work. Meta analyses show that this statement is incorrect. He says that exercise doesn't help us lose weight. Meta analyses show that this statement is also incorrect. Smart people can still display cognitive dissonance. I can find you Nobel Prize winners who think climate change isn't real, but i'll stick with the consensus.
We both agree that just because scientists 'A, B & C' state 'thing x' in 'study y' then thing x must be the truth' is a bullshit position. That should be obvious to all, by the sheer number of studies in existence with results that contradict each other.
I said that sugar does tend to make people fatter, so I think you've misunderstood my argument. Consuming sugar doesn't make me fatter or unhealthier because I control for it. That's what I mean by the 'sugar isn't inherently unhealthy independently of the calories it contains' claim.
You're an outlier, as am I and many reading this thread. You can control for it but most people aren't you.
And sugar is everywhere. People in general cannot control for sugar. A substance that people cannot control is inherently unhealthy. Therefore sugar is inherently unhealthy, because of its addictive qualities.
Otherwise your logic is heroin isn't inherently unhealthy because some people can control it just fine thanks. Which is absurd logic.
- Especially absurd, when you factor that heroin, unlike sugar, isn't advertised and dangled in kids' faces at every turn including by climbers wearing 'drink sugar' baseball caps because red bu|l paid for their flights and physio.
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the sheer number of studies in existence with results that contradict each other.
More generally, the approach of linking to scientific papers from Google Scholar (which is prevalent all over the internet) is ineffective because people either won't read them, or even if they do are ill-equipped to interpret them properly. It either results in people just going to find other contradictory studies, which invariably exist, or misunderstanding the ones that are linked. This goes for stuff earlier in this many legged monster of a thread as well.
Obviously if you have a base knowledge about something you're better equipped, but someone interested but ignorant (like me) is clueless.
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Am I saying that there are no negative effects associated with artificial sweeteners? No.
Am I saying that artificial sweeteners consumed in normal doses do not appear to lead to negative health consequences and more often than not are shown to actually have positive health effects as a result of calorie restriction? Yes.
So again, an expert who contradicts your links states that:
'large-scale trials show that artificial sweetened drinks have no clear benefit to weight loss despite the reduction in calories. This suggests they must have negative metabolic effect that offset the lower energy intake. This appears to happen by disrupting the gut microbes, making them lose species diversity and produce abnormal chemicals, which upsets normal metabolism. Another problem - these sweeteners are designed to keep your sweetness threshold high, so you maintain a sweet tooth even if you switch from sugar to sweeteners. This is a major problem in children, who will seek out other sources of sweetness.''
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vtnc
I think as an engineer you can see the details and separate that substance x may not be actual poison or unhealthy in sensible moderation, but you're missing the forest for the individual trees. The forest is a population-scale epidemic of fucked up health, especially among younger people. And it's strongly linked to obesity, via dietary sugar, among other substances.
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Which large scale trials? I strongly argue that you're the one missing the forest for the trees as the meta analyses are clear: artificially sweetened beverages consistently show a benefit to weight loss in human populations, contradicting what your quote says.
You will now probably produce your study and I will say that the consensus of studies shows the opposite. Let's not waste any more time. Ideally I won't have to comment on this topic again.
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What a thread! Great reading.
Liam, while I would struggle to refute the individual studies you linked, I'm trying to understand the point your trying to defend. That putting artificial sweeteners in food is a good thing? That there's nothing to worry about in the general direction of our national diet and the trajectory of the nations health?
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Now remember the dose makes the poison, so have you checked if it's a dose applicable to humans?
https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13793:
This dose corresponds to the FDA acceptable daily intake (ADI) in humans (5 mg per kg (body weight), adjusted to mouse weights, see Methods).
What I was really struck by from the mouse study was that three chemically unrelated artificial sweetners all had the same effect. The problem seems to be the dissonance between what taste is telling the gut to expect and what it gets. And that then messes up the gut microbiota.
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Which large scale trials? I strongly argue that you're the one missing the forest for the trees as the meta analyses are clear: artificially sweetened beverages consistently show a benefit to weight loss in human populations, contradicting what your quote says.
You will now probably produce your study and I will say that the consensus of studies shows the opposite. Let's not waste any more time. Ideally I won't have to comment on this topic again.
To waste more time.. (NNS refers to non nutritive sweeteners)
Six of these agents (aspartame, saccharine, sucralose, neotame, acesulfame-K, and stevia) have previously received a generally recognized as safe status from the United States Food and Drug Administration, and two more (Swingle fruit extract and advantame) have been added in the recent years to this ever growing list. They are claimed to promote weight loss and deemed safe for consumption by diabetics; however, there is inconclusive evidence to support most of their uses and some recent studies even hint that these earlier established benefits regarding NNS use might not be true. There is a lack of properly designed randomized controlled studies to assess their efficacy in different populations, whereas observational studies often remain confounded due to reverse causality and often yield opposite findings.
Pregnant and lactating women, children, diabetics, migraine, and epilepsy patients represent the susceptible population to the adverse effects of NNS-containing products and should use these products with utmost caution.
NNSs are ubiquitous and found in a variety of products around us. Their use has been controversial and riddled with many concerns regarding their safety. They are used by obese and lean, diabetics and nondiabetics, adults and children alike and extensive marketing and increased health awareness have led to their widespread use. They provide greater food choices to people looking to cut down calories and improve the palatability of food. However, many of their purported beneficial effects remain invalidated in large scale clinical studies, and some recent evidence also questions these previously established benefits.
Extensive marketing by the manufacturers has led to overuse, and sometimes even abuse of NNS, by the population. They are believed to suppress hunger and appetite, leading to beneficial effect on body weight and cardiometabolic profile and are consumed by both lean and obese alike. A huge number of diabetic patients too opt for these “sugar-free” sweeteners as a substitute for sugar in their diet.
The benefits of using NNS in obesity are often offset by the phenomena of compensation (ingesting calories later to compensate for energy deficit caused by NNS).
A limiting factor in the clinical evaluation of NNS has been the fact that most people use them as diet adjuncts, whereas the majority of the studies replace sugar entirely with NNS.
A 2008 study analyzing the San Antonio Heart Study population (5158 adults) indicated a positive direct dose-response correlation between NNS-containing beverage consumption and incidence of obesity in individuals with body mass index (BMI) <30
Artificial sweeteners are widely used every day in a variety of food, cosmetic, and dietary products and so, eliminating their daily use is virtually an uphill task. However, their use should be accompanied with caution in certain high-risk individuals such as pregnant and lactating women, diabetics, migraine, and epilepsy patients, and children. Children are especially important because they have higher food and beverage intake per kilogram of their body weight.[3,15] A pediatric epidemiological study has found a positive correlation between intake of NNS-containing beverage and weight gain; however, conclusive data are still lacking.[16]
(Financial Support and Sponsorship)
Nil.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4899993/
Do we really think climbers, and business in general, should be pushing this stuff (and sugar it replaces) to children via the persuasive force of advertising backed by massive budgets?
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More generally, the approach of linking to scientific papers from Google Scholar (which is prevalent all over the internet) is ineffective because people either won't read them, or even if they do are ill-equipped to interpret them properly.
Oh yes.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/obr.13020 Looking at this one from Liam, it implies to me (though that may be misreading) that observational studies are more likely to show sweeteners in a negative light than randomised controlled trials. That could be because, for example, one effect of consuming the "diet" version is that you feel virtuous and therefore eat more cake (not possible on trials where placebo or sugar alternative is used; the water ones perhaps it would be but you'd have to look at their methods in more depth I imagine).
This doesn't relate to what Pete and Liam are arguing about, but does very much relate to whether sweeteners are liable to make you fatter or less healthy in the real world. If one thing's clear I'd say it's that you'd need to plug a few weeks into this to really have a good feel for the evidence and a good feel for why contradictory views exist among apparently sensible experts.
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A different way to think about sugar and sweetener beyond the details of the substance is that, as Liam says, the substances per se aren't damaging to health in moderate doses, but the damage is done by the substances sustaining in the user a desire for sweetness in their diet.
Very sweet food/drink isn't a natural thing to consume a lot of week in week out for years.
If you induce this desire for sweetness strongly enough at an early age then you're at a high risk of developing really unhelpful diet choices through your craving for sweet foods. That desire for sweetness leads to harmful diet choices over years and years. It's a gateway drugs type of effect but we have to eat to live, whereas we don't have to smoke weed or take heroin to survive.
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The utterly bizarre thing though is that honey is a large part of the diet of some hunter-gather people. And yet they don't suffer from "western lifestyle" metabolic/CV diseases. https://globalhealth.duke.edu/news/what-can-hunter-gatherers-teach-us-about-staying-healthy
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I just typed a reply, realised I was just going down rabbit holes and getting tetchy, deleted it...so I'm tapping out. Trying to present arguments while being at work, then while cooking risotto (no UPFs, all from scratch except the stock cube) just leads to half baked theories and getting tied in knots. Especially when it's an area I'm interested but far from expert in...
Either way, I think what's getting at me is not the presentation of the studies, accusations of funding related bias aside, they do seem to all agree that during weight loss interventions artificially sweetened drinks perform as well or better than water. OK, fair enough.
I guess for me the issue is that that's not really the question we're asking, which is more "do they lead to an overall increase in BMI/bf% on other unhealthy markers when consumed by people of a normal weight, not actively trying to lose weight."
Maybe they don't.... but Liam's linked studies don't answer this.
So much for tapping out. Right, now I'm out.
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(no UPFs, … stock cube)
:-\ ;D
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The utterly bizarre thing though is that honey is a large part of the diet of some hunter-gather people. And yet they don't suffer from "western lifestyle" metabolic/CV diseases. https://globalhealth.duke.edu/news/what-can-hunter-gatherers-teach-us-about-staying-healthy
From article:
Similar to our Paleolithic ancestors, today’s hunter-gatherers western teenagers source their food entirely from the earth and wild animals the food cupboard an average distance of 3 metres away from the sofa, stocked with whatever convenient foodstuff that their stressed-out busy parent/s could afford to buy and be bothered to cook after a long day in the office and commute home. They’re physically active for most a tiny part of each day. For instance, the Hadza, a hunter-gatherer group, spend their days walking eight to 12 kilometers, climbing trees and digging for root vegetables western teenagers sometimes spending 120 minutes playing 5-a-side with their mates a couple of times per week or going to the skate park for a couple of hours. Their diet consists of various meats, vegetables and fruits a significant amount sugar, as well as a significant amount of honey sugar. In fact, they get 15 to 20 percent 50% of their calories from honey, a simple carbohydrate.
Yeah how bizarre...
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Throwing fuel on the fire. But a stat in this article absolutely shocked me. Apparently tooth decay is the leading primary cause for hospital admissions in children in England.
https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/30/pliers-abscesses-and-agonising-pain-britains-dental-crisis-as-seen-from-ae
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I know my nephew (not in Britain) used to be put to bed with a sippy cup full of apple juice every night and as a result had to have all his baby teeth removed under a general. It's not uncommon.
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It's amazing that the view i'm presenting is the one that seems to be coming across as 'fringe', when it's actually the consensus based upon well supported mainstream science (despite Pete's quote from an individual study in the Indian journal or Pharmacology that incorrectly says "there's a lack of properly designed randomized controlled studies"). It's the carnivore/fasting/gut microbiome enhancing diets (insert flavour of the week) that are fringe! Of course, these ideas sell more diet books and Netflix documentaries to a crowd that's eager for the next magic bullet.
Individual mechanisms can demonstrate negative effects in relation to a certain type of food/substance/drug/activity whilst the overall impact of that food/substance/drug/activity is neutral or positive (of course, the opposite can be true as well). Here's a good example: raw broccoli fed to pigs damages the DNA in their colon cells, which is associated with cancer (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26059489/). But what do the randomised human controlled trials show when people eat more cruciferous vegetables? I'll not waste my time posting the links because sensible people will already be able to guess the result - yep, reduced cancer risk.
I'm not going to reply to everyone individually. I've already posted and attempted to summarise the research I wanted to post on this matter. I see a few individual studies being posted in response, but nothing substantial enough to contradict the meta analyses.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/obr.13020 Looking at this one from Liam, it implies to me (though that may be misreading) that observational studies are more likely to show sweeteners in a negative light than randomised controlled trials. That could be because, for example, one effect of consuming the "diet" version is that you feel virtuous and therefore eat more cake (not possible on trials where placebo or sugar alternative is used; the water ones perhaps it would be but you'd have to look at their methods in more depth I imagine).
This doesn't relate to what Pete and Liam are arguing about, but does very much relate to whether sweeteners are liable to make you fatter or less healthy in the real world. If one thing's clear I'd say it's that you'd need to plug a few weeks into this to really have a good feel for the evidence and a good feel for why contradictory views exist among apparently sensible experts.
It's the the opposite in the study you've quoted:
"Here, our meta-analysis suggests that the use of NNS results in clinically appreciable lower weight/BMI values in certain research or clinical scenarios. When acknowledging this variety of contexts in the analysis, the effect is more evident when NNS are used as a substitute for sucrose, especially in adults, in subjects presenting overweight/obesity, and in those following an unrestricted diet."
When study participants are allowed to eat whatever they like, the groups drinking artificially sweetened beverages tend to naturally restrict their calorie intake. Swapping regular sugar sweetened beverages for artificially sweetened beverages is probably one of the best and easiest single things an overweight person could do to assist with weight loss (obviously they should do other things too).
You are right that observational studies are more likely to show sweeteners in a negative light if they don't account for confounding variables. This is because those who drink more artificial sweetened beverages tend to already be more overweight and have more health problems. A similar effect occurs for meat. In these studies, vegetarian diets lead to longer, healthier lives, which is an effect that reduces/disappears when you account for confounding variables (e.g. smoking, alcohol).
What a thread! Great reading.
Liam, while I would struggle to refute the individual studies you linked, I'm trying to understand the point your trying to defend. That putting artificial sweeteners in food is a good thing? That there's nothing to worry about in the general direction of our national diet and the trajectory of the nations health?
Surely I don't actually need to answer your final question? Obesity is a national crisis. However, you're right, I should set out exactly what my main point is. Anyone debating with me, please consider it within the context of the paragraph below:
Artificial sweeteners have been researched for decades and the systematic reviews and meta analyses tend to show neutral or positive health effects, principally through aiding weight loss. As is typical for anything we can consume, there are mechanistic studies implicating artificial sweeteners with negative health effects, but this does not seem to be borne out in human populations. For someone who is a normal, healthy weight, drinking artificially sweetened beverages is not going to make them fat/diabetic/have cancer/etc. Go ahead and drink the diet coke if you want the diet coke. For someone who is overweight, artificially sweetened beverages might actually be part of a weight loss strategy, particularly if it is replacing sugar sweetened beverages. Are there individuals who might not do well with artificial sweeteners? Probably. If you are one of those people (whether it's placebo or otherwise) then avoid them.
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In what's perhaps a good example of misunderstanding, you've entirely misunderstood my point. The effect I mentioned would be inherently excluded from any blinded RCT (at least with placebo or sugar, as I said I don't know what they do with water) because the blinding of the participants would exclude it as a possibility. You could remove this as a "confounding variable" in other studies but that might obscure what's actually going on.
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sorry!
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Re "blind test"
I know more than half of adult humans can tell with high accuracy when they are given alchohol placebo instead of alchohol, at least in doses meaningful for studies. That is why I'm very sceptical about all "double-blind" tests of alchohol.
I am pretty confident that I would be able to tell if I'm given a heafty dose of sugar or not from the after taste. Sure, in meaningless low doses, masked by other tastes that I am unfamiliar with I might not be able to tell sugar apart from other sweeteners, but those have to be edge cases.
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JWI, I can't be assed again trawling the papers referenced, but I don't think any were "blinded", just randomised and controlled against water, so yes, the participants knew they were on the sugar free drink or water. Not sure how you could ever get around that?
Liam, I still think you're "extending" the conclusions from the studies. Again, starting with a premise that the studies were fairly undertaken and reported:
Artificial sweeteners have been researched for decades and the systematic reviews and meta analyses tend to show neutral or positive health effects, principally through aiding weight loss. Agreed the studies show this, no issue here - we're talking about overweight people who need to lose weight, and are on a weight loss program and know they're on sugarfree drinks - how do they control for the placebo effect, or other effects of it not being blind?
As is typical for anything we can consume, there are mechanistic studies implicating artificial sweeteners with negative health effects, but this does not seem to be borne out in human populations. For someone who is a normal, healthy weight, drinking artificially sweetened beverages is not going to make them fat/diabetic/have cancer/etc. The studies referenced do not even try to answer this question - they are not taking people from day 1 who are healthy and drink mainly water, putting them on diet coke for 15 years and seeing what the resultant outcome is - they're short trials looking at the intervention impact of swapping sugary drinks for sweetened or water, so I don't think they do show this....
Go ahead and drink the diet coke if you want the diet coke. Whooaaaa not so fast. This is where I think we disagree, and where the observational studies and the gut microbiome stuff may outweigh, may outweigh and "weight loss" benefits. If you don't currently drink many sugary drinks (I don't, maybe one glass of fruit juice every couple of weeks, the odd coke on the weigh back from a winter climb, the odd irn bru with a hangover), I don't think that suggesting smashing in to sweetened drinks is such sage advice . Who knows, maybe in 50 years you'll be proven right and we'll be proven wrong. So be it. Until then I'll be on the water thanks!
For someone who is overweight, artificially sweetened beverages might actually be part of a weight loss strategy, particularly if it is replacing sugar sweetened beverages Again, fine, if they help some people get off fullfat redbvll and this makes them a bit healthier, then fine .
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Fultonius, I think your comments are fair and reasonable there. We just disagree slightly on the dangers of consuming sweeteners at a normal BMI; we've already had 50 years for them to be proven dangerous in which they haven't been.
Right, so what are we getting on to next? Personally i'm more concerned with the pesticides in my vegetables (including organic) and heavy metals in my fish... :worms:
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Sorry if it seemed like a bit of a pile on Liam, and thanks for replying to my comment. I guess in the context of the thread and general discussion about healthy diets, public health, poverty affecting diets etc it seemed a bit odd that you were so vehemently defending quite an academic point about artificial sweeteners. In my eyes they are very much part of the poor quality easy access 'junk' food landscape that is responsible for many of these issues.
As for pesticides in vegetables, I think you'll be on the same side as Prof. Spector this time.