'is sugar the next tobacco?'

Post Reply New Topic

Hi LKL,

My understanding is that high blood pressure is a result of low magnesium. Low blood pressure is a result of an overgrowth of histamine in the body/gut. I don't know enough about blood pressure though.

I know junk food is bad. it about given the choice to eat bad foods or not

I love how liberals think: Ok, the government needs to start taxing bad food to discourage people to help defray the public cost of healthcare. Ok liberals why don't we tax people who are very sexual activity, who go around having unprotective sex.
we should taxes them right. they are costing us healthcare too right. With the hiv,std, and abortions.

a typical liberal: whoa dude, we need to start taxing junk food,man because you know it bad
but it cool for people to sleep with whole bunch of stranger and smoke pot, whooa dude.

I think the biggest problem we have with food in this country is it's not really...food, anymore. We have food products, but not really food. The underlying issue is that we don't cook anymore. Most families rarely even sit down for meals anymore, too. For whatever the reason, people get so stressed out from their jobs, or simply don't know any better, and end up eating at restaurants or eating prepackaged foods daily, instead of once a week or something like that. This is why we're unhealthy. I don't even know WHY exactly it works this way, but it does.

As a kid, I had this problem. My father cooked most of my food when I was a kid. Probably 80+% of it was from scratch, and probably half was organic. I also had multivitamins given to me (usually half an adult dose) along with fish oil, etc. The food issue was one of the issues compounding into my family's divorce, as my mom didn't like my dad's food and cooking, and my mom bought frozen food. One example of the positive health effects compared to me and my sisters, all my teeth came in perfectly straight and both my sisters needed braces.

Anyway, as a kid I was quite a healthy weight. But after my mom got custody, and I got a diet of frozen and canned food (mostly Chef Boyardee, frozen pizza, and hot pockets) I ballooned. My asthma and allergies started affecting me much worse. I started getting headaches (from Aspartame flavored soda,) and in general I was just terribly unhealthy. I lost interest in all my athletic activities I was into as a kid, as my weight going up made me worse at them and made them in general harder.

So we can go all "low fat" or "low carb" or whatever til our brains explode, but it's not really that hard. Look at what the world around us that's not fat, what do they eat? Stuff not from a can, box, or frozen. They pretty much eat their traditional diet, locally grown or prepped in some capacity. We see this across the board pretty much regardless of macronutrient ratios. My friend from Poland remarked about this when he came over here. In Poland, his school lunch was in a ceramic bowl, and it was usually soup or porridge or something. Nothing like here.

I think it's processed food that's created this problem. People say "But I don't have time after work to cook" or something like that, but they spend $100 a week on processed food that's making them unhealthy. They could easily work less, and just buy unprocessed food for like 39c a pound or something, and be happier, but this is what they've been taught since birth, like it's their American duty or something. We've got cultural amnesia about cooking. I think also, to be fair, the rising rate of illegitimacy and single parenthood isn't helping things either, and further brings about cooking amnesia. It's all a big trap. People need to be taught that they can be more self sufficient, and don't have to rely on companies for their food.

The situation in America pretty much looks like this now, and it's sickening.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW-4LU79qbU[/youtube]

I said this in PPR, but this is bread in America:


This is bread in Poland:


So no, I don't think sugar's the problem. I add a cup to a pitcher of iced tea when I make it. It comes out to 40 calories a cup that way. Less than Arizona Green Tea. Sugar's fine, if you're cooking yourself. We're chasing false demons with dichotomies like "hurr carbs are bad" or as in the past "low fat" craze. The problem is our lifestyle and way we look at and prepare food.

It's complex. There's a hormones called vasopressin, renin, and angiotensin that also play a large role.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_pressure
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasopressin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angiotensin
http://longevity.about.com/od/abouthigh ... sodium.htm
Basically, some people's kidneys can't excrete the excess salt fast enough, meaning that they retain water, meaning that their blood pressure is high.
Another factor that can cause high p/p is excess fat; the extra tissue basically means miles and miles of extra capillaries that the heart has to pump blood through.
Too much histamine absolutely can cause low b/p, but that's just one factor out of many (and not even the most common one.) I have low b/p and a family history of low b/p, and a low hr as well - people in my family die of cancer, not heart disease - but I don't have an overproduction of histamines anywhere.

I'm particularly sensitive to salt raising my blood pressure.

Hm, ok. So you want the right to eat chemically (artificially) enhanced foods.
The law says you are allowed.

I can't agree with you more!

Thanks for the links. I'm not sure how credible wikipedia is though but I'll take a peek. One thing I want to add though, is that heart disease is not a result from consuming high fats. It's a result of consuming high levels of unhealthy fats and oils (unsaturated, poorly-processed - trans fats, etc). The theory that all fats causes heart attackes/strokes has been rebunked, time and time again, by the original doctor (or scientist) who made that claim in the first place.

I wonder if this is the real case or if it's what your family physician has told you. Next time I attend my workshop, I'll ask about the relationship btwn salt and blood pressure.

No, my family physician never told me it, it's just something I picked up on over the years. If I had too much salt, my face would get red, I'd have to go to the bathroom more, etc. Just my own observations, not my doctor.

Oddly all the women in my family puts gobs of salt on all their food. My dad puts fairly reasonable amounts in his, so maybe women need more salt or something, no idea.

But for me, high blood pressure. I have a blood pressure cuff I use pretty frequently, too, just to check stuff for the hell of it.

It's true that dietary fat can be good or bad depending on the type, and that consuming a balanced fat diet is important. However, like the salt, some people's bodies intrinsically produce lots and lots of 'bad' fats, and the measure of those is what is associated with heart and vascular disease. For example, there are a few people locally whose blood we can't even test for many things here in our hospital laboratory, because even when they haven't eaten for 12 hours their serum is so loaded with emulsified fat that it is opaque white, like straight milk. We have to send their blood off to a place with an ultracentrfuge that spins at such high speeds that even emulsified fat collects on the top like a cream layer, and then they can test the serum underneath that. A lot of those people will die young, through no fault of their own.

One big problem associated with the 'fats are bad' issue is that most processed foods that declare, 'fat free,' have simply added tons of sugar to make up for the lost taste.

Mmmm, smoked wild salmon... no added sugar, lots of good fats.

I'm sick of hearing how "evil" sugar is all the time! It does NOT cause hyperactivity, it does NOT cause diabetes, foods that are high in acid like oranges and tomatoes are more likely to destroy your teeth, and it's no more harmful than other foods if used in moderation. As a non-smoking teetotaler it makes me sick how much society glorifies alcoholism and getting drunk but food, which we need to survive, is treated like poison. Apparently I'm not going to live as long as someone who drinks booze every day because the water I drink is full of bacteria. Grrrrrr.

If by 'food' you mean apples, oranges, grains, meat, cheese, etc, then yes. If by 'food' you mean the processed crap that lines the supermarket aisles, not so much.

My boldface. You hit on half the key to good nutrition right there.

No matter what science discovers or what health food fads we follow, the most basic, sound eating advice is to eat a variety of fresh foods in moderation. We complicate this - and industry complicates it even more - while it's really very simple. The chemical and biological explanations are, of course, more complicated. Even more complicated than nutritional science has yet discovered - they're learning new things all the time. But eating right isn't that complicated. We - with our cravings, self-indulgence and unconscious eating habits - and big business - with its bottom-line thinking, inhumanity (a corporation is a money-making construct, not a person) and shortsightedness - make it that way.

I agree with just about everything you say on this.

Low fat is a sham, they make up for the taste by adding sugar or salt or small amounts of trans fats.

Some things are wrongfully vilified, and it is more of a balance than anything. If you don't eat enough potassium, then yes, too much salt will throw you out of whack (I believe magnesium was already mentioned too). Likewise, if you eat too much LDL and sit on your bum, you are not reaping the benefits of it because it builds muscles. Your body is a network of thousands, possibly even millions of these chemical balances that when balanced enough make it possible for you to live your life from day to day.

Calories are not all created equal and afaik from what i have read calories weren't even intended to measure food to begin with. If something has poor quality junk ingredients it doesn't matter how much calories or the lack thereof it has, it's going to make you lose energy and feel like crap. This is why I never drank soda for instance, because it made me feel like crap.

"Improved taste?" By whose standards? This one is puzzling to me and I imagine the only people dissenting to the previous taste were unhealthy people to begin with. Cue unhealthy taste tester man licking a spoon in a back room adding unhealthy ingredients.

Not to mention a lot of additives like hfcs, MSG and so on coat the tongue and dull the senses to where if you cut them out you start actually tasting your food. And they stick to your gums and teeth something fierce. Also, when you eat too much starches, mouth bacteria loves this and will be happy to give you gum disease.

Too, this is also having a negative effect on the medical community that a lot of people are not thinking of. I think a lot of unhealthy, non-compliant patients are ruining it for everyone else's care. My good friend is overweight and a lot of doctors scribbled "HONDA" (don't remember the exact acronym, but it stands for an obese non compliant diabetic nincompoop patient that nobody likes) in his file, and didn't look further because despite what he tried he felt like crap and the weight was not coming off of him even when he was trying his hardest. He has been whittling down this medical mystery of his and another doc found out that he doesn't have type 2 diabetes after all and his thyroid is messed up. A lot of docs don't even try anymore and don't have faith in their patients to do the work to know the truth and get healthy and just throw pill prescriptions at the patients because the food industry tries to make us sick and the pharma industry licks their chops and goes after it.

Anna

P.s. I really have no idea about this correlation nonsense that billiscool is saying via liberals and contraceptive. I am in a committed relationship (with the only person I have ever slept with, and for many people, some form of intimacy is important to a serious relationship) am a liberal, and billiscool should add up the costs of various contraceptive (some not as cheap and freely available as he thinks it is, and especially not in some places with cutting down on clinics like planned parenthood where many un-covered people obtain their birth control so they stay safe to more likely not get pregnant, to in addition less people to get an abortion by being safe or not have a kid they can't afford) and tally it against the costs of raising a kid (even not taking into account people like myself who flat out don't want kids and never will for their own good) and see how the figure comes out. I guarantee every time the kid will come out to be infinitely more expensive and be more likely a bigger suck on resources like welfare. If you are fiscally conservative even, cutting access to reproductive help/coverage doesn't make a whole lot of sense regardless (in addition to a lot of republicans' obsession with cuts to early childhood programs, our already sub-par maternity leave here in the states, and so on on top of that). That, and you can't legislate people to not have sex because it's just not going to happen that way (just ask where I went to high school, shame-based abstinence only "sex ed,"-- too puny with very little information to call it the real thing, kids screwing at 11, weekly rumors about stds and termination, as well as a fully operational student daycare). I would rather people know the truth and resources and risks of what they are dealing with to make informed choices instead of a "don't do that" that they defy anyway to land in hot water when misinformed and pulled by their desires. Unlike you, I was brought up to live in reality. Sincerely, "liberal sleezebag"