WHAT  YOU  NEED  TO  KNOW  ABOUT:

OBESITY - FOODS - SUGARS

I  am  using  the  book  "FAT  CHANCE  -  beating  the  odds  against  SUGAR,  PROCESSED  FOODS,  OBESITY,  and  DISEASE"

by  Robert Lustig, M.D.

On page 24 Lustig talks about the diet problem - if it was only reducing intake and increasing expenditure [exercise] it would be easy to kick the obesity epidemic; but there is more to it so it seems; we have celebrities like Kristie Alley and Oprah Winfrey..... loosing weight, gaining it back, up and down like a yoyo. There is the reality shows like The Biggest Loser, with many of them regaining much of their weight later after the spotlight has gone from their public victory.

To be sure if the environment is controlled  and  regulated, like in the army, with vigorous exercise and planned environment, it is much easier to loose weight and keep it off; the key is indeed to keep it off.

It is  only a small number of people who can maintain the gold medal of "keeping it off."

It is the same for children; it is the same for children one year of age.

On page 26  the doctor tells us once again, as we have been told many times on the news, we are in an obesity ..... PANDEMIC!  Not  just  an  epidemic,  but  a  pandemic!

He goes on to say even animals raised in captivity are getting fat. 

Page 29, the greatest rate of increase in obesity is in the younger ones; over the last decade that is in the age group of 2 to 5 year olds.  He even says we have an epidemic of obese six-month-olds.

Moving to page 49, Lustig puts it on the line; we are addicted to FOODS!  But it's not the case of "well we have to eat to live" - it is beyond the basic survival instinct - it is being drugged on foods - and it comes down to our modern societies of "fast foods" - we are junkies for fast foods.

He tells us that fast foods are high in calories, sugar, fat, salt, and caffeine.  Like he says the most popular combination at Mcdonald's is a Big mac, medium French fries, and medium regular soda, providing 1,130 calories for $5.99.

Page 60 the doctor zeros in on SUGAR as perhaps the greatest misused and over-consumed item in our foods.  It's in way way more processed foods than most of us think about. The food industry knows how to entrap us in eating their products  -  put  sugar in it!  

Page 87 are four things he talks about:

BONE - the better your bone, the longer you live, in the main. When little old ladies fracture their hips, that's their swan song.

MUSCLE - you can be a heavy weight muscle man and be healthy, muscle is good, over fat is not.

BIG BUTT FAT - or the Marilyn Monroe look, is actual good for you; it is called subcutaneous fat.  LITTLE OLD LADIES WHO DON'T HAVE IT get sicker and die sooner.

VISCERAL FAT - this is BIG BELLY FAT - fat where it doesn't belong; inside and outside. It is the 20 percent of our total body fat, or about 4-6 percent of our total body weight. Our health teeters on this fat. It is just not good for us.

He opens chapter 9 with "The numbers don't lie: the fatter you are, the quicker you die. at least at a population level..."  

It is of course having the wrong fat, and too much of it.

On page 98 he starts to tell us about the "Four foods of the Apocalypse":

1. TRANS-FATS - the food industry with pressure from governments is trying to eliminate trans-fats -proved to be plain harmful for you.  Yet as the doctor says, despite this effort, obesity and diabetes still continues to rise.

2. BRANCHED-CHAIN AMINO ACIDS -  the doctor states: "These amino acids are in high concentration in corn, so every animal fed on corn (e.g. U.S. beef and pork) is a potential contributor to your total body load. While these amino acids are necessary for building proteins all around the body, any in excess are burned for energy in the liver. Body builders consume these with abandon in their protein powders, and as long as these people are building their bodies, no problem. For everyone else, however, BIG problem.

3. ALCOHOL - as he says, a small amount [especially wine] is good for you; But overconsumption of booze..... bad for you.

4. FRUCTOSE - the sweet molecule in sugar! The fact is every age group, including infants, have increased its consumption in the last 30 years.  

We have just become junkies on sugar!  And  the  food  industry  has  to  take  a  big  part  of  the  blame  for  helping  us  along  the  way. 

Chapter 11  he  goes  into.... well  heads  the  chapter:  FRUCTOSE - The "Toxin"

Quote: "Fructose has increased both as a percentage of our calorie intake and our total consumption. When you add it up, Americans currently consume sugar at a rate of 6.5 ounces a day, or 130 pounds a year. Our current fructose consumption has increased fivefold compared to a hundred years ago, and has more than doubled in the last thirty years......America is sugar-dipped and candy-coated. But that not true elsewhere - or is it? World sugar consumption has tripled in the last fifty years, while the population has only doubled."

Lustig goes on to give us a fact most do not realize. The health people go for fruit juice and not soda, but when it comes to fructose.... well 100 percent orange juice turns out to be worse for us than soda: orange juice contains 1.8 grams of fructose per ounce, while the soda contains 1.7 grams of fructose per ounce.  The real benefit is in eating the real fruit, because of the fibre it has, which off-sets the fructose. At one time we had no juicers, so we ate the whole fruit....way way better for you.

Quote: "All  calorie sweeteners contain fructose: white sugar, cane sugar, beet sugar, fruit sugar, table sugar, brown sugar, and its cheaper cousin HFCS. Add to this maple syrup, honey, and agave nectar. It's all the same. The vehicle is irrelevant; the payload that matters. Bottom line, sugar consumption is a problem, 33 percent of sugar consumption comes from beverages, and the biggest abusers are the poor and underserved."

Starting with chapter 12 he goes into the ANTIDOTE!

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TO  BE  CONTINUED