Comment by Broken_Hippo
9 years ago
I tried arguing the dangers of concentrated fruit sweeteners not so long ago.
There was some debate about whether candy prices were too low.. But the truth is folks get much more sugar from supposedly "healthy" items in the form of fruit juice and concentrates. It is in the bread most folks eat (and sometimes whole grain bread is higher to make it more palletable), they put it in savory foods, and fruit juices and people put it in their coffee and tea. Granola bars and yogurts and a myriad of other supposedly healthy things? High sugar. It would be one thing if the sugar was simply what was contained in the fruit, but often it is above that.
It is much better to eat the piece of fruit than drink some juice - and I think if folks started drinking non-sweetened drinks and quit adding it to so much food (expecially commercially prepared food) it would help quite a bit. Personally, I lost weight after doing the adjustment. My only normal, daily beverages are black coffee or water and have been for years.
The thing is that you do somewhat miss the sugar at first, but I didn't find it any worse than missing some foods after moving countries. Over time, your tastes adjust and it isn't a bad thing.
I've been suspecting that another problem is modern roller mills break up the carbohydrate granules in wheat. It means making 'whole wheat flour' by adding back the bran after milling doesn't give you the same thing as more traditional course ground wheat flour.
The difference is when the carbohydrate granules are intact it takes much longer for the carbohydrates to hydrolyze and be absorbed in the gut. Rolled four because the granules are broken up hydrolyses and is absorbed quickly and results in spikes of blood sugar and insulin which is bad news.
[serious] Is there a reasonable way to eat actual whole grain bread? Every kind I've tried is the worst thing imaginable to attempt to eat...it's a real nightmare. I choke down a half a slice and then have to cleanse my pallet with an entire pizza.
1) You get used to it. Eventually you can come to prefer cheap whole grain bread vs cheap white bread.
2) Try non-wheat breads like dark rye. Dense dark ryes like a good seeded deli rye or even a cheap pumpernickel remain moist and chewy without the added sugar, which is why wheat breads tend to have HFCS or honey added. Note that lots of mass market rye breads contain wheat flour, so be careful about making assumptions and generalizing based on a few samples here or there. With wheat flour it will become stale quicker, and there'll be a less complex flavor profile.
3) Try higher quality breads. Note that higher cost does not necessarily imply higher quality, though that's more often true than not at supermarkets. Basically, the point is to get more flavor with minimal cost in carbs and calories. So a sprouted wheat or bread with nuts might help.
4) Maybe you're just a picky eater, which is a real thing. If all you like are, e.g., pizza and french fries and similar foods from childhood, and especially if things like the _texture_ of other common foods are offensive, it might be a psychological thing. Most people have psychological barriers to eating and enjoying different foods. It took me years to learn to tolerate Japanese cuisine--I could eat sashimi, no problem, but the flavors of sushi and Japanese cuisine in general were off-putting, much more so than other cuisines, even ones that weren't to my tastes. With _effort_ I learned to enjoy some of it. A simpler example is ginger--I hated ginger until I didn't. But some people are at the extreme end of the scale and it's much more difficult to learn to enjoy something even with effort. In retrospect, I've probably known several legitimately picky eaters. It's not uncommon AFAIU and it's fair to dial back expectations if that's the case. Indeed, foods with more complex flavors and textures as I recommended above might be overstimulating for picky eaters.
" But the truth is folks get much more sugar from supposedly "healthy" items in the form of fruit juice and concentrates. "
Or, if you are here in Asia/Singapore, where T2 diabetes is starting to become a big issue- the 3-5 servings of white rice people eat each day is a front page issue on the newspapers.
I tend to be somewhat suspicious of any 'traditional' basic food getting too much bad press. Rice, bread, pasta. White rice tends to get some bad press here as well, along with white bread. Rice itself probably isn't a big deal. It is probably on par with the bread/pasta eaten in the states and Europe as far as health is concerned. There is healthier rice (brown and unpolished) and healthier bread, but we tend to eat the opposite.
But it tends to be a bigger problem if folks are also overweight - and folks aren't doing it by eating rice or bread alone. Large portions and simply eating too much and so on, adding in fast food and convenience food and all of the snacks. And it is a huge problem if you develop T2 diabetes because of the blood sugar spike.
A lot of people say that the real issue is blood sugar spike, how fast it happens, and what the glycemic index of the food you are eating is.
I always wonder about the whole glycemic index theory. Lot of counterintuitive data here: http://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/glycem...
For example, where Glucose=100, Banana cake, made with sugar=47, but Banana cake, made without sugar=55, and Brown rice, average=68.
Or, Chickpeas=10, but Chickpeas canned in Brine=42.
White rice, of course, is the worst of all of these at 73. Worse than Apple Juice (41), Orange Juice (50), and even Coca Cola (63)
I agree. I survived a few years of war when food shortage was a real thing. And all we had to eat was white pasta and rice. Occasionally we would get meat/fish cans and similar and a bit of vegetable oil. Sugar was non-existent, you could have bought it on the local market for what is equivalent of $40. So it was there for special occasions only and not your daily poison. And guess what, we were all healthy, people with up to moderate blood sugar issues had no problems at all, back to their healthy selves. I was fit and healthy and feeling great. After that, the food came in and I gained 60 pounds in time span of few years. :)
I think eating a few bowls of rice per day (usually combined with a lot of veggies and some meat) is something that has been done in Asia for a long time, why would it be related to a recent increase in diabetes?
Asia, like most of humanity, was on the verge of starvation until recently.
There is more than one kind of rice and some are more healthy than others. White rice used to be reserved for the rich, now it's mainstream all-day food for all, but it is rather poor in nutrients.
Also Asia (i assume you mean ready Asia) does know other foods than rice, think various noodles, soups, etc.
1 reply →
What is an alternative? I eat a fair bit of rice as well.
Whole rice is not as much a problem as polished white rice. You could eat unpolished rice, like brown rice, red rice, etc., depending on what's available locally, that have all the fiber and other nutrients intact. This will also help fill your stomach with lesser quantity than polished white rice because of the fiber that's in them. If you have access to other grains, like quinoa, millets, amaranth, you could use them since they're somewhat close to rice in how you can use them (tangentially, this not a great idea for regular consumption if these items are imported from distant countries, since they'd have environmental and social impacts as well).
3 replies →