Big news! Added sugar and salt are bad for us! Two news reports of interest caught Sister’s eye last week.
One report talked about how the amount of added sugar in one’s diet contributed to unhealthy cholesterol levels. This tidbit of information was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The results of the particular study suggest that when added sugar accounts for 25% of total caloric intake, good cholesterol levels were 3.1 times lower than those consuming a diet of less than 5 percent added sweeteners. Additionally, those who consume more than 17.5% of daily caloric intake in the form of added sweeteners including table sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup were 20-30% more likely to have high levels of triglycerides.
The other tidbit of information in the news is regarding the FDA’s attempt to reduce the amount of salt in the American diet in order to combat the rising occurrence of high blood pressure, heart disease, strokes and other debilitating and expensive diseases. The FDA is going to call for voluntary cutbacks from the food industry. They may resort to regulating the amount of sodium in processed foods. “Nothing is off the table.” says FDA spokeswoman Melissa Scott. “Everyone’s in agreement that something needs to be done….we just don’t know what it’s going to look like.”
Sister is perplexed by these two news feeds. We are learning more and more about the “badness” of added sugar and salt has on our health. But we keep getting fatter and LESS healthy.
Sister read a response to these news reports that she found even more perplexing. This response states that, “These two articles are further demonstration of how every aspect of our lives is being micromanaged by so-called experts. If they had it their way, we would just take vitamins all day and fill our bellies by eating the cardboard or Styrofoam containers food used to come in.
This comment goes on to say, “The public was told we would not know the difference when food companies made the switch away from trans fats. Wrong! Fries are not the same anymore…”
“Can’t we find something else for these people to do besides meddling? Do they follow their own intrusive guidelines? Stop further government intrusion or there will be a massive backlash and we will not listen to any advice at all.”
Sister feels perplexed when she hears people’s resistance to health promotion efforts. Sister does not feel that the government or anyone else would want us to eat vitamins and cardboard/Styrofoam containers. That is just plain silly. All the research points to one very simple thing.
In the wise words of Michael Pollan, “Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.”
That’s it. Very simple. Sister is going out for a walk.
Also, she will continue to put one teaspoon of sugar in her spaghetti sauce. She hates acidic spaghetti sauce.