Opinion: Why we should regulate sugar like alcohol

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I am a medical sociologist, which means I study the health of whole societies. I've spent more than 20 years studying the best possible ways to address alcohol problems in societies -- what works and what doesn't to protect people from harm.

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No mention of HFCS police state TOPPER.
 
At our local farmers market every summer, there's a stand that makes lemon aid. They can sweeten it using either sugar or Stevia. The Stevia lemon aid tastes better.
 
Glaucus said:
At our local farmers market every summer, there's a stand that makes lemon aid. They can sweeten it using either sugar or Stevia. The Stevia lemon aid tastes better.
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They sell Stevia at the Home Depot and other garden stores. It's not bad - doesn't have the same nasty aftertastes as many other sweetners I've tried and it's free once you bought the plant :) but I never got into it like sugar. Eating non-sugar sweetened food is like drinking de-alcoholized beer. It's not really the flavour you crave, it's the chemistry.

The other problem with artificial sweeteners is that they still trigger physiological responses to calories and so can mess up your metabolism and make you eat more than you normally would.

Try sticking to glucose (some may know it better as dextrose). It is less likely to get stored, is burned quicker and doesn't fatten your liver - but it also doesn't taste as sweet as sucrose.
 
I've heard the psychological thing before. My biggest concern with artificial sweeteners are their health issues - I tend to stay away from nutra-sweet for health reasons + the fact that it tastes terrible (how anyone ever thought that was a great sugar substitute I'll never understand).

What I do is use is a bit of sucralose (Splenda) mixed with real sugar. That way you get the real sugar taste but at reduced calories. Since I like my daily coffee I decided that limiting the calorie intake is probably a good thing. Coke tried that with C2, which used half the regular sugar. It actually tasted great at half the calories. Not sure why it never caught on.

But there are other reasons why people might want sweeteners. My "partner" hates drinking water. It's a weird thing to me, but whatever. Only way she can drink water is it's part of some drink like lemon aid. But if you were to drink several glasses of sweetened drinks every day you'd probably be on the highway to diabetes. So an artificial sweetener is a good compromise. I'd imagine that those who do have diabetes have good reason to use the artificial sweeteners as well. But ya, you may also have to bundle that with some personal will power as well to stay away from the real stuff.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Eating non-sugar sweetened food is like drinking de-alcoholized beer. It's not really the flavour you crave, it's the chemistry.
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Believe it or not, I have gotten to like some nonalcoholic beers.
 
Glaucus said:
What I do is use is a bit of sucralose (Splenda) mixed with real sugar.
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I love splenda, I use it daily in my coffee. I can't see the difference with sugar. I bought a Stevia plant, put it outside and watered it. It died. We have some industrial strength insects, bugs, critters etc here in S. Fla. Trying to keep anything alive including grass is difficult.
 
Glaucus said:
I've heard the psychological thing before.
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But it's not psychological. It's brain mediated but physiological. Your brain regulates all sorts of body functions like your temperature and your breathing and your digestion and it does it without any conscious inputs but automatically based on input from your senses and internal state.

When you eat sugar your brain picks up on the sweetness and gets your body prepared to receive the sugar hit. This way it can be ahead of the curve because the hormone route takes much longer to react. However, the hormone response from the food going through your digestion then feeds back to tune your brains initial response.

When you eat sweet foods your brain expects calories and goes about responding as if it got them. When it turns out they weren't there then your brain dials back it's expectations for the next time it tastes something sweet and calculates that you need to eat more to get the calories.

I'd imagine that those who do have diabetes have good reason to use the artificial sweeteners as well. But ya, you may also have to bundle that with some personal will power as well to stay away from the real stuff.
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The initial reaction to sweetness also messes with diabetics. While they need to keep their overall glucose below danger levels and therefore need to keep a lid on glucose consumption overall, eating something sweet but without sugar can crash their blood sugars because the brain thinks there is sugar going into the system. While diet sweetened food and drink will prevent high glucose problems it causes issues at the low glucose end.

Overall it is better to just get used to eating things that are less sweet. Sugar is usually added to things as a substitute for flavour and that is the problem - and why food producers love it. You can make crap taste good with enough sugar and salt! It's much cheaper than making something good.
 
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