Marketing Lies: There Is No Such Thing As “Healthy Sugar”
One of my favorite whipping posts is back in the media. I came across this article in the NY Times a few weeks ago and thought it was interesting: Sugar Is Back on Food Labels, This Time as a Selling Point. (You’ll need a login to access the article.)
Sugar, the nutritional pariah that dentists and dietitians have long reviled, is enjoying a second act, dressed up as a natural, healthful ingredient.
Am I the only one that’s disturbed by this? We’ve managed to demonize high-fructose corn syrup so much that sugar looks downright wholesome…but we know that high-fructose corn syrup is only marginally worse than sugar.
‘Sugar was the old devil, and high-fructose corn syrup is the new devil,’ said Marcia Mogelonsky, a senior analyst at Mintel International, a market-research company.
It reminds me of how the Center for Science in the Public Interest demonized healthy saturated fats. In response, manufacturers created trans fats, which we all know are far worse than saturated fat. Later, we realized how bad these man-made fats are. Oops…
Why Do We Believe It?
Simple; we want to believe it. We want to believe that we can “have our cake and eat it too”. That is, we want to think that we can get that sweet sensation without destroying our bodies. Unfortunately, it’s not true. Along with trans fats, sugar is the worst thing you can put in your body.
While honey and agave nectar may seem like better choices (and they are), the reality is that it’s all still sugar. Even these “natural” sweeteners aren’t good for you in abundance.
We have a hard-wired drive for sweetness. Imagine you live in an environment where every calorie must first be found and then dug up or killed. Concentrated sources of sugar are a rarity, signified by that wonderful sweet taste. But these sources are rare, so when your tongue senses sugar, the brain urges you to eat more of this calorically-dense food. We are not so well-served by this trait in a world where sugar is cheap and abundant.
At least the cupcakes are warning you about their dark side. Photo credit: Rockamandy
How Else Does Sugar Kill You?
For starters, it makes you age faster and well, there’s nothing more obviously associated with death than aging.
“Thanks to this study, the link between the rise in age-related diseases and the over-consumption of sugar in today’s diet is clearer. Our research opens a door to new therapeutic strategies for fighting age-related diseases,” says Professor Rokeach.
Sugar is highly addictive, just in case you were unaware of that. Recall that sugar could be more addictive than cocaine.
Hungry rats that binge on sugar provoke a surge of dopamine in their brains. After a month, the structure of the brains of these rats adapts to increased dopamine levels, showing fewer of a certain type of dopamine receptor than they used to have and more opioid receptors. These dopamine and opioid systems are involved in motivation and reward, systems that control wanting and liking something. Similar changes also are seen in the brains of rats on cocaine and heroin.
Anyone that’s tried to kick the sugar habit knows that it is hard to do. The brain knows what it wants…it wants the rush from that hit of the white stuff. Rest assured that food manufacturers are doing everything they can to work this addictive ingredient into seemingly healthy foods:
From the tomato sauce on a Pizza Hut pie called ‘The Natural,’ to the just-released soda Pepsi Natural, some of the biggest players in the American food business have started, in the last few months, replacing high-fructose corn syrup with old-fashioned sugar.
ConAgra uses only sugar or honey in its new Healthy Choice All Natural frozen entrees. Kraft Foods recently removed the corn sweetener from its salad dressings, and is working on its Lunchables line of portable meals and snacks.
You Are Being Sold!
We need to realize that it’s all marketing! There’s nothing healthier about tomato sauce made with sugar versus tomato sauce made with high-fructose corn syrup, unless the overall amount of sugar decreases. But given that HFCS is actually sweeter than sugar, it’s more likely that foods replacing high-fructose corn syrup with sugar will have more to achieve the same taste. That means more sugar in your diet, more calories in your diet, more insulin in your bloodstream, and ultimately, more fat around your waist.
Just as they’ve done with butter, bacon, and eggs, marketers are constantly choosing one particular ingredient or substance to demonize. Then they present you with the perfect solution.
How Do We Get Through To People?
So we have an addictive substance that makes us age faster, that we clamor for more of, and that food manufacturers are more than happy to provide us. I’m not sure what it’s going to take to get people to take charge of their own health and dump these “healthy” processed foods from their diet.
We have a grassroots movement of sorts with all of us bloggers talking about health and fitness, but it’s just a drop in the bucket compared to the millions in marketing dollars convincing us that we can eat sweets, just as long as there’s no high-fructose corn syrup. Or telling us that Trix are healthy because they’re made with whole grains and fortified with the missing vitamins.
So how do we do it? How do we grab someone with a mainstream mentality of eating less fat, avoiding saturated fat, eating whole grains, etc and get them interested in our message of health?
About Scott
Scott Kustes loves to cook and loves to eat. He started Real Food University to help you get maximum enjoyment out of the meals that you eat. To find out more about how he has rebelled against the fast food culture and counting calories or carbs, join the Real Food Revolution.
19 Reader Comments
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Ahh, sugar! It has long been my demon, calling me back even after a week or two avoiding it. Eventually the cravings win out. I am wondering if my brain might go the opposite way of the rats and increase dopamine receptors IF I could go a whole month without my sugar? In other words maybe I am just giving in too soon to really start to conquer my sugar addiction.
On a related note, it is sad to see how many of my friends are so excited about the new Pepsi products coming out with sugar instead of HFCS. Some want to buy up all they can in case it is a limited production. I wonder if sugar is processed with harmful chemicals like HFCS, or if the true harm might be the larger quantities needed for equal sweetness? Great post! Gotta love our country’s “food” system!
Rodney
Try eating fruit if you have a craving instead of other sugars. Pretty soon you may crave less and less…and then rarely even want it. I’ve found using intermittent fasting to dramatically help reset my cravings from sugar/carb based….to more meat and fat based.
Nice article Mike. Regarding the bolded part at the end, my psychology teacher asked my class today: “How can we convince people to eat a more healthy diet with whole grains, and avoid fats, especially saturated?” I just shook my head. It’s hard to convince people of their error in thinking when studies exist whose results oppose each other. I just point to myself, and how I look, feel, and perform on a daily basis, to serve as an example of what eating right does for you.
Joe – actually Scott wrote the article. I agree….we all just need to find our own truths and define what is healthy for ourselves with the facts at hand….listening to so called “experts” to tell us what to eat has gotten us in this whole sad state of health to begin with (low fat advice anyone?).
Oh sorry about that, I skipped over the part that said that, heh.
My taste receptors for sugar are not bombarded with sugar all the time anymore, so they are very sensitive to even small amounts of sugar now.
Really, I can even taste the sugar in very fresh vegetables that I get in a CSA subscription (not sure if well-traveled produce from the supermarket has the same effect). But romaine lettuce really has a slightly sweet flavor, once those sugar receptors are allowed to recuperate.
My favorite song on my iPod lately, from The Guess Who:
http://www.guntheranderson.com/v/data/nosugart.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJbFVJvRqOQ (audio clip)
I wish there was a way that we could more widely promote our message, but we simply do not have the money that the large corporations have. Imagine what we could achieve if we did!
All we can keep doing is promoting our message through our blogs, at the office and in the gym and hope that people will listen to what we say and take it on board.
Great article Scott!
I agree with eating fruit instead. Albeit I don’t stay constant with it, I try replacing all my “desserts” that I’d usually have, with fruit. Eating blueberries and strawberries are surprisingly sweet, even more so if you’ve staved off sugar for a while. Eventually you’ll crave eating fruit instead of the high sugar junk out there. I find it funny that people want to drink tea, so they go and buy the Lipton “Citrus Green Tea”. I just sigh and look at the ingredients, green tea is the 4th ingredient, second is High Fructose Corn Syrup. Yeah, way to make something healthy into a drug.
Amen! I am so angry at the lies foisted on us by marketing, in the name of profit and capitalism. There are a few ways to make money, some better than others, and one of them is to create demand for a product that you sell by telling people it is healthier. I have become increasingly skeptical about all such “healthy” claims as I’ve become aware of the use of this marketing ploy. And the suggestion that agave syrup or evaporated cane juice is healthier than sugar is such nonsense! Agave syrup can be predominantly fructose, depending on how it’s made, and so frequently is worse than HFCS or sugar!
There soon should be enough research (if not already) to prove fructose in high(er) quantities leads to insulin resistance, fatty liver, production of small dense LDL, and all the resulting sequelae of health problems, and I for one would like to see some lawsuits filed. How is this any different from Merck covering up its poor clinical trial results showing increased cardiovascular risk of Vioxx?
Keep up the good work! You are slowly reaching people, and things have to change eventually.
This article could not come at a better time. My waist shows the sugar I have been consuming and I am addicted!!! Thanks for the suggestion of the fruit to try and kick the habit. I was going to ask for suggestions on how to kick the craving. I just recieved an email from a friend of mine that said he was having a tough time with passing up the desserts. I forwarded this article to him and a few other people I know that struggle with the addiction. Thanks for the article.
[...] Check out this article: Sugar KILLS! [...]
Let’s not forget that starting in 2008, sugar beets in the US (I believe they’re the main source of our sugar) are being genetically modified. So now, in addition to the simple health and nutrition issues associated with sugar, there are also potentially problems related to the ingestion of GM products. Of course, to the majority of the country on the SAD diet, that’s nothing new. They’ve been filling up on GM corn and soy in all of their processed crap forever, after all.
Joe B – I totally feel your pain about your class. I’ve been debating taking graduate classes on nutrition and the like, but honestly when it comes down to it, I would hate starting arguments every class. It’s tough with people so set in their ways.
Nice article, Scott! All of the links are excellent, but I dunno, when it comes down to it, I’ll suffer the calories and the aging to track down the face those lips are attached to
hahaha
I myself find it’s not the cupcakes or the HFCS or the sugary tomato sauce, it’s that damn ice cream…
Cynthia – check this out from Stephan over at Whole Health Source: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/04/fructose-vs-glucose-showdown.html
Gary-A – I’m with you about the ice cream. I live in Florida…
As a “noob” to the site, I just want to say how wonderful it is that someone has the courage to “put it out there”… just wondered if you’re getting any “heat” from the evil empire?
(Recall that Tate & Lyle tried to suppress the publication of “Pure White and Deadly” – Prof John Yudkin’s excellent book on sugar, published way back in the 70′s – the title is self-explanatory, but we know so much more now…)
Keep it up! You have a growing fan club in the UK.
Anna, I’m not quite to the point of finding lettuce sweet, but carrots, radishes, cucumbers, etc…yeah, I’m there with those.
Riayn, exactly…we’ll just keep talking and hope we’re heard above the garbage.
Jon, it is really sad. I’ve seen those Arizona Iced Teas before. One time I bought one cause I wanted the bottle to serve as a water container in a crunch. Poured the tea out and kept the bottle.
Rachelle, fruit, really dark chocolate (I’m partial to Lindt 85% and Dagoba 87%), and things like that serve as my sweets most of the time.
Abe, great point. GMO sugar or high-fructose corn syrup…hmm, hard to argue a case for either. And thanks for the link…that was a great write-up by Stephan, as usual.
Gary-A, I do love me some ice cream, especially the new coconut milk ice cream by Turtle Mountain that I found at my local grocery. It’s amazing, but dairy free. Still high in sugar though, so I keep it as a treat, not a staple.
Bill, we welcome the day we’re big enough to get heat from the big players. Not quite there yet. And thanks for the kudos!
Cheers
Scott
You’re right. People believe what they want to. You can’t convince anyone of anything. But you can have information available for those looking for it, for those with an open mind.
I’ve recently extracted myself from the natural hygiene vegan mindset, and it wasn’t easy. So now I’m looking at the paleo diet, until I come across Vonderplanitz promoting raw meat. I have issues with cooked meat that concern me. Every time I thing I’ve stumbled upon the holy grail of nutrition, I find yet another convincing argument to the contrary. It’s a quagmire.
I gave up a long love affair with caffeine in February and substituted that addiction for a decaf mocha addiction. Oy! Pasteurized milk and sugar. What a dufus! Oh well, at least I’m doing something. I’m going to get off those within the next couple of weeks and try the paleo diet.
Ok you are right about sucrose and high fructose corn syrup but there is another plant sugar that should not be ruled out – Trehalose – looks like sucrose tastes like sucrose and cooks like sucrose but doesn’t break down to form sucrose. It is in fact a disaccharide that is only broken down into glucose in the small intestine and is very interesting because it doesn’t create a spike in blood glucose levels. It is also being used in medical studies into neurodegenerative conditions as it seems to prevent agglomeration of peptides in the brain and nervous system.
Given the nature of how people obtain information today, there is no silver bullet mechanism to spread the word. Does every Mark Sisson media appearance help? Yes, of cours – but how much is viewership down these days on any single broadcast? Too many options make it harder to disseminate a message widely. I’m sure even Oprah has lost viewers in the past decade – TV certainly isn’t the only answer. And newspapers are also in the tank. But blogs such as this one are another important weapon in the arsenal. I keep adding more to my reader every month. And TV and newspaper journalism certainly aren’t dead.
I think it all is going to have to come down to money. Does the Nutrition and Metabolism society, or any other similar organization, have a PR team that regularly disseminates information to mainstream and alternative media? Buy a few spots in the NY TImes or on subway trains? Buy a seat on the 2015 USDA guidelines committee?