My friend Kyle forwarded me this popular story on the possible negative effects of high-fructose corn syrup. I don't suppose anyone out there has access the journal the original report is supposed to appear in? I hate reading these popular accounts most of the time.
I will say that I can tell you a few things about corn syrup. Really it's just fructose, without much else in it. Still, corn is an odd vegetable. Throughout most of human evolution--literally, 99.9%+ of it--humans would never have eaten it. It was originally found only in the New World, and could only be eaten by agrarians--hunter/gatherers would not have had access to enough of it to make it anything like a staple of their diet. Humans have only been agrarians for 10,000 years at most, and some groups for considerably less time than that.
Corn, along with peanuts, also contains aflatoxin, a carcinogenic mold that cannot be removed. Of course, the amounts are very small, but it's interesting that they're there--yes, even in corn syrup, as well as peanut butter. An interesting bit of trivia is that eating a peanut butter sandwich a day is a greater hazard to your health than living next to a nuclear power plant, even if you throw in the risk of a meltdown. No foolin'. Although it isn't saying much, since the risk from both is very, very tiny.
Anyway, there are a group of researchers I'm aware of doing research on questions like this--professional researchers, people with their PhDs who do this for a living and regularly submit papers for peer review--who are increasingly suggesting that a whole lot of foods in the modern diet may be causing a host of reactions based on the fact that they are simply not natural to the human diet. The foods may surprise people: whole grains, beans, corn, potatoes, peanuts, and most modern fruits are all among them. Which puts a lot of conventional wisdom on its head.
I suppose I'm rambling a bit because I'm not sure most people find this interesting. But I ran a mailing list on these subjects for about two years, and the paleodiet archives of that list have all sorts of good things in them. Be especially sure to look at materials from researchers such as Loren Cordain, Staffan Lindeberg, and Ward Nicholson.
Nicholson is the creator of the Beyond Vegetarianism web site, and is a former vegetarian who spent a lot of time documenting the unsupportable claims of many vegetarian and especially vegan advocates--his work especially debunks the widespread myth that vegetarianism was ever natural for humans.
Dr. Loren Cordain is an even more interesting reading. His Paleodiet web site has tons of interesting info. Yes, he is selling a book, but he was doing research on these issues for years before he even thought about a popular book. And in addition to his book, you'll find all sorts of references to other materials you can read online on the subject of evolution and the human diet, much of which may fascinate you.
I'm pleased to say that he and other researchers got together and exchanged data in large part because of that mailing list I founded. I still miss running it at times. Anyway, lots of good reading there, go check it out if the subject of human diet and evolution interests you. You won't be looking at touchy-feely new-agey theory there, but at hard science from peer-reviewed journals and actual working scientists. Which means there aren't firm and definitive answers for everything, but lots and lots of interesting and sometimes useful information.
"I suppose I'm rambling a bit because I'm not sure most people find this interesting."
Dean, I don’t comment on these sorts of subjects because I seldom know as much as you or your sources. So I do find them and your links very interesting. Thank you for posting them.
Odd how many of these uncommented upon posts of yours that I mention in conversation...
I'm sure this one will come up.
Yours,
Wince
The biggest issue in Corn Syrup is that it is in almost everything. It would be interesting to see a study on how much of this stuff the average American consumes in one day. We like our food sweet...too sweet.
My wife insists on at least halving the sugar in every recipe. I've gotten so used to it that I can barely eat the cookies that the neighbor sends over...they are just too sweet for my palate.
I believe that the reason it’s in everything is that, as a sweetener, corn syrup is about the cheapest available but also the least nutritious per calorie. White, processed sugar would be next. So, brown sugar would be a better choice nutritionally, honey better than that, blackstrap molasses better still.
The whole 'natural diet' thing doesn't make a lot of sense to me. To me, it's simple. How long did cavemen live?
How long do we live?
Yes, I know that is simplistic, so if I'm wrong, right me, eh?
We live longer and more productively than people who lived even 100 years ago. So why would going back to a diet that people had years ago seems rather counterproductive to me.
I dunno...I figure if we didn't in general adapt pretty well to just about anything we can extract nutrition from, we'd have done rather more poorly in the evolutionary sweepstakes.
But I'll follow the links and read up on it. Interesting subject.
Per corn syrup, we eat so damn much of it in the USA because the friggin' corn lobby gets massive subsidies from the government, plus huge trade barriers for sugar. Otherwise we'd be eating a ton of cane and beet sugar instead. I wonder which is worse...too much fructose or too much sucrose?
Beth: When humans made the switch from hunter/gatherer to agrarian diets, their lifespans went down, their incidence of certain diseases went up, they got shorter in stature, and their rate of reproduction skyrocketed.
The switch to an agrarian lifestyle seems to have mostly made life more miserable, except for the fact that it caused women to pop babies out at an accelerated rate.
Obesiety and diabetes have been shown to be reduced or in same cases elminated in some hunter/gatherer peoples such as the Inuit when they return to their ancestral diets and give up most Western style foods.
As I say, the research on this is substantial and it interesting, and it's a lot less theoritical than you might think. I suggest following some of the links, especially the information from Loren Cordain.
Don't forget about cow's milk. Cattle have only been domesticated for how long? Maybe 10,000 years? We're not designed to process it.
Pop culture references in the Guy Ritchie film 'Snatch' and in Tom Robbins' "Even Cowgirls Get The Blues."
My personal hypothesis is that modern mainstream dieticians place carbs at the bottom of the food pyramid (broadest and most servings) because of the typical diet throughout the world in recent history (last 2000 years).
Except that in the bulk of recent history, food production has been on the basis of economics and the relationship between farmland and population centers.
Simply put, you raise a food that you can survive on a minimum amount, leaving as much as possible available to sell (or give in taxes to your landlord). If it is durable enough to be shipped long distances, it increases your profit margin (or the profit margin of your landlord).
Grain is perfect for that, delivering the most energy possible in the smallest package, and lacking in moisture enough that spoilage is minimal.
But in this time of refrigeration and plentiful food and technology to help in preservation and production, all that extra energy in carbohydrates is harmful.
That's why my modified-Atkins diet is working so well for me.
I don't really avoid anything except for processed sugar and processed flour. I eat 100% whole wheat products and nuts and meat and vegetables and fruit to my heart's content, and the weight is dropping off rapidly. I never had bad heartburn, but I had it a few times a week...but now I have almost none, never feel stuffed, never feel starving.
My conclusion? Processed food is best avoided. Particularly processed grain and processed sugar.
I eat a good deal of popcorn as well, and it doesn't cause me any problems.
That's correct. Indeed, a majority of the world population does not even make the enzyme--lactase--to break down the primary carbohydrate in cow's milk, and many of those who do make it lose it as they age.
Animal's milk as a food is an odd subject for several reasons, including the fact that you pretty much have to have domesticated animals in the first place. Of course, herders may have been around a lot longer than agrarians, and we do know there are some primitive herder societies still exist in areas where farming still isn't widespread, although all such indigenous peoples are quickly being absorbed into the modern world and few of them will be left in what could be called a "natural" state within a few decades.
Not that this is all bad, since obviously the modern world offers a superior way of life--very few of these people ever choose primitivism over modernism, because they aren't stupid. Still, we do lose valuable data if we don't study them while we can.
I would venture that perhaps a greater hazard in peanut butter is the addition of the extra hydrogen atom that gives it that stable, creamy consistency at room temperature - the dreaded trans-fat.
> the addition of the extra hydrogen atom
If we're going to get picky, the added hydrogen atoms result in saturated bonds, which by their nature cannot be cis or trans. It's the heat used in hydrogenation processes that flips some cis bonds to trans. A fully saturated fat cannot have any trans content. Impossible.
If ya'll like sci-fi, and this subject interests ya, then "Pallas" by L. Neil Smith has some REALLY interesting bits in it relating to diet. Course, it's L. Neil Smith, so you can also expect a great deal of very rousing cheerleading for personal freedom, minarchist government (at best), and personal weaponry.
Not that any of those are bad things, mind.
I've got access to this journal. I checked the website but the March issue is the latest available, not sure when April will be up. Bray seems to have a few other articles in recent months. If you are still interested, I'll check again next week and see if it's up yet, then send the pdf along when it is.
Great discussion and links.
One point that has been brought up before in our discussion on diets and food that warrants a remention here: All bodies are different and require special attention. What is true for one may not be true for another. I think this may be the case with the cow's milk, etc. given some general guidelines.
A scoop of ice cream is great but a gallon is going to be a problem and if you are diabetic it's going to be a big problem. Of course, the way my granny made it, it didn't have all that artificial crap in it, so it wasn't as much of a problem as it is today.
I wonder if the time we save with all of our processed foods will be taken off the end of our lives because of their health risks? Save 15 minutes today not cooking healthy times 3 times a day times 7 days a week times 52 weeks a year times 50 years and at some point our life expectancy rates may start to decline...
Dean, I had to laugh out loud at this qoute of yours from this thread-
"The switch to an agrarian lifestyle seems to have mostly made life more miserable, except for the fact that it caused women to pop babies out at an accelerated rate."
I'm sorry, but popping out babies at an accelerated rate sounds miserable to me!
When I was in med school in San Diego, we had a lecture on trace minerals. Very interesting stuff. I remember the professor recommended two servings of red meat. One of my classmates asked, "Is that daily or weekly?" and he answered "Daily." The entire class, being primarily California born and raised, nearly fell out of their chairs.
I do know that the trace minerals we get from our hard water here in the middle of the country appears to be one reason we live longer here than on the East or West Coast. I have no idea if that makes any sense in this conversation, but it seems to be somehow related.
The fructose in corn syrup does not raise blood glucose very much. And raising blood glucose is the only serious complaint anyone seems to have against sugar (diabetes blah blah blah). So by this logic, corn syrup is far healthier than bread, pasta, Melba toast, and especially potatoes.
Lack of vitamins is hardly a serious complaint against sugar. Most things have very few vitamins. Take a look at the %RDA on the labels of "natural" breakfast cereals. Lotta zeros.
Kids' cereals however, with tons of sugar, do have vitamins.
i still dont know where corn syrup is shipped out from!! can you please find out for me?
i still dont know where corn syrup is shipped out from!! can you please find out for me?