Sugar and spice and everything ... vice?

For two years, I have been ranting against sugar in this blog. Until then, I was merely talking about it.

I know that because I tracked down the post from March 2018, in which I wrote quoted from a report: "Sugar is the driving force behind the diabetes and obesity epidemics."

In a later post, I referred to sugar as the devil in disguise.  

Chemically speaking, sugar is present in many forms naturally.  Banana has sugar, and so does orange or any fruit.  Right?  Obesity isn't from eating one too many bananas.  Instead, it is because of the sugar that we add to every damn thing: "the health risks associated with sugar relate to overeating so-called free sugars, not those naturally present in whole foods like fruits, vegetables and milk."

I buy fruits all the time.  The last time I bought a fruit juice was, ahem, I have no recollection.  I rarely buy them.  Even if the juice has no added sugar, I way prefer to enjoy the fruit--fiber and all.

A couple of days ago, after a long time, I had a favorite ice cream.  The devil that comes packed in a simple and attractive container ;)

Of course we are biologically wired to taste the devil and, boy was the devil delicious to taste!

The food industry knows that they have to rethink their sugary concoctions before they kill their customers.  Nah, they are rushing to rethink because they are worried that governments might come down on sugar, and they want to get ahead of the curve ... by racing to find the best sugar substitute.

This New Yorker report is all about that race to "redesign sugar."  It is not about creating yet another artificial sweetener.  Nope.  "Researchers are now developing new forms of real sugar, to deliver sweetness with fewer calories."

You read that correctly.  Real sugar. But with fewer calories, so that you can eat your cake and the sugar too.

All because there is something special about the manner in which sugar gives us the high when it meets the taste buds:

Sucrose is delivered to the taste receptors on our tongues by saliva, as sugar crystals dissolve in our mouth, but only about a fifth of the sugar in a typical bite of cookie actually connects with a receptor. The rest of it is washed down into our bellies—calories we consume but never taste.

However, you reduce the sugar in the formula and the taste buds immediately know that it ain't sweet enough.

The challenge is, therefore, to provide that sweetness without all that extra "wasted" sugar that is responsible for obesity and diabetes.

It is easier said than done.

Because, our biology is too damn smart. After all, without the intricate and complex biochemistry, we humans would not here, right? You try to fool the biology, and you end up with some "collateral damage."

So, even as scientists are at work, what might be the way out?

[Even] the scientists redesigning sugar admit that the ultimate goal is to gradually lower sugar levels and retrain our palates—and that their innovations represent a sophisticated, but ultimately short-term, fix. Just as the only good substitute for sugar is sugar, the only good way to eat less of it, sadly, is to eat less of it.

Stay. Away. From. The. Devil!

Vegetarian ≠ Healthy. D'oh!

I have forever complained to anybody who would listen to me that it is incorrect to assume that being a vegetarian is synonymous with healthy eating.  My favorite is to point my finger at the huge mounds of rice on any plate, or the number of pooris.  Even worse, the fried snacks of a gazillion types. And the sweets, omg!  There is nothing healthy about all these.

In other words, there is vegetarian, and then there is healthy vegetarian.

Most of the people in, or from, the old country, that I interact with seem to be of the former kind.  Systematic research has already identified one aspect of such a life: Diabetes.  Despite all the research, people in the old country talk about the genetic reasons behind diabetes, when science shows otherwise.

There is also one other ailment that ties them together: Heart disease.

More than three years ago, I blogged about Masala, as in Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America, which is a systematic study of 900 South Asians in the US. I quoted there from a NY Times story:

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and rates have risen over the past several decades. South Asian immigrants to the United States, like me, develop earlier and more malignant heart disease and have higher death rates than any other major ethnic group in this country. The reasons for this have not been determined. 

This Masala study was initiated because "traditional cardiac risk models, developed by studying mostly white Americans, don’t fully apply to ethnic communities. This is a knowledge gap that must be filled in the coming years."

A recent NY Times report informs me that the results have started to come in:

Heart risks tended to be greatest in South Asians, the Masala researchers found. In one recent study, in the Annals of Internal Medicine, they found that 44 percent of the normal weight South Asians they examined had two or more metabolic abnormalities, like high blood sugar, high triglycerides, hypertension or low HDL cholesterol, compared to just 21 percent of whites who were normal weight.
The Masala researchers also found that using the standard cutoff point to screen for diabetes, a B.M.I. of 25 or greater, would cause doctors to overlook up to a third of South Asians who have the disease. “Many of them may never get to that B.M.I. and they will have had diabetes for years,” Dr. Kanaya said.

Yep, a healthy looking South Asian who is mostly vegetarian could also be on the verge of a heart attack.

Most of the participants in the Masala study are first-generation immigrants, and the researchers found that their cultural practices also impact their disease rates. Cardiovascular risks tended to be highest in two groups: those who maintained very strong ties to traditional South Asian religious, cultural and dietary customs, and those who vigorously — embraced a Western lifestyle. Those with lower risk are what the researchers call bicultural, maintaining some aspects of traditional South Asian culture while also adopting some healthy Western habits.

Why the discrepancy between the two groups? Simple: mostly because of dietary behaviors.

But vegetarians who eat traditional South Asian foods like fried snacks, sweetened beverages and high-fat dairy products were found to have worse cardiovascular health than those who eat what the researchers call a “prudent” diet with more fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans and whole grains (and, for nonvegetarians, fish and chicken). People who eat a Western style diet with red and processed meat, alcohol, refined carbohydrates and few fruits and vegetables were also found to have more metabolic risk factors.

If only people listened to me and understood the importance of sanitas per escam!

Sugar, Sugar

In a recent class discussion, when a student beat up on "corporations," I responded with a statement that perhaps was not exactly what she and the class expected from me.

"It is easy to beat up on corporations.  But, keep in mind that without us people consuming what the corporations are selling, they can't make their profits.  Right?  Which means it is really we the people who are largely to be blamed if we think something is wrong.  As an example, imagine what would happen if we decided that drinking carbonated sugary drinks is unhealthy and, therefore, stopped buying them.  But we don't, and Coca Cola makes its profits. Yes?"

Coca Cola makes awesome ads, yes. It tempts the kids, true.



I remember being a kid and practically salivating after the likes of Limca.  That's what we kids do.  But, as adults, we have the power to resist, right?

It is also a selfish act to say no to those products.  It is our health, dammit.  We can and should say "fuck off" to all those companies that try their best to sell us crap that is unhealthy.

However, it is tough to beat back that biological response to those unhealthy products that are all sugar and salt.  Did you notice that those corporations never attempt to make gazillions from selling other tastes like sour and bitter?  As biological creatures we respond to sugar and salt.  It reflects even in the language we use. We sugarcoat things. We share salty gossip.

But, first, we do need to acknowledge the reality:

an overabundance of simple carbohydrates, and sugar in particular, is the No. 1 problem in modern diets. Sugar is the driving force behind the diabetes and obesity epidemics.

Keep in mind that sugar is a carbohydrate. And one that quickly rushes through the system.  Our affluence has created this problem!

And, for most of us, the problem begins right at the very beginning of the day:

Many breakfast foods that sound as if they’re healthy are in fact laden with sugar. ... In the United States, as the science writer Gary Taubes says, breakfasts have become “lower-fat versions of dessert.”

Yep, this is all the more an American problem!

In much of the world, including large parts of Asia, breakfast is a savory meal, not a sweet one, just as lunch and dinner are.

When I visit India, I am often reminded of the awesome range of savory breakfast. But, even there, I am regimented.  I end up having either idlis and vadai, or puri/potato and vadai.  Note that I have vadai in either combo--it is packed with protein, which is the best way to start the day.  If only I could do that here in the US! ;)

It’s normal to have some sugar in your diet. The problem is all of the processed sugar that has snuck into the modern diet. It’s so prevalent that you need a strategy for avoiding it. Once you come up with a strategy, eating a healthy amount of sugar isn’t nearly as hard as it sometimes seems.

Not hard at all. You can have your cake and eat it too ;)

A growth that is of the bad kind

My cousin-in-law, who was born and raised in the US, often comments that India is the only country where he has seen signs and posters advertising the services of diabetologists.  Even freakier for him: Centers that specialize in diabetes care.

It might shock him even more if he were to read this NY Times report on diabetes in India.  In short, we ain't seen nothin' yet!

The International Diabetes Federation projects that the number of Indians with diabetes will soar to 123 million by 2040 as diets rich in carbohydrates and fat spread to less affluent rural areas.

During my childhood, diabetes was referred to as a rich person's disease.  Because, only those who were affluent could afford to eat the wrong foods and then sit and do nothing.  The poor, on the other hand, barely had anything to eat and were constantly physically working in order to earn that meager food. Now, the country is immensely more prosperous than when I was a kid.  Which means, yes, if the old habits continued, then the country is headed towards a diabetic explosion!

Dr. Yajnik said he believes Indians’ susceptibility to diabetes may have emerged as their diets changed with rising affluence — and that their bodies, attuned to scarcity, couldn’t handle an overload of food.

The overload has been almost instantaneous, in the larger temporal context.

So, how is this overload beginning to show up even before the arrival of diabetes?

Since 1990, the percent of children and adults in India who are overweight or obese has almost tripled to 18.8 percent from 6.4 percent, according to data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

Interesting coincidence, if you think about it. India opened up its economy to the world in 1991.  Junk food was among other goods that came in.

One does not have to look fat or obese in order to have diabetes.  They can be relatively thin too.  But, there is a big symptom that typically juts out: The fat that collects around the abdomen.  The spare tire.

In my boring regimented life, when people ask me for suggestions, I tell them it is a question of healthy calories in versus calories out.  Mere reduction in intake won't help--the calories out depends on physical activity.  Which is what a cousin in the extended family found out.  After years of reducing his intake alone and getting frustrated that he still continued to gain weight, he took up running and exercising.  Within months he lost quite some pounds.  And he continued with that and built up the success.  So successful that he was profiled in the newspaper a few months ago.  "You should see him now," his mother gloated a few days ago.

Life is a procession of “frustrations and irritations”.  The best we can do is to at least do our part to make sure that it is a short procession!  So, get up and do twenty push-ups in order to reduce that abdominal fat that you have been fondly rubbing while reading through this post! ;)

Live the "American Dream" in India. The dream of obesity, that is!

"So, what are you planning to cook today?" I asked mother when talking with her.

She was getting ready to chop up a few vegetables--a little bit of this and a little bit of that--and make a dish out of it.  "As long as as we eat vegetables, right?" she commented.

I think she was referring to me practically harassing my parents about food versus nutrition.  I often remind them, when in India, that they don't need the quantity of rice they typically eat.  "Eat way more vegetables and fruits, and rice should practically be a side-dish" I remark if I think it is safe enough to say that without upsetting them.  Hey, I am a foreigner in India and, as an academic, I need to worry about cultural sensitivity even on such matters!

As an academic, and a curious one at that, I am increasingly worried about the high levels of rice and other carbohydrate intake in the traditional diet that my parents and millions of other Indians practice. Especially against the backdrop of diabetes; as I noted earlier, diabetes runs in the extended family.  At least with my parents, I can make suggestions even to the point of annoying them about it.

When I was young, we kids ate all that rice and ran around, under a blazing hot sun.  Now, kids in India don't seem to be all that physically active.  Once, the passenger seated next to me in the long flight to India, described the typical schooling and living conditions of kids.  It shocked me that there are many schools that do not have playgrounds.  I was by no means athletic during my school days, but I have done more than my share of running and playing games, including cricket.  And I biked long, long distances as well.

Horsing around by the playground during the high school reunion, 2011

As if these issues aren't enough, now American fast food has captured the taste buds of kids and youth alike.  Pizzas and sandwiches and chicken wings and sodas.

It doesn't take a medical professional to figure that these are disastrous:

Obesity cases have also burgeoned from 9.2 percent in New Delhi, 3.8 percent in Kerela, and 4.4 percent in Gujurat.

Where there is obesity, it is not difficult to find diabetics:

How awful!  If only people listened to me, eh! But then my life is dull and boring and I don't blame people for making sure they do everything other than whatever I do ;)

Couldn't the US have exported, instead, the work ethic or entrepreneurship, or ...!

Oh well, at least things are not as bad as they are in Mexico!