The Man Taking Down Big Sugar

(Nathan Hall) #21

@Donna and @Vesa, very interesting thoughts on Autism. Have either of you considered starting an Autism topic under “Health”?
https://www.ketogenicforums.com/c/health/mental-health

(Michael Wallace Ellwood) #22

…leading to talk of taxes on saturated fat. That was seriously being talked about in the UK at one time. Not so much now, and the last food tax I heard about was to be on sugar, but I’m not sure if it’s been implemented yet. I’m still not sure about such taxes though. I think warnings on packages might be more effective. They would need to be as factual as possible though, while remaining concise. It needs to be more subtle than the smoking message, but still get home.

And I think the food industry needs to be told (somehow) that it has to change.
(Not easy though).

(Richard Morris) #23

One of the causes of so much sugar and starch being in our food supply is that it is the cheapest raw material. So for example if you have say a mayonnaise product which by rights should be just emulsified fat … if you replace most of that fat with a gelling starch you get a product that is not only half the calories (carbs = 4 kCal/g fat = 9 kCal/g ) so it earns a health halo, but it is a fraction of the cost to produce - so your shareholders are happier. NB: a gel lasts longer on a shelf than an emulsification … so that is a factor too.

The whole “tax sugar in sodas” campaign is a tar baby in my opinion. If we wanted to use tax policy to even the playing field we would be taxing the starch and sugar content of food to give it cost parity with fat and then let the customer chose the product that works best with their metabolism.