Monday, December 8, 2014

The Winter of Scarcity that Never Comes

This is my hypothesis:
Our distant ancestors had access only to berries in the late summer.  We consumed them and they were sweet which gave us a reward in our pleasure centers of our brains.  We ate them specifically to gain weight for the upcoming winter.  A food intended to fatten us up should NOT have a satiating trigger, that would defeat the purpose.   
Fast forward to today, sweet is available all the time.  Still no satiety trigger.  We are constantly fattening for a 'winter' of scarcity that never comes.  
If only there was a controlled way to test this... for example:

  • In the upcoming That Sugar Film, Damon Gameau, a filmmaker and TV actor, vows to follow a strict diet of “healthy,” low-fat food with high sugar content, News.com.au reported....
  • Gameau reportedly consumed 40 teaspoons of sugar per day, or slightly more than the average teenager worldwide, according to News.com.au. According to the American Heart Association (AHA), the average American consumes 20 teaspoons of sugar daily
<40 teaspoons of sugar?? "to match averages." What did he do, just shoveled sugar in his mouth? Not exactly.>
  • “All the sugars that I was eating were found in perceived healthy foods, so low-fat yogurts, and muesli bars, and cereals, and fruit juices, sports drinks ... these kind of things that often parents would give their kids thinking they’re doing the right thing.”
  • Within three weeks, the formerly healthy Gameau became moody and sluggish. A doctor gave him the shocking diagnosis: He was beginning to develop fatty liver disease. According to the Mayo Clinic, the most severe outcome for fatty liver disease is liver failure.
  • Gameau said his sugar-laden diet left him feeling hungry, no matter how much he ate.
These are highlights taken from this news Article: "Man eats sugar-heavy diet for 60 days, receives shocking diagnosis"  (stupid click bait title, must be the new norm')