For me it’s soda. Coke, Pepsi, Sprite. I grew up on it, and I’m totally addicted to it. I know how awful it is but it’s the hardest habit to break.

The chart is done by weight and most of milk is water.  They should have converted to calories.

Don’t forget how HFCS is in e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g that’s processed.  Ketchup, spaghetti sauce, salad dressing, bread, packaged meals and snacks, etc.  So even people who don’t have a sweet tooth are taking in quite a lot of sugar unintentionally.

While I’m sure some adults do still drink straight-up glasses of milk in certain situations (ie, with cookies), I’d guess (and I admit this is pure speculation) a lot of it comes from adding milk to other food or beverage products—milk in coffee or tea, milk to make sauce out of that powdered cheez mix in boxed mac & cheese, milk in your cereal (apparently a lot of people still eat cereal for breakfast?), perhaps milk in protein shakes for protein nuts like me (making them with water is gross!), milk to make your scrambled eggs fluffy. It probably adds up if you have light coffee or breakfast cereal as part of your daily routine.

Do people just straight up drink milk?  That’s really weird.

Yes, people do in fact simply drink milk.  This makes me wonder if you’ve ever seen an Oreo commercial, and I can assure you that cold milk goes great with waffles or pancakes.

I’m guessing a lot of people are getting a shockingly high percentage of their calories from processed sugar, especially since it’s cheap and easy to get.  No wonder diabetes rates are soaring.

Yes, cheap because taxpayers subsidize production of this type of “food,” and by extension a debilitating (and expensive) disease.  Does this bring to mind a way to reduce health care costs—and government?

I know my parents still drink milk every day.  They grew up with it (they were born in the 1930’s.)  When I was single digits, we had milk delivered every day by a milk man.

I think I purchase a quart of milk a month, personally.  I don’t like the stuff, but it does get added to a lot of recipes.

As for sugar—well, we do live in a country of diabetics ruled by Archer Daniels Midland and other corn producers…

Ug.  Thanks for the nightmare flashback.  Being expected to drink warm whole milk with dinner.

The dairy intake is probably cheese, ice cream, and coffee drinks with milk.

Wow, I’m a male aged almost exactly 36.6 and I’m about 5’10”.  I had no idea I was the average American.

Except that I only weigh about 150.  And I don’t eat much red meat.  And the gay atheist thing.  So, I guess I’m still safely the “other”.

My wife will drink a glass of milk, especially if the kids don’t finish theirs, for whatever reason. I think it’s pretty weird myself. Full disclosure, though, I never would drink the stuff past the age of five or so. Can’t stand it. My son will drink three bottles of the stuff before bed, he’s a little turd about it.

As for the sugars… there are a great number of things I don’t appreciate about Japanese/Okinawan culture, but man they kick my Canadian ass with the food. They eat plenty of pork here in Okinawa, but sugar is not such a big thing except in candy. Most of the food is pretty fresh and lightly processed, no corn syrup or sugar added. I think.

I’m doing my part with Vodka sauce and white russians

@1: I found that the first two weeks were the hardest. After that, my tastebuds apparently reset to prefer slightly tart or bitter drinks over sweet ones. Sodas now are sickly sweet to me. What helped was finding a local sodastream supplier rather than buying liters of club soda.

Perhaps one symptom of the problem was visiting Indiana for the first time in three years, and getting taken out to a movie for my birthday. Everyone wanted popcorn, and I was rather stunned to discover that my non-sugar drink choices were bottled water or diet coke, and there were no sizes under 20oz. I ended up with my own bottle of water. It was shocking to me because one of the few advantages to life in Georgia is that unsweetened ice tea is apparently universal.

I wonder how much of the milk is from butter. I know i have a horrible tendency to overuse butter when i cook. My fiance drinks milk with dinner especially if it’s italian or mexican food. If it’s spicy mexican i drink 3 glasses.

And soda is sooo hard to quit when they give it away for free at work.

Everything these days is sweet: BarBQ chips, mustard, pickles, any processed foods, take out, you name it. And I hate it. I’ve had to throw out so much stuff because something that used to taste good now taste like it’s been candied.

I don’t know what that’s about, but it’s got to add lots to the HFCS total. It’s inescapable, and one reason I just cook for myself most often.

The milk thing doesn’t seem that weird to me.  It looks like everything (other than cheese and butter) is getting lumped into one category, so you have yogurt, sour cream, milk, cream, ice cream, any beverages containing milk (such as hot chocolate).  Many recipes in the Western diet include milk in some form, and it seems like powdered milk is popular in processed foods.

I can assure you that cold milk goes great with waffles or pancakes.

Some people never get into the habit of drinking milk as adults, I have a cousin who loves ice cream and cheese but thinks of drinking milk like being asked to drink a cold, sweet, diluted glass of snot.

man they kick my Canadian ass with the food.

That’s not hard to do, unless you’re a marketeer for Nutella.

Seriously speaking, there are times in Chinese cooking when one would use a few teaspoons of sugar, but you’re much more likely to have a problem with too much salt in Chinese food than too much sugar, unless you fancy the preserved fruits that the Chinese make so well.

Amanda, there are other studies to demonstrate that fructose works differently in the body than glucose:

M. Daniel Lane and co-workers at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore have now pulled together work, largely in their laboratory (many papers beginning in 2000), dealing with the role of malonyl-CoA in the signaling system in the brain (specifically the hypothalamus) that has inputs into the higher brain centers that determine feeding behavior, most notably appetite. Two papers in the journal PNAS in 2007 and 2008 showed that glucose and fructose act quite differently in the brain (hypothalamus) - glucose decreasing food intake and fructose increasing food intake. Both of these sugars signal in the brain through the malonyl-CoA signaling pathway and have inverse effects on food intake.

Also, it should be pointed out that the metabolism of carbohydrates in rats is regarded as being close to that of humans, and the pathways are pretty well-documented for both man and mammalian beasts.

A couple of other points:

Fructose doesn’t need insulin to work, and it’s more efficient to get fructose as a sugar source
because it doesn’t need to be processed after ingestion, as does sucrose,(table sugar) which needs to be broken into glucose and fructose by enzymes before being usable by the body.

Yeah, my guess is the majority of the sugar intake is the 40g soda or ‘juice’ products with 14-20g per 8 ounces of fluid (plus maybe for coffee?) And when many people are drinking these as their primary source of hydration rather than water, it is easy to end up at 40+ lbs. of sugar a year. Although personally I’m pretty sure mine is from baked goods, I like to do a lot of baking and burn through a good deal of sugar directly - although I share out what I bake among family/friends/coworkers. I also found that when I stopped drinking lots of soda not adding a billion sugars to my coffee became easier - now I take one or none, depending on the bitterness.
My sister is one of those that (whole) milk is her primary beverage, she might have a soda or juice a few times a week, but mostly it is milk.
I’m actually surprised the fruit and vegetable intake is as high as it is, considering how many people I know “hate vegetables.”

Do people just straight up drink milk?  That’s really weird.

Why is it weird?  I used to love drinking milk until a few years ago when I became lactose intolerant.  I still do drink it when I remember to pick up the lactose-free kind.  The real loss, dairy-wise, to me is egg creams.  I used to love egg creams, and I can’t make them at home with the lactose-free milk, because to make them, you need seltzer from a squirt bottle.  When I was a kid, my mother used to get seltzer delivered in those bottles, no problem.  But now it’s all buying plastic bottles of seltzer with regular caps, so no go.

This trip down memory lane brought to you by the dairy council, I guess.

Don’t drink much soda, it’s way too sickly weet for me, and the diet versions, bitter. Not to mention I don’t need the chemicals.

But I recently tried a “Mexican” Coca Cola (that is, Coca Colas made to be distributed in Mexico, which also make their way into Los Angeles bodegas, and other outlets.)

Made with cane sugar, rather than corn syrup, and in the teeny tiny bottles I remember from my youth. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it was an older formulation of the coke recipe, as well.

Because it was delicious! And that smaller bottle was completely satisfying. Reminded me why I enjoyed Coca Cola on the rare occasions I drank it in the 1950s - 1970s. (After my first dental visit, my father banned all soda from our home, and sodas weren’t then available in schools.)

Never got into the soda habit, or coffee, and now I drink water which I’ve spiked with vitamin C crystals and stevia extract (although I’m considering a switch to xylitol, for both the dental and insulin benefits.)

I also can’t handle much sugar anymore. I have a couple friends who’ve developed adult onset diabetes in their 50s-60s: primarily from carbohydrate abuse, would be my guess.

The last two times I indulged in a milk shake I actually got faint. Enough of a warning that I could go down the same path as my friends, I believe.

What’s especially terrifying is the 24lbs of artificial sweeteners.

And CBrachyrhyncos, unsweet tea is only readily available in metro Atlanta. You go elsewhere in GA and it’s often very difficult to find.

I agree with Tersa, much of what is making up dairy (in addition to milk) is probably butter. That’s another food that seems to be so common in processed, preserved foods.Plus, on a more snide level on my part, the movie theaters that soak their popcorn in butter contribute as well (I think so, anyway; whenever we had popcorn at home as a kid, we’d just have a modest amount of butter drizzled over. Now I’ve switched to butter-free popcorn.)

I’d also make a snide comment about much of it being cheese, but that’s factored separately, and it’s surprisingly less than I’d thought it be.

felagund: I’ve found it ubiquitous in the Savannah area, and on the road elsewhere, perhaps I’m just lucky.

Do people just straight up drink milk?  That’s really weird.

lots of people must drink milk considering I see it sold in pretty much every grocery store i’ve ever been to.  personally I think its flavor changes a lot depending on what you are eating.  I would drink it myself with spaghetti when I was growing up though I rarely if ever buy it now.  cakes and ice cream have plenty of milk too and plenty of coffee shops use it for lattes and such.  it’s not all soy out there.

I’d bet that the high dairy consumption also is due in part to the normalization of yogurt as a “healthy” food and meal substitute.

The first time I saw someone eat from a yogurt container as a dinner was in 1970 in London, which seemed wildly exotic to me at the time. Simply wasn’t available generally in the United States, and not at all in those convenient containers, and certainly not considered a “balanced” meal.

However, the sugar content (and high carbohydrate load) of most marketed yogurts (and frozen yogurt) is highly unhealthy.

50 carbs for 6 ounces of yogurt? I stay away from that, too.

Me and my partner drink a cup of milk every day for dinner. I grew up with milking goats and lots of milk around and frankly the one time I tried going without milk (spent 4 months in Asia where there really isn’t much milk) I was craving it SOO bad I think I was having calcium deficiency or something. I was surprised to meet my bf and see he liked milk even MORE than me.

The 600lbs of dairy must be liquid milk, cream, yogurt, and ice cream. According to the graphic 181 lbs of the 600lbs of dairy is “beverage milks.” Cheese is its own category, and butter seems to fall under “fats and oils” (represented by a stick of butter in the graphic).

Representing our intake in pounds makes liquid dairy loom large because the most commonly consumed forms are mostly water and therefore heavier.

Both butter and cheese are counted separately from dairy.  We didn’t drink that much as kids because of milk allergies, so I never got in the habit (plus drinking milk at dinner can contribute to bedwetting in kids).  I assume the kids are drinking milk, but adults are consuming it in coffee, other foods, ice cream, and yogurt (as to which, I go Greek—better taste for one, but also I have to limit my per-meal carb intake, and only Greek yogurt makes the cut). 

The thing about sugar is that it’s in everything. I have to read bread labels to avoid buying bread with sugar in it, and there is just no good reason for sugar to be in bread.  Manufacturers are putting it in everything, and putting too much of it in things.  I suppose it’s cheap, but why add it just because it’s cheap, if it’s not necessary?  It skews your taste buds to expect sweet tastes from everything.

I can assure you that movie popcorn has never had even a passing acquaintance with actual butter. At least, not for decades.

Also: I’d bet that in most commercial baked goods and what not, butter has been substituted by other (cheaper) oils.

And I’d bet dollars to donuts that the surge of adult onset diabetes can be blamed on HFCs, in combo with white flour, soda and other carbohydrate bombs.

And if I do yogurt now, I also do unsweetened Greek style.

I know this is nit-picking, but sugar consumption doesn’t directly cause diabetes; diabetes can be triggered by weight (and for the record I know that genetics is a stronger determinant then weight and most fat people don’t have diabetes, etc. but when I diabetic person loses weight, regardless of starting point, the diabetes usually gets better), but not simply eating sugar. It is just that once you have diabetes, you should avoid sugar because it makes it harder to regulate your insulin.

I was also kind of shocked by the dairy. And the dairy on the chart excludes cheese at that. I didn’t see how they gathered said information, but if they simply asked people to keep food diaries, some may have exaggerated the amount of milk they drink since drinking milk is seen as something that makes you a good person.

The difficult thing about the sugar consumption is that, quite likely, the high sugar intake isn’t just consuming tons of candy. Even salty fatty processed foods usually contain some hfcs. And the reccommended amount of sugar is about one can of pop a day: I assume that the majority of the sugar is drank.

Do people just straight up drink milk?  That’s really weird.

No, it is not weird. I have a glass of milk with most meals. I am from a dairy culture, I possess the ability to produce lactase, and milk is good for me. I like the taste of milk. There is a little sign over the milk dispenser at the DFAC extolling the virtues of milk.

Milk on cereal probably accounts for a fair bit of nation’s dairy consumption. I wonder if that falls under “beverage milk”—since it’s milk from a carton.

I am actually surprised that Amanda is surprised that people drink milk.  I am also surprised at the commenter at #4 who was wondering if people “still” have cereal for breakfast.  Was there any reason to think it had gone out of fashion?  I usually have about a cup of milk at breakfast every day, either in my cereal (which is my staple breakfast food) or in a glass if I’m eating something other than cereal (like waffles, eggs, or toast and a piece of fruit).

I find the chart pretty useless though. Obviously if you add up any of the foods ANYONE eats over the course of a year, it will sound like a lot because it’s a year’s worth of food.  I am not doubting that Americans probably overconsume to a shocking degree in certain areas, but I am just not able to gauge that from the chart because I don’t know what a reasonable amount of consumption would be in the different categories for a year. 

I wash cake down with black coffee, but then again, I’m a known weirdo.

Who on earth doesn’t drink milk straight up? I’m 40, I’m drinking 1.5-2 gallons per week besides what goes into my coffee, and I consider myself completely average wrt milk consumption. But apparently not amongst Pandagon commenters

I find drinking a glass of milk to be weird too—sort of reminiscent of elementary school or something. But when I started to figure out how often I eat ice cream, butter, yogurt, cottaage cheese, and cheese, I wouldn’t be suprised if it gets up there.
Also, it seems basically impossible to consume the 6 teaspoons of sugar daily that is recommended. I usually drink three cups of tea a day, each with a teaspoon of sugar. Even though I don’t eat sweet foods every day, I bet the other foods I eat have more than 3 teaspons of sugar in them somehow. It’s just in everything nowadays.

I’m actually surprised the fruit and vegetable intake is as high as it is, considering how many people I know “hate vegetables.”

That category would include potatoes and we do love our french fries and potato chips.

There are two of us here in the house, both adult men over the age of 35, and we go through 3-4 gallons of (skim[1]) milk a week. Mostly that’s with dinner, though cereal, cake, cookies, and coffee all factor in there too.

-

[1] It has to be skim, though: even 1% milk is gross to me now. I grew up drinking 2%.

I think cereal for breakfast and yoghurt account for a lot of milk consumption.

A milk anecdote: When I had my son at the pediatrician for his check up last year, they asked he if he drank “at least” three cups a day of milk. Well, he doesn’t drink anything like that. He likes milk with sweet stuff like french toast or pancakes on the weekends. He has milk on his cereal. He likes yoghurt. But he mostly drinks water. I got a little lecture on making sure he drank enough milk.

But now that he’s in school and eating breakfast and lunch there, he has one of those little cup-cartons twice a day.

Insulin has both central and peripheral effects on satiety. Usually we think of insulin as being a hunger-triggering, fat-accumulating hormone. That is true on the peripheral level. But there’s also some evidence that insulin has satiety-promoting, body-weight stabilizing effects over the long term, through separate pathways. So, a high carb product that /doesn’t/ trigger an insulin response might be, paradoxically, subverting our natural appetite regulation mechanisms over the long term.

I agree that it’s a mistake to fear HFCS much more than regular starches and sugars. They’re all bad in unlimited quantities.

However, HFCS is objectively the perfect poster villain for the American agricultural industrial complex. HFCS is incredibly expensive to produce compared to natural sugars. We wouldn’t have this product at all if it weren’t for the fact that we produce vastly more (heavily subsidized) corn than we need and aggressively defend the sweetener market against imported sugars.

HFCS isn’t a proper food in Michael Pollan’s sense. If you’re not eating heavily processed industrial foodstuffs, you’re not eating HFCS. Even the corn syrup you buy in the the grocery store to make pecan pie is low-fructose corn syrup.

Wow! that’s a lot of milk! Never even drank it much as a kid. Mostly we used milk to make biscuits and to loosen the drippings and congealed blood from the chicken fried steak pan to make cream gravy. A modest slab of full-cut round steak fed two adults and two children. We had mashed potatoes always, and fresh peas or green beans on the spring and summer, okra and tomatoes in August and September, and homegrown chard or endive in the winter.

I never used to set much store in the whole anti-HFCS. I remember in the late ‘70’s health food stores used to sell HFCS and ad recipes to make all your favorite foods with HFCS instead of cane sugar. It was supposed to be better because it was sweeter, so you’d get less refined sugar overall. However, I think this video makes a pretty good case that there are moderate problems with HFCS:

http://www.youtube.com/user/C0nc0rdance#p/u/6/1JhxXp_P3H0

Check out his other vids too. He’s got a great one on the history of artificial sweeteners.. I like his overall message: Reduce sugar intake of all kinds, remember that natural does not always mean good. and learn to appreciate the natural sweetness of. natural foods.

Chet, the small differences the study found doesn’t explain how that invalidates the findings of the sutdy by Princeton, and your authority has only got her facts wrong:

Moreover, the researchers concluded that the rats gained more weight from high fructose corn syrup than they would have from sugar, yet the researchers had no proper basis for drawing this conclusion since they failed to provide sucrose controls for part of the study’s short-term experiments and no sucrose controls whatsoever were present in any of the long-term experiments.

http://www.foodpolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/HFCS_Rats_10.pdf

2.1. Experiment 1: male rats with short-term (2 months) HFCS access
Weight-matched, male rats (300–375 g, n=10/group) were fed
either (1) ad libitum chow, (2) 24-h HFCS and chow, (3) 12-h HFCS
and ad libitum chow, or (4) 12-h sucrose with ad libitum chow for
8 weeks (2 months). We selected these schedules to allow comparison
of intermittent and continuous access, as our previous publications
show limited (12 h) access to sucrose precipitates binge-eating
behavior (Avena et al., 2006). The 12-h groups had access to sugar
(HFCS or sucrose) starting 4 h into the dark phase each day. These
sugars were selected because they are the primary sweeteners in
many soft-drinks. HFCS was an 8% solution (Nature’s Flavors®,
Formula 55, v/v dissolved in tap water, 0.24 kcal/mL), and sucrose
was given as a 10% solution (Domino® Granulated Pure Cane Sugar,
w/v, dissolved in tap water, 0.4 kcal/mL). Standard rodent chow was
provided to all groups (LabDiet #5001, PMI, St. Louis, MO, 3.02 kcal/g).
All animals had water available ad libitum (see Table 1 for complete
list of diets).
HFCS, sucrose, and chow intakes were measured daily, and body
weight was measured weekly. After 8 weeks on the diets, the rats
were sacrificed via rapid decapitation and trunk blood was collected
and assayed for blood glucose levels using the Analox GM7 Fast
Enzymatic Metabolizer (Analox, Lunenburg, MA) as per the manufacturer’s
instructions.

2.2. Experiment 2: male and female rats with long-term (6–7 months)
access to HFCS
To determine the effects of long-term access to HFCS, male rats
(initially 275–325 g, n=8/group) were maintained on either (1)
24-h HFCS and chow, (2) 12-h HFCS and ad libitum chow, or (3) ad
libitum chow (Table 1) for 6 months. Since we did not see effects of
sucrose on body weight in Experiment 1 with males, we did not
include sucrose groups in this long-term analysis in males. Access to
chow was made a variable (12 h or ad libitum) to see if that had an
effect on body weight. Measurements of HFCS and chow were taken
as described in Experiment 1, and body weights were measured
weekly for 6 months.
Female rats (150–200 g at the onset of the experiment) were
also tested to determine if the findings applied to both sexes. These
rats were maintained on either (1) 24-h HFCS and ad libitum chow,
(2) 12-h HFCS and 12-h chow, (3) 12-h sucrose and 12-h chow, or
(4) ad libitum chow (Table 1). In this study with females, we
included a group with access to sucrose for comparison with HFCS,
as well as 12-h access to chow, to determine if limited access to
chow, in the presence of HFCS or sucrose, could affect body weight.
All animals had water available ad libitum. Sucrose, HFCS, and chow
intake were measured daily, as described in Experiment 1, and body
weights were measured weekly for 7 months.
At the end of the experiment, animals from both the male and
female studies were sacrificed by rapid decapitation at the end of the
dark cycle. Trunk blood was collected and serum was analyzed, as per
the manufacturers’ instructions, for triglycerides (TG) using enzymatic
hydrolysis (Cayman Chemicals, kit #10010303) and insulin
using Insulin ELISA kit (Calbiotech, Spring Valley, CA). Unilateral
body-fat pads from three regions, abdominal, gonadal and intestinal,
were collected and weighed individually and collectively by an
observer blind to the experimental conditions.

Even HFCS is just 55/45 fructose/glucose.

Which isn’t found in any natural food source, but that can’t make any difference, right.

BTW, part two of your link goes to the usual suspects.

Who would thunk it.

Add me as another person who finds it odd that the OP finds people drinking milk from glass to be weird. 

Though I’m not one of them, I know plenty of people….especially those from dairy producing regions in the Midwest and New England who drink two or more glasses of milk a day on top of cereal and other foods.  Though I do consume milk on occasion(usually with cereal), drinking more than that feels almost like drinking fat to me….and I usually drink 2% or skim. 

I do like milk in many foods such as New England Clam Chowder and Chicken a la King, though. 

It’s kind of funny to see this milk thing come up.  I never liked it, but my grandmother was the kind of 70s health nut that insisted we only eat whole grains and thought milk was some kind of panacea.  I do think there’s some kind of gender divide on the milk issue.  Men seem to think it’s a delicious beverage.

I can’t quite shake that feeling that I’m “being good” when I drink milk.  I tend to treat it like a snack or meal when I do.  I recently switched to organic milk, and I didn’t expect a difference, but I actually like organic milk. 

Also, to add to the idea about milk being something that’s part of a meal or food, think of lattes and yogurt. 

If I didn’t have a spouse, I’d never ever go through a gallon of milk.  Come to think of it, we never really drank milk when we were cohabited, but we started going through it a lot faster after marrying.  I also have never liked cold cereal.

Men seem to think it’s a delicious beverage.

It’s funny that you say this because I’m a woman and I like milk on occasion, especially when I’m eating something sweet (PB&J, pancakes, slice of banana bread), and when I’m in the mood for it, it tastes so, so good to me. My husband, on the other hand, probably hasn’t had a glass of milk to drink since he was a little kid. He thinks it’s gross. And not for any good reason, I always thought of it as a gendered thing - women like milk/men don’t.

I don’t mind milk and will sometimes drink a small glass as something mildly filling if I’m a little hungry but not hungry enough to eat something.

I’m from .au and whenever I visit the US I find the food to be sweeter than I’m used to (even food that you would not normally associate with sweetness like bread). After a few weeks I get used to it and it can take some time for the desire for sweets to dissipate when I come home again. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth either. It must be extremely difficult for people who do crave sweetness to resist.

For me, one of the best things about becoming an adult was knowing that no one would ever pressure me to drink cold, fluid milk again for the rest of my life.

No disrespect to milk drinkers.

Let me join the chorus: I freaking love milk.  Not for every meal, but definitely on cereal most mornings and a glass with certain meals.  Always with any dessert.  My aunt’s family actually puts ice cubes in their milk glasses, because they “like it really cold” (weird).
We brought a chocolate cake for my office-mate’s birthday the other week, and I brought milk to go with it.  I think she appreciated the milk as much as the cake.
My parents and girlfriend don’t drink milk, which is fine because more for me.

As far as the original post, I’m still surprised people drink that much milk, even given the relative water weight.  But hey, it’s a staple.  I remember from working at the grocery store over 10 years ago that milk was one of the things you could get on WIC, like bread and baby food.

That’s 11 and a half pounds of non-cheese dairy products a week. Simply not believable.  I also have a tough time believing that the average woman weighs 164 pounds. I know things are different once you get into “real” America, but can it really be a bunch of fat fucks with milk moustaches?

Well, protein shakes don’t taste very good with water…and I’m a sucker for a chocolate malt.

And I find those average weights absolutely shocking. Horrifying, even.

I suspect that a lot of that dairy is byproducts like whey and such things, which are ingredients in a lot of processed foods. “Beverage milks” are a “mere” 181 lbs of the total!

Add me to the chorus saying that drinking milk is not weird, at least not where I come from (New England). The house I grew up in, with two adults and four children, went through gallons of the stuff every week.

I drink a lot less milk than I used to, but I still tend to keep a half gallon of it in the fridge most of the time. Some weeks I will drink that amount, some weeks I won’t drink any; usually if I’m thirsty, I prefer to just drink water. I see milk as more of an accompaniment to meals or desserts. It’s an ingredient in mac & cheese and other dishes, so that also contributes to my consumption of it. I generally don’t put it in my coffee when I make it at home; if I get crap coffee other places, it might require some half and half to be drinkable. I still don’t see myself drinking 181 lbs of the stuff a year… but that comes to half a gallon every week, which isn’t that unbelievable.

I was surprised that people eat that many fruits and vegetables.  Milk is the one animal product I have not given up.

I also have a tough time believing that the average woman weighs 164 pounds. I know things are different once you get into “real” America, but can it really be a bunch of fat fucks with milk moustaches?

Actually, those weight averages sound about right to me.  There’s plenty of not only “fat people”, but also heavily muscular/heavily boned and tall folks who tend to skew the average US weights stats upwards for both genders.

I’m a smidgen under 6’ and am amazed at how many US friends and colleagues feel I am “underweight” for weighing between 130 - 150 Ibs whereas in both Chinas, I am considered average to touching on heavy.

I’m genuinely surprised at how much dairy we consume.  What’s that about?  Do people just straight up drink milk?  That’s really weird.

As many people have pointed out - it ain’t that weird.  I don’t like to drink milk anymore, nor does my wife, but I have friends who enjoy big glasses of milk - mostly with breakfast.  And when I have cereal on occasion I still drink the milk I pour over it.

But I suspect that much more of that beverage milk consumption comes in the form of coffee additives. Most folks in the USA apparently can’t stand to drink their coffee without things like cream or milk - and Starbucks has given us a taste for more exotic steamed milk drinks that have a touch of coffee in them.  I personally can’t stand drinking more than about one of those a week myself, but I have plenty of friends who don’t drink what I grew up calling coffee and can only drink cappuccino or latte drinks.  A latte is basically a giant glass of warm milk with some coffee mixed into it.  (Frankly I prefer black coffee and have since I started drinking coffee at age 16 - but then I’m a known weirdo.  Like Lindsay, I also prefer my chocolate cake with a nice cup of black coffee.  And my pie.  And my ice cream.  Frankly just about anything goes with black coffee these days.)

(And then there’s hot chocolate in the wintertime - even I still love my big mugs of hot chocolate in the winter.  One of the few times I indulge in whole milk instead of skim too…)

They explain why they didn’t do the sucrose in the males, Chet:

Since we did not see effects of
sucrose on body weight in Experiment 1 with males, we did not
include sucrose groups in this long-term analysis in males.

Actually, that’s inaccurate. 55/45 is the same sugar composition as some honeys. (Honey, being a natural product, varies quite a bit in its constitution.)

I wouldn’t call honey a food source, unless you’re living in the Middle East and supplementing it with roasted locusts.

And honey isn’t used in processed foods to the extend that HFCS is, I imagine it can be used in cooking especially in baking, but it isn’t something you’ll find outside a few breakfast cereals, cookies, honey grahams and the like.

Uh, what? My link doesn’t have a “part two.”

My bad, I meant this link here.

I love milk. I drink a glass every night before bed. Not warm milk - that sounds disgusting to me. I like my milk as cold as possible.  Although there IS some truth to story about milk helping you sleep. Milk has a lot of Tryptophan. That’s the stuff that’s in turkey that causes everyone to make jokes about needing a nap after eating dinner on Thanksgiving, getting brought up about 150 times until you feel like strangling everyone. Turkey doesn’t actually have very much Tryptophan, though, not enough to have a meaningful effect. Milk has somewhat more, though still probably not enough to be effective.

I love milk products, but can only have them sparingly, since sometime in my 30s.

I end up stuffed up, eyes streaming if I indulge several days in a row (as well as from coffee, wheat products, chocolate and soy) and it only gets worse from there.

My acupuncturist, who grew up in Hong Kong, claims that adults don’t need milk (actually, he believes it’s toxic for adults.)

Which may be because in his Hong Kong, only children drank milk. But a build up of milk products certainly has a toxic effect on me.

And I love that stuff: cheese, milk, ice cream, yogurt. Oh, don’t get me started.

No, Amanda isn’t shocked or surprised that a lot of people drink milk, she’s just trolling milk drinkers, like she does every few months. It’s kind of one of the food versions of her music snobbery. She expresses shock that someone likes something she doesn’t, “People eat so and so, well, I never” *fans herself*. It’s an annoying personality trait of hers that I usually overlook because I like her other writing.

I mean think about it. How stupid would she have to be to walk by the huge dairy cases in the grocery store and not realize that they would not put it out in those quantities if large quantities of people weren’t drinking it. I mean, you wouldn’t buy it by the gallon to cook with.

Personally, I can’t imagine eating cookies, chocolate, cakes or pastries without milk.

Wow, I had no idea there were people who didn’t like to drink milk. That’s how we can tell who the pods are, methinks.

I drink it with dinner most times, I wonder if this is somewhat of an upper Midwest thing? My folks were large animal vets and had a healthier sense of self-interest than the average person, so they forced us to drink milk at most every meal. There was even a specific cow named Pretzel who was going to come look in the window and shame us if we didn’t drink our milk.

As for quitting drinking sweetened pop, I didn’t have that hard a time. I found Diet Vernors, which tastes a lot like regular Vernors, ginger ale not being the sweetest thing around.

The weights are “high” because they are averages, rather than medians. A 5’9” man who’s really, really underweight might be 110 pounds, but a really overweight 5’9” man might well be in the 300s, so when you average both “extremes” you still get an overweight average. It’s simply not possible to be THAT underweight without dying.

I’m pretty skeptical of all the “corn syrup OH NOES” hysteria, because what people tend to take away from it is almost always “I should switch to eating all the ALL NATURAL ORGANIC CANE SUGAR that I want, because it is ORGANIC and NATURAL and so it must be healthy for me, unlike HFCS.” It’s still crap. HFCS might be a little worse, but really it’s bad because it’s cheap and gets inserted into all sorts of food where it shouldn’t be, not because it is magical poison juice.

Haven’t read comments yet, but wanted to link this video about why HFCS is bad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

Your body processes HFCS completely differently than it processes regular sugars.

And actually, because of the way your body processes HFCS, it does lead to less satisfaction with your meal, leading to more eating.

Going back to read comments now.

HFCS isn’t a proper food in Michael Pollan’s sense.

So? Who gives a shit what a journalist thinks about agriculture and nutrition?

but your original argument was that this ratio isn’t found in nature

Which isn’t found in any natural food source

Unless one is a bear of little brain, or a honey badger, I can’t imagine one eating honey as it is, by itself, which is what I meant when I said it’s not a natural food source.

The big difference is that honey isn’t used the way HFCS is to sweeten every kind of food.

<blockquote>I’m genuinely surprised at how much dairy we consume.  What’s that about?  Do people just straight up drink milk?  That’s really weird. </unblockquote>
Um, no, it’s not.  Most US children still drink milk in school at least a couple of days a week.  My spouse and both adult kids drink milk pretty much every day, as well as putting it on cerial.  Most US Americans put milk on their ceriel, and those that don’t often use yogurt instead.  Yogurt would fit in that huge white section, which is not even 1/3 milk by weight.
Also, lemmy caution is absolutely correct in that milk is mostly water.  To reasonably assess, this should be in calories or some other fairly neutral measure (or adjusted for water removed).
Why are nuts in with coffee and cocoa instead of with one of the other protein sources or alone though?  That doesn’t really make sense unless you are seperating them out as snacks?  Tehn, where would soy fit in as it is often treated like a snack nut, but is in actuality a legume vegetable?

Do people just straight up drink milk?

Yes. I drink a tall (probably 12 oz) glass of milk every day with dinner. I like the taste, and it provides most of my dairy/vitamin D for the day. My two year old also drinks milk everyday. With my husband’s cereal habit we go through about 1.5 gallons per week. @witless chum, definitely not just an upper midwest thing as I was raised in the southwest.

I don’t like charts like this being targeted towards individual consumers. Most people, poor/lower working class anyway, just don’t have that much control over what they eat. They buy what they can in the store and if it’s loaded with HFCS because it’s subsidized and cheap for the manufacturer, then there’s not a lot individuals can do about it. Fixing this needs to come from the top down.

judybrowni @ 19: you can often get soda/pop/tonic from the Carribean, Mexico and SAmer in hispanic specialty markets.  Many of them are made with sugar or cane syrup rather than corn syrup.  Some are in tiny bottles and some in more normal 8-10 oz sizes.  I don’t usually see anything bigger than 12 oz though.
EG01 @ 18: I think I saw a specialty cap you can buy to fit onto the 2 liter bottles to turn them into something similar to the old fashioned kind, but I can’t remember where or who made them.  Some catelog that came to us mistakenlyhad them, I think.

Regarding milk: I eat it (skim, lactose free) with my cereal in the morning.  I don’t drink it straight, and I prefer vanilla soymilk in my coffee.

Regarding sugar: there are a lot of overlapping/interacting issues here, so I’ll try to break it down the way I understand it.
1. Americans eat too much sugar, and too many calories in general.
2. Americans drink a lot of their sugar; drinking sweetened beverages doesn’t significantly contribute to satiety, so the calories are completely empty.
3. American foods are often unnecessarily sweetened.  Sandwich bread, IMO, doesn’t need sweetener in it.
4. Sugar in general doesn’t contribute as much to satiety as fat or protein; the “low fat” revolution of the ‘80s was actually a high sugar revolution - we traded eating too much saturated fat for just eating too much.
5. Fructose is metabolized differently from glucose, and is worse for you for a host of reasons (lack of insulin response, greater propensity for abdominal/visceral fat deposition, etc.)
6. While there is plenty of fructose in cane sugar (which is also bad for you in excess!) there is even more in HFCS, and it’s already hydrolized into monosaccharides, which makes it absorb even faster.

So overall, HFCS is very bad for you.  Cane sugar is very slightly less bad for you.  Not adding a ton of extra sugar and calories to your diet is better for you.

On the other hand, if you like sugar and want to eat/drink a bunch of it, and you don’t mind the health/weight implications, go right the hell ahead.  Better to be happy than miserable.  I drink way too much caffeine, but I love my coffee and diet soda.  Everyone needs their vices.

@helen #72:

I think around Passover time you can get “Kosher” soda, which (IIRC) has cane sugar instead of HFCS.

I’ve had both HFCS and “real sugar” Coke, and I find the latter both tastier and more satisfying.  Regardless of what people are arguing above, there is definitely a difference in satiety for me between the two.

i can’t be the only person who noticed that the section for vegetables has a picture of a ... fruit. the section for fats and oils, as distinct from dairy, has a picture of a ... dairy product.

i’m very curious what the ~420 pounds of dairy, that aren’t butter or liquid milk, are. i’m surprised that the ratio for red meat is so low, and that HFCS makes up less than 1/3 of sweeteners.

Dave, I agree, but I drink very little soda, usually diet.  Jamacian ginger beer and goya sodas are special treats; otherwise it’s crap store brand diet ginger ale or cola.  About the only place I consume added sugar on a daily basis in my coffee (about 1 tsp in 3ish cups typically). 

Bread does need a sweetener to feed the yeast (or at least any modern version of risen bread).  It does not need anything like the amount usually added in processed loaves, or even fresh bakery ones.  The added sugar can decrease rising times, but then the extra sweetens the whole thing needlessly.

Maybe milk-drinking is a Midwest thing? That doesn’t make much sense—-coffee-drinking is such a thing in the Midwest, one of my absolute favorite things about it.  I think the last time I drank a glass of milk, I was pre-pubescent. It’s a kid thing to do, I thought.  It’s definitely an American fetish; most of the world is lactose intolerant—-lactose tolerance evolved mainly in Europeans—-and so this notion that it’s “good for you” seems more a product of dairy marketing than anything else.

Even as a kid, drinking milk started to feel gross to me. It’s not really a proper beverage.  It feels more like liquid food.

So? Who gives a shit what a journalist thinks about agriculture and nutrition?

A lot of nutritionists, it turns out. They love that guy.  See: Marion Nestle.

EG01 @ 18: I think I saw a specialty cap you can buy to fit onto the 2 liter bottles to turn them into something similar to the old fashioned kind, but I can’t remember where or who made them.  Some catelog that came to us mistakenlyhad them, I think.

Oh, awesome!  I will keep an eye out.  Thanks so much!

I don’t *drink* dairy milk, but I do eat a LOT of cottage cheese, yogurt, string cheese, etc.  It’s because my stomach can’t tolerate much solid food, and I still need to get my 80+ grams of protein in every day.  Protein shakes supplement, of course, but they can’t do everything.

If I’m going drink a glass of milk, it’s going to be vanilla soy milk or almond milk. I could bathe in that shit its so awesome.

That said:  does anyone in the NE know where to get milk that isn’t ultra-pasturized?  I used to love making my own cheese, and would like to again, but everytime I try to make it with grocery-store bought milk, it doesn’t set.  I’ve learned that’s because dairies are heating it to higher and higher degrees but not quite to the “ultra” level, and so they carton doesn’t say “ultra pasturized”.

I’m at a loss at where to find suitable cheese-making milk now.

Maybe milk-drinking is a Midwest thing?

I dunno, Amanda, I distinctly remember my North Texas relatives drinking milk with ice in it to keep it cool in the summer heat when I was a wee lad of 12 yrs in 1971, so I think you just grew out of drinking milk.

As I mentioned earlier, my cousin from said NT relatives doesn’t drink milk, and might not have even as a child.

Maybe milk-drinking is a Midwest thing? That doesn’t make much sense—-coffee-drinking is such a thing in the Midwest, one of my absolute favorite things about it.  I think the last time I drank a glass of milk, I was pre-pubescent. It’s a kid thing to do, I thought.  It’s definitely an American fetish; most of the world is lactose intolerant—-lactose tolerance evolved mainly in Europeans—-and so this notion that it’s “good for you” seems more a product of dairy marketing than anything else.

Even as a kid, drinking milk started to feel gross to me. It’s not really a proper beverage.  It feels more like liquid food.

It is also a New England thing….especially among those who grew up near dairy producing regions.  So many New England colleagues and friends would drink a glass or two of milk at work as well as what they had for breakfast or dinner.  In fact, when one of them visits me as a guest for a weekend, I have to stock a full gallon of milk. 

Also, New England clam chowder uses milk/cream as a basic ingredient. 

Also, the milk marketing is not only confined to the US. 

The increased consumption of milk in East Asian countries since WWII has been commonly cited by mass media types there as a symbol of the greater available nutrition causing a marked increase in average height and to a lesser extent weight. 

Older relatives and friends who grew up in East Asian countries before the 1950’s cited the introduction/increased consumption of milk as the cause of the dramatic differences in height between those of their grandparents/parents generations and those of themselves and subsequent generations in their respective countries of origin.

Also what else do you eat cake with? If it’s anything but milk, you’re the weirdo.

I eat cake with bourbon, like the good lord intended.

Add me to the chorus of milk drinkers. I used to have a four ounce glass before bed every evening, but since falling pregnant, I’ve developed a major craving for it—along with Cheerios. Oddest thing. I can blow through a gallon by myself in a few days.

It’s not really a proper beverage.  It feels more like liquid food.

It is a liquid food. That’s the point of milk.

I think it’s just your taste, Amanda.  I mean, sure, people in lots of other cultures don’t drink milk…but that’s a function of them being other cultures.  I’m part of this culture, where milk-drinking is fairly commonplace.

***It’s a kid thing to do, I thought***

Yeah, yeah, that’s what you said the last time, Amanda. And of course, you are like last time, wrong.

It’s one thing to not like it, but to insult people who do is just trolling. It’s like if I was to say “People drink beer? That’s weird, It’s an alcoholic thing to do, I thought”.  But, I usually refrain from comments like that, because while I think it’s pretty foul, I know plenty of people like it and I don’t judge them for it. And quite frankly, going by the sales at the store I work at, a lot more people drink milk than beer.

I like milk, but it’s a bit hard on me, so I drink maybe a half-glass straight every week or two.

I will say that drinking unprocessed, unpasteurized stuff is kind of a revelation.  We really do give up a lot of flavor in order to avoid seasonality.

Back in the Old Country, my grandmother’s family ran a dairy stand plus I’m from the Midwest, so I grew up with a lot of dairy products.  Then lactose intolerance raised its ugly head in my late 20s, so it’s now soy milk (maybe a quart a week - mainly for tea/chai) for me.  I really do miss cottage cheese, and there’s really not a non-dairy substitute for that.

We really do give up a lot of flavor in order to avoid seasonality.

My understanding is that pasteurization is not to avoid seasonality, but to avoid bacterial infections that could be fatal and sometimes were.

You’re right, Chet.  I wasn’t specific enough.  Your body processes HFCS exactly as it processes ethanol.

It’s a kid thing to do, I thought.

Obviously not, unless Pandagon readers are really just a bunch of 10 yr olds.

@Chet:

Me: Your body processes HFCS completely differently than it processes regular sugars.

You: No, it doesn’t.

Yes it does:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose#Fructose_digestion_and_absorption_in_humans

Just a bit of a nitpick, here - HFCS isn’t made by hydrolysis of sucrose, it’s made by chemical isomerization of glucose.

The point is, HFCS bypasses the hydrolysis step in the intestines.  Which means it’s digested and absorbed differently as well as being metabolized differently.

I agree that milk feels like liquid food; that’s one of the things I like about it. If I’m peckish between meals, a small glass of chocolate milk does the trick. 

Also, there’s an increasing trend amongst fitness authorities to tout chocolate milk as a good workout preceder/follow-up, seeing as it’s got a good array of water, vitamin, protein, carb and sugar. From my own anecdotal experience, my knees haven’t hurt at all after a 8 mile walk when said walk is preceded by 12 oz of the brown moo-juice. (Not fat-free, it’s useful to note. Vitamin D is fat-soluble, so a bit of fat in the milk helps absorption.) Which is an entirely new experience for me. Even creatine had only limited effect on my post-workout soreness in comparison. Maybe that’s placebo effect talking, but: there you go.

Hell yeah, straight out of the Dairy Capital of Georgia…

The 141.6 pounds of sugar per year in the graphic would be about 36 teaspoons per day, not 11, Amanda. So if the recommended amount is 9, we average 4 times that.

As others have said above, milk is mostly water, and water is heavy, so 181.5 lbs of milk/year sounds like a lot more than it really is.

I rarely drink milk straight up, but every morning I eat either Kashi cereal or make a fruit smoothie with skim milk.  ~1 cup/day = 7-8 cups/week = 1 half-gallon per week.  A half gallon of milk weighs 4.2 pounds.  4.2 pounds * 52 weeks/year = 218.4 pounds of milk/year, greater than the 181.5 lb average. 

Given that cereal is a pretty common breakfast in the US, and 1 cup of milk/day adds up to over 200 pounds/year, I don’t see how 181.5 pounds of milk/year is excessive at all.

Also, re: diabetes - the idea that diabetes is *caused* by eating lots of sugar and the resultant obesity has been disproved in study after study.  In fact, studies now show that both obesity AND diabetes are symptoms, and both are caused by genetic predisposition.  http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14046739.php

But then why have obesity and diabetes rates skyrocketed recently, you may ask?  Because our environment is full of myriad obesogens, namely endocrine disruptors, and - furthermore - those who are genetically predisposed to obesity are more sensitive to obesogens than those who are not.  Plus, study after study shows that dieting actually makes you heavier.  So someone with a genetic predisposition whose ancestors may once have carried an extra 10 lbs, in today’s environment and after 20+ years of yo-yo dieting is likely to be 50+ pounds overweight.  I’ve written more about this, and linked the studies, here: http://open.salon.com/blog/nola_viajera/2011/07/31/calories_in_calories_out_nonsense

Like CJ noticed, red peppers are fruit.  It’s weird that it’s the symbol used to represent vegetables and makes me wonder what actual distinction they used to decide which would go into which category.

You can’t say that HFCS had a long-term effect relative to other sugars if you, in fact did not compare it with the long-term effect of other sugars.

Which they did to both sexes IN THE SHORT TERM STUDY, and they found NO EFFECT ON MALES IN SAID SHORT TERM STUDY which is why they didn’t do a comparison study IN THE LONG TERM STUDY WITH THE MALES.

Notice that they did the studies for the females.

You claimed that HFCS had a sugar composition that was “unnatural.”

Because compared to the foods HFCS is found in, honey is used differently, and, as I indicated above, isn’t known as a primary food source for members of the Order Primates.

Regardless, also non-responsive to the point under discussion.

Nope, because if it’s wickedly expensive(unless you know a beekeeper, hint, hint), it’s much less in the diet than HFCS is present in processed foods, so it’s much less likely to affect people’s health than HFCS.

Will you agree that honey is much less in the American diet than HFCS, so that bringing it up really doesn’t change the scientific facts on the ground, or is quibbling about definitions a chance to demonstrate what a real thinker looks like?

I guess your assumption is that if you spout enough irrelevancies about HFCS, people will conclude that it is “bad” even if they don’t understand exactly why.

Sorry, but, as several people have indicated, you don’t know fructose from galactose from a hole in the ground, so don’t lecture me about irrelevancies unless you can demonstrate some knowledge of basic biochemistry.  We’re not talking about the Krebs cycle here.

There’s just not any difference in absorbtion or digestion; that’s just incontestable biochemical fact.

Fructose exists in foods as either a monosaccharide (free fructose) or as a unit of a disaccharide (sucrose). Free fructose is absorbed directly by the intestine; however, when fructose is consumed in the form of sucrose, digestion occurs entirely in the upper small intestine. As sucrose comes into contact with the membrane of the small intestine, the enzyme sucrase catalyzes the cleavage of sucrose to yield one glucose unit and one fructose unit. Fructose is absorbed in the small intestine, then enters the hepatic portal vein and is directed toward the liver.

Figure 4: Hydrolysis of sucrose to glucose and fructose by sucrase

The mechanism of fructose absorption in the small intestine is not completely understood. Some evidence suggests active transport, because fructose uptake has been shown to occur against a concentration gradient.[23] However, the majority of research supports the claim that fructose absorption occurs on the mucosal membrane via facilitated transport involving GLUT5 transport proteins. Since the concentration of fructose is higher in the lumen, fructose is able to flow down a concentration gradient into the enterocytes, assisted by transport proteins. Fructose may be transported out of the enterocyte across the basolateral membrane by either GLUT2 or GLUT5, although the GLUT2 transporter has a greater capacity for transporting fructose and therefore the majority of fructose is transported out of the enterocyte through GLUT2.

So:

Fructose, unlike sucrose, doesn’t have to be processed

and

Fructose is transported via a different mechanism than glucose.

If you paid money for that class, I think you’re due a refund.

From my link in comment 16:

Lane commented: “We feel that these findings may have particular relevance to the massive increase in the use of high fructose sweeteners (both high fructose corn syrup and table sugar) in virtually all sweetened foods, most notably soft drinks. The per capita consumption of these sweeteners in the USA is about 145 lbs/year and is probably much higher in teenagers/youth that have a high level of consumption of soft drinks. There is a large literature now that correlates, but does not prove that a culprit in the rise of teenage obesity may be fructose.”

The fact that fructose metabolism by the brain increases food intake and obesity risk raises health concerns in view of the large and increasing per capita consumption of high fructose sweeteners, especially by youth.

And if you’re going to tell me the hypothalamic pathways don’t matter or are different in rats, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to step outside.

I don’t think any of the other agricultural scientists I have worked with knows who Pollan is. The only reason I know who he is is because I read this blog.

I can’t believe how everyone piled onto one throw-away comment about milk and ignored virtually all of the rest of the post!

I do think those average weights are probably right—there’s just a lot of variability regionally. I moved from San Antonio to northern Colorado (and back) and it really shows. People in San Antonio are really big; it’s rare to meet someone that isn’t overweight. Whereas in Colorado, most people are of healthy weights. In SA, people will comment that I need to “put some meat on” my 5’3”, 120-pound frame, despite that being a perfectly normal weight. In Colorado, I looked chubby.

I can’t believe how everyone piled onto one throw-away comment about milk and ignored virtually all of the rest of the post!

That’s because the comment is not only so random, but also alien to many of our own/observed experiences. 

Especially considering how one would have to be oblivious or have a severe sweet tooth to deny the main theme of the post.  One reason why I rarely eat cookies, cakes, and pastries other than not having a sweet tooth is that most of what is available in the states is waaayy too sweet. 

Abroad, the sweets are not sweetened to the same level with a few exceptions and I do find Chinese sweet foods to be more sweet here than in both Chinas because the restauranteurs felt they need to cater to the sweet toothed US palate. 

count me among the chronic milk drinkers, also from texas, also way way lactose tolerant.  we didn’t really have much in the way of soda or kool-aid or junk food in my house growing up, so we drank 1% milk or orange juice with breakfast and milk with dinner as kids and i’ve always liked it, especially for breakfast. based on my experience growing up it seemed like a totally normal thing to do, although not universal by any means.  i don’t drink it anymore though, because I’m becoming more and more vegan and vastly prefer to use my limited dairy consumption on cheese (which i consider one of humanity’s finest achievements) and mr. cutestory has never been a milk-drinker, so we only buy it for cooking sometimes.

@Dark Avenger: Thanks for the assist!

Not sure why Chad seems so adamant about fructose.  You a corn farmer, dude?

181 lbs of milk comes out to something like 21 gallons in a year, which doesn’t seem excessive to me. What I don’t get is the 400+ lbs of non-cheese, non-milk, non-butter dairy products. I mean, what else is there? Ice cream? Yogurt?

“It’s not really a proper beverage.  It feels more like liquid food.

It is a liquid food. That’s the point of milk.”

That made me laugh, I don’t know why, as it’s totally accurate.  Milk is food for baby cows, much like breast milk is food for baby people.  If I drink milk, it’s as a snack, rather than a beverage.  I do recall being encouraged to drink milk as a pre-teen and teenager, what with the growing bones and all, but teenage boys put that stuff away like you wouldn’t believe.  The mothers of my male friends had fridges that were half-full of milk, and families with lots of kids always used powdered milk because there was no way they could afford to buy the amount of milk their sons were drinking.  Not me, so much—what with the childhood milk allergies, I never got in the habit, and now I prefer soy milk, in part because when I moved to the Southeast, the milk tasted different from what I was used to and I didn’t like it.  Apparently the cows eat different grass or whatever.  Ice cream, yogurt, and cheese, though?  Cannot get enough.

As a few others have mentioned this chart seems a little useless. Weight is just a horrible way to measure food intake. You look at the chart and think, “Holy crap we need to cut back on the dairy!” But the truth is people are probably getting far more extra calories from the processed grains that they are consuming but that doesn’t show up on the chart because they are relatively lightweight compared to almost all the other food groups.

Plus the sources for the graphic are a wee bit questionable. One is literally for a pizza joint in Michigan.

Most of my milk consumption definitely occurs in the form of cooking and baking. My partner will put it over cereal but we go through two litres (0.5 gallons?) maybe every three weeks. The only time I really drink it is when I’m having ice cream cravings. I’ll have a small container of very cold chocolate milk. It works and is certainly the lesser of two evils.

I also have a tough time believing that the average woman weighs 164 pounds. I know things are different once you get into “real” America, but can it really be a bunch of fat fucks with milk moustaches?
Comment #54: hells littlest angel on 09/13 at 11:17 PM

Do you know what a 164 pound woman looks like?  Check the BMI project:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/77367764@N00/sets/72157602199008819/detail/

For example
http://www.flickr.com/photos/77367764@N00/1458561913/in/set-72157602199008819
http://www.flickr.com/photos/77367764@N00/1463210422/in/set-72157602199008819
http://www.flickr.com/photos/77367764@N00/1472358802/in/set-72157602199008819
http://www.flickr.com/photos/77367764@N00/1473261764/in/set-72157602199008819
http://www.flickr.com/photos/77367764@N00/1477576882/in/set-72157602199008819

etcetera.

“...red peppers are fruit.”

Sometimes words have multiple meanings depending on their context, and usually people are capable of processing the context and determining the intended meaning without discussion.  I have no idea why the fruit/vegetable thing is such a singular stumbling block for so many people.  Yes, peppers, avocados, and tomatoes are botanically fruits, but we’re talking food, not botany, and in that context they are vegetables.  If this chart used the botanical definition of fruit instead, there would be one category comprising things that are nutritionally fruits (pears, strawberries, pineapples), as well as coffee, nuts, wheat, and corn, which would be pretty useless at conveying anything meaningful about the way people eat.

Also, there is a court decision holding that tomatoes are vegetables.  (It was decided in the context of the school lunch program.) 

Frankly, I think that the fruit/vegetable distinction isn’t very useful.  Personally, I pay more attention to starchy v. not.  I don’t count “potatoes” or other starchy roots as a vegetable when I’m planning a meal, for example.

Similarly, I generally think about plant foods in terms of whether they are sugary (fruit), starchy (potatoes/rice/corn), fatty (nuts/avocados), or green/leafy (kale/broccoli).  When it comes to deciding what to eat, it makes a lot more sense to think about things in terms of their prominent constituent nutrients rather than by whether or not they once served a reproductive function as part of a plant.

I have no idea why the fruit/vegetable thing is such a singular stumbling block for so many people. 

Well, doesn’t it like just blow your mind that tomatoes are totally a fruit? And peppers! I know, right?

I do find Chinese sweet foods to be more sweet here than in both Chinas because the restauranteurs felt they need to cater to the sweet toothed US palate.

Yes, I’ve found that the more “Americanized” places also put more salt(or cheap soy sauce) in their food than, say, a place that offers “Hong Kong-style” chow mein.

Caps doesn’t make it any more compelling, and this argument continues not to address the objection.

Oh, yeah, it totally makes sense to look for long-term effects when there were no results in the short term experiment.

Great thinking, you’ll get the Noble Prize of Medicine any day now.

How is it “used differently”? Honey is a sweetener. HFCS is a sweetener. HFCS has actually been used to adulterate honey because it’s so close to honey. They’re clearly almost exactly the same thing and used in exactly the same way - it’s just that honey costs a lot more so it’s used less. That’s completely irrelevant to its biochemical properties

I outlined how honey is used earlier, and if you can’t tell the difference between than and how HFCS is used in not just pastries, cookies, a few cereals and sweets, and that honey listed as one of the ingredients in large letters on the product that incorporates it, unlike those that use HFCS….........

I’ve never disagreed. Will you agree that you were wrong to assert that the sugar balance of HFCS is “unnatural”

Nope, it’s an artificial product that isn’t used only in the way honey is used traditionally, so I stand by what I wrote.

So, in fact, I was exactly right - HFCS and sucrose are both absorbed by the intestine as free monosaccarides. They’re not digested any differently.

No, dummy, glucose and fructose, the two monosaccaride products of the disaccharide sucrose are absorbed by the small intestine:

Sucrose is the organic compound commonly known as table sugar and sometimes called saccharose. A white, odorless, crystalline powder with a sweet taste, it is best known for its role in human nutrition. The molecule is a disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose with the molecular formula C12H22O11. About 150,000,000 tonnes (metric tons) are produced annually.[2]

The activity of free enzymes in the alimentary canal isn’t any kind of “processing.” There’s no specific metabolic input, for instance - sucrases are present in the gut regardless of whether sucrose has been consumed. Like proteases they’re a constant part of the gut’s enzymatic compliment. The activity of sucrase doesn’t send any regulatory or metabolic signal to any cell.

The body has to make the sucrase in order to utilize the caloric input of the glucose-fructose molecule, this takes a certain amount of amino acids and other substances to be created using energy derived from nutrient sources.

OTOH, fructose is good to go, the body doesn’t need to make a fructase in order for it to utilize the energy goodness of fructose from the bloodstream as in the case of sucrose.

To use an analogy, it’s like the difference between having to dig coal out of the ground, vs. gathering it on a beach, which I’ve heard used to be possible in Britain way back when.

In both cases, it takes energy to acquire new stocks of energy, but it requires less energy to pick up coal from the beach vs. having to dig a tunnel into the earth and shore it up so that you can dig out the coal.

I never said that it wasn’t. But those are passive, concentration-driven transporters, not active transporters.

From the Wiki article:

The mechanism of fructose absorption in the small intestine is not completely understood. Some evidence suggests active transport, because fructose uptake has been shown to occur against a concentration gradient.[23]

But you know all about it.

Fructose intake by the small intestine can’t result in metabolic syndrome because it doesn’t send any metabolic signals.

I never claimed it did, the fructose/glucose difference with the hypothalamus article I linked to above in comment 16 is something you yet to address on this thread.

Why is that?

And, again, fructose and glucose are degraded by the exact same pathway in the exact same cells. Glucose becomes fructose as a part of that metabolism.

Yes, but the cells of the body(aside from the brain and liver) need insulin in order to utilize it from the bloodstream, while fructose doesn’t need insulin in order to enter any living cell in the body.

That’s why fructose has a lower glycemic index than table sugar, and can be used by diabetics as a sweetner instead of sucrose.

It’s “Chet”, and the only thing I’m adamant about is pushing back against your anti-scientific food-scare propaganda.

Try not to let your education interfere with your learning, Chet.

Check the BMI project:

Those links were really enlightening. Thanks a lot for pointing that out.

When in a pie chart like that, it doesn’t sound so bad.

Funny, there’s always been yogurt available at my grocery store, from pre-1980 onwards.  Cute little cups with fruit at the bottom, even.

I know I’m responsible for more than average of milk and fish… Though this year I think we’ve only eaten about ten or twenty pounds of fish but we buy a pound of cheese every other week, not to mention going through about a pound of ghee a month.  And two gallons of milk every two to four weeks - though I’ve really cut down my milk drinking in the last ten years; I drink juice or water with dinner and I used to always drink milk.

In fact, if I don’t drink about a half cup of milk (average) a day I’ll get sick in about a week - bloody nose, sore throat.

Gee, Chet you sure summed up Dr. Teng—a cultural bias against milk for adults, completely invalidates his efficacy on every other issue!

Not.

Dr. Teng was a professor of Research Biology (educated at Columbia and in Germany) when he was hired by Beijing Universtiy to head their research biology lab in the ‘80s.

He arrived, however, to find the University had no budget for lab equipment (China less prosperous then.) So Dr. Teng taught, and in the spare time studied for additional degrees in accupuncture and Oriental Medicine.

Before emigrating to the United States and practicing for over two decades. Dr. Teng also formulates his own herbs, and is the best diagnostician I’ve ever encounted. He keeps up with Western medicine, as well, and advises his patients when to consult Western psycians, as well as keeping up on vitamin and nutrition research.

Did I mention Dr. Teng saved my life? After two years of getting progressively more deathly ill, being batted from one baffled Western specialist to the other for a series of tests, but receiving no treatment. Other than my guesswork on vitamins bought off the internet.

In our initial consultation, before I’d said a word about my condition, Dr. Teng read my pulse from wrist to elbow crease on both arms, and described all the symptoms I’d been suffering.

My liver, kidney and spleen were all about to shut down. That I’m here and healthy now is entirely due to his care: I’ve also consulted him on other, lesser health problems, he also has advised me on which vitamins I need (and those I don’t) and nutrition.

And he also was right about milk being toxic, for me.

If you’re reading this in Los Angeles, and are looking for a good acupuncturist (or Western medicine has somehow failed you), I’d be happy to give you Dr. Teng’s number.

Unless you’re Chet—I’m sick and tired of internet snotty snap judgements.

Don’t worry about Chet,  judybrowni, he’s just demonstrated that he can’t tell a methylase from a hole in the ground.

Funny, there’s always been yogurt available at my grocery store, from pre-1980 onwards.  Cute little cups with fruit at the bottom, even.<?i>

<i>not to mention going through about a pound of ghee a month.

Made from yak or water buffalo milk, no doubt.

And Crissa, a little less TMI next time about your personal life, please.

Rare Vos : Shaw’s in Methuen or Dracut, MA has lower heat pasturized milk, and so do a couple of dairies in NH and in VT.  If you google for small/local dairies for your area, something might turn up.
hypatia@118: 1 liter is about 1 quart, so yes 2L is about 0.5 gal=2 Qts.
Kit-Kat @121: no, tomatoes ahve been vegetables, legally in the USA, since the 1930s (I think), so as to fall under certain tarriff restrications.  Pepers adn avocados may have been in the same legislation.
junk science @ 123: tomato is not just a fruit, but a citrus fruit (ditto strawberries).

helen, WTF are you talking about?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrus#List_of_citrus_fruits

I think you’ve confused “Perennial” with “Citrus”, helen.

Yes, I agree about yogurt becoming widely available in the U.S. in the later ‘70s.

But not in 1970, when I first encountered someone eating it as a meal substitute in one of those cute (but oh so exotic) little conical containers, small at the top, larger on the bottom.

In London, by an Italian working there.

Also wasn’t on offer in the cafeteria of the English college where I was then an exchange student.

Nor was yoghurt on offer in my New Jersey college cafeteria in 1970.

but by the late ‘70s, I remember being fond of frozen yoghurt and fruit ice pops, some major brand, in New York city from a supermarket.

Oldfeminist @119: thanks for addressing that completely blatant, ignorant, over-the-top body shaming. Those are great links.

“Fat fucks”, hells’ littlest angel? Really? Jesus. I don’t care if they’re a completely spherical 500 lbs, no one deserves to be described as a “fat fuck,” and it just makes you more of an asshole that 165 is by no means a tub of lard. If a slightly fleshy or stocky 165 (DEFINITELY an average size woman, by the way) is a “fat fuck” then I suppose it’s only acceptable for women to be hardbodied size 2’s and 4’s before we start being categorized as gross whales. Pull your head out of your rump.

Right. And HFCS is also comprised of fructose and glucose. So, just to remind you of what we’re actually talking about here, there’s no difference between sucrose and HFCS by the time it hits the intestine - it’s all free monosaccarides.

Uh, yeah, it makes perfect sense. In fact it almost always makes sense, because the long and short term are two different terms. By this reasoning, you’d conclude that smoking doesn’t cause cancer because nobody gets a tumor immediately after having one cigarette.

Yes, because the short-term effects were carried out for that length of time, and they weren’t tumor studies.

1. Experiment 1: male rats with <b>short-term (2 months) HFCS access
Weight-matched, male rats (300–375 g, n=10/group) were fed
either (1) ad libitum chow, (2) 24-h HFCS and chow, (3) 12-h HFCS
and ad libitum chow, or (4) 12-h sucrose with ad libitum chow for
8 weeks (2 months).

Right. And HFCS is also comprised of fructose and glucose. So, just to remind you of what we’re actually talking about here, there’s no difference between sucrose and HFCS by the time it hits the intestine - it’s all free monosaccarides.

Yes, but they aren’t handled the same, because the glucose from the sucrose is carried out of the intestine lumen by a different mechanism than that for the fructose, and glucose needs insulin to be able to enter those cells neither comprising the brain or the liver.

And as you pointed out, glucose has to be converted to fructose in order to be used by the body, while fructose gets used as it.

Yes, obviously. But it doesn’t stop doing that when you consume HFCS. You still produce sucrases while you’re drinking it (and at all other times.) There’s no more metabolic input to the digestion of sucrose than there is for HFCS, that’s the point. Your body is making sucrases regardless of what you’re eating.

You’re still not getting it.

Except that it’s not like that at all. It’s like gathering coal on the beach and then digging a hole anyway. Ultimately, there’s no difference in the energy input. Your body makes sucrases even if you drink only HFCS.

The fructose is the coal on the beach, and the sucrose is the coal you dig out of the ground.

The net investment by the body, by adding the energy surplus given by sucrose, vs. the cost for doing so(making sucrase) is less than that of fructose which has no ‘cost’ because it doesn’t require sucrase to be utilized.

And yes, the body makes sucrase all the time,  I never said otherwise, dummy.

Since the concentration of fructose is higher in the lumen, fructose is able to flow down a concentration gradient into the enterocytes, assisted by transport proteins.

The mechanism of fructose absorption in the small intestine is not completely understood.

Try again, Chet.

However, economic decisions affecting food choice may have physiologic consequences. Laboratory studies suggest that energy-dense foods and
energy-dense diets have a lower satiating power and may result in passive overeating and therefore weight gain. (Which is to be expected to be true of HFCS, the fructose making it more energy-dense than a purely glucose/sucrose solution—ed) Epidemiologic analyses suggest that the low-cost energy dense diets also tend to be nutrient poor. If the rise in obesity rates is related to the growing price disparity between healthy and unhealthy foods, then the current strategies for obesity prevention may need to be revised. Encouraging low-income families to consume healthier but more costly foods to prevent future disease can be construed as an elitist approach to public health. Limiting access to inexpensive foods through taxes on frowned upon fats and sweets is a regressive measure. The broader problem may lie with growing disparities in incomes and wealth, declining value of the minimum wage, food imports, tariffs, and trade. Evidence is emerging that obesity in America is a largely economic issue

http://www.ihppthaigov.net/tackling_obesity/2009-02-04-the economics of obesity dietary energy density and energy cost.pdf

I didn’t say that they were. Are you sure you’re replying to my posts?

I’m being sarcastic.

<blockquote>No, this is exactly wrong. Didn’t you read your own information? By the time sucrose enters the lumen, it’s done so as monosaccarides. It’s hydrolyzed by free sucrases in the stomach and small intestine - unless, as is frequently the case, it’s inverted sucrose which has already been hydrolyzed in an industrial process. The sugar in Pepsi Throwback, for instance, is added as inverted syrup.</i>

<blockquote>The absorption capacity for fructose in monosaccharide form ranges from less than 5 g to 50 g and adapts with changes in dietary fructose intake. Studies show the greatest absorption rate occurs when glucose and fructose are administered in equal quantities.[24] When fructose is ingested as part of the disaccharide sucrose, absorption capacity is much higher because fructose exists in a 1:1 ratio with glucose. It appears that the GLUT5 transfer rate may be saturated at low levels, and absorption is increased through joint absorption with glucose.[25] One proposed mechanism for this phenomenon is a glucose-dependent cotransport of fructose. In addition, fructose transfer activity increases with dietary fructose intake. The presence of fructose in the lumen causes increased mRNA transcription of GLUT5, leading to increased transport proteins. High-fructose diets[vague] have been shown to increase abundance of transport proteins within 3 days of intake.

Yeah, Chet, I don’t know anything about fructose transport, and you do, sport.

There’s just not any difference in absorbtion or digestion; that’s just incontestable biochemical fact.

See above

But you’re not getting it. Your body makes the “investment of sucrase” anyway, regardless of whether you’re eating sucrose or HFCS. Sucrase production isn’t triggered by the presence of sucrose, it’s triggered by the act of eating. It’s part of the same process that makes your stomach rumble and your mouth water.

When it is produced is irrelevant, the point is that the body gets less out of   a given caloric amount of sucrose than it does an equal caloric amount of fructose, because it doesn’t have to produce anything like sucrase to obtain the latter.

So there’s no additional “investment” involved in the digestion of sucrose. Your body is going to produce sucrases regardless - to use your analogy, you’re going to dig the hole whether or not you pull the coal off the beach. How are you not getting this?

Yes, the investment is made, so, taking in the ‘cost’ of enzyme production, the net caloric yield from sucrose is going to be less than that of fructose.

According to who? I don’t need perfect understanding of the absorption to prove what you’re saying wrong. In fact I don’t need anything but your own sources, since you’re misrepresenting them. How are you not getting this?

See above.

And because HFCS is sweeter than sugar, less of it is used, so it’s actually slightly less energy dense than sugar-sweetened beverages,

Not when you take into account the net energy dynamics, which you seem to be constitutionally incapable of doing.

Fructose consumption has been shown to be correlated with obesity,[42][43] especially central obesity which is thought to be the most dangerous kind of obesity.

Abstract

Obesity and type 2 diabetes are occurring at epidemic rates in the United States and many parts of the world. The “obesity epidemic” appears to have emerged largely from changes in our diet and reduced physical activity. An important but not well-appreciated dietary change has been the substantial increase in the amount of dietary fructose consumption from high intake of sucrose and high fructose corn syrup, a common sweetener used in the food industry. A high flux of fructose to the liver, the main organ capable of metabolizing this simple carbohydrate, perturbs glucose metabolism and glucose uptake pathways, and leads to a significantly enhanced rate of de novo lipogenesis and triglyceride (TG) synthesis, driven by the high flux of glycerol and acyl portions of TG molecules from fructose catabolism. These metabolic disturbances appear to underlie the induction of insulin resistance commonly observed with high fructose feeding in both humans and animal models. Fructose-induced insulin resistant states are commonly characterized by a profound metabolic dyslipidemia, which appears to result from hepatic and intestinal overproduction of atherogenic lipoprotein particles. Thus, emerging evidence from recent epidemiological and biochemical studies clearly suggests that the high dietary intake of fructose has rapidly become an important causative factor in the development of the metabolic syndrome. There is an urgent need for increased public awareness of the risks associated with high fructose consumption and greater efforts should be made to curb the supplementation of packaged foods with high fructose additives. The present review will discuss the trends in fructose consumption, the metabolic consequences of increased fructose intake, and the molecular mechanisms leading to fructose-induced lipogenesis, insulin resistance and metabolic dyslipidemia.

http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/2/1/5

Rates of obesity and insulin resistance have climbed sharply over the past 30 years. These epidemics are temporally related to a dramatic rise in consumption of fast food; until recently, it was not known whether the fast food was driving the obesity, or vice versa. We review the unique properties of fast food that make it the ideal obesigenic foodstuff, and elucidate the mechanisms by which fast food intake contributes to obesity, emphasizing its effects on energy metabolism and on the central regulation of appetite. After examining the epidemiology of fast food consumption, obesity, and insulin resistance, we review insulin’s role in the central nervous system’s (CNS) regulation of energy balance, and demonstrate the role of CNS insulin resistance as a cause of leptin resistance and in the promotion of the pleasurable or “hedonic” responses to food. Finally, we analyze the characteristics of fast food, including high-energy density, high fat, high fructose, low fiber, and low dairy intake, which favor the development of CNS insulin resistance and obesity.

http://atvb.ahajournals.org/content/25/12/2451

This paper makes no particular claims about HFCS in particular. It doesn’t lend support to your position. (Did you even read it?)

Fast Food as a Source of Fructose

The most commonly used sweetener in the US diet is sucrose (eg, table sugar), a disaccharide that contains 50% fructose and 50% glucose. In North America, non-diet soft drinks are usually sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which contains up to 55% of the monosaccharide fructose. Because of its abundance, high relative sweetness, and affordability, HFCS has become the most common sweetener used in commercially produced foods. HFCS is found in processed foods ranging from soft drinks and candy bars, to crackers, ketchup, sauces, and even hamburger buns. According to USDA food disappearance data, average daily fructose consumption has increased by >25% over the past 30 years. Annual beet and cane sugar consumption decreased from 101.8 lb/capita in 1970 to 66.5 in 1997, whereas HFCS intake increased from 0.5 lb/capita to 62.5 lb/capita in 1997.

The growing dependence on fructose in the Western diet may be fueling the obesity and T2DM epidemics. In a study of US adults, intake of corn syrup (a leading source of fructose) was positively associated with risk of T2DM, independent of total energy intake.90 There are few clinical trials evaluating the effects of fructose on weight gain in humans; several studies have demonstrated that excess fructose consumption contributes to weight gain over the short-term, but these have not controlled for calorie intake.91 There is, however, mounting evidence from animal models, in which high-fructose diets have been linked to increased energy intake, decreased resting energy expenditure, excess fat deposition, and insulin resistance. A recent study demonstrated that rats fed fructose increased their adiposity and insulin resistance without increasing their calorie intake.92 These data suggest that fructose consumption may be playing a role in the epidemics of insulin resistance and obesity.

The metabolism of fructose differs from that of other monosaccharides such as glucose in ways that modify insulin dynamics and obesity risk. Fructose is absorbed in the intestine by the transporter GLUT5. Glucose, which is frequently found in the same foods as fructose, enhances intestinal absorption of fructose.93 The GLUT5 receptor is expressed at low levels in muscle and adipose tissue, but the receptor’s most important site of action is the liver, where fructose is avidly absorbed from the portal circulation. There, fructose is converted to fructose-1-phosphate and enters the glycolytic pathway beyond the main regulatory step of glycolysis, phosphofructokinase. The enzymatic activity of phosphofructokinase responds to changes in glycogen stores and products of glycolysis (eg, citrate, ATP) and thus tightly regulates metabolism of glucose; fructose in contrast enters the glycolytic pathway unchecked. Fructose metabolism leads to an accumulation of intermediates of glycolysis that are converted to glycerol and acetyl-coenzyme A (CoA) before being synthesized into fatty acids, very-low-density lipoproteins, and triglycerides.93M.

The effects of fructose on supplementary caloric intake and macronutrient preference remain controversial. Studies of acute fructose ingestion suggest an immediate short-term reduction in caloric intake.94 However, fructose ingestion has been shown not to suppress secretion of the so-called hunger hormone ghrelin, levels of which correlate with perceived hunger, perhaps because fructose fails to trigger a postprandial insulin rise.95 The lack of insulin secretion in response to fructose in turn reduces leptin production from adipose tissue, which negatively alters CNS perception of energy stores. <b>In sum, fructose consumption has metabolic and hormonal consequences that may facilitate development of insulin resistance, leptin reduction, and obesity.

Apparently, you didn’t.

I’d get my money back from whereever you studied biochemistry

Chet, you can’t even handle the fact that glucose and fructose are handled differently after they are absorbed, why would I hate a poster who gets their basic facts wrong?

That’s a different paper, and its about fructose, not HFCS. You do know the difference, right? I’m pretty sure I’ve explained it a couple of times.

Nope, it’s from the full article, use the link and find out for yourself.

HFCS is found in processed foods ranging from soft drinks and candy bars, to crackers, ketchup, sauces, and even hamburger buns. According to USDA food disappearance data, average daily fructose consumption has increased by >25% over the past 30 years. Annual beet and cane sugar consumption decreased from 101.8 lb/capita in 1970 to 66.5 in 1997, whereas HFCS intake increased from 0.5 lb/capita to 62.5 lb/capita in 1997.

Says the guy who can’t tell the difference between fructose and HFCS or do basic algebra.

The metabolism of fructose differs from that of other monosaccharides such as glucose in ways that modify insulin dynamics and obesity risk.

Tell us the difference in the way that the 55% fructose in HFCS acts differently than fructose by itself.

Show your work, and prove that your education wasn’t a total waste.

Simple: the glucose in HFCS is insulinotropic, just like the glucose in sucrose.

You’ve been proven wrong in every respect. Just stop.

Sorry, but I’ve shown that the biochemical pathways for the body to utilize glucose are different from those for fructose, and it’s been demonstrated under laboratory conditions that the brain responds differently to fructose than to glucose:

Two papers in the journal PNAS in 2007 and 2008 showed that glucose and fructose act quite differently in the brain (hypothalamus) - glucose decreasing food intake and fructose increasing food intake. Both of these sugars signal in the brain through the malonyl-CoA signaling pathway and have inverse effects on food intake.

Now, correlation doesn’t necessarily imply causation, but you’re going to tell us that the rise of adult and childhood obesity at the same time that there has been a rise in the use of HFCS in processed foods is only coincidental, and that glucose and fructose are handled the same way by the body.

Seven healthy male volunteers exercised on a cycle ergometer at 50 +/- 5% VO2max for 180 min, on three occasions during which they ingested either water only (W), [13C]glucose (G), or [13C]fructose (F) (140 +/- 12 g, diluted at 7% in water, and evenly distributed over the exercise period). Blood glucose concentration (in mM) significantly decreased during exercise with W (5.1 +/- 0.4 to 4.2 +/- 0.1) but remained stable with G (5.0 +/- 0.4 to 5.3 +/- 0.6) or F ingestion (5.4 +/- 0.5 to 5.1 +/- 0.4). Decreases in plasma insulin concentration (microU/ml) were greater (P less than 0.05) with W (11 +/- 3 to 3 +/- 1) and F (12 +/- 4 to 5 +/- 1) than with G ingestion (11 +/- 2 to 9 +/- 5), and fat utilization was greater with F (103 +/- 11 g) than with G ingestion (82 +/- 9 g) and lower than with W ingestion (132 +/- 14 g). However F was less readily available for combustion than G; over the 3-h period 75% (106 +/- 11 g) of ingested G was oxidized, compared with 56% (79 +/- 8 g) of ingested fructose. As a consequence, carbohydrate store utilizations were similar in the two conditions (G, 174 +/- 20 g; F, 173 +/- 17 g; vs. W, 193 +/- 22 g). These observations suggest that, during prolonged moderate exercise, F ingestion maintains blood glucose as well as G ingestion, and increases fat utilization when compared to G ingestion. However, due to a slower rate of utilization of F, carbohydrate store sparing is similar with G and F ingestions.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3531145

Thanks for playing Chet, and better luck shilling for the pro-HFCS side next time.

Really, Chet?:

Obesity is a major epidemic, but its causes are still unclear. In this article, we investigate the relation between the intake of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and the development of obesity. We analyzed food consumption patterns by using US Department of Agriculture food consumption tables from 1967 to 2000. The consumption of HFCS increased > 1000% between 1970 and 1990, far exceeding the changes in intake of any other food or food group. HFCS now represents > 40% of caloric sweeteners added to foods and beverages and is the sole caloric sweetener in soft drinks in the United States. Our most conservative estimate of the consumption of HFCS indicates a daily average of 132 kcal for all Americans aged ≥ 2 y, and the top 20% of consumers of caloric sweeteners ingest 316 kcal from HFCS/d. The increased use of HFCS in the United States mirrors the rapid increase in obesity. The digestion, absorption, and metabolism of fructose differ from those of glucose. Hepatic metabolism of fructose favors de novo lipogenesis. In addition, unlike glucose, fructose does not stimulate insulin secretion or enhance leptin production. Because insulin and leptin act as key afferent signals in the regulation of food intake and body weight, this suggests that dietary fructose may contribute to increased energy intake and weight gain. Furthermore, calorically sweetened beverages may enhance caloric overconsumption. Thus, the increase in consumption of HFCS has a temporal relation to the epidemic of obesity, and the overconsumption of HFCS in calorically sweetened beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity.

.There’s no scientific evidence that HFCS is responsible for obesity.

In a study conducted by University of California researchers, 16 volunteers were given a strictly controlled diet including very high levels of fructose. Another group was given the same diet but with high levels of glucose (regular sugar) replacing the fructose. Over 10 weeks, the volunteers that were given fructose produced new fat cells around their heart, liver and other digestive organs. They also showed signs of food-processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease. The control group of volunteers on the same diet, but with glucose sugar replacing fructose, did not have these problems.

People in both groups did put on a similar amount of weight, but researchers thought the levels of weight gain among the fructose consumers would be greater over the long term.

Here’s what happens: Fructose seems to bypass the digestive process that breaks down other forms of sugar. It arrives intact in the liver where it causes a variety of reactions. One of the results is a metabolic change that keeps the body from burning fat normally.

This was a small study and it was the first one done on humans, but 10 weeks? That’s some pretty fast acting syrup, if you ask me.

http://www.alternet.org/story/144816/high_fructose_corn_syrup_proven_to_cause_human_obesity?page=entire

http://www.diabetesdaily.com/edelman/2009/05/chart-obesity-high-fructose-corn-syrup/

In the first study ever to look at how the human brain responds to the two sweeteners, OHSU researchers led by Jonathan Purnell, an associate professor of medicine, gave nine people separate infusions of fructose and glucose, and used magnetic resonance imaging to observe brain reactions.

Surprisingly, Purnell says, the brain activity observed in humans was markedly different than it had been in animals. Unlike with lab animals, the hypothalamus was not affected by either fructose or glucose. But activity in other regions of the brain that include what Purnell calls “reward circuitry” was affected. In fact, those regions were having opposite responses to the two sweeteners.

Glucose, Purnell says, increased responses in the reward and executive function parts of the brain, while fructose inhibited those responses. And that, he says, might explain why fructose consumption appears to increase obesity and diabetes.

Purnell says he is convinced that eating foods with too much fructose can be unhealthy.

“This idea of adding these processed sugars to our diet has not been a good thing for our society,” Purnell says. “The industry will tell you, ‘Do everything in moderation,’ but the way they market it and the science behind the taste preference really is geared toward making moderation difficult.”

The OHSU study is published in the online edition of the journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism.

http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=129728500537306200

Chet, you’re nothing more the typical internet asshole troll.

Not going to bother to argue against the strawman arguments you claim I made (but only you typed, not I.)

May western medicine serve you well, and let’s hope you never suffer from something that it doesn’t.

studies about fructose and obesity don’t substantiate your claims, because replacing sucrose with HFCS doesn’t substantially increase intake of fructose.

If HFCS has 55% fructose, that means the total content of fructose is 77% of the total amount, sucrose by itself would only be 50%.

A 27% difference in fructose content, Chet, that’s a big difference, and, as I’ve cited above:

The digestion, absorption, and metabolism of fructose differ from those of glucose.

Put up as many non-scientific news articles about fructose as you want, but HFCS isn’t the same as fructose

What’s not scientific about this, from above?:

The OHSU study is published in the online edition of the journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism.

The research I’ve cited were all done at respected institutions of higher learning, none of the studies were done at a community college teacher with a glucometer and a few volunteers.

judybrowni, I would never never question one’s medical choices, if you think your doctor is DA BOMB, how would anyone who knew neither you or him say otherwise with a straight face?

Dr. Teng was a professor of Research Biology (educated at Columbia and in Germany) when he was hired by Beijing Universtiy to head their research biology lab in the ‘80s.

He arrived, however, to find the University had no budget for lab equipment (China less prosperous then.) So Dr. Teng taught, and in the spare time studied for additional degrees in accupuncture and Oriental Medicine.

Just an addition for history’s sake:

Bei-da and other Mainland Chinese universities were also just starting to recover from the ravages of the Maoist Cultural Revolution which caused universities and research institutes to be vandalized, faculty* and researchers to be persecuted and coerced into forced labor by ignorant adolescents (a.k.a. Red Guards), and effectively shut down all educational and research institutions for around ten years (1966-1976).

In short, it wasn’t just poverty which caused universities like Bei-da to be lacking in facilities and research lab equipment in the early ‘80s. 

* Including a few older relatives.

I was deathly ill for a period of years, now I’m reasonably healthy for 61.

Have had my disagreements with Dr. Teng (no doctor is God, although most believe themselves to be), and was always wary of the medical profession.

Don’t think any doctor is DA BOMB. Every doctor has his hobbyhorse to ride, and I didn’t ride all of Dr. Teng’s.

Did encounter my share of quacks in Western medicine, including one who may have overdosed me on vitamins he sold me (my health got exponentially worse as his “treatments” continued.)

Dr. Teng actually pared down the number of vitamins he advised me to take, none of which he sold me, like the quack had.

Like I said, reasonably healthy now, except when I fall off the wagon big time nutritionally, including milk products.

exholt, I don’t doubt you’re correct. Actually, all Dr. Teng told me was that there was no lab equiptment or budget to buy any. He had relatives who went through the Cultural Revolution on the Mainland, so he was well aware of the situation, I imagine.

Anyone doctor who saves my life is DA BOMB, judibrowni, even if he’s a shaman who gives me foul-tasted concoctions to drink in the course of treatment.

I remember coming across a flyer from a medical school womens’ auxiliary group where I went to school, it promised to instruct them on “how to be the wife of a minor deity.”