Last updated on April 12th, 2017
Saturday Short Takes
1. Putting Added Sugar in Context
The FDA is proposing to add information to food labels that would tell you the percent of the daily value of added sugar you’ll be getting per serving (“Proposed Label Would Give Context to Sugar in Foods,” Mary Clare Jalonick, Associated Press). The base recommendation would be to consume no more than 50 grams of added sugar in a day, which is ten percent of a 2,000 calorie diet. One bottle of soda pop could blow your daily sugar allowance — and then some.
I think the new labeling idea could prove counter-productive, suggesting to people that it is OK to eat 50 grams of added sugar, day in and day out. That’s a lot less added sugar than the average American eats today, but it is still too much. I eat 2 – 3 grams of added sugar in the context of getting my dark chocolate fix. That’s about it on an average day. The fact is, 50 grams of sugar would use up my total carb allowance for a day in the least nutritional way possible.
2. Maybe We Need a Daily Allowance for Soybean Oil, Too
Soy seems to be found in as many packaged foods as sugar, and maybe more. Try finding a commercial salad dressing that doesn’t contain soybean oil. I’ve expressed my doubts about all this added soy before. Now new research is providing more cause for concern (“Soybean Oil Linked to More Obesity than Fructose,” University Herald).
The research in question is a mouse study. I don’t put much stock in mouse studies, unless the results are strictly applied to rodents. However, a mouse study can suggest hypotheses that can be put to the test in human clinical studies. In this case, the hypothesis is that diets with the typical American’s percentage of fat from soybean oil will result in more weight gain than diets without that particular oil. The mice consuming the soybean oil-rich diet gained 25% more weight than the mice consuming a coconut oil-rich diet. The mice on the soybean oil-rich diet also developed fattier livers and more signs of diabetes. Indeed, even mice who ate fructose in place of the soybean oil had better health results.
Of course, the easiest and best way to avoid both added sugar and soybean oil in your diet is to eat real, whole foods.