Yummy, aren't they? or are they? What do these products have in common? The box on the left is a 'treat' for our toddlers...the other products are found in almost every refrigerator in this country.
Ok....here I go....Hi, my name is Skip and I am a sugarholic!
I've written that statement on other posts on this blog. I am going to keep saying it. AMERICA IS ADDICTED TO SUGAR!!!!
I am going to keep saying it and continue to attempt to convince you to convince yourself that you are addicted to sugar, and you must change!!
Why are we addicted to sugar? How did we become addicted to sugar?
Look at the picture of the products, above. What do they have in common? They are loaded with SUGAR! The food manufacturers have been aware of our 'sugar addictions' for many years and they want to be sure we get our 'fix' every time we consume their products. The result.....we keep purchasing their products.
On the left we have a product with a target market of 'Toddlers'. In the box are small packages of chewy candy. TREATS. In each package are 21 pieces. I have them separated into groups of 3. According to the 'Nutritional Facts', one serving size is one package. Within each package there are 28 grams of carbohydrates(sugar/glucose). There are 4grams of sugar per teaspoon. 28 grams divided by 4 equals 7. Therefor, 3 pieces represents approximately 1 teaspoon of sugar.
Ok...did we get that...do we understand? Look at the picture again. The little chewy pieces are in groups of 3. In each package, there are 21 pieces. 3 pieces equal a teaspoon of sugar. Each package represents 7 teaspoons of sugar!!!
We take it a step further....imagine you are sitting at the kitchen table with your toddler. Smiling, happy, it is a beautiful day...God has blessed you with this precious toddler. You reach across the table for the sugar bowl. You grab a teaspoon....you look into your toddlers eyes and say, "I love you so much!" You dig the spoon into the sugar bowl, and offer your toddler a teaspoon of sugar. "Mommy wants you to have a treat!" Your toddler smiles and opens wide. "Yummy". You repeat the steps 6 more times giving your toddler 7 teaspoons of sugar within a few minutes.
Imagine giving your toddler 2 packages at a time, or sitting at the table while your toddler chokes down 14 teaspoons of sugar. (keep a glass of water handy. I know, I emptied many sugar bowls during childhood) The manufacturer did us one big favor...on the front of the box they write "Easy to chew and swallow." 3 pieces are by far easier to consume than a teaspoon of sugar!
I ask you....would any SANE mom or dad consider giving their toddler 7 teaspoons of sugar at any time? (please say NO!!)
Why did the manufacturer place 7 teaspoons of sugar into one package for your little toddler? Are you getting the picture?
Now, let's look at the yogurt.
As a 'client service', I began entering clients homes in 2001 to look at their refrigerator and pantry and give them nutritional advise. In 2004, if a client chose to hire me as their personal trainer, they had to give me permission to enter their home, unannounced, if I so choose, to look in their fridge. I did not want to waste my time nor their time and money if they were intending on eating poorly while training with me.
I find fruit flavored yogurt in every refrigerator. The yogurt manufacturers spend millions of dollars to entice us to eat their products. You've seen the ads in magazines, TV and on billboards. Cute, sexy gals in tiny bathing suits, and skimpy outfits sending us the marketing message, "If you eat this stuff, you'll be cute, HOT and sexy just like me!! Eat this luscious fruit flavored yogurt!"
Let's look inside this little container. In the picture, on the bottom, we an 8 ounce container of fruit flavored yogurt. Enlarge the picture by clicking on it. The label reads "Low Fat Yogurt". That is one of our purchasing 'hot buttons'. The other container reads, "99% fat free!" Wow, therefor, it HAS to be good, right? Hmmmmm....let's read on.
I looked at the nutritional facts labels. The bottom container has 46 grams of sugar.
Ok... remember....4 grams of sugar equals 1 teaspoon. The manufacturer, without asking us, "How many teaspoons of sugar would you like in this 8 ounce container", placed a little over 11 teaspoons of sugar per container.
Go get your sugar bowl. Get a teaspoon. Get a saucer. Using the teaspoon, place 11 teaspoons of sugar on the saucer. Go into your fridge and get a container of yogurt. (go on...you have yogurt in your fridge) Would you put 11 teaspoons of sugar into that tiny container?
Were you aware of the amount of sugar in your yogurt? How many containers do you eat per day? Per week? How many containers of 'Gogurt' do your children eat per day? Per week? Per month? Have you looked at the amount of sugar in the other foods they are eating on a daily basis?
Do you look at the nutritional facts label? (most people don't...they just shop for what they like) Do you know how to read a nutritional facts label? (most don't)
I have heard many clients say, "Yes, but they have the 'lite' versions." I agree, they do. They still have too much sugar. The next time you go to your local grocery store, go to the cooler with the yogurt. You will see rows and rows of yogurt. You will see, on average, twice as many 'original' style yogurt in the case because of the demand. They maintain a larger inventory of the sugar filled original because that is what we primarily purchase and they know WE ARE ADDICTED TO SUGAR!!! The more sugar, the more we will consume and the more we will purchase!
I am addicted to sugar. However, my fear of diabetes (my brother passed away at 42 due to diabetes. My mom suffers with diabetes)far outweighs my desire to eat it. When I walk into the grocery store, my eyes see all the items filled with sugar and a 'switch of desire' goes off. I've learned to repeat to my self, "Poison, poison, poison!!" and I pass on by, and refuse to pick it up.
So, you ask, "Skip, what's wrong with sugar?" (Excerpts from CrossFit.com-Start Here)-Excessive consumption of high-glycemic carbohydrates is THE primary culprit in nutritionally caused health problems. High-glycemic carbs are those that raise blood sugar too rapidly. They include rice, bread, candy, potato, sweets, sodas and most processed carbohydrates. Processing can include bleaching, baking, grinding and refining. Processing of carbohydrates greatly increases their glycemic index, a measure of their propensity to elevate blood sugar.
The problem with high-glycemic carbs is they they give an inordinate insulin response. Insulin is an essential hormone for life, yet acute, chronic elevation of insulin leads to hyperinsulinism, which has been linked to obesity, elevated cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, mood dysfunction and a pandora's box of disease and disability. If you research 'hyperinsulinism' on the internet you will discover a gold mine of information pertinent to YOUR HEALTH available there.
*Any meal or snack high in carbohydrates will generate a rapid rise in blood glucose. To adjust for this rapid rise, the pancreas secretes the hormone isulin into the bloodstream. Insulin then lowers the blood glucose. All well and good. The PROBLEM is that insulin is essentially a storage hormone, evolved to put aside excess carbohydrate calories in the form of FAT in case of future famine. So the insulin that's stimulated by excess carbohydrates aggressively promotes the accumulation of BODY FAT. In a nutshell, even though carbohydrates themselves are fat free, EXCESSIVE CARBS end up as excess body fat!
Hold on...it gets even worse. Not only do the increased insulin levels tell the body to storecarbs as fat, they also tell it not to release any stored fat. This makes it impossible for you to use your own stored fat for energy. So the excess carbohydrates in your diet not only make you fat, THEY MAKE YOU STAY FAT!!! It's a double whammy, and it can be lethal. (*excerpts from 'Enter The Zone' by Dr. Barry Sears.)
We begin the process with our toddlers and burden them, unknowingly, with a sugar/high-glycemic carb addiction leading to a lifetime of health concerns and problems. Now you know, SO STOP!
The CrossFit dietary prescription:
Protein should be lean and varied and account for 30% of your total caloric intake.
Carbohydratesshould be predominately low-glycemic and account for 40% of your total caloric load.
Fatshould be predominately monounsaturated and account for 30% of your total caloric load.
Need help? Talk to one of our members...walk in our door. We will teach you how to eat and how to feed your family.
There is another terrible poison in those luscious little toddler treats and most of the foods targeted to our children....Do you care?
Start reading the nutritional facts labels on EVERYTHING you eat. NO EXCUSES!! It's your life and health.
23 comments:
Go Skip! Thanks for saving us. We can't wait to read your post. It always makes us dig deeper and eat cleaner. We're having our kids write what they eat each day on our 6'x4' white board. It's an eye opener for them. The food in the house is zoned out. But what they get their hands on from others is amazing. We just keep at it. We're trying to give them a solid foundation for life. Thank you! --Jodi
Skip,
Your nutritional seminars were excellant! Eye openning to what we have been putting in our bodies for years. Reducing body fat thru Zone nutriton and crossfitting is a proven method for wellness.
Thank you for your continued effort in educating us.
Crossfittingly..DaveB
Thanks Skip,
Your nutrition seminar was great, and it inspired us to go on the zone. I can't believe the yogurt; I went into the fridge at work, and the same yogurt was sitting in there!!! I showed my bosses how full of sugar the yogurt was, and they were shocked!
Thanks!
Chris & Alexis
Thanks for all the information Skip! You are helping us to be healthier and smarter about our food choices!
Skip- This is great!
I love how you make this message bold and larger than life by visualizing teaspoons of sugar! Really gets the message across more effectively.
I'm a type 1 diabetic, which means in some ways I'm blessed -- I was forced to count carbs from the day I was diagnosed at age 20. So I know *exactly* how much sugar I'm eating, every minute of every day. I have to inject an amount of insulin that exactly matches that sugar. If I get it wrong, I feel it within 30 minutes.
So I know intimately how much sugar they sneak into every processed food. Poison.
I also love how you threaten a "refrigerator audit" on your clients! Awesome! I'd like to follow that method.
I do want to raise my hand and heckle you, however. I think the "for profit" message is a gratuitous and misdirected insult -- misdirected, because it attempts to malign something which is healthy.
"For profit" only means "we survive and thrive without stealing money, and we provide value to people (yes, *perceived* value and the customers may be wrong!) greater than it costs us to provide that value." Which is actually a form of social health.
There is no virtue in failing to earn a profit, and most often, it is gravely unhealthy to lose money.
More relevantly, however --- CrossFit operates at a profit (if you're not, you're operating poorly). WholeFoods operates at a profit. Nutritional counseling, done correctly, operates at a profit. Are these things evil?
The marketplace learns, through reading the kind of wisdom you have written in your blog here, and people's choices are constantly evolving -- usually for the better, but as we've seen with processed foods and sugar, not always. Still, we learn, and generally, we improve.
So future businesses will be offering healthy replacements. Consumers will be shunning the poisons and switching (back?) to whole, real foods -- increasing the demand, which will raise prices, which will increase profitability to the providers of whole foods, which will attract more suppliers to provide those foods.
The only things that will survive will be those that do so profitably.
So --- you see people providing poison for a profit, yes. But you'll also see people providing the cure, the solution, at a profit. My conclusion is that the "for profit" part can be ignored -- it's a wash on both sides, and irrelevant. It may hold some melodramatic appeal for people whose moral dramas are uninformed by reason. But that's demagoguery, and dilutes the value and truth of your message.
I'm looking forward to learning more from you on how to manage a CF affiliate, by the way. People on the forums speak very highly of you and recommend your writings.
sincerely,
Kirez
Thanks for the awesome reading!
Its really terrible. I started yesterday to teach youth fitness at a globogym, although the class is CF style. When the kids were told to go get a drink of their water, they all had gatorade or some other sugar water. Its crazy that water is not the norm either.
"I do want to raise my hand and heckle you, however. I think the "for profit" message is a gratuitous and misdirected insult -- misdirected, because it attempts to malign something which is healthy.
"For profit" only means "we survive and thrive without stealing money, and we provide value to people (yes, *perceived* value and the customers may be wrong!) greater than it costs us to provide that value." Which is actually a form of social health."
(kirez-above)
No, the point is that when you do something "for profit" only, you only care about whether you can make money at doing it, not whether it has any other social, ethical, or moral value.
And unfortunately, in the real world, in my experience, the people spouting the "profit makes the world go 'round" line are defending those for whom the highest value is profit, and the "marketplace" the only arbiter.
Profit is a means, not an end, and that's a very important, and to you, lost, distinction.
When profit becomes the highest value and the greatest motivator, all other values tend to be subsumed to it, and actions justified by wealth creation, not, in this case, health creation.
As to the article itself, I remember ranting about this back in the 70s. I was going to college at the University of Minnesota, and their food science came up with the idea of adding extra sugar to turkey to get more people to eat more turkey.
And oddly enough, that coincided with the desires of the large numbers of turkey growers in the midwest, who wanted to sell more turkey (for a profit). No one gave a darn whether that was a good idea health-wise or not.
Of course, the U. of M is where Ancel Keys was, and he didn't care about carbs, just fat.
A desire for profit above all, combined with ignorance. A bad combination, and we are seeing the results now, both in our food and in our children.
CR wants to criticize the extreme version of the anti-commercial strawman, the people who care ONLY for profit. (I do believe that such people exist, CR. But you're not speaking for me, or for anyone I know.)
Your statement is that if you care for profit only, you don't care whether it has any other moral, ethical or social value.
I'm presuming you have a cartoonish understanding of 'ethical' and 'moral' values -- you think of Gandhi, Mother Theresa, etc, not about average, everyday people. And to you, trying to live a happy life, raise a family, be proud of oneself and develop children who can be proud of themselves -- these are not about moral values. My scope of morality *does* concern these issues -- it's *relevant* morality.
But let's accept your extreme case: people who care only about profit. And let's focus on your next statement, that IF you care about profit only, you do not care about any other social value.
How do you earn a profit? In the marketplace, you can do so only by providing a product people *choose* to buy. It's more valuable to them than the alternative uses of the same money. The more of _this sort of value_ you provide to people, the greater your profits. So, if you're greedy for profits, you'll try to provide as much of _this sort of value_ to people as you can.
That's what the profit motive does: it drives our heartless greed monster to provide more of what other people value most. He actually is deferring to their values.
I conceded in my original point, quite carefully, that the consumer -- the others whose values our profit-monster is deferring to -- MAY BE WRONG.
And this is the opportunity for YOU, the hero who would strike down the profit-monsters, to step in and stop the consumers from hurting themselves by using their money the way they would choose to. You are smarter than they are. You know better what they SHOULD like, how they SHOULD spend their money. You should be making those choices for them! You can teach them what happiness really is. Nevermind you'll have to use force via governmental regulation, and lobbyists to 'persuade' the politicians to favor your bill over all the other great heroes' who are preventing the consumers from harming themselves. Force is just a means. You're going to achieve a greater good: by preventing the marketplace from LEARNING. Like teaching your children how to protect themselves by pretending that nothing bad exists in the world, right? A real respectful view of others -- but we're long past the conceit that you know better than the consumers what is good for them.
I'm curious, but your proposition that 'When you do something for profit only, you don't care about other values' --- Is that an ironclad law? Let me guess. You have examples. Enron. RJR / big tobacco. Congratulations, you have access to a perception of business as deep as the layer of film on top of a pond.
Are there other for-profit businesses out there? Because you're only providing a handful of examples, right? A handful out of... how many? I presume you're a wage-earner. What is your goal? To selflessly serve an organization -- a school, a company -- at a loss to yourself, right? Your wages don't actually cover your rent, food, insurance, transportation, clothes, entertainment. You make a loss. But you do it because you're serving higher values than profit. And you sell your service to your employers by offering them... what?
There's a simple alternative there. You sell your services to your employer, expecting them to sacrifice their profits by paying you too much for a service that doesn't actually help them, and in fact hurts them, because you're so unproductive. OR --- you sell your services to them because it's profitable to them, giving them more value than they are paying out.
You do welcome the broad social perspective. You speak of wealth creation rather than health creation. Again it comes down to the consumers -- do they choose health or some other value? What about you? Do you, in every day and every single consumption decision of your life, choose health over everything else? Hmmmm. When you fail to choose health over every single other value (or disvalue), who do you buy from? The greedy profit-monsters, right, because that's the only way you could get a product that prioritized wealth creation over health creation. It seems you're part of their evil existence. And you're one of those who needs to be re-educated or prevented from spending your money as you choose.
The truth is -- you chose to make this personal so I'm responding -- I don't pursue profit above all else. I choose my own personal happiness, pride in my work, knowledge that I provide a truly excellent service at prices that just so happen to keep my clients happy and choosing me over alternatives and recommending me to their contacts. And yes, I make a profit. I could not live in a way that had me ashamed of my work, but had me counting my gold in a dark lonely room in my castle, like the Scrooges who seem to populate your worldview. Am I some kind of hero? Am I so much better than most everyone else? Am I better than all the other profit-monsters out there? Or --- am I human --- and living by providing everyday values to people who find it valuable to spend their money on my services makes them happier and better-off than the alternative... and in this respect, am I not like most everyone else in the marketplace?
In the history of the world, society has made countless huge mistakes that cost health and wellbeing to most. In fact, this is the normal state of human affairs. They believed that hygienic practices would make them vulnerable to disease, so refused to shower or wash. They believed bloodletting would cure illness. They still believe eating the bones or genitalia of rare animals would make them vigorous. But we move on, and we learn. In the process, we have always suffered for our ignorance.
This latest chapter is no different, except... the marketplace actually enables information to be generated faster, spread faster, learned, and results compared --- and it does so in a way faster than any previous social structure could have achieved. Millions of people make money from speeding this learning process. We're all 'in the market' not only for good deals but also for better ways of getting what we want, AND for information and knowledge about how to do it.
Which is what brings us here to this blog, reading information like this, and writing and spreading this helpful truth as Skip is doing.
Forgive me. I understand the need to gain profit, however, you will understand my point when I add the 'final chapter' to this article.
STAY TUNED!
Once again Skip - AMAZING!
Keep the truth out there!
Our youth program got a tentative approval - waiting on final okay!!!
John
www.crossfitcapefear.com
Great article Skip, thanks for telling it how it is...
Aush (CF San Diego)
Kirez--there's a difference between freedom of choice and ethics. Maybe I should be free to sell sugar, and it would be unethical for anyone to stop me from selling sugar, but that doesn't make it ethical for me to actually sell sugar. (I'm not actually arguing that it's unethical to sell sugar, here.)
Skip didn't write a challenge to the yogurt companies to sell less sugary yogurt, he wrote an explanation as to why the individual should choose not to eat that crap.
I wouldn't exactly call the food industry as it exists free market. Too much interference by the government (FDA, etc.) for that.
Donny, I don't think we're disagreeing. I don't think it's ethical to sell sugar. It could be well-intentioned and simply ignorant, but that's increasingly unlikely. And I agree that the FDA is a harmful intervention. We need to leave the market unregulated precisely so we CAN learn, correct, and evolve to smarter solutions, which is what nutritional education and activism is all about.
Well well wouldn't you know it a little bit of discussion about Sugar. I would say the answer to this discussion is in the results. That is when people cut out sugar or (added sugar) what happens?
All I can share is what happen to me. No sugar, no grain, no Dairy per the nutrition seminar.
Results of Zone nutrition 100%. Body fat went from 18% to <12% On Jan 3, 2008 i was 158.2 pounds I am as of this morning 149.2. I believe it works to cut out sugar etc....
Thank you Skip for a great seminar ...i got your point.!
DAB
Skip,
Thank You for being an inspiration to so many people. Whether you are a person looking to get healthy, in better physical condition or a CrossFit gym owner you could learn something from this man. The a wise man once said "PAY ATTENTION". It was awesome to see you and you and Rhonda at the lifting cert. Angela and I will be up to see you guys again (hopefully soon).
Mike
CF Spokane
Just read your post Skip. Thanks for sharing. I am wondering, as a consumer what can I do to get this junk off the shelves? I have changed a lot of my grocery buying habits since starting CF, but can we do more?
Hey Skip,
I couldn't agree more with your point about how our youngsters are targetted by the manufacturers of candy. To me there is a wholesale underestimation of the seriousness of the sugar problem which derives from the fact that the ill effects are, in the short term, subtle. In case you are interested, I have posted myself on the question of why society have allowed this to happen and the parallels with cigarettes. It's probably not a very popular view, but I think we have ourselves to blame because fundamentally we don't care enough to force goverments to ban things which don't have an immediate and profound adverse effect. Anyway, here's my post - "Cigarettes, Sugar and our Innate Short-Termism" - I'd be interested in your views. http://paynowlivelater.blogspot.com/2008/07/we-continue-to-be-amused-by-adverts.html
Writing from a UK perspective I have also concluded that as a nation we are addicted to sugar, and summed this up in a post called "We're all Junkies" - http://paynowlivelater.blogspot.com/2008/07/i-want-you-to-try-something.html
Keep up the good work.
Just realised I did not post those links properly - sorry - here they are as clickable links:
Cigarettes, Sugar and our Innate Short-Termism
We're all Junkies
Methuselah
Pay Now Live Later
Skip - just linked to your post from here:
The Worst Sugar Pushers of all - Health Food Stores
I've just been getting angrier and angrier about this subject myself over the months, mainly because over here (in the UK) we have health food stores peddling products that are full of sugar under the implicit veil of 'healthiness' afforded by their positioning in the marketplace.
Drug dealers don't usually pretend that what they are selling to you is healthy, so to me the health food stores are stooping even lower than them!
You have the same problem in the US?
Methuselah
Pay Now Live Later
hey Methuselah-
Here in the States I have noticed many products trying to appear healthy & natural with the first ingredient being concentrated cane juice - doesn't that sound healthy?
Thanks for the article Skip, I'll be forwarding on to a number of my friend & relatives who still think they can lose a few pounds by eating all the 100 calorie snacks they want as long as it says it's low fat.
Skip, I got real excited about your article, it give me a tangible way to see how much sugar I am eating. But then I thought, what about fruit? I looked up 32 carbs in an apple. I wouldn't hesitate to give my kid an apple or a banana. Now I am confused.
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