Coke Didn't Make America Fat

The Wall Street Journal ^ | 10-07-09 | MUHTAR KENT

[GOP_Lady]

Americans need more exercise, not another tax.

Obesity is a complex issue, and addressing it is important for all Americans. We at the Coca-Cola company are committed to working with government and health organizations to implement effective solutions to address this problem.

But a number of public-health advocates have already come up with what they think is the solution: heavy taxes on some routine foods and beverages that they have decided are high in calories. The taxes, the advocates acknowledge, are intended to limit consumption of targeted foods and help you to accept the diet that they have determined is best.

[Toddsterpatriot]

It wasn’t so much that the patent would run out

Yeah, that's what I thought. LOL!

Thanks.

[aruanan]

That's interesting, must be research newer than when I was still involved in the field. We were taught that as you age muscle mass diminished and because muscle takes more cals per pound, you could eat less without weight gain. I have not kept up with the newer research as I have been out of the field since the early 1990s and while I do read things I run across I wouldn't call that keeping up.

The loss of muscle mass has several consequences: You have less metabolically active tissue because you're less physically active. That lessens the body's ability to count calories ingested against calories expended, taking you closer to the region where it won't see the 100-150kcals/day offset but without the physical activity that could burn them up. You still have habitual eating practices of earlier, more active times, meaning it's easy to keep eating like you did when you were young because, hey, food still tastes good. And a couple pounds of body fat per year get insensibly added. So in a little while you're thinking, "When I was 28 I wore size 32 pants, now I'm 42 and wear size 38. WTH????"

[aruanan]

Really? Which school?

[cweese]

Fair enough. I can’t prove otherwise. Can you prove it doesn’t?

[Mase]

Prove it doesn’t what?

[cweese]

Prove it doesn’t contribute to obesity.

[metesky]

Obesity is a complex issue,

No it's not.

and addressing it is important for all Americans.

Again, no it's not.

[Mase]

Well, since it provides calories to those consuming it I suppose, like all foods containing calories, it can contribute to obesity. However, it doesn't contribute to obesity any more than sucrose does -- or any other carb for the sake of this discussion.

Now, if you can prove otherwise then have at it. No one yet has been able to prove that glucose and fructose from hydrolyzed sucrose is different than glucose and fructose from HFCS.

[Old Professer]

I have boxes of articles, newspaper coverage, etc. from the time when this was headlines; in the beginning duPont was totally against the theory, any ban or restrictions on its use and acted as though it was speaking for the whole industry associated with R-12.

Green-shaded experts at the home office reexamined the tenor of the debate and convinced the chemists that this was one battle they dare not win.

Measurement of any damage caused by seasonal ozone loss remains virtually impossible to assess.

[Toddsterpatriot]

I'm sure Freon was a money maker for duPont. Cheap to make, easy to handle.

I'm sure they like the higher profits they get from the Freon replacements. Even if they are less efficient.

[norraad]

The digestive and absorptive processes for glucose and fructose are different.

When disaccharides such as sucrose or maltose enter the intestine, they are cleaved by disaccharidases. A sodium-glucose cotransporter absorbs the glucose that is formed from cleavage of sucrose. Fructose, in contrast, is absorbed further down in the duodenum and jejunum by a non-sodium-dependent process. After absorption, glucose and fructose enter the portal circulation and either are transported to the liver, where the fructose can be taken up and converted to glucose, or pass into the general circulation. The addition of small, catalytic amounts of fructose to orally ingested glucose increases hepatic glycogen synthesis in human subjects and reduces glycemic responses in subjects with type 2 diabetes mellitus (12), which suggests the importance of fructose in modulating metabolism in the liver. However, when large amounts of fructose are ingested, they provide a relatively unregulated source of carbon precursors for hepatic lipogenesis.

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/79/4/537

[brytlea]

LOL and food still tastes good, ain’t it the truth!
The bane of all mankind!

[brytlea]

First, I’m against a tax on it, and if people want to drink it, they should be able to.
However, it’s easier to consume more calories in a drink than in a food, I think that is the problem (if you want to see a problem in soft drinks). But, so, people may make stupid choices, it’s up to them. I’ve made a few myself.

[Drawsing]

I did a little unscientific, yet interesting survey last week. My brother wanted to go look at RVs (Recreational Vehicle) at an RV dealer. I went along to keep him company. As he talked to the dealer, I looked at photographs on the wall. They had posted hundreds of photos of happy couples with their newly purchased motor home. I noticed that all of the men seemed to have big bellies. I decided to count the photos until I came to one where the man was not overweight. I counted around 120 photos before I came to one man without a large pot belly.

I do not doubt that metabolism plays some role, but I attribute most of this to poor eating habits. I watch people go through pot luck lines at social functions and I see how they pile their plates. The fatter the person, the more they seem to pile on their plate. Then, when its time for dessert, they don’t just grab one brownie or one piece of pie...they fill up their plate again.

[aruanan]

LOL and food still tastes good, ain’t it the truth! The bane of all mankind!

I just figured out that a 25 pound weight gain (I'm talking about a 25lb load of fat in the adipose tissue, not 25 pounds of adipose tissue) over a period of 10 years comes out to about 200 kcals/week. An apple is about 80 kcals. Think of how tightly regulated energy input versus energy expenditure is that it is such a small percentage of total weekly input that insensibly leads to what was a typical weight creep over a period of decades. For someone with an 1800 kcal/day, 200 kcals per week is an excess of only about 1.59%! When you consider how much inexpensive, highly nutritious food is so easily available and how we nowadays expend so little energy compared to the average person 100 years ago, it's a wonder that more people aren't horribly obese and a tribute to spontaneous energy regulation by the body.

[brytlea]

I still wonder about some people’s tendency to stay thin. I know, in horses and dogs, some are just not thrifty (that is, it’s hard to keep weight on them). In my experience, especially with dogs (I show and breed, so I’ve had quite a few thru my front door over the years) some eat very willingly, but still don’t keep enough weight on. More often than not it’s boys, not girls, who stay thin almost regardless of what or how much I feed them. Something accounts for it, but I don’t really know what. One particular boy was not overly active (he was as much a couch potato as anyone in the house) and he LOVED to eat, and yet, he was always thinner than I would have liked. He had no illnesses, just stayed very thin (a good weight really, but not a good show weight).
So, go figure. It may have been calories in, vs calories out, but for some reason he burned them faster/easier/better. I would like to be like that! As it is, I think I’ll go back on a 1200 a day diet and see what happens.
Geeze, that’s not much food! ;)

[norraad]

OMG, Uncle Jed, turns out I was even more spot on than I thought.

Here’s a short video that ‘slains everything with charts , graphs and big people words like I know you like.

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

[chris_bdba]

Coke and other soft drinks have been around from about 1900 so to blame them for America being fat is stupid. People not knowing how to control what they eat,drink, and do is what caused it. As a kid we got one small glass of pop in the evenings if we were lucky, we did not just get to go have as much as we wanted because we had parents. Junk food was limited to Saturday night and consisted of a small bowl of chips each.People just don’t know how to eat like people anymore and most eat enough to feed 3-4 people everyday.

[norraad]

Yeah, I can feel it.

Click the link above to view the explanation.

So, laying no particular claim to blame, yes, Coke does make you fat.

Why?

Because big corn whores stole our taxes to make HFCS affordable to them instead of good old sugar.

Then "pump up the volume" the old song and dance of the profit whores kicked in and everyone was encouraged to use more and more of this known chronic liver toxin.

So, over time most of us will puff up like a tick and die a horrible slow expensive(read more profit for Corponazimed Inc., a division of Sneakyman Inc.) death.

In the words of Marvin the Martian;

"Isn't that Lovely?"

[Toddsterpatriot]

Because big corn whores stole our taxes to make HFCS affordable to them instead of good old sugar.

You're mixed up. The sugar whores made our sugar much more expensive than the world price. That's the only reason we use HFCS.