I’ve been giving this some thought over the past few days. At first blush, I would utter a resounding NO! We should not allow the government to regulate sugar. Government action usually triggers the “slippery slope” situation where once they begin regulating something, it’s only a matter of time before they regulate something else. What if they regulate meat feeling that it’s unhealthy taking the advice of the sick vegetarians? That would be horrible. So I’m hesistant to recommend sugar regulation because meat could be next.

But a very respected individual has thrown down the gauntlet and it’s hard to disagree with him. Robert Lustig said in this month’s Nature that, “Sugar is just as ‘toxic’ for people as [tobacco and alcohol], so the government should step in to curb its consumption.” He argues that these three products are all very similar in that sugar meets the same criteria for regulation as alcohol because it’s unavoidable, there’s potential for abuse, it’s toxic, and it negatively impacts society.

They write that sugar is added to so many processed foods that it’s everywhere, and people eat up to 500 calories per day in added sugar alone. Sugar acts on the same areas of the brain as alcohol and tobacco to encourage subsequent intake and it’s toxic because research shows that sugar increases disease risk from factors other than added calories, such as when it disrupts metabolism.

These are the same charges I’ve been making on this blog since it’s inception. My first article was entitled, “Carbohydrates Kill People!“. There, I wrote, ” Refined carbohydrates, starches and sugars are the dietary cause of coronary heart disease, and diabetes. They are the most likely causes of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and the other chronic diseases of civilization.” I’ve also written about the part of the brain that gets stimulated known as the “reward center.” Cocaine and sugar both stimulate this area which aids the addictive process.

“Carbohydrates affect insulin secretion by the pancreas and the more eaily digestible and refined the carbohydrates, the more chronic the effect on the hormonal regulation of homeostasis, the entire ensemble of the human body. This has an adverse affect on health, weight and well-being.” (Quoting Gary Taubes, in his great work, Good Calories, Bad Calories.)

Dr. Lustig points out that we need to start seeing obesity as a marker, rather than the cause of metabolic diseases. It’s only a symptom, just like diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and cancer. If you can thwart that which causes metabolic syndrome then you can eliminate chronic disease.

Of course, the sugar and beverage folks had plenty to say on this. The Sugar Association said it disputes some of the statistics presented – namely the tripled sugar consumption rates, which it said were based on “incomplete science” in a statement. It may not be exact but I’m sure it cannot be far off. When I go through the grocery store myself and look at the ingredients in food, sugar is always present, even in places where you wouldn’t think it would be. I challenge the reader to count the number of ingredients ending in “ose” in their cabinet. You would be surprised. Supposedly healthy orange juice has 28 grams of sugar per serving. A regular serving of Coca Cola 32 grams of sugar. Not too much different. And the Vitamin C? Totally nullified by the sugar due to the fact that the same pathway that takes up Vitamin C is the same one that takes up glucose. In the presence of glucose the vitamin C will not be absorbed.

“We are confident that the American people are perfectly capable of choosing what foods to eat without stark regulations and unreasonable bans imposed upon them,” read a prepared statement from the Sugar Association.

They are not perfectly capable of choosing what foods to eat obviously judging by their size and poor health. Because when solid information comes out on sugar, there is always some powerful lobby out there trying to block the information. People start to bring up the negative effects of not being able to ply their children with sweets or handle their own sweet tooth. Such a regulation might have the beneficial effect of getting people to seriously research the issue and discover that sugar really does do what they claim it does.

In my own life, I can say unequically that it is a monster. When I cut out sugars, my health took an immediate turn for the better. Even later, if I added back some sugary item, even of the supposedly “good carbohydrate” variety, my health went the other way rather quickly. I gain weight rapidly and I lose it rapidly just by removing carbohydrates.

The American Beverage Association added in a separate statement, “Moreover, an isolated focus on a single ingredient, such as sugar or fructose to address health issues noted by the World Health Organization to be caused by multiple factors, including tobacco use, harmful alcohol use, an unhealthy diet and lack of physical activity, is an oversimplification”

Perhaps it is, but think about it this way: There are three major dietary ingredients that have the greatest impact on our health: Sugar, Flour, and Grains. If people would cut out these three, I guarantee their overall health would improve. The flour products would not be nearly as gratifying and sought after without sugar. Grains don’t necessarily need to be sweetened, but they convert to simple sugars as soon as they interact with saliva. So eating a diet of predominantly carbohydrates is basically eating a high-sugar diet. There is not much difference between a slice of bread and a slice of cake. The sugar content is not much diffent (if you don’t count the frosting) and both are deleterious to health.

So yes, I said it. Regulate sugar! We pay billions of dollars for healthcare in the United States and the overwhelming majority of that money is spent battling the symptoms of metabolic syndrome. Through regulation, at least we can make some money from it for a change just as we do with tobacco and alcohol. Don’t eliminate it, just tax it.

Poor McDonald’s just can’t do anything right. Every time they try, they can’t shake the widely-held speculation that they are chiefly responsible for the obesity epidemic. I know you’ve heard it: The reason the children in the inner cities are so fat is because they have little access to fruits and vegetables. Instead, they rely on too many fast food meals, particularly, those available from McDonald’s. The evidence? Because McDonald’s is at the top of the food chain in terms of profit among fast food providers.

McDonald’s made the news yet again because of their decision to stop treating scrap meat with chemicals to make aluminum nitrate to keep the meat from getting infected with microbes. Evidently, there are many in the food industry that use this practice. Indeed, the USDA considers it a safe practice. However, one celebrity chef from England went after McDonald’s and portrayed it in a very negative light. He said, “The use of treated scrap meat, to me as a chef and a food lover is shocking! Basically we’re taking a product that would be sold in the cheapest form for dogs and making it ‘fit’ for humans.”

It’s not very difficult to stir up anti-meat sentiment all over the world. I’m reminded of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle from 1906, where he intended the work to be an invective against the meatpacking industry’s treatment of workers. Instead, the public fixated on the fact that they did not want to eat “tubercular meat.” His famous quote was, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” In that work, he made many extraordinary allegations which were unsubstantiated and when a presidential commission investigated, they left out all the good points about the packing plants, only focusing on what they could legislate.

My point is that it’s easy to get people in an uproar regarding meat. It remains unclear exactly which companies use this treated scrap in their burgers because it’s a part of the production process and therefore its presence is not required on food labels. Despite that, everyone with knowledge on the subject considers it safe. Yes, it’s not the most appetizing thing to look at, but it’s still safe. I’m sure they used it to counter the widely-held belief that all meat is treated with hormones and other chemicals which are supposedly bad for you. After all, meat is the chief cause of disease, if you believe the tabloids.

Just as those legislators did back in 1906, so does the British chef do today. Probably because he doesn’t know any better. He doesn’t know that a diet of meat only is the healthiest diet known to man. He doesn’t know that if those inner city youth would merely remove the bun and skip the french fries and replace the soda with water, they would all be as lean and healthy as I am. It’s not about calories, it’s about what our bodies do with the foods we consume. The meat industry is capable of feeding scores of people for a very low price. That should be lauded. The only reason for the deplorable conditions in the meat industry is because agriculture has forced the situation. Those fields which could be used for grazing is not used for crops. Agriculture wears out the land and strips the top soil without returning anything of value. It, alone, is responsible for disease as I have written so many times in this space.

Back to the slimy stuff, the only way to avoid the “pink slime” is to cook your meat at home. There is something to be said for cooking at home vs. eating out at restaurants. I’m not concerned with calories and things of that nature. But I am concerned with cost and getting exactly what you want as opposed to paying for useless side items which only serve as fillers.

I love Longhorn Steakhouse and I consider it to be one of the best in terms of value per dollar. However, for the $25 I spend on the wonderful Outlaw Ribeye, I could go to the grocery store and get three ribeye steaks. For me, that’s a day and a half of eating, vs one single meal. It’s very easy to maintain my ZC diet and lifestyle as long as I cook at home with eating out a rare treat. For the cost of the Big Mac value meal, I can have a ribeye steak from my local supermarket. I can drink water from the tap and I am very healthy as a result.

Just something to consider.

Now that I have a fancy new MacBook Air, I’m inspired to write a little more this year. We’ll see how long it lasts, but for now, I’m having fun.

I thought I would take a minute to tell you about our Facebook group. Click the link over on the sidebar to visit. This group has well over 200 members and they are not all ZC. Usually, the people are either ZC or VLC (very low-carb) but they are at varying stages of carbohydrate restriction. In truth, I consider all of this to be ZC because the underlying principle is that as you eliminate carbohydrates, your health improves. The same theory applies to both.

This is a good support group to belong to especially if you’re new to ZC and you have basic questions. The forum is more designed for our exclusive community of people who have drank the ZC kool-aid. They are totally invested in this lifestyle and they are a part of a vibrant community. The majority of us know each other as we have met at “meat-ups” around the country over the past few years. The forum is open to everyone, but there is a questionnaire regarding your ZC experience and we generally restrict access to those who have not began ZC on their own, or who have not been able to transition into ZC life. It takes a lot of resources to start and stop with people and because we lead busy lives, the support is not there.

However, when you get independent and ready to go, you’ll find the forum to be the perfect place to share your ZC experience and get out and meet others. In the meantime, I highly recommend our Facebook group to get started.

I’m still here! I know, I haven’t been in the mood to blog for much of 2011 and I can’t guarantee that I’ll be much more active in 2012, but I will post when I find something interesting to write about.

For those of you interested in ZC and athletics, you can check my results for the end of 2011 and you’ll see that I ran a personal record in both the 10k and the half marathon. I ran 1:32:05 in Las Vegas on the Strip at Night. I had a lot of fun during this race and I surprised myself with how easy it was to run so fast. My training went very well and I was up to 60 miles per week for a number of weeks preceeding this race. It’s quite clear what I’ll need to do in order to replicate these results in 2012.

Right now, I am leaning towards avenging my poor performance in Dallas this year in March. I’m sure I’ll repeat most of my schedule from last year, but there may be some changes. When I know, I’ll post a schedule.

Have a great 2012!

I read a very interesting piece in Time magazine regarding the return to meat-eating by former vegetarians. CBS News performed a study claiming that ex-vegetarians outnumber current ones by a 3 to 1 margin. I found that quite surprising. Not that I’ve ever looked into it all that much, but I was still suprised to see such a high number. I’m not surprised in the sense that I believe vegetarianism is harmful to the majority of us, and the statistic only bears out the truth.

As the article relates, a survey by Hal Herzog and Morgan Childers found that these born-again omnivores were mostly women (as many vegetarians are) an average age of 28 years old and had been vegetarians for nine years when they reverted. The majority went vegetarian due to concerns about the treatment of animals and returned to meat because of declining health (“I will take a dead cow over anemia any time,” one man told Psychology Today), logistical hassles, social stigmas, and meat cravings. Only two of the seventy-seven former vegetarians surveyed resumed meat-eating because their moral views changed.

I would expect people to continue to be hung up on the perceived ethical issue of factory farming and the like. But the thing that I keep going back to is that our bodies are clearly designed for meat-eating. I feel for the animals under some of these conditions but at the same time, factory farmings allow a far greater number of people to access meat than they would otherwise. That is a plus for humanity. Not only that, but agriculture is the reason for factory farming to begin with. Using precious grazing land for soybeans and corn spawns factory farming. The animals don’t get to return to the land until after agriculture has ruined it and made it completely unusable for any purpose except a skyscraper or a shopping mall.

Vegetarians typically miss the damage that their precious vegetables do to the environment. No one cries over the complete ecosystems that are destroyed or our precious top soil which is what made the land fertile to begin with. When the crops are finished, they leave the ground fallow and destroyed with no living creatures remaining. They spread pesticides that contaminate ground water and kill off all sorts of small creatures in order to protect their crops. So much for the theory of nothing having to die for them to eat. And the declining health that the majority of vegetarians experience is evidence of their own slow death. Vegetarianism certainly does not protect anyone against cancer or any other disease of civilization.

And despite these facts and statistics, the so-called experts will continue to recommend mostly vegetarian diets to the public and diets high in carbohydrates as the answer to the obesity problem. Cognitive dissonance at its finest!