Pacific Standard July-August 2013 Cover

Distracted Dining Increases Desire for Sugary, Salty Foods

June 4, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
potato-chips

Our eating habits have changed radically in recent decades, in at least two distinct ways. We increasingly multitask as we consume our meals, munching as we work at our desk or watch television. And, to the dismay of nutritionists, our food has higher concentrations of sugar and salt. New research from the Netherlands suggests the two phenomena may be directly related. A study just published in the journal Psychological Science finds people eating or drinking while mentally distracted require greater concentrations of sweetness, sourness, or saltiness to feel satisfied. A slightly sweet ... Read More

More like this: Findings, Health
Tags: , ,

Sour on the Sugar Bailout

March 13, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment

Alexandra Wexler of The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the U.S. department of Agriculture is looking to prop up sagging sugar prices by buying 400,000 tons of the stuff. The purchases would keep sugar processors from defaulting on loans the agency made to them nine months ago, when prices were 18 months higher. According to the USDA, the loan program, first authorized under the 1934 Sugar Act, “helps to stabilize America's sugar industry and ensure the well being of agriculture in the United States.” The program turns out to be somewhat contentious, in part because it’s ... Read More

More like this: The 101
Tags: ,

What We Talk About When We Talk About Donuts

March 5, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
colas

The University of Illinois' Robert Rushing has waded into the fight over sugar—but he's not a scientist. Sugar has been much in the news (including here at PS) following a widely publicized study by doctors Robert Lustig and Sanjay Basu, which appeared to conclusively link a sweet tooth to Type-2 diabetes. Rushing, a professor of comparative literature, doesn't dispute the science, but does wonder about the terms we're using to discuss it: Sanjay Basu does not use the term “toxic” himself, and for a very good reason. Everything is toxic. You already knew that drinking gasoline or ... Read More

More like this: The 101
Tags: , , , ,

Is Sugar the Next Tobacco?

December 27, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
Robert Lustig

Among the least likely viral megahits on YouTube is a 90-minute lecture by the food scold and pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig entitled “Sugar: The Bitter Truth.” He delivers it in a windowless room at the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. The talk is simultaneously boring and powerful, combining the gravitas of a national health crisis, the thrill of conspiracy theory, and the tedium of PowerPoint slides. Midway through the talk he scans the hall for approval. “Am I debunking?” The UCSF extension students mutter ... Read More

More like this: Health
Tags: , , , ,

Self-Control Slipping Away? Rinse. Spit. Repeat.

September 24, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

Do you feel yourself losing control? Are you inches away from indulging in fattening food, or releasing a torrent of obscenities at a noisy neighbor? Well, go wash out your mouth. Not with soap: with soda. That’s the startling implication of newly published research from Australia. Psychologist Martin Hagger of Curtin University in Perth reports the key to self-restraint may be as simple as gargling with glucose. In line with previous research, his study finds self-control is a limited resource, one that is a struggle to sustain over long periods. Also like previous studies ... Read More

More like this: Culture & Society, Findings, Health
Tags: ,

High Fructose Cram Session

May 22, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

With final exams bearing down, college libraries are in their twice-yearly transformation to squatter camps. Students hunker down in squalid carrels, fisting Doritos, or wander vacantly through the stacks, Diet Cokes in hand. What’s a little sinful sugar to get you across the finish line? But that pint of Ben and Jerry’s could cost you. A new study from the University of California, Los Angeles suggests that an unhealthful diet of too few omega-3 fatty acids and too much high fructose corn syrup might do real damage to the brain’s ability to learn and recall information. It’s ... Read More

More like this: Health, Today in Mice
Tags: , ,

Sweetener Death Match: Sugar vs. Syrup

October 1, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

The idea that high-fructose corn syrup infuses lots of our food has left a bitter taste in many consumers' mouths. So the corn industry has started a public relations campaign on behalf of its beleaguered syrup in an attempt to rename the additive as "corn sugar." But a civil lawsuit in federal court seeks to stop the renaming. An effort from public health advocates to try to keep the corn industry honest? Nope, the suit was filed by the giants of the sugar industry to protect their brand. The squabble has pitted sugar producers and processors like American Sugar Refining and Imperial Sugar ... Read More

More like this: By The Way ..., Health
Tags: , , ,

Don’t Expect Soda Tax to Curb Obesity

December 21, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment

Opponents of so-called soda taxes often argue that they would disproportionately punish low-income people. The poor buy more pop than the rich, who you'd more likely find in line at a fresh-fruit smoothie bar than in the carbonated beverage aisle at the grocery store, the thinking goes. But a new study examining the potential effects of hefty taxes on sugary beverages — such as those that have been considered in New York, Colorado and California — specifically looked at different income classes and found a pair of surprising results. Low-income groups aren't financially hit much harder ... Read More

More like this: Health, The Idea Lobby
Tags: , , , ,

Of Obesity, Sweets and Numb Tongues

December 15, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment

More than 60 percent of adult Americans are obese, and ever-increasing levels of fat and sugar are sneaking into processed foods. Could blunted taste buds be partly to blame? Neuroscientists at Pennsylvania State University have discovered that obesity gradually numbs the tongues of rats, depriving them of taste sensations for sweet foods and spurring them to eat more and sweeter meals. While previous studies had suggested corpulence leads to an increased craving for sweet foods, little had been known about why fatter and leaner people have different levels of taste and desire for ... Read More

More like this: Today in Mice
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Sugar Addiction is Real

December 10, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment

Chocoholism may no longer be a joke. A Princeton University psychologist is today presenting new evidence that sugar can be physically addictive. Bart Hoebel, whose research focuses on behavior patterns, addiction and the functioning of the nervous system, has been studying the addictive power of sugar in rats for several years. His previous studies have demonstrated in the rodents one of commonly understood component of addiction: a pattern of increased intake followed by signs of withdrawal. In his latest studies, Hoebel and his colleagues at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute have ... Read More

More like this: Health, Today in Mice
Tags: , ,