RTE's Sugar Crash

Dial Hard

Watching this at the moment.

Maybe I'm incredibly naive but I don't know anyone who eats like this. Three bars of chocolate a day and the guy still thinks he's healthy cause he doesn't eat frozen food?

They keep talking about hidden sugar but I thought it was common knowledge that tinned soups, cereals, fruit yoghurts etc are absolutely packed with sugar, no?

Or am I living in a total bubble because I come from a family of foodies? I'm just finding it really hard to identify with the programme.

ford2600

Dial Hard wrote: »

Watching this at the moment.

Maybe I'm incredibly naive but I don't know anyone who eats like this. Three bars of chocolate a day and the guy still thinks he's healthy cause he doesn't eat frozen food?

They keep talking about hidden sugar but I thought it was common knowledge that tinned soups, cereals, fruit yoghurts etc are absolutely packed with sugar, no?

Or am I living in a total bubble because I come from a family of foodies? I'm just finding it really hard to identify with the programme.

Be a right nosy ba$tard on your next visit to the supermarket and I think you'll see that lots of people shop horribly.

Alf Veedersane

A lot of people think fruit juices are a good option for the lunchbox. Way better than fizzy drinks, fo sho.

The reality is that a lot of people pick foods/drinks and consider them a healthy choice because they appear to be much better on the face of it.

Zillah

Dial Hard wrote: »

Or am I living in a total bubble because I come from a family of foodies?

Try sharing a house with other 20/30-somethings and you'll see how terrible some people's diets are. Coke with meals. A bowl of pasta for dinner. Low fat lattes though so they should be alright

Payton

Judging by the people that we all see around it surely can't be the usual 'big boned' or it's only 'puppy fat' . Plain and simple it's down to diet and lack of exercise, I know as I'm trying to get back on track and do something about it.
The male from the family was shocked he was getting all that sugar into his system?, and the amount that the kids were getting was absurd!. Was it just plain ignorance or what? It's well documented and advertised about reading calories-fats-sugars.
Simple if you don't buy it you can't eat it.

pinkypinky

Just watching it now. It's not that much of a surprise to me but I'm still planning to go through all my cupboards later to review what added sugar is in my (what I perceive to be) quite healthy diet.

I think it will be a huge shock to most people and I've already made a list of friends I'd like to watch it! Nice to see RTÉ producing their own programs on health using Irish experts, etc.

ETA: they're having a huge row about it in the TV forum! A show on the national broadcaster will get a lot more viewers than netflix.

Alf Veedersane

Payton wrote: »

It's well documented and advertised about reading calories-fats-sugars.
Simple if you don't buy it you can't eat it.

It's well documented but that doesn't mean it's widely known or understood. People might read them but there are a lot of people who could just as well be looking at hieroglyphics.

Then there are people who can compare one product against the other and choose one based on the nutritional info. But what have they used as the overall determinant for the better option? Fat? Calories? Sugar? Even if they do choose the better option, are they just picking the least worst?

You can read nutritional info and pick the lowest sugar options of all the choices you made but that doesn't necessarily mean you won't eat too much sugar. You might just eat less sugar than you could have.

It's not all that straightforward because we all start off with zero understanding of nutrition and with no guidance on the basics right throughout school.

adrian522

Zillah wrote: »

Try sharing a house with other 20/30-somethings and you'll see how terrible some people's diets are. Coke with meals. A bowl of pasta for dinner. Low fat lattes though so they should be alright

Whats wrong with pasta for dinner? Or lattes for that matter?

I'd have thought a latte was ok, essentially milk and coffee. I'd have a pasta based dinner at least once, maybe twice per week, is this particularly unhealthy?

karenalot

ford2600 wrote: »

Be a right nosy ba$tard on your next visit to the supermarket and I think you'll see that lots of people shop horribly.

This.

90% of parents I see shopping have utter crap in their trolleys on the weekly shop. Sugary cereals, petits filious and cheese strings feature heavily it seems in most children's diets.

Alf Veedersane

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

It's not all that straightforward because we all start off with zero understanding of nutrition and with no guidance on the basics right throughout school.

Yes, and a lot of whats presented as nutritional science in the media and by some experts is just new age pseudoscience.

Greenmachine

I really was not ready for that first segment. 4 year loosing all her teeth. :eek::eek:

Macha

adrian522 wrote: »

Whats wrong with pasta for dinner? Or lattes for that matter?

I'd have thought a latte was ok, essentially milk and coffee. I'd have a pasta based dinner at least once, maybe twice per week, is this particularly unhealthy?

It isn't the coffee in a latte, it's the large quantity of milk, and usually sugar, that goes with it. If someone is looking to cut calories, excess calories in their drinks would be one of the first places to look.

And pasta is a high-carb processed food. Add in unhealthy sauces and it can often be an unhealthy dinner. Italians don't (or at least used not to) eat a large plate of pasta for dinner. It's a small course (primo piatto) ahead of their main meal of protien+veggies (secondo piatto). Personally, I'd try to choose potatoes or rice over pasta but I don't think once a week is bad.

Can confirm: other people's shopping baskets are horrifying.

Dial Hard

Alf Veedersane wrote:

It's not all that straightforward because we all start off with zero understanding of nutrition and with no guidance on the basics right throughout school.

But I wasn't taught at school, Alf. Nor were you, I'd wager. My mum always cooked from scratch but she was actually a terrible cook and never taught me anything in particular. In fact, I started cooking myself at about 16 because I didn't particularly want to eat her shoe-leather roast beef anymore.

So what's the difference between me (or you) and the person with a trolleyfull of jars, tins and frozen food at the supermarket? No-one ever taught either of us.

I'm absolutely being quite facetious here but it's because I don't accept that "No-one ever told them any different" is a valid defence.

2xj3hplqgsbkym

karenalot wrote: »

This.

90% of parents I see shopping have utter crap in their trolleys on the weekly shop. Sugary cereals, petits filious and cheese strings feature heavily it seems in most children's diets.

I must be a terrible parent because I buy cheese strings for my kids' lunch boxes. Can you explain why they are worse than 'normal cheese' or would you not reccommend cheese for children at all?

Alf Veedersane

Dial Hard wrote: »

But I wasn't taught at school, Alf. Nor were you, I'd wager. My mum always cooked from scratch but she was actually a terrible cook and never taught me anything in particular. In fact, I started cooking myself at about 16 because I didn't particularly want to eat her shoe-leather roast beef anymore.

So what's the difference between me (or you) and the person with a trolleyfull of jars, tins and frozen food at the supermarket? No-one ever taught either of us.

I'm absolutely being quite facetious here but it's because I don't accept that "No-one ever told them any different" is a valid defence.

I'm not saying a valid defence at all.

I'm just saying that a lot of people are oblivious to the importance of good nutrition and what constitutes good nutrition.

I just think that people believe they are making the right decisions or who have convinced themselves they are making rhe right decision or that at least that the convenience route isn't all that bad.

Or that have a complete blind spot. Or they just don't get it.

I remember seeing some show about schools and the father defended giving his 7-year old Red Bull in the morning to pick him up. The young lad had his head on the table, yawning and in the midst of a crash 90 minutes later.

The majority of parents don't want to damage their childrens' health, which leaves the answer being that they don't get it.

You or I or anyone else posting here has pretty much made an effort to find out more about nutrition and nutritional choices because we know it's important. A lot of people genuinely don't. I work with people who are pretty intelligent but will do Clean 9 nonsense or other faddy crap so that they can drop the weight they put on outside of that from making poor nutritional choices.

ford2600

Dial Hard wrote: »

But I wasn't taught at school, Alf. Nor were you, I'd wager. My mum always cooked from scratch but she was actually a terrible cook and never taught me anything in particular. In fact, I started cooking myself at about 16 because I didn't particularly want to eat her shoe-leather roast beef anymore.

So what's the difference between me (or you) and the person with a trolleyfull of jars, tins and frozen food at the supermarket? No-one ever taught either of us.

I'm absolutely being quite facetious here but it's because I don't accept that "No-one ever told them any different" is a valid defence.

The food environment has changed completely over the last generation or two.

Calorie dense, nutritionally empty food is everywhere(it was at till in hardware store last week ffs) and cheap. We are hard wired to seek out such food.

The only thing more omnipresent than crap food is the misinformation on food, in the media, billboards, every shop etc etc. For the uneducated it must be a confusing world.

Our grandparents/parents didn't need to educate themselves because the choice wasn't there for the most part.

Education, without interference from industry is key. Hoping industry will "make" health foods for our good is wishful thinking. Without market forces forcing their hand it will never happen, educating enough people so they make healthy food choices is only hope for real change.

Alf Veedersane

Not to mention the perception that healthier food is more expensive and takes longer to make than convenience crap and its not hard to see why the path of least resistance is chosen.

Dial Hard

ford2600 wrote:

The food environment has changed completely over the last generation or two.

ford2600 wrote:

Our grandparents/parents didn't need to educate themselves because the choice wasn't there for the most part.

I'm 33, dude. Younger than a lot of the people featured in last night's programme and "Fed Up", which it was likely inspired by.

Alf Veedersane

I don't think the point was that people of a certain age don't eat badly. It's that a lot of people of a certain age didn't eat badly because they didn't have that choice.

The choice and lack of awareness/education is the problem.

Good and bad nutritional choices are only obvious if you know what constitutes good and bad nutritional choices.

Dial Hard

Alf Veedersane wrote:

I don't think the point was that people of a certain age don't eat badly. It's that a lot of people of a certain age didn't eat badly because they didn't have that choice.

I took it that he (she?) was saying that previous generations didn't need to educate themselves because they didn't have the choices the recent ones do.

My point was that I'm *of* that "swamped with bad choices" generation; I didn't receive any formal education on food, but I don't eat badly.

I'm very aware that I'm in danger of coming across like a preachy asshole here. And the irony is that I generally avoid this forum because I disagree with a *lot* of the bro science that's peddled here.

I just ****ing love food.

I love pizza. So if I want it, I'll make one from scratch.

I don't count carbs. But I don't have to because pretty much all the ones I do eat are complex, high-fibre, low GI ones.

I think Paleo is the biggest joke ever. But everything I eat is made from scratch, and local and seasonal where possible. Not because I'm specifically trying to be healthy, but because being healthy is a natural (and inevitable) side effect of how I like to eat, if that makes sense.

Again, none of this was ever taught to me. It was a natural offshoot of an interest in food that came to me out of nothing in particular. I've never been overweight. I've never been in a gym. I never had a big food epiphany where I realised I needed to *change* anything. It was all just a very organic, evolutionary process for me from my early to mid-teens.

I realise I sound like an utterly sanctimonious prick throughout this post but I just feel the need to point out that "education" from school or state or parent isn't necessarily necessary.

It's late and I should just shut up now.

Macha

I actually think it's harder for older generations as they went through the whole low fat craze in the 80s. My parents still can't get it out of their heads that full fat milk is fine and its the copious amounts of bread that's doing the damage, not the butter on top.

The right information is really available if you go looking for it. If you don't look, I have limited sympathy (time poverty, emotional eating etc aside).

Taboola

Dial Hard wrote: »

I'm very aware that I'm in danger of coming across like a preachy asshole here.

Yeh we get it. You make everything from scratch. You were brought up like that.

Not all families are like that. A lot were brainwashed by advertising about the products being healthy and convenient. I grew up with one parent uses jars of sauces, another that cooked from scratch. The parent that used the jars etc worked longer hours and didn't have the luxury of time to create meals from scratch.

I think at being 33 you *are* in that generation. I am health conscious and enjoy cooking and cook my food from scratch but my colleagues/friends don't and they are the same age as you whereas my grandparents would only ever make things from scratch.

Alf Veedersane

Dial Hard wrote: »

I just feel the need to point out that "education" from school or state or parent isn't necessarily necessary.

It isn't necessarily necessary.

But that doesn't mean that education or awareness wouldn't have a big impact. There is a large proportion of society who doesn't understand nutrition which means they don't identify it as being the problem when it is.

ford2600

Dial Hard wrote: »

I realise I sound like an utterly sanctimonious prick throughout this post but I just feel the need to point out that "education" from school or state or parent isn't necessarily necessary.

As per you OP you grew up in a family of foodies, that was your education.

Lots of people didn't get that, for many reasons (I grew up on a farm with our own beef, milk, apples, wild fruit and veg primarily from neighbours, that was my education, I was lucky like you).

A good friend works for HSE in deprived area of Dublin where his patients are obese children/young adults. The diet is primarily breakfast cereals and frozen food, with no plants in diet or anything fresh.

That Kilkenny family are the tip of the iceberg.

Zillah

Macha wrote: »

It isn't the coffee in a latte, it's the large quantity of milk, and usually sugar, that goes with it. If someone is looking to cut calories, excess calories in their drinks would be one of the first places to look.

And pasta is a high-carb processed food. Add in unhealthy sauces and it can often be an unhealthy dinner. Italians don't (or at least used not to) eat a large plate of pasta for dinner. It's a small course (primo piatto) ahead of their main meal of protien+veggies (secondo piatto). Personally, I'd try to choose potatoes or rice over pasta but I don't think once a week is bad.

Can confirm: other people's shopping baskets are horrifying.

adrian522 wrote: »

Whats wrong with pasta for dinner? Or lattes for that matter?

I'd have thought a latte was ok, essentially milk and coffee. I'd have a pasta based dinner at least once, maybe twice per week, is this particularly unhealthy?

What, no no no. There's nothing wrong with pasta or lattes.

What I'm saying is that I sometimes see people having literally just a bowl of pasta for dinner. No protein, no fats, no fibre, no micronutrients - a big bowl of pasta.

And the latte comment was a quip about the fact that they think going low fat latte is going to undo all of the other horrendous eating they do. I have a latte every morning. I get full fat milk because it's delicious. I can do so because I don't eat too much.

How Strange

I was on the bus home last week and I heard a min telling her 4-5 year old child he couldn't have an apple because he was getting his dinner when he got home. He asked what was for dinner, she said chicken nuggets and chips, he said he didn't like chips, she said ok, you can have pizza then.

Zillah

shure apples are full of sugar

the groutch

already seen the fallout of this show today in a supermarket, guy (who needed to lose a fair bit of weight) pointing out the sugar content of mayonnaise/ketchup to his daughter.

people watch one tv show and suddenly they're all nutrition experts.

corny

the groutch wrote: »

already seen the fallout of this show today in a supermarket, guy (who needed to lose a fair bit of weight) pointing out the sugar content of mayonnaise/ketchup to his daughter.

people watch one tv show and suddenly they're all nutrition experts.

Thats a good thing though. If sanctimony is the price......so be it.

ch750536

the groutch wrote: »

already seen the fallout of this show today in a supermarket, guy (who needed to lose a fair bit of weight) pointing out the sugar content of mayonnaise/ketchup to his daughter.

people watch one tv show and suddenly they're all nutrition experts.

Why don't they just stay in their uneducated place


:rolleyes:

Taboola

the groutch wrote: »

already seen the fallout of this show today in a supermarket, guy (who needed to lose a fair bit of weight) pointing out the sugar content of mayonnaise/ketchup to his daughter.

people watch one tv show and suddenly they're all nutrition experts.

How is that a fall out? He's obviously more conscious now and checking labels. Just because he's checking labels doesn't mean he thinks he's a nutrition expert.

I think this is a positive thing. You said yourself he needed to lose weight so maybe this will give him the kick up the backside to do it.