This is a YouTube video titled "Gary Taubes on The Rise of Sugar Consumption" containing a recorded conversation from August 2, 2018, featuring Ask AI Mark interviewing Gary Taubes. The discussion focuses on the history and health implications of fructose and sugar consumption, particularly the rise of high fructose corn syrup in the diet and its metabolic effects.
Okay, well you jumped in there a couple of times with this fructose thing and you said we didn't really even have it until the 70s and then probably in the 80s and now it's a big portion of our sugar consumption. So how is that different and why should we be worried about fructose?
Okay, so we actually, there was, there's always been a lot of sugar, not always since the 18th, 19th century sugar intake goes from five pounds per capita per year at the beginning of the 19th century. That's like Coca-Cola's worth of sugar once a week to 90 pounds by the end of, by 1900 and 100 pounds by 1920 and then it stays relatively stable because when people are consuming a lot of sugar, they're getting, tend to get fat so it tends to be self-limiting. Then as we increase our sugar consumption and worsen that trend, once we start drinking sugary beverages in huge doses, so the soft drink industry begins in the 1870s and 1880s with Pepsi and, well, Dr. Pepper, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi in that order. Now you're suddenly drinking this stuff and you're drinking it between meals and 50% of the calories are fructose and there's no fiber to slow down the digestion and you're getting massive amounts compared to what we would have gotten otherwise.
And it was also high fructose, which is more than the glucose.
Well, the high fructose corn syrup is high, it was called high fructose because there were lower fructose corn syrups that had been developed over the years.
But it's 55% up to 75% fructose in some of these drinks.
True, and may or may not make a difference. I just don't know. But the liquid sugars are a problem compared to, so you're getting them between meals, you're getting sugar from basically breakfast. through dessert. So, rather than drinking alcohol on an.
Empty stomach, you get the buzz faster.
You get the buzz and you get it all day long. And that's all your liver is doing all day long is basically processing fructose at doses that's never been designed, never evolved to see before. Unlike any machine that's asked to do a job it wasn't designed to do, it doesn't poorly. And then making it do it year in and year out. Constantly. Like remember, a little bit of fructose dribbled into the liver over the course of a couple of months.
Summer, yes. Binge on some fruit. Okay, fine. It's just the daily and repetitive doses.
