Eric Edmeades (appearing in a Mindvalley upload) explains how the food industry dramatically increased sugar consumption over the last century and the tactics used to hide and promote added sugars. He cites a historical rise in per-capita sugar from ~20 pounds to ~154 pounds (~70 kg) in the U.S., lists ~56 different sugar names and tactics such as splitting ingredient listings and deceptive serving sizes, and links high sugar exposure to appetite stimulation, addictive-like effects, and rising diabetes/prediabetes rates (he cites ~1 in 10 Americans diabetic and ~1 in 3 prediabetic). He offers practical steps—reduce, replace (e.g., whole fruit), and take periodic sugar breaks—and promotes a Mindvalley masterclass on the “six hungers.”
Questions this video answers
Historically ~20 pounds per person; currently ~154 pounds per person (~70 kg) (spoken claim).
About 56 names of sugar (spoken claim).
Approximately 1 in 10 Americans are diabetic; approximately 1 in 3 are prediabetic (spoken claims).
July 28, 2021.
Chapters
Dektrose, Fructose, galactose. Dammit, Galactose. You gotta be a rap star to name all the sugars here. Dextrose, fructose, galactose, maltose. Is sugar good or bad? Yes, yes, sugar is good or bad. Look, up until recently, our ancestors had a perfectly functional relationship with sugar. But starting at the beginning of the last century, our sugar intake had gone up to 20 pounds per person. And currently in the United States, it's 154 pounds or something like 70 kilograms per person. That's a problem. Why do you think that's happening? Why are we eating so much more sugar? Well, you know what the crazy part of it is? We don't even know that we're doing it. So why are we being fed all this sugar? Here's why. Sugar stimulates your appetite. It's true. The more sugar that they can put in your food, the hungrier it will make you. So you'll eat more food, so you'll buy more stuff, so they'll make more profit. Not only that, it turns out that some studies indicated sugar is more addictive than cocaine. So not only are they trying to stimulate your appetite, but they're trying to take away your choice. That's right. You eat it, then you want more. Later, you don't even know why you buy more, they make more money. Sugar is massively profitable. So here's my question. How do they manage to sneak it from 20 pounds a person to 154 pounds per person in 100 years? How did they manage to do that? Here's some of the techniques they use. First of all, they just changed the name of sugar. You see, there was a while where you could just look at the ingredients list and go, oh, look, sugar. I don't want to have that. But now there are over 50 names of sugar, 50 of them. And so they're on the ingredients list. And half of them, you wouldn't even recognize these types of sugar. But for the sake of helping you understand sugar, Here are the 56 names of sugar. Dextrose, Fructose, Galactose, Maltose, Beet Sugar, Ethyl Molten Sucanat, High fructose corn syrup. So on top of using different names, they do something else even sneakier. They'll use sugar under different names in the same food product so they can push it down the ingredients list. No kidding. Look. Frosted Flakes, the ever loved American breakfast cereal. The number two ingredient is sugar. The number two ingredient. But the number four ingredient is high fructose corn syrup. Why do you think that is, it's because the number one ingredient used to be sugar, and that freaked people out. So by splitting the sugars, they can move them down the list. The third way they sneak the sugar in is by putting it in stuff you wouldn't expect it in. How about, like, ragu or pregu tomato sauce? You know, you're buying a little tomato sauce, make a little pasta for you and the kids. Obviously, there's no sugar in that. Yes, there is. It's the number three ingredient. It's the number three ingredient. You wouldn't expect to find it there. So you don't necessarily look at the ingredients list, but if you did, you'd see it there. Why is it there? Once again, enough sugar stimulate your appetite, make you hungry, eat more than you need, drive greater profits. And then if that's not good enough, what they also do is they put in healthy sugars. Right? So again, this is kind of a twist on the changing the name, but it's like, well, but it's beet sugar, it's fructose, it's like evaporated, organic, natural cane juice. These are just ways of disguising it of, in a sense, like health, washing it so that it looks like it's a good sugar. Again, some of those sugars may well be good sugars in their natural form, but probably not in the ingredients list. Okay, another way, maybe the last way we'll talk about today. It's sneaky, sneaky, sneaky. But it's terrible accounting. That's how they use terrible accounting. Here's how it works. They lie about the serving size. That's what they do. They lie about the serving size. So they say, but, yeah, but there's only 2 grams of sugar per serving. But then they try to suggest that a serving is like this tiny little amount when we all know that people are eating 10 times that amount in the serving, which means that they're eating 10 times as much sugar. Listen to me. The food industry is not on your side. No matter what their labeling says. No matter if they say healthy, organic, naturally occurring, no matter what they say on the label, they're not on your side. They're there to drive their own profits, and they're using sugar to take away your will. And by the way, what's that doing? Well, you know, as an example, we're now at a place where one in ten Americans are diabetic. And by the way, if you're not in America, I'm using American statistics because, you know, we have them. But the Truth is, these American food trends and these Americans food disease statistics are coming to a country near you really, really rapidly. 1 in 10 people diabetic and 1 in 3. This is the truly shocking number. 1 in 3 people pre diabetic. That's 100 million people in the United States and it's hundreds, millions more everywhere else. If you want to break free, a couple things you can do. One, reduce. Just simply reduce the amount of sugar that you intake in your life. Look at the labels, learn the 56 names, see how they're hiding it, and don't let them fool you anymore. I Another one you can do is replace. There are genuinely healthier forms of sugar. For example, if you want to eat a piece of fruit from time to time, that's fine. Certainly a whole lot better than a chocolate bar. And then the last thing is this. And it's maybe a little bit tough, but it's actually take a break. Take a break from sugar from time to time. Take a week off. Don't eat any for a little while. Notice how your taste buds recalibrate and notice how your energy improves. If you want to learn more about how your metabolism works and mostly how your cravings work, why you eat the way you eat, and how the food manufacturers are really manipulating your biochemistry and your psychology, join me and Mindvalli for a really powerful masterclass on the six core hungers. There are six reasons that we eat food. Only one of them is about nutrition and the rest are not. If you can begin to learn about the six hungers, you can neutralize them one at a time and completely gain mastery over your cravings so that you can eat truly consciously and you can take the power away from the manipulative food industries. Join me for the masterclass register right now and I'll see you there.
