Cane Scrutiny

(Image from ACSH)

There is a fairly widespread notion that sweeteners made from cane sugar are healthier than those from corn syrup. However, nutritionists say that science does not support that belief.

What’s the difference between high-fructose corn syrup and cane sugar?

Sugars are carbohydrates with a sweet taste, said John Coupland, a professor of food science at Pennsylvania State University. Fructose and glucose are among the simplest of sugars. Other sugars, such as sucrose, are made up of combinations of these simple sugars. High-fructose corn syrup and cane sugar, which is a type of sucrose, are both made up of glucose and fructose.

The high-fructose corn syrup often used in soda is typically made up of 55% fructose and 45% glucose. Table sugar is composed of 50% fructose and 50% glucose. Both sweeteners are highly processed and refined.

“Both of them are just a natural food stripped way down to nothing but sugar,” said Kimber Stanhope, a research nutritional biologist at the University of California, Davis.

To make high-fructose corn syrup, starch from corn is first turned into a syrup composed mostly of glucose. Manufacturers add enzymes to convert some of that glucose into fructose, which tastes sweeter, Coupland said.

To make table sugar, manufacturers use machines to squeeze juice out of sugar cane or sugar beets, then purify the liquid and refine it through heating and other processes to turn it into the white crystals we buy in bags at the supermarket.

Does cane sugar affect your health differently from high-fructose corn syrup?

Some studies have found little difference between the health impacts of drinks made with high-fructose corn syrup and those made with sucrose.

“The calories will be the same, the impact on blood sugar is almost the same, and the risk of obesity will be the same,” said Eric Rimm, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

People who drank three servings a day of beverages with high-fructose corn syrup had higher levels of bad cholesterol and triglycerides and more liver fat, markers of decreased insulin sensitivity and increased heart-disease risk, after 12 days, according to a study by Stanhope and colleagues. So did the people who had the same amount of drinks sweetened with sucrose. The study involved 75 participants and was published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism in 2021.

A (slightly) less bad option?

The modestly higher percentage of fructose in drinks with high-fructose corn syrup could make those products slightly worse for health over the long term, compared with ones with sucrose, Stanhope said. This is because of how fructose and glucose are handled by the liver.

The glucose that isn’t used by the liver is sent to the rest of the body to be used for energy. But when fructose gets to the liver, it largely stays there, she said. What isn’t needed for energy is turned into fat. Fat in the liver can cause inflammation and raise the risk of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.

“Maybe the negative consequences are slightly smaller, but don’t think you’re doing your body any favors” by picking soda with sucrose, she said.

I am psychologically inclined to prefer cane sugar because it reminds me of my childhood, when sugar cane and pineapple fields were plentiful on Oahu. A chunk of cane stalk had more intense sweetness than cotton candy.

Although I wanted cane to be healthier than corn, the difference in favor of cane is slight at best. That's disappointing.

Cruel Dilemma

This morning I faced a cruel dilemma: do I eat healthy fresh fruits or unhealthy sugary baked goods?

(I wrote about Cruel Donuts last year. It's a family-run bakery in Belmont, two miles from our house.)

Cruel Donuts

A couple of Sunday afternoons ago we had a hankering for doughnuts. Yelp disclosed that the only doughnut shop within a five-mile radius was Cruel Donuts in a shopping center off Old County Road. It's next to the Caltrain tracks, complete with a laundromat and gas station. I had never stopped there in the 50 years I've lived in the Bay Area.

The young Asian lady was closing the shop and had run out of doughnuts, so I bought a couple of glazed twists. She threw in an extra one because I didn't get what I wanted and/or she was going to get rid of it anyway. No matter, I always appreciate a kind gesture.

The twists were light and not too sweet, greatly exceeding expectations for pastry sold in the afternoon.

The shop was empty when I returned at 11 this morning. I ordered a mix of regular and chocolate glazed doughnuts, a dozen for $20, which were placed in an expensive (for doughnuts) pink box with the bakery's name written in a distinctive flourish.

The inside of the box was not plain cardboard but colorfully printed with the message "Be Kind." The marketing for this doughnut shop deserved a closer look.

Cruel Donuts needed to stand out from the noisy crowd and not just be another California donut shop. Inspired by the French Cruller and 80s hit “Cruel Summer,” the woman-owned shop owner wanted to become an Instagram-worthy destination spot for San Francisco foodies...

The millennial pink and “signature” sweetness brand vibe carries through the bright and clean aesthetic of the shop interior concepts, to help encourage foodies to share on social.

The doughnuts were delicious, by the way, and the main reason I'll be coming back.

Note: the "Cruel Summer" that inspired the shop's name is the Bananarama 1983 song, not the Taylor Swift hit which has the same name.

There's Always Room for Malasadas

Only a half-dozen people ahead of me at 3 p.m.

After the 7-course luncheon celebrating Helen's 100th birthday the participants began making plans for dinner at a Waikiki restaurant. Meanwhile, what were they going to eat during the five hours between meals?

It was time to buy malasadas at Leonard's Bakery. I picked up a half-dozen originals and a half-dozen "puffs" that were filled with custard.

Covered with powdered sugar, malasadas are somehow able to squeeze into the gastrointestinal tracts of people who thought that they were stuffed.

It's one of the rules of Hawaiian vacation eating (e.g., wear loose-fitting clothes like muumuus and aloha shirts, picking up food with the hands isn't rude, adding kim chi is acceptable no matter the cuisine): there's always room for malasadas.

Sugar Rush

At $38/dozen I was compelled to try Sibby's cupcakes.

The forecast from 2½ weeks ago has been fulfilled. Our house has been inundated with sweetmeats.

We've received over two dozen boxes of candy, cakes, and cookies. The fruitcake will go into the disaster-preparedness inventory, but the rest will have to be consumed in the next month or two. Some sharing outside the house is unavoidable.

Getting serious about a recent diabetes diagnosis, I bought a continuous glucose monitor. Let's not rush it: I will wait until after New Year's Day to put it on.

Season of Temptation

After three months on Metformin my A1C reading fell from 7.8 to 6.7. That's an improvement but still well above the danger zone for Type II diabetes. In the coming year I hope to make some lifestyle changes, continue with Metformin, and use technological aids to help drive the indicator down.

It doesn't help that the Christmas treats have started to arrive from friends and relatives.

They have absorbed the news about supply-chain disruptions and have conscientiously sent their gifts early.

The packages in the other room are calling with their siren songs and tempting smells. Without taking a bite I can feel the glucose rising....

Juicy Tidbits

Are you disappointed with the Nobel-Prize-winning New York Times?

Get The Nobel's Times instead!

It's not just lemon, it's Super Lemon!

When you pierce the crust of Lemon Taste Powder, bite through the mantle of Mild Lemon Candy, and reach the core of Super Lemon Candy, you too will exclaim, Oh! Juicy!

At $2.99 a package The Nobel's Times is a better value than the New York Times.

It's made in Japan and has the highest quality. There have been no recalls or retractions.

It will leave a sour taste in your mouth, but unlike the New York Times you will be smiling afterwards!

Halloween, 2020

(Image by Willow Glen merchants)

Two years ago we had a record 132 kids show up at our door. This year the neighborhood--in fact the entire Foster City--was blacked out; the air wardens of my parents' childhood would have approved.

Our candy expenditure was near-zero. (It was not zero because I had bought a package a few weeks ago as a precautionary measure; well, the candy won't eat itself, you know.)

In 2020 we have discovered that a lot of necessary things weren't, and some frivolities were more important than we had thought.

Here's hoping Halloween will be back next year.

Going Full Pancake

Having cut back on sugary carbohydrates, I've laid off pancakes since November. As the lawyers like to say, there's a religious exception; it was Fat Tuesday, aka Mardi Gras (in French it sounds sophisticated, n'est ce pas?)

This year we forsook the local IHOP for the Millbrae Pancake House. If you're gonna pancake, go full pancake, that is, with lots of butter and syrup.

Lent starts the next day, and there will be 40 days devoted to controlling base impulses. All in good time. It was Pancake Tuesday.

2020 Resolutions: More and Less

More	Less
Reading books	Web-surfing
Water	Sugar
Getting rid of stuff	Buying stuff
Taking courses	Electronic games
Writing letters	Saying "yes"
Sleep	Texting, esp. thank-you's
Fruits and vegetables	Fried foods
Exercise	TV
Organization	Procrastination

The Tune Hardly Changes

Instructions for 2019

Instructions for 2017

The doctor frowned when he looked at the blood test.

"Your A1C is 6.4. It was 6.3 last year. If it goes to 7, you'll have to take diabetes medication."

It was all related to the fact that I had gained 4 pounds instead of losing the 5 that had been my goal for this year. And no, the gain wasn't in muscle mass.

Dad in January

I mentioned that my father experienced a very painful shingles attack this year--to the point where hospitalization was required. Partial immunity to the disease--my own attack was in 2012--lessens over time. That factor, plus the improvement in the effectiveness of the Shingrix vaccine, put Shingrix on the list of doctor's instructions for the coming year.

The other instructions for 2019--2020 were nearly the same as 2017. Estimating that I'll be a 50% achiever, the doc upped the weight loss goal to 10-20 pounds.

My father's still looking out for me after nearly 94 years on this planet. Thanks, Dad!

Momona Pōʻalua, 2019

Nearly every year we and thousands of others celebrate Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras) by eating pancakes. In Hawaii people chow down on malasadas. From 2007:

Leonard's truck at Koko Head Marina Shopping Center.

Leonard's [Bakery]'s founders came up with the idea of malasada day several years ago.

"The reason they ate all the malasadas was it used to be cooked in animal fat," said [manager Darlene] Young. So with the animal fat, they could pig out or eat a lot of meat to substitute before they went into the lent."

...They say they make about triple the amount they do on any other day.

To be fair, every day seems to be Malasada Day in Hawaii.

Halloween, 2018

Two bags were needed.

I had a feeling we needed more, so I bought two 150-piece bags of candy from Costco. 132 (!) trick-o-treaters showed up tonight, more than double the typical turnout. About a hundred were pre-teen, and half were Asian, reflecting the changing demographics of Foster City. We overheard some goblins and witches tell new arrivals, "That's a good house." Praise from business colleagues is one thing, but that's a good house from a kid? It doesn't get better.

As Much For Its Ambience As Its Fare

Budgeting three hours in Portland on the way to Seattle for a wedding, we had time for only two stops. The first was Voodoo Doughnut, a shop known as much for its ambience as its fare. With three locations in Portland we didn't expect a line on late Friday morning.

We were wrong. There was a wait, made more prolonged by a couple of large orders served in a coffin.

A father of two young daughters, both of whom clearly were familiar with the store, told us which doughnut was the best for first-timers.

He named the Voodoo Doll ("raised yeast doughnut filled with raspberry jelly topped with chocolate frosting and a pretzel stake"), so we bought two.

The doughnuts were indeed fresh but a little too sweet for my taste.

I'm glad we visited but won't be stopping by again when we head home in three days.

From Hard Thinking to Hardly Thinking

Neuroscience says thinking burns more calories. [bold added]

Better than texting for young brains.

The brain—unlike any other part of the body—runs exclusively on the sugar glucose, and strenuous cognitive activities require more glucose than simple ones, says [Albany professor Ewan] McNay, who has studied how the brain uses energy to perform work. During a difficult memorization task, for example, the parts of your brain involved in memory formation will start consuming more energy, but other brain areas will show no such increase.

The energy expended from hard thinking isn't great, though:

A person doing cognitively challenging work for eight hours would burn about 100 more calories than a person watching TV or daydreaming for the same amount of time.

Over the long term an additional 100 calories per day does make a difference in weight control, about as much as walks around the block or foregoing one cookie.

In high school I would lose weight during chess tournaments (yes, I was a member of the team); long bouts of mental concentration, coupled with not eating, had that effect.

Over decades in corporate financial analysis I would also drop a few pounds during the October-December planning season, as well as whenever a potential acquisition arose; intense mental work late into the night and weekends does that to a person. (I turned 40--probably a good thing in retrospect--before free food became an inducement to work late.)

Except for a few consulting gigs, I don't spend much time thinking, which readers of this humble journal will say is obvious. It also explains why I've been putting on weight lately...

Superior Syrup Retention

Waffles at Awful Annie's.

Though my blood tests have cautioned that I was prediabetic, I generally ignore limitations on sugar intake when out of town. That's especially true for breakfast, when pancakes and French toast tempt this hungry traveler.

Lately, I've been ordering waffles, which I heretofore had not fully appreciated. Unlike with pancakes, maple syrup doesn't run off to the side because it's trapped in the little squares, which as an added benefit allow one to slather on more butter.

Food Network host Alton Brown on differences between pancakes and waffles:

— Pancakes may be brown on the outside, but they’re floppy, soft and spongy, with an interior that looks a lot like cake.

— Waffles, on the other hand, are crisp on the outside and light on the inside, like beignets, funnel cakes, hush puppies or doughnuts. In short, waffles are fried, only instead of being immersed in hot oil, they are encased in hot-oil-covered metal.

A few points about waffle batter:

— Waffle batter contains a higher percentage of sugar (for caramelization) than pancake.

— Waffle batter includes a bit more fat (for a crisp exterior) than pancake.

Waffles have more sugar and fat, but they had me with the superior syrup retention.

Eat Right, Be Happy

Foods in the Mediterranean diet (USA Today)

What we eat can dispel sadness; scientists say, sadly for some of us, it's not ice cream or chocolate cake:

a healthy diet—high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish and unprocessed lean red meat—can prevent depression. And an unhealthy diet—high in processed and refined foods—increases the risk for the disease in everyone, including children and teens. [snip]

Depression has many causes—it may be genetic, triggered by a specific event or situation, such as loneliness, or brought on by lifestyle choices. But it’s really about an unhealthy brain...A bad diet makes depression worse, failing to provide the brain with the variety of nutrients it needs.

These assertions about eating right are supported by a study that observed the diets and moods of 67 people diagnosed with depression:

Half of these people were given nutritional counseling from a dietitian, who helped them eat healthier. Half were given one-on-one social support—they were paired with someone to chat or play cards with—which is known to help people with depression.

After 12 weeks, the people who improved their diets showed significantly happier moods than those who received social support.

"Nutritional psychiatrists" are developing an understanding of how diet affects mental health.

A bad diet makes depression worse, failing to provide the brain with the variety of nutrients it needs, Dr. [Drew] Ramsey says. And processed or deep-fried foods often contain trans fats that promote inflammation, believed to be a cause of depression...A bad diet also affects our microbiome—the trillions of micro-organisms that live in our gut. They make molecules that can alter the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter found in the brain.

The science is somewhat new, so I'm still holding out hope for ice cream and chocolate cake.

Going Full Carb

On the way back to the Bay Area I stopped for a jolt of caffeine. Next to Starbucks was a bake shop with the intriguing name BAD Bakers. Naturally, I had to check it out.

BAD (Bread and Doughnuts) Bakers offers discounts on orders of a half-dozen pastries or more. I ordered six of their $3 cronuts for $15, and five managed to survive on the trip to Foster City.

BAD Bakers does not cater to the health-food crowd. Unlike stores that offer sugar-free versions of their products, it provides syringes to add sugar to the cronuts. The cashier said that the frosting could be injected into the buns' hollow pockets, which I did later that night.

If you're going to carb, you may as well go full carb.

Pilgrim's Privation

Twitter's Top 100 ideas on What to Give Up for Lent

Fasting may be good for the soul and body, but some strict observers of Lent believe that Christians should not have multiple objectives when making a Lenten sacrifice:

“You should not give up food if your motivation is to lose weight or improve your health. Then it’s about you and not about God.”

Those who believe in keeping their motivations pure are much farther in the journey to the Celestial City than your humble blogger.

From sad experience the weakness of the flesh usually triumphs over the earnest pleadings of my doctor to eat wisely and exercise more, so having God as a backstop during Lent has been very helpful. To saintly Christians I plead "let not the perfect be the enemy of the good."

Unnecessary Purchase

That's a lot of sugar.

After getting off the plane, I went to the supermarket to pick up snacks, toiletries, and other items that I knew Mom and Dad wouldn't have.

I also bought a bag of candy to give to the Halloween hordes that I used to be a part of in the old neighborhood. Not one kid showed up. You can go home again, but home looks very different.