As I scour through Richard Johnson’s The Sugar Fix, which is without question strengthening my already very strong views about the role of fructose in the development of obesity, type II diabetes, and other disorders related to insulin resistance ? I couldn’t help but point out a redneck creation that finally went from joke to actuality this afternoon.
Months ago I was visiting my half brother and his family in Knoxville and came up with a vile concoction in my head ? designed purely for entertainment value, as part of a hypothetical ?Tennessee Diet. I had yet to develop a name for this heinous creation, but fantasize about it at length I did.
This weekend saw the power of imagination, humor, disgust, and horror congregate and materialize into this blessed creation. Yes, I was delegated the task of providing dessert for a 50 or so person barbecue? and the Stone-Man delivered.
Yes, to many of you I would imagine, and hope, that the thought of the health-passionate, anti-sugar crusader Matt Stone creating a vile and toxic, sugar-laden dessert is somewhat shocking. But hey, you can’t just be the house on Halloween that gives out apples instead of candy. Remember the awful loathing you felt for that house and the residents therein? Remember intentionally throwing eggs and perpetrating other kinds of vandalism in retaliation? I sho do. That’s jus how we wuz brought up whar I come frum. You either put out with some Snickers, Twix, Starbursts, or peanut butter cups or you get a clear message that your candy selection is, and was, unsatisfactory. Even staples such as candy corn toed the line of that which commanded communication.
So yes, instead of being the health geek, and serving up, say, a creamy cheese with a few slices of pears ? I went to the opposite extreme, laughing myself nearly to tears as I put this together. Brace yourself. Those with a weak stomach should stop reading here?
I call this white trash creation, simply, and poetically ?
In Bread Pudding (as in in-bred)
How is it made?
1) First you get yourself some glazed doughnuts. I originally hoped for Krispy Kremes, the only fully approved doughnut for the ?Tennessee Diet,? but those ain’t easy to come by where I live.
2) Then you cut them there doughnuts up into large chunks and spread ?em out onto a Pyrex baking dish ? filling the pan at least half way.
3) Next you make a basic custard out of 1 quart whole milk, 4 whole eggs, and a cup of white sugar. Go ahead now. Mix it all up. Add a dash of vanilla too.
4) Pour the custard over them doughnuts. That may sound frightening enough, but we’re just getting started.
5) Meanwhile, pour a 3-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper into a wide-mouthed pot (for quicker evaporation). Bring it to a boil and let it evaporate all the way down to a thick, molasses-like syrup. Woo buddy!
6) While the Dr. is in the ?operating room,? remove 10 Twinkies from their individual pouches. Slice them in half lengthwise, lay them down cream-up over the custard/doughnuts like you would ladyfingers for making Tiramisu (this could also form an offshoot dessert called ?Twinkiemisu?).
7) Pack the Twinkies down real good, letting a little bit of the custard ooze into them ? moistening them up real nice.
8) Cover with foil and bake at 350 Degrees F for, I dunno, 75 minutes let’s say.
9) At the very end, pour the Dr. Pepper syrup over the concoction (when the Doc is finally reduced all the way to a syrup).
10) The final step is to cover the whole thing (once it has cooled and set), with a solid layer of white sugar and ?brulee? the top under the broiler on high until a crispy crust of molten sugar forms.
11) Slice into squares and serve to some people who have just enough common sense to know that such a dessert is extremely unhealthy, but not so much that they shriek in horrified disgust and refuse to touch it.
12) Intentionally try to deter and frighten the potential consumers of your In Bread Pudding by telling them the horrific list of ingredients, the preparation, and disclose the name ?In Bread Pudding,? to create an association with eating such fare and birth defects ? which, as we know, is absolute reality.
13) Observe who eats it, make fun of how sick they feel after they eat it ? like you just pranked them really hard, then perpetually harass them every time you see them for the rest of their lives about eating that ?redneck, white trash, sister-humping pile of edible Nascar.
14) If anyone asks you if you tried it or ?how’s it taste?? emphatically state that you ?ain’t eatin? that shit if my life depended on it ? which it might!
I guarantee that this is a more powerful way of getting a point across than being the party-pooper prude that insists that sugar is not healthy. Nobody likes a health geek, including myself. Instead, you can give unhealthy food a strong negative connotation ? pairing it with something no one of class wants to be ? a junk-munching, backwoods, redneck, classless pile of excrement. Meanwhile, you give them exactly what they want and you absolutely laugh your ass off during the entire preparation.
In other news, I visited someone in a hospital today ? my first visit to a hospital in many, many years. At the snack bar the special of the day was a ?Coconut Mocha. Then I heard a nurse request a ?Strawberry Jello parfait? for a patient. As a bonus, two nurses told me I ?gotta get my Hepatitis vaccines. I told them (in my head), I did retards, it was the sickest I’ve ever been in my life. I even had to go to the hospital to undergo tests to explain all the mysterious liver pains and what not. Within the next year I began redeveloping allergies, asthma, and had back pains that I’ve spent the last decade battling.
Now that’s good business ? good enough to help bankrupt an entire nation via a $30 trillion Medicare impending debt burden as the first wave of unimaginably ill baby boomers crashes like a Tsunami.
Wow, your new name is Matt Stoner
I want to see a picture of this. I mean it's not everyday you read how white trash food turned into gourmet dessert. Brulee? Really? That's hilarious
The Vaccination thing- I need a way around that. Isn't it practically forced upon anyone that's going to college?
Yes, you must brulee your twinkies. It is, how you say, tres riche!
I was not forced to be vaccinated when I went to college, but that was a whopping decade ago. Times are a changin'.
If anyone tried to vaccinate me for something today, I would request that they inject it into my middle finger.
Hah. I had to have 2 different sets of vaccinations in the last 12 months – for college (meningitis and hepatitis vacs) and to get my passport approved for South Africa (polio & malaria). It seems pretty unavoidable…
Maybe I can try to get out of it if "my religion" doesn't allow me to be vaccinated – if the specific college will allow exemptions.. hmmmm..
Oh man that was a good laugh.
I've been looking for a good, cheap anti-vaccine book but most are over $40 and my library doesn't carry any. Any suggestions?
Give it a try, Chloe. I think that you can get away with mostly anything if you claim its because of your religion. Just make sure to make up a name for it, or I guess you could go christian scientist?
Or maybe you could immediately start sucking on the spot they gave you the shot to try and suck out the poison? haha
-Drew
Hi Matt,
My husband and I are about to embark on the 180degreehealth way of eating – a quick question on quantities. Protein is roughly the size of my palm, starch is either 1/2 to equal the size of the protein, but what is the fat amount? More than a TBS of coconut oil with each meal (and what if I cook with coconut oil – does that count toward the fat consumption)? Can I over-consume fat? I typically cook with butter and coconut oil, and lately have been adding flaxseed oil on top of that (in cold foods like salads or smoothies). Should I get geeky with the amounts? Just wing it? Thanks for all your research. It's led us to a naturopath who specializes in hypothyroidism and adrenal fatigue – a serious health issue for my husband. Thanks again. Ingrid
Hi Ingrid,
I would try to keep starch and protein close to equal to start with and eat as much fat as you need to satisfy your appetite. Your appetite will guide you appropriately. Do not fight it. That may be far more than 1T of added fat.
Starch quantities can increase over time. Keeping it low to start is more of a jumpstart technique and a good way to overcome sugar cravings in the initial stages.
Good luck with your journey. I can't promise miracles, but there are only 2 directions when it comes to health – the wrong direction and the right direction. Sounds like you're headed in the right one. Don't turn back at the first speedbump though. Press on, and keep overcoming those hurdles one by one.
Matt, what do you think about the theory that people with low metabolism live longer, and vice versa? That would also fit with observations of caloric restriction prolonging life…
Not meaning to say I would prefer to live a crappy life longer… :)
I think there's a big difference between being healthy and eating a low calorie diet and being unhealthy and eating a low calorie diet.
In the real world, outside of a controlled labratory, having a low metabolism is not synonymous with a longer life span. It's synonymous with a higher cancer rate, a higher rate of heart disease, and a higher rate of dying from infectious disease.
to anonymous..
" There is general agreement that animals on a fat free diet have a very high metabolic rate, but the people who believe the "rate of living" theory will be inclined to see the increased rate of metabolism as something harmful in itself. It is clear that this is what the Burrs thought. They didn't attempt to provide a diet that provided increased amounts of all vitamins and minerals, in proportion to the increased metabolic rate.
Pearl did an experiment, sprouting cantaloupe seeds in a dish with water. The sprouts that grew rapidly died sooner than those that grew more slowly. They died as soon as the nutrients stored in the endosperm had been consumed. Naturally, when nutrients are depleted, growth and metabolism must stop. If food and air and water are rationed, then slow metabolizers are going to live longer. But when nutritional needs are met, the organisms with the highest metabolic rate generally are healthier and live longer. In a study of nurses, those who habitually consumed the most calories lived longer than those who consumed the least. Even while Pearl was promoting his theory, other famous biologists, for example John Northrup in Jacques Loeb's lab at the Rockefeller Institute, were making observations that contradicted the rate of living theory. For example, around 1916, Northrup observed that fruit flies that metabolized at the highest rate lived the longest. Northrup was doing biology, Pearl was doing propaganda, following Weismannism.
The idea of extending life span by slowing metabolism and growth was a logical implication of the "rate of living" theory of aging, and it's an idea that is still popular. Many people have supposed that eating less would slow metabolism. Caloric restriction does extend the life span of many species, but it generally preserves the high metabolic rate of youth, so that at a given age the calorie-restricted animal has a higher rate of oxygen consumption per gram of body weight than the unrestricted eaters.
Roy Walford, a gerontologist who wrote about extending the human life span to 120 years by caloric restriction, spent 30 years limiting his diet to about 1600 calories, with little animal protein, almost no saturated fat–fish once or twice per week, poultry or beef about once, and a fat free milkshake for breakfast–and after about 15 years, began developing a degenerative brain disease, ALS, one of the nerve diseases involving lipid peroxidation and excitotoxicity. When he died from the disease, he had lived a year longer than the normal life expectancy."
"A series of studies about 20 years ago showed that the functions of the thyroid hormone are all inhibited by unsaturated fats, with the inhibition increasing in proportion to the number of unsaturations (double bonds) in the fat molecule."
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/unsaturatedfats.shtml
"In very young people, the metabolic rate is very high, and the rapid conversion of cholesterol into pregnenolone, DHEA, and progesterone usually keeps the level of cholesterol in the blood low. In the 1930s, a rise in the concentration of cholesterol was considered to be one of the most reliable ways to diagnose hypothyroidism (1936 Yearbook of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Endocrinology, E.L. Sevringhaus, editor, Chicago, p. 533). With aging, the metabolic rate declines, and the increase of cholesterol with aging is probably a spontaneous regulatory process, supporting the synthesis of the protective steroids, especially the neurosteroids in the brain and retina."
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/cholesterol-longevity.shtml
Viola!
"If food and air and water are rationed, then slow metabolizers are going to live longer."
This sounds like something out of a book I've read recently, called 'Survival of the Sickest':
"Here's how epigenetics may be partially responsible for the epidemic of childhood obesity. The junk food that fills so many American diets is high in calories and fats, but often very low in nutrients… If a newly pregnant mother spends the first weeks of her pregnancy eating a typical junk-food-laden diet, the embryo may receive signals that it's going to be born into a harsh environment where critical types of food are scarce. Through a combination of epigenetic effects, various genes are turned on and off and the baby is born small, so it needs less food to survive.
According to the thrifty phenotype hypothesis, fetuses that experience poor nutrition develop thrifty metabolisms that are much more efficient at hoarding energy. When a baby with a thrifty phenotype was born 10,000 years ago during a time of relative famine, its conservationist metabolism helped it survive. When a baby with a thrifty metabolism is born in the twenty-first century surrounded by abundant food (that is also often nutritionally poor but calorie rich), it gets fat.
One recent study of rats showed that when pregnant rats were fed a low-protein diet for just the first four days of pregnancy – before the embryo had even implanted in the uterus – their babies were prone to high blood pressure. Experiments with sheep showed similar maternal effects. Pregnant sheep that were underfed during the early days of pregnancy – again, even before the embryo implanted in the mother's uterus – gave birth to offspring that rapidly developed thickened arteries because their slower metabolisms stored more food as fat.
How do we know these are adaptive responses, as opposed to birth defects resulting from the mother's poor nutrition? Because the health problems – thickened arteries and increased weight – only occurred when the baby sheep were provided with normal diets. Baby sheep whose mothers were undernourished while pregnant showed no sign of arterial thickening when they were also undernourished as toddlers."
I'm not sure how this sheep study fits into the picture of what we're dealing with. But if something like this is a cause of people's lousy metabolisms, then glandular support would be necessary I guess?
Ok as you age your metabolism goes slower. Or is it the other way?
Maybe people age BECAUSE their metabolism damages and goes slower. Maybe it's possible with a high calorie diet to have a fast and healthy metabolism even if you are old.
That's the ticket. You must keep the metabolism running on all cylinders as long as possible to maintain health, vitality, and achieve high-quality longevity. It's a viable metabolism/aka hormone system that provides us with such status. Those who do not have full-throttle hormonal landscapes, the young and the elderly – are always the weakest, most susceptible to disease, and so on.
Just eating calories probably won't do the trick – they must be nutritious calories devoid of things that exhaust the metabolism, such as fructose, caffeine, alcohol, etc. Those are all things that give you an initial boost but do damage. Johnson's The Sugar Fix is finally giving me the explanation I've been seeking on the metabolism/sugar/stimulant connection.
Hey Matt,
Glad to hear that you're checking out The Sugar Fix. That Johnson dude is really onto something, IMO. Fructose is some nasty stuff.
In-Bread Pudding — hilarious!
I've been eating starch and protein in equal amounts for a few weeks now and am feeling better. Adding the fat in has been a bit tough. If I eat too much fat, especially saturated fat, it upsets my digestion. I've been planning to try some expeller pressed coconut oil to see if I handle that better. By the way, my allergies are pwned since I quit eating the junk protein in low fat dairy products and protein powders. I haven't taken my allegra in three weeks now and I am headache free for the first time in months. Supermarket milk and dairy products are garbage, second only to sugar.
I loved your solution to the dessert question. Sometimes over-indulging in horrible foods does more to turn a person into a healthy eater than anything else. I was once on a camping trip with some junk food junkies and they had a five pound can of Sam's Club chocolate pudding. By the end of the week-end everyone was ready for sugar rehab.
Also, I small number of people who seem to be immune to eating diets high in sugar, over their whole lives, at least in terms of obesity and type II diabetes. Are we breeding a generation of people who can handle this horrible diet?
Great post, Matt. I needed a good laugh. Thanks!
So qouth Jennythenipper,
"Supermarket milk and dairy products are garbage, second only to sugar."
Jenny, where is your evidence for a statement like that? Supermarket milk and dairy products aren't as good as raw, fresh dairy of course. But "junk" and "second only to sugar"? Really? I mean, "really"?
As far as dairy products from the supermarket, there are a few things that I would agree that people should generally avoid: cottage cheese, cream cheese and some sour cream brands, because of the additives. Also avoid ultrapasturized anything. Some unsalted butter also contains some weird preservative…I can't remember what it is called right now, but anyway, I avoid unsalted butter.
Yes, some people do have problems with supermarket dairy, but do great on raw fresh dairy. Raw dairy is undeniably better. However, to say that supermarket milk and dairy is second only to sugar seems a bit of a stretch. In fact, is seems a little like overwrought hyperbole…
would Organic pastures raw dairy also qualify as supermarket dairy since it is sold in whole foods, and may not be ultra fresh?
Maybe its just because supermarket dairy upsets my allergies, or at least that's what I'm finding. You are right in that it can't be pointed to as the cause of widespread chronic disease like sugar can. But, Matt, if I coulddn't exaggerate, I would die.
Also I think skim, 1%, and 2% milks are often dodgy because they contain extra protein added back in in form of highly processed skim milk powder that many people have difficulty absorbing.
Lowfat yogurts do this as well but maybe they are less harmful because they are cultured?
A lot of "organic" dairy is factory produced, from feedlot cows and has a lot less nutritional value. A local publication (ironically called milkweed) did an independent study of our local dairies and found that one dairy that uses milk from grass fed cows had much higher nutritional content (4×5 times) for omega 3s & CLAs as organic milk from bigger dairies. Suprise, suprise Walmart's organic milk was the worst.
I would highly recommend researching the dairies in your local area, if you aren't going to go raw milk. We are lucky enough to have a small local dairy that delivers to our co-op, whole foods and the high end supermarkets that uses only milk from grassfed cows, doesn't homogenize and does the minimum pasteurization required by law. The milk tastes vastly better, is a good candidate for making yogurt and cottage cheese at home and their cream would make excellent sour cream (though I've been able to find a brand from an Amish dairy that doesn't do any funky processing).
We are also lucky to have a couple of small creameries that produce only butter from grassfed cows.
oops I see by your post anonymous, that you said "organic raw" delivered to Whole foods. Obviously that's not what I meant by "supermarket" dairy. My point was to take a look at what you are really consuming, by looking beyond labels like "organic." But I see you were just being sarcastic. Oh well.
I wasn't being sarcastic. I'm extremely skeptical of anything in a supermarket, every single veggie, fruit, produce, dairy product and meat.
On the rare occasion I do go to whole foods, where they happen to have the organic pastures raw dairy products. Right now, it's the only way I can get raw dairy and dairy is my only source of fat. I drink 2 gallons of whole cream per week from them. And even though they advertise that their cows are pasture fed, I'm still skeptical, since you never know how much time and under which conditions such cream has been transported/sitting in the store.
"If I couldn't exaggerate I would die."
That is the mostest awesomest thing I've heard all day. Mind you, it's only 9:15am.
Sorry my bad anonymous. I would recommend going to visit the dairy, if you have concerns. If they wouldn't want you to visit, I'd be worried. The campaign for real milk can put you in touch with other raw milk producers in your area that will let you come out and meet them and see their operation. I'm a big believer in meeting the people who produce your food. Our co-op usually invites one or two producers every year at their annual meeting and it really makes a difference I think for them to be face to face with their customers.
Hi guys and gals, I just posted a comment on Matt's "Appetite for Destruction", and I'm not sure anyone will see it since the conversation seems to be here now. Please go look and help me out. Thank you!!!
Amanda
Regarding the Sugar Fix, I went to the link provided but it was pretty much just a cover page, none of the links worked. Is this an e-book only? Can I just get it at the library or something?
I spent most of today reading The Sugar Fix – and I wasn't impressed.
Johnson brings up alot of good
information about why fructose is so bad in particular (that I liked,) but then he goes off on odd tangents like saying that organ meats should only be eaten once a month because of their purine content (wtf) that saturated fat is the "main villain" and he believes strongly in the calorie system and ADVOCATES the use of coffee, low fat dairy products and artificial sweeteners. The only other thing he said that I really supported was that the glycemic index is misleading. Here are some of the quotes that bothered me:
"There is no mystery why to why eating a high-fat diet makes you gain weight. Fat provides 9 calories per gram- more than twice as many calories as protein and carbohydrates. There is little doubt: eat too much dietary fat, and you will become fat…you know the main villian: saturated fat- found in juicy steaks, fried foods (no! that's pufas mostly) ice cream, and butter- which raises LDL cholesterol, the kind that clogs arteries."
"Foods that cause gout should be on your diet radar, because they raise uric acid….there is strong evidence to suggest that eating too much meat causes gout…organ meats, such as liver and kidneys, have the highest purine levels…consider cutting them out altogether. I recommend limiting your consumption of red meat to 2 to 3 servings per week."
"Dairy foods are an excellent source of calcium and vitamin D, and growing evidence suggests that the sugars and protein in milk and other dairy products lower uric acid levels in the blood, which will help you to control your weight and keep other health problems at bay."
I thought your name was Myke Hawke.
Myke Hawke is bigger than yours.
Gee, thanks Bruce for your fantastic contributions to our conversation here. Fabulous to have you back man. Why talk about nutrition, fructose, or have relevant conversations when we can talk about the sexuality of Jesus?
you should add 'Bruce' in with the other labels =)
Oh boy, more of bruce. I am so excited to have him back…not
The California-based raw dairy company "Organic Pastures" purchases Cream and Colostrum from conventional, feed-lot, non-organic, grain-fed dairies!
This means, a product being sold as "raw organic dairy from pasture raised cows" is actually of inferior quality, (even though it might be raw) and comes from cows fed antibiotics, raised on grains, and with a greater danger of bacterial contamination (E.coli risk is much higher in cows fed grain)
The owner McAffee has many times admitted that this has occurred in the past (buying from other dairies), when they ran out of milk to make cream and colostrum, but he says that this practice is over now. But this is not true! He is still breaking the law and marketing his products as organic/pasture fed, when they are NOT.
Please, help spread the word. Copy and paste this message on dairy forums, dairy blogs, etc, if necessary.
(:
Could. Not. Stop. Laughing!
Seriously, I was crying. Because it's true, it's true, (sugar addicts) are so lame.
I am often faced with this kind of dilemma – asked to bring some kind of dessert or "snack" to an event where my only choices are 1. be the party-pooper that disappoints everyone with something healthy and tasty (to me, because I'm no longer addicted to fructose) or 2. bring some sugar-laden crap that I won't touch with a 10 foot pole. AKA "redneck, white trash, sister-humping pile of edible Nascar."
I love love love your solution. Make the most God-awful pile of sugary dessert you can think of and laugh at everyone that touches it.
On a different note – I was reading this older article because I was trying to figure out the real deal with fructose. Why does Ray Peat think it's okay, even going so far as to call it "protective?" He appears to be right on about the PUFAs. Is it maybe that fructose is okay in small amounts for a healthy metabolism, but does more harm than good to a damaged one?
Thanks again for the laughs, Matt.
Oh I forgot – I also wanted to ask about your take on fermented drinks like kombucha. The calories aren't from the sugar, if I understand correctly, so which macronutrient are they, exactly? Do you think drinking it with my 3 meals each day is counterproductive in trying to heal my metabolism and lose fat? Just wondering because I really enjoy it, but maybe that's because I'm getting some sort of sugar fix?
Danyelle,
I actually just had to buy some sugar (*gasp*) at Whole Foods this morning to brew a new batch of kombucha. While I was there I bought myself a GT's Synergy, Trilogy flavor (yum). My understanding is that there's such a scant amount of sugar left (and some of the calories are from alcohol) after the fermentation process that I can't imagine drinking kombucha is counterproductive. It's just fermented tea, good for digestion, etc.
I say drink up. And if you want Mr. Stone's "expert" opinion, I think I remember him saying he didn't have anything against it. This was in the context of making fun of WAPF's ;-)
But I'll let him weigh in.
On a related note, I sometimes bring kombucha to the scene-y cocktail parties I have to go to here in NYC and put it in a wine glass. This gives me something nice to drink and allows me to avoid alcohol (I am so over the drink-until-stupid-and-repeat lifestyle) without having to justify myself…
Thanks Gazelle – I haven't been around here long enough for anybody to mention fermented drinks, so I just wondered if they were secretly the devil and I just didn't know it yet. That's what happened with my super fancy expensive french mayonnaise – turns out it's made of sunflower oil which has lots of Omega 6. :(
I feel kind of self-conscious when I pick up a big bag of sugar at the grocery store. Silly, I know. My whole family is hooked on kombucha though, and we have to feed the scoby.
Great idea about using it as a wine fake-out! Explaining my nutrition choices to people gets really old since most of them think I'm judging their choices.
Kombucha ain't the devil, but I do find it to be quite addictive. Since addiction is a particular interest of mine, and I get easily addicted to things, I have to at least raise a little eyebrow over it. I tend to steer clear of anything that truly reveals itself as having addictive qualities, but I'm coming around a bit as I've found that many of my negative reactions to sugar have vanished or lessened since switching to a low-PUFA diet. Amazing stuff.
Peat likes fructose for 2 reasons:
1) Doesn't raise insulin as much
2) Stimulates more ATP generation
But then you have guys like Richard Johnson that doesn't like fructose for several reasons, 2 of which are:
1) Doesn't raise insulin as much
2) Stimulates more ATP generation
These are both short-term actions. As we now know, fructose is much more capable of inducing insulin resistance – which is the real problem with insulin, not how high it goes following a meal, and fructose stimulates TOO MUCH ATP synthesis and can exhaust cellular ATP because of it.
My current stance is that I am in full agreement with Peat on fats, full disagreement on carbohdyrates. But I'm opening up more to fructose, as I'm finding the supposed rules of fructose going out the window on a low PUFA diet. It could be, just like you say, fructose is only harmful to the hypometabolic and overinflammatory that are hypometabolic and overinflammatory because they eat too much PUFA!
But the historic link to increased fructose consumption is too clear to simply forget about fructose and eat all the refined sugar that you want. Looking at history, it would seem obvious that refined carbohdyrates were the biggest causal problem of most of the prevalent modern illnesses.
But heart disease? That's much more likely to be caused by increased omega 6 ingestion.
Yes, I think it would make a lot of sense to say that because polyunsaturated fats take such a toll on the metabolism, a lot of blame would be pointed at sugar just because a person's sugar metabolism may be, well, interrupted by other means..free fatty acids.
Not only that, but estrogen is very similar to the actions polyunsaturated fats cause.
And actually, I believe Peat and Johnson both agree that fructose lowers ATP production, not raises. I asked Peat about this, to which he had replied,
"Lowering ATP production, per calorie eaten and oxygen consumed, will tend to reduce obesity; it's called "uncoupling" of phosphorylation from oxygen consumption, and it turns calories into heat, and protects against free radicals. The article Uncoupled and surviving, by Speakman, et al., abstract below, describes some good effects of lowering ATP production per calorie used."
So ATP is not exactly quite so simple. More of it doesn't necessarily mean faster metabolism. It's more of their function. Quality, I am assuming.
I have a feeling Johnson might disagree with Peat's assertion that fructose tends to lower obesity. Just a hunch :)