Americans are fatter than Europeans because of CORN!

[suziedemocrat]

I have always been, ummm, chunky. But I worked in Europe for almost two years, and slowly lost weight the entire time. I have never been able to figure out why. If anything, I ate more sweets in Europe. Yes, I walked a lot when I was there, but I walk a lot here too. In fact, my first assignment after Europe was in San Francisco where I walked 2 miles to and from work, yet I gained almost 40 pounds in 6 months. I thought it was the wine with dinner instead of soda, and I think that is part of it, but I think the bigger reason is CORN.

In the US, we use often use corn syrup instead of sugar. Several studies have shown than corn syrup, and especially high-fructose corn syrup, causes the body to store fat.

Also, in Europe, most cows are pasture fed. I am a vegetarian, but I eat a lot of dairy. Dairy from pasture-fed cows contains 3-5 times as much CLA as grain and corn fed cows, and it has more omega-3 fatty acids. (The cows will not produce as much milk though.) CLA has been shown to aid in weight loss.

Well guess what, I switched to make sure I buy butter, (Kerry Gold from Ireland), yogurt and milk from cows that are at least partially pasture fed, and I have been slowly losing weight, especially around my tummy.

I had to share!

[Wetzelbill]

1. Change the Iowa caucuses!!!

I'm a dead man. :)

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. a-maizing.

who would have suspected that a grass seed would make you fat.

[porphyrian]

3. OUTLANDER!!! -n/t

[Squatch]

4. Europe's got its fair share of fat people...

Old Article

The European Union said Thursday it will bring the food and advertising industry together with health officials to contain the increasing problem of obesity in Europe, where one out of every four children is obese.

[BanzaiBonnie]

5. My husband and I recently instituted a change in our our eating

We have been cutting out all high fructose corn syrup. And most of the corn syrup.

It has both of us reading labels. He found HFCS in his saltine crackers.


The correlation between the weight gain and rise in diabetes of the US population is very clearly related to the time that HFCS began to be DUMPED into everything we eat.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. This is very true

My MD told me as much when I went in for a check up before starting her weight loss clinic. She took me totally off all corn products, and you know what? I haven't missed them in the least. And I'm losing weight!

[Akoto]

7. Americans are fatter because of portion sizing.

I have IBS, which means I've had to maintain smaller meal habits for a very long time. I got into cooking recipes prepared by folks from Europe and Asia.

What immediately struck me was the smaller portions these recipes tended to produce. It wasn't necessarily that the ingredients were always healthier. Rather, they enforced moderation.

[JBoy]

17. Portion sizes definitely larger

There is a noticeable difference even between Canada and the US. When I'm eating out in Canada, if I'm hungry I can handle a typical appetizer and an entree. No freaking way can I do that in the US, and I often get caught making that mistake. My appetizer shows up, and I think "holy shit".

Oh, and let's stop in to get a cold drink:

[alfredo]

8. Stop drinking soda. I lost ten lbs by quitting. Diet sodas don't work.

I highly recommend "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan

http://www.michaelpollan.com/indefense.php

On NPR

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17725932

[suziedemocrat]

11. I did stop about a year ago. Replaced with Pelligrino, then flat lemon water.

The lemon water seems to really help. But at first I needed the carbonation, so I drank Pellegrino or Perrier. Now I just squirt some lemon juice into some filtered tap water. I expected the pounds to drop off when I gave up soda, but the difference was small, maybe 5-10 pounds, and slow in coming. I've never liked diet soda, and I've read that a study at Purdue said diet soda drinkers actually gained weight. Go figure!

I also just recently read on this Dentist's site that people who drink coffee on an empty stomach will never lose weight. He says that your morning should begin with lemon water and a Vitamin C tablet, a high protein breakfast, (I usually do yogurt), and THEN coffee. This is a good site: http://www.mikerobichauxdds.com/health.htm

Thanks for your link. I'm reading it now.

[alfredo]

14. I have tea in the morning, coffee in the afternoon. I always

eat breakfast, usually a high protein breakfast. A favorite is a peanut butter, banana sandwich on whole wheat bread. I only eat natural peanut butter, the other stuff uses partially hydrogenated fats. I make sure I have some type of fruit in the morning.

[Captain Hilts]

9. We digest sweetened corn syrup differently than sugar. nt

[Elspeth]

28. Do you have a link on this? (Thanks)

I am really interested.

[lildreamer316]

10. Sorta off-topic, but related: CLA has helped me lose cellulite.

I belong to another board where we have discussed this at length. I am not making any general claims or recommendations,just saying that it has helped me, and many others on the other board, to lose cellulite. I love it.
I also limit my intake of HFCS as much as possible, considering.

[suziedemocrat]

15. That's great! I'm going to start paying attention to that.

[lildreamer316]

22. Our faves:

Natrol Tonain CLA (purple box) seems to work best for most, although other kinds are good - but that was the across the board fave.
Each capsule is 1200 mg, and the most effective dose for many of us seems to be between 5,000 mg and 6000 mg (about four to five a day). Make sure you take with some food, it can upset some ppls stomachs and/or cause a bathroom run until you adjust.
To augment the CLA, you can also try dry brushing.
This is just what has worked for me and some others, of course YMMV/use at one's own risk, etc.

[Eurobabe]

12. My guess is it probably mostly GMO corn too in the US

which is not helping things either.

[Hamlette]

13. Pollan talks about it in one of his books, not just corn syrup but corn itself

he makes a pretty convincing argument, discussing the diet of Americans North and South and too much corn in our diets.

But how in the world can anyone give up popcorn?

[windoe]

16. We're being fattened up for the 'Rapture'-

at least that is what the hungry aliens want us to think.

[suziedemocrat]

18. Now that I think about it, ...

when I gained all that weight in San Francisco, I was on a corn chip kick. I was eating a lot of corn chips with fresh salsa.

I'm having an "ah ha" moment. I still occasionally raid the vending machine at work for Fritos or Doritos. I need to stop that.

[AlCzervik]

19. i stopped eating processed carbohydrates, my life has been about bad carbohydrates

i feel much better now, also when i was in London 2 years ago their Cadbury was way better, you can get uk made cadbury here at Cost World. I'm down 85 pounds, 2 1/2 years and holding, i also use a treadmill 5 days a week.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

20. Let's narrow this a bit

Corn is, indeed, America's problem, and a growing problem in the rest of the world. That problem, however, isn't a result of corn qua corn. It is a function of high fructose corn syrup, a weirdly frankensteinian distillate of something called Number 2 FIeld Grade Corn.

The processes used to fracture out the HFCS are so proprietary as to require the plants and processes to be guarded like nuclear installations.

In every substance that was once sweetened with cane sugar, one finds almost uniformly now the ubiquitous HFCS. Nutritionists, dietary scientists and the medical community are amassing a wealth of data that suggests HFCS is largely responsible for the alarming rise in diabetes in the U.S.

Conversely, tradition maize cultures aren't obese. They are, however, threatened by the increasingly vast plantings of Number 2 Field Grade, Roundup-Ready FrankenCorn.

A good primer on No. 2 FGC and HFCS is to be found in Michael Pollan's brilliant book "The Onmivore's Dilemma." It's well worth the read.

[NMDemDist2]

21. HFCS is evil

truly

[Codeine]

23. Oh, please.

Americans are fatter because they eat more food and sit around on their lazy asses all day. Europeans traditionally eat smaller portions of food, eat more slowly, and walk more. They also don't treat soda like it's a food group.

You'll note that as Western Europe has adopted more American eating habits they've begun to see their own obesity trend, albeit a smaller one.

[suziedemocrat]

30. I don't have a car where I live and I walk everywhere.

I carry my groceries over a mile. I never finish a full portion of anything at a restaurant. Usually I take 1/2 home and eat it the next day. (How American!) And, as I said above, I stopped drinking soda over a year ago. As a vegetarian, most fast food is out of the question.

That simple answer doesn't seem to hold any water in my case. And I think it's thinking like that that has kept me fat.

[Codeine]

31. Are there outliers? Sure.

You may indeed be one of those persons for whom weight gain and a general heaviness is inevitable. This is not indicative of the general population, simply because the numbers would stay the same if it were entirely genetic in nature. And since you eat carefully and don't drink soda chances are your consumption of corn syrup is not that extreme.

[suziedemocrat]

32. But I don't think it is just HFCS. I think it is also the missing CLA in our dairy products,...

because our cows are not usually grass fed like they are in Europe.

[lies]

24. ummm

I live in Europe and it's more than that

[spinbaby]

25. You could be onto something

Last year I ate my way across Tokyo for two weeks and came back weighing five pounds less.

[distantearlywarning]

26. I noticed the same thing when I visited Europe this summer.

I lost 5 lbs in a week in Paris, and I typically have a very difficult time losing weight. And this was during a week when I was on vacation, and ate pretty much everything I wanted, including creme brulee, etc. I exercised as much there as I do here. And yet I lost weight. And I felt better.

I spent the entire plane ride back thinking about what might be different over there vs. here, and I came to the same conclusion you did - it must be HFCS. When I got home, I took a look through all of my cabinets, and purged everything with HFCS in it. This was an astounding process for me. I found that shit in everything from crackers to beans.

HFCS is now forbidden from my house. I read every label before buying anything at the store.

[Hippo_Tron]

27. It's all pretty much how we choose to protect our industry...

Corn is subsidized, sugar has tariffs placed on it. BTW our subsidies to Cargill hurt farmers in the third world.

As much as liberals rail against free trade, I think that a lot of them feel that it's time to get rid of these absurd agriculture subsidies.

[derby378]

29. At your precinct conventions, you know what to do...

Introduce resolutions calling for ceasing use of HFCS in soda, ketchup, and various other foodstuffs.