Word: sugar
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Maybe it was simply too good to be true. For proponents, biofuels - petroleum substitutes made from plant matter like corn or sugar cane - seemed to promise everything. Using biofuels rather than oil would reduce the greenhouse gases that accelerate global warming, because plants absorb carbon dioxide when they grow, balancing out the carbon released when burned in cars or trucks. Using homegrown biofuels would help the U.S. reduce its utter dependence on foreign oil, and provide needed income for rural farmers around the world. And unlike cars powered purely by electric batteries or hydrogen fuel cells - two alternate technologies that...
...being too simplistic, and failing to put biofuels in context. And it's true that the switch to biofuels can have benefits that go beyond climate change. Biofuels tend to produce less local pollution than fossil fuels, one reason why Brazil - which gets 30% of its automobile fuel from sugar-cane ethanol - has managed to reduce once stifling air pollution. In the U.S., switching to domestically produced biofuels helps cut dependence on foreign oil, and boosts income for farmers. But in all of these cases, the benefits now seem to pale next to the climate change deficits. Fargione points...
...potato, which is the world's most chemically dependent crop - the global cost of fungicides alone stands at over $2 billion a year. And although the potato may, as Reader puts it, be "the best-all round bundle of nutrition known," diet gurus regularly denounce it for raising blood sugar levels. Its record for lifting people out of poverty is patchy at best. "It is very good at feeding hungry people, but not so good at improving their economic status," is Reader's stark conclusion. As in Spain's Golden Age, so too today: the potato's legacy...
...disrupting the sweetness and calorie link - the animal tends to eat more and gain more weight, the new study shows. The study was even able to document at the physiological level that animals given artificial sweeteners responded differently to their food than those eating high-calorie sweetened foods. The sugar-fed rats, for example, showed the expected uptick in core body temperature at mealtime, corresponding to their anticipation of a bolus of calories that they would need to start burning off - a sort of metabolic revving of the energy engines. The saccharin-fed animals, on the other hand, showed...
...does that mean you should ditch the artificial sweeteners and welcome sugar back into your life? Not exactly. Excess sugar in the diet can lead to diabetes and heart disease, even independent of its effect on weight. But it's worth remembering that when it comes to counting calories, it's not just the ones you eat that you have to worry about. The calories you give up matter too, and they may very well reappear in that extra helping of pasta or dessert that your body demands. Your body may actually be keeping better count than...