Hacker Cinema
That Sugar Film
2014 · Film · documentary · 97 min
Directed by Damon Gameau
One man's journey to discover the bitter truth about sugar. Damon Gameau embarks on a unique experiment to document the effects of a high sugar diet on a healthy body, consuming only foods that are commonly perceived as 'healthy'. Through this entertaining and informative journey, Damon highlights some of the issues that plague the sugar industry, and where sugar lurks on supermarket shelves.
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34 comments on Hacker News
This was an interesting film that talked about how fat was demonised in the 1960s(?) so food companies started taking it out as much as possible but replacing it with sugar to retain taste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Sugar_Film It certainly matches your experience.
Big +1 to Robert Lustig - I haven't read his books, but his conference talks are excellent. It looks like one of the older ones might have been taken lost to the Internet Gods, but the linked one is great, and there are plenty of others.
An older pop science take "That Sugar Film" [1] also provides some interesting perspectives, and a more day-in-the-life practical example of what we're putting into our bodies.
Several years on and I'm still struggling to take a lot of these messages to heart, even though I know so much of what I eat is bad for me and hurting my metabolism.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3892434/
we honestly just don't know. We believe genetically modified crops are as safe and our current understanding of food science suggests that is likely true. There are huge swaths of people who are changing up the food they eat and reflecting on how they feel that is not captured in any way that is accepted by modern food science. Not even calories in / out is well understood because your body changes how it takes in, processes, and uses the calories it gets. It is a dynamic system. I have personally weighed and measured my food for extended periods and I lost weight eating more calories while maintaining the same exercise routine. In "That Sugar Film," the filmmaker keeps the calories the same but changes the source to more sugar and they got a fatty liver and extra belly fat. If you watch "my 600lb life", some people gain weight because they reduce their calorie intake too much and their body goes into a "starvation mode" and starts capturing calories as additional fat.
The type of food you put in matters and we don't have a good grasp on all the ways our bodies handle it. What we do know is that we are eating things now that historically we have not and that alone is a good reason to be suspect of it.
Here is how I lost about 100 pounds of fat in a year, while putting on muscle and kept it off. There is no shortcut. You can loose about 2 lbs of fat per week if you follow the instructions below. Increasing weight loss beyond that is counter productive due to muscle loss.
Recommend following these steps in order. The biggest issue people face with weight loss is education. While this sounds simple, the amount of misinformation out there is extreme.
1.) Watch “that sugar film” << Available on prime. Think hard about what you learned. This is the truth about weight gain and loss. There are other documentaries like it, but I personally like this one.
2.) Read “eating clean” and follow the recommendations OR hire a good nutritionist, preferably one that bodybuilders use. Bodybuilders have mastered weight loss and a nutritionist targeting bodybuilders is probably competent.
3.) Exercise daily using a combination of resistance training and cardio. Start with reasonable intensity level. Hire a personal trainer or train with an experienced friend if you have not done resistance training before. Hire a personal trainer who trains bodybuilders using conventional methods. You don’t need to train like a bodybuilder, but these personal trainers are actual experts and not frauds. This advice applies to both men and women. They can help you get the most out of exercise without getting hurt.
4.) Don’t consume alcohol or consume very little as rarely as possible. Alcohol consumption can interrupt sleep and stunt human growth hormone, which slows down weight loss. Impact can last for several days and also causes a loss of motivation for some individuals.
5.) Drink at least a gallon of water per day.
6.) Stop eating 3 hours prior to bedtime to sleep better and increase HGH production.
7.) Eat small meals more frequently, like 5-6 times per day. I would recommend logging all food intake along with calories consumed / time of day each meal was consumed.
You might experience withdrawal like symptoms for at least a few days if you have been consuming enough high glycemic index foods on the daily. After withdrawal ends you can loose weight while never being hungry. Hunger caused by high glycemic index / sugar crash is a vicious cycle. If you want to know more, watch “that sugar film”.
Also, keep in mind that diets, which is IMO anything not like “eating clean” are just scams that tend to cause metabolic syndrome. Your body ends up consuming muscle to get the protein it needs on many of them. This lowers your BMR. To fix years of damage done from scam diets, resistance training is the solution.
This is the honest truth in a world full of misinformation. I hope this helps make the world a slightly better place!
Because this has come up twice in the last few days, here's a quaint introduction to the different kinds of sugar (glucose, lactose, sucrose and fructose) from a movie called "That Sugar Film".
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=344221859759175 (Apologies for the FB Video link, the exact excerpt isn't on Youtube).
tl;dr:
- Glucose good in reasonable intake
- Same for lactose (unless you're intolerant)
- Sucrose (i.e. table sugar) is 50% Glucose and Fructose
- Frutose is bad.
Longer version: Fructose is naturally quite rare, and presumably we've adapted to that; our bodies can only process small quantities effectively. It's also the sweetest and (implied?) most addictive of the sugars. These days we can manufacture it though, so it turns up in just about every sweet processed food it can.
EDIT: After watching the lecture linked by sul_tasto below (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29849184) it seems it's just a question of fructose quantity and prevalence rather than the body processing it differently from other sugars.
While I do agree strongly with your points, I want to call out that it's definitely not impossible to avoid a sugary diet.
After watching "That Sugar Film" a few months ago I realised that all I really had to do was ignore 90% of the supermarket shelves.
Going shopping with that intent is a great way to discover just how deep your sugar addiction runs.
You are currently downvoted but I think there is something to homeostasis.
My favorite counter point to calories in/out crowd is that the body is a dynamic system. The calories out portion doesn't stay constant. I have lost weight while eating more because my base metabolism increased. In "That Sugar Film," the guy eats the same amount of calories and same activity level but starts to include "daily recommended sugar" and increased his weight. The body is a dynamic system and will change how it stores and processes energy. Yes, you can't violate thermodynamics and eating a calorie deficit will cause weight loss (and possibly other issues), but the system tries to adapt.
This film called “That Sugar Film” changed my life. I lost 15kg, kept it off (4 years now) and regained stability of thought, mood and energy.
That Sugar Film
https://youtube.com/watch?v=6uaWekLrilY
> One way of promoting personal responsibility is to make people aware of a problem.
Totally agree. Movies like these or like "That Sugar Film" are extremely important.
> That being said, I believe that social responsibility also has to play a role. If companies were simply interested in making a product appealing, they would look at how well it is received. When companies start employing psychology, there is a strong possibility that they are doing so to override people's judgment (thus their ability to take personal responsibility).
They are going to inevitably do that, and that's what we should expect them to do. I don't think there are any solutions to that except building some new services / protocols.
I didn't know anything about the film so I looked it up.
Spoiler: the summary given in this comment is not accurate and the film spouts a bunch of quackery.
He didn't eat he "recommend healthy amount of sugar," that would be no more than less than the equivalent amount in a can of soda.
He didn't get liver disease.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2015/08/that_sugar_film_science_debunking_links_to_mood_health_fatty_liver_disease.html
> what I'm usually missing in those is the actual difference in calorie intake...
Check out "That Sugar Film," it was on Amazon Prime when I saw it. Highly recommend.
In it, he goes from a zero-sugar diet to a "recommend healthy amount of sugar" (and from "healthy" sources — he is not eating candy) while maintaining the same calorie count and exercise routine.
Spoiler: he gains weight and inches and develops a fatty liver.
Watch: "That Sugar Film", "Sugar Coated", "Fed Up".
Some great documentaries about this:
- That Sugar Film
- Fed Up (on netflix)
- Sugar Coated (on netflix)
'That Sugar Film' is incredibly dishonest.
The guy claims he gained about 15kg over a one month period by substituting sugary foods into his diet while keeping his caloric intake the same. That's a massive claim which you'd expect to be backed up by pretty rigorous testing, yeah? Not even close. He doesn't even count his calories.
The whole time I was watching I was waiting to see the numbers. Spoiler alert: there aren't any. Halfway through the 'experiment' he states that he's never counted calories before, proceeds to do it just once, and then claims that his intake appears to be the same as it was before. To embark on a project like this and only measure your caloric intake once throughout the entire thing is incredibly disingenuous behaviour.
That Sugar Film is good and fun.
There's 2 good documentaries I remember about the subject (though there's likely many more): That Sugar Film [1] and Fed Up [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Sugar_Film
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fed_Up_(film)
The documentary 'Fed Up' convinced me that a sugar calorie is worse than another type of calorie, and that sugar is really the cause of the obesity epidemic. There's also 'That Sugar Film' which makes many of the same points.
Fed Up Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCUbvOwwfWM
That Sugar Film talks about the effect on Aborigines
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_tmNHs7gIc
"That Sugar Film" is interesting, and worth a watch. The stuff about dental health in poor parts of America is gruesome.
He's pushing his agenda pretty hard. It's good that it's an obvious bias, but it makes the film a bit exhausting to watch. The "sugar is pure evil" line is relentlessly pushed through the film. That's a shame, because he has some really good points, especially around foods perceived as healthy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_Sugar_Film
There have been several documentaries about this issue in the past few years:
- Sugar Coated (2015) - That Sugar Film (2014) - Fed Up (2014)
Some of the authorities who are found in these movies are:
Robert Lustig - Professor and pediatric endocrinologist at UCSF who speaks out against added dietary sugar. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
Gary Taubes - journalist and author of Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease and Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It
Yoni Freedhoff - Medical doctor from Ottawa, Canada who criticizes the food industry's use of sugar. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BdFkK-HufU
It seems like a case is building, much like the case against the tobacco industry. Maybe there will be class-action lawsuits against soft drink and processed food companies based on recent suppression of potentially life-saving research.
I can't agree that "That Sugar Film" is the best documentary outlining the subject. It's overly dramatic! The lead actor is obviously rich (a house around which he can go for a jog, a personal gym... all that). Most people don't have such environments and choices. His way of experimenting can also be easily challenged.
Whenever the sugar subject is brought up I can't help but recommend watching That Sugar Film.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uaWekLrilY
I watched this documentary titled "That sugar film" [1] a year or so ago. It was quite an eye opener. Although I knew processed foods had a lot of sugar (like we expect sodas and colas to have), what was shocking was the amount of sugar added even in foods where you would never think of sugar as an ingredient. Of course, this varies across different geographies and cultures, but if people consuming processed foods spend some time reading the ingredients in whatever they buy and learn more about them and the proportions, it could help in bringing some changes (I realize this is a rather simplified view). We also need more education and awareness to be spread around to effect a change in people's habits.
[1]: http://thatsugarfilm.com/
see also the really well done movie "That Sugar Film" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3892434/) where exactly this connection is laid out in the first part.
A friend watched "That Sugar Film" and it had a profound effect - I'm told that it's very difficult to avoid sugar these days in processed food (especially in fat-free products). I was blown away to learn that even low fat milk from the supermarket contains sugar.
I have switched to an lchf based diet, and I have seen some tremendous health benefits such as lower weight, better mood and higher overall energy.
I saw a movie recently called That Sugar Film that explores this kind of eating. One of the key takeaways is it actually important where the calories come from and not just the amount.
http://thatsugarfilm.com/film/synopsis/
I would recommend a couple of documentaries in this context about sugar.
1. The Botany of Desire [1]
See the part about selective breeding of apples that are sweet, where varieties with other tastes are either discarded or used for making apple cider vinegar.
2. That Sugar Film [2]
This goes into detail on the amount of sugar (or high fructose corn syrup) added to all kinds of foods that people would consider as normal and "healthy". It's really shocking how invisible such things are to consumers.
[1]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1421383/
[2]: http://thatsugarfilm.com/
Do you have link to evidence to backup that claim?
In my view sugar has been used more and more as an extra ingredient in other foods. Additionally, there are different kinds of sugar, which may influence your statistic: http://thatsugarfilm.com/blog/2015/03/16/added-sugar-vs-natural-sugar/
I thoroughly recommend watching That Sugar Film.
I highly recommend to watch the documentary 'That Sugar Film'. It explains this in perfect detail and more aspects of sugar intake and the sugar industry.
Maybe this comes now with new documentaries about sugar in the movies, where they argue that sugar is an even stronger, more addictive and more dangerous drug than cocaine. And the US food industries using and suppressing this knowledge.
* "That Sugar Film" http://thatsugarfilm.com/
* "The Truth About Sugar" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1cCXH-XGhI
* "The Secrets of Sugar" http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/secrets-sugar/
I recommend watching That Sugar Film[0], It addresses this in part because as it turns out fat calories != sugar calories.
0.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3892434/
It's possible you are simply taking sugars from foods perceived as "healthy".
Check "That Sugar Film": http://thatsugarfilm.com/
A Beautiful Mind.
And quite recently, That Sugar Film!
Read more about the "science" in the Sugar movie and you may not be so quick to cite it:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2015/08/that_sugar_film_science_debunking_links_to_mood_health_fatty_liver_disease.html