Comment by maxxxxx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by maxxxxx | Hacker News Reader

It's mind boggling how much sugar is in everything. Just looked at my girlfriend's Starbucks Chai tea container. 100g sugar! She would be better off drinking a bottle of Coke. And Starbucks are supposed to be good guys .

On a related note: how do they get that much sugar into these drinks? If I made a liter of Chai tea and poured 100g sugar into it I don't think it would be drinkable.

Why is starbucks supposed to be good? Isn't this the company that makes the double pump vanilla frappe, and almost certainly started a viral instagram marketing campaign targeting teenagers with their rainbow unicorn drinks? They're in the business of selling addictive fast food just as much as all the other players.

> It's mind boggling how much sugar is in everything

I remember traveling to Western Europe a couple of years ago (I live further East) and trying to buy plain yogurt from a supermarket, I mean yogurt which should have tasted as close as possible to the one my peasant grandma used to make. It was close to impossible to find such a product, as even the yogurt labeled as "plain" had a sweetish taste, you could definitely tell that they had put sugar in it. I imagine that in the US the state of affairs regarding sugary foods is even worse.

Can’t be Germany, natural yoghurt is commonly available here. And yes, US makes it very difficult to buy healthy food.

Glad to hear, that's a plus for me for German foods then. It was actually the French-speaking part of Switzerland, the Coop stores (which is strange because otherwise they sell great cheese). What's even worse is that after two or three days I was getting accustomed to that sweetish yogurt and I was starting to think that that was its natural taste.

I'm sure you can get natural yoghurt from Coop. Maybe they just use a different culture from what you are used to.

Like I said, after a couple of days even to me it started tasting “normal”, but at first it certainly tasted more sweet compared to what I can usually purchase in my country. Different to what I was accustomed, yes, but also more sweet. For comparison I never had the same issue while buying yogurts from Greece or ayran from Turkey. They also tasted different to what I was accustomed but not sweeter.

its Amazing how much less sugar common foods in Germany have than the USA. It took us a bit to adjust but when we got back all the bakery sweets here tasted disgusting. Wish we could change the culture here to be closer to European in that aspect.

When I was about 10 years old my parents took my siblings and me on a 5 week vacation to the US (I'm from Europe). It was a lot of fun, but I distinctly remember that it was impossible for me to eat the bread that we would buy at the supermarket because it was just too sweet. And this was not because my parents just bought some bread but they actually tried to find some "normal" tasting bread and it was not possible.

But for pudding the problem was kind of the reverse: It was hard to find normal tasting pudding because instead of sugar and fat there were artificial sweeteners in everything.

I used to eat rye bread because it was heartier than white or 'wheat' bread. Because unlike modern wheat rye still had historical ratio's of carbs to protein.

Now it's just rye flavored white bread.

And all the healthy hippie dippie bread have buttloads of hidden sugars in it.

So now I mostly avoid bread.

You can always bake your own bread. Takes only about 10 real minutes of your time (plus 2 hours proofing and 30 minutes baking), you know exactly what's in it, and it's certainly cheaper (you just need flour, water, salt, yeast, and optionally a little bit of olive oil).

>"its Amazing how much less sugar common foods in Germany have than the USA"

This news article from 2015 states that Germany is second to the US in sugar consumption. The data comes from market research company Euromonitor:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/02/05/where...

A more recent published report (some of which uses 2008 data) looks at the consumption of "ultra-processed" foods in Europe. "Ultra-processed" refers to food made in a factory with industrial ingredients and additives invented by food technologists.

Which countries in Europe consume "ultra-processed" food more than any other? The top three are: UK, Ireland and Germany:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/02/ultra-proces...

I just purchased an Instant Pot recently and it advertised yogurt making.

I didn't try it because I'm indifferent on yogurt here. Now that you've told me that homemade yogurt is significantly different, I might have to give it a try...

Very easy to find plain yogurt in the US without sugar.

A bit harder if you don't want it to contain gelatin or pectin.

Of course, varies from state to state.

Search for Nancy's yogurt in your area. Easily available in the Western US in any grocery store. In the Midwest I found it only in health food stores.

No, I buy plain unsweetened yogurt in the US several times month without a problem.

I can only find it in huge containers. Sugary yogurt gets sold in small ones but unsweetened only in large ones.

Starbucks are supposed to be good guys? I thought they were pretty well known as the shop that produces sugary milkshakes with caffeine in them.

I never go there so I don't know their products. But I always had the impression that they are riding on a reputation of being a 'responsible' business compared to for example Coca-Cola. But based on the nutrition label of the Chai I guess Starbucks is really just another sugar water manufacturer.

Hmm. I don’t know what their marketing is like in the US, but it’s certainly nothing close to responsible/healthy where I am. Their thing has always been trying to be the social space of choice for young adults here - i.e. if you want to hang out with friends or kill time you go to Starbucks.

I always thought of Starbucks as the store for people who want to drink coffee but don't actually like coffee

I would say they're better than most companies, but I wouldn't put then into the "good guys" category--at least not regarding nutrition anyway. Maybe I have too high of a bar regarding who I consider to be in the "good guys" category though.

Lots of people don't realize that 1 cup milk has 13g sugar from the lactose.

For comparison, a typical sugar packet is 2-4g.

(This is why cereal + milk is probably just about the unhealthiest thing possible to start your day).

It's a good idea to switch from the sugary/milky Starbucks drinks to anything else - like cold brew, or black coffee where you add trace amounts of sugar/cream yourself, if any.

Not sure I would recommend adult humans drink milk, but 13g is not really that much (depending on your choice of cereal) the USDA suggests males 19-30 could eat up to 82g/day (the WHO is a little more reasonable at 50g for all adults)[1]

1: http://www.foodpyramid.com/daily-sugar-intake/

The USDA is at least complicit in the diet this article criticizes.

I don't think lactose is nearly as bad because it doesn't go through the same liver digestion process that causes insulin resistance and fatty liver disease. Lactose is broken into glucose and galactose before it ever enters the bloodstream, and then galactose is digested in the liver but doesn't produce triglyceride byproducts as far as I can tell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactose#Metabolism

Starbucks has always been sugar with a side of coffee. That's its appeal.

> And Starbucks are supposed to be good guys

Do what now?

I always assumed after Austin Powers depicted Starbucks as the base of Dr Evil's empire that it was, in fact, at least slightly sketchy. I can't say I have any other sources to back that up though, except for what you just said.

Get this the American Heart Association which is noted for focusing on fat as the cause heart disease has a recommended daily allowance for sugar.

For women it's 25g/day.

Starbucks is a worst offender. You can buy black coffee, plain tea, and bananas, everything else they sell is terrible for you if you eat it regularly.

There's a reason I call Starbucks drinks "milkshakes" instead of "coffee" or "tea."

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