"Look, we're not encouraging over-consumption of sugar. It's just that we know that people will over-consume sugar, and we make food packed with sugar, and we market it to those people."
I'm sure they'd say something like that, but it is false. People were not eating gobs of sugar for breakfast until someone came up with sweetened breakfast cereal and marketed it.
I used to eat a lot of sweets when I was young. Not for breakfast, because that's not the customary here, but at all other times. I liked that stuff. As I grew older, I lost my taste for all that. I have seen this pattern in so many other people too. Kids like sweet stuff. As long as they are active and are in the normal weight range, I don't see any reason to discourage it either, except at night, after brushing teeth.
Hardly. Sugar has been made the scapegoat. Many things contribute to diabetes, sugar is but one among them. Meat has been shown to contribute significantly[0]. If you dig into it further, you'll see study after study blaming "normal" amounts of meat consumption as a factor for an increased risk of diabetes. And yet, few people want to give it any thought.
> Furthermore, total red meat intake was positively associated with total energy intake, intakes of all fatty acids, cholesterol, and protein but inversely associated with dietary carbohydrate, fiber, magnesium intakes, and glycemic load. Similar associations were observed for total meat and processed meat.
and also
> In the age- and energy-adjusted models, total red meat and processed meat were significantly associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes
This study does not go into refined carbs, but it does adjust for total energy. Don't focus on just this one paper. They this is just one of many such papers. The link between meat and diabetes is well established at this point.
> Red meat intake was not associated with CHD (n=4 studies; relative risk per 100-g serving per day=1.00; 95% confidence interval, 0.81 to 1.23; P for heterogeneity=0.36) or diabetes mellitus (n=5; relative risk=1.16; 95% confidence interval, 0.92 to 1.46; P=0.25). Conversely, processed meat intake was associated with 42% higher risk of CHD (n=5; relative risk per 50-g serving per day=1.42; 95% confidence interval, 1.07 to 1.89; P=0.04) and 19% higher risk of diabetes mellitus (n=7; relative risk=1.19; 95% confidence interval, 1.11 to 1.27; P<0.001). Associations were intermediate for total meat intake.
Note that "processed meat" means any method of extending shelf-life like smoking, curing, adding salt or preservatives, etc. but excludes freezing. None of the the meat-eaters I have known (including myself) really differentiate between processed and unprocessed meat when it comes to their diet.
Edit: All these studies blame just processed meat at the moment. But keep in mind that all we were discussing so far was diabetes. There are more than enough good reasons to avoid all animal-based food, including dairy. I will not go into that now. My intention was to show that sugar has been made the scapegoat for diabetes. There are plenty of other diseases that sugar does not contribute to, but meat does.
> These results remained significant after further adjustment for intakes of dietary fiber, magnesium, glycemic load, and total fat. Intakes of total cholesterol, animal protein, and heme iron were also significantly associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes.
