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piqer for: Global finds Health and Sanity Doing Good
Bangalore-based Rashmi Vasudeva's journalism has appeared in many Indian and international publications over the past decade. A features writer with over nine years of experience heading a health and fitness supplement in a mainstream Indian newspaper, her niche areas include health, wellness, fitness, food, nutrition and Indian classical Arts.
Her articles have appeared in various publications including Mint-Wall Street Journal, The Hindu, Deccan Herald (mainstream South Indian newspaper), Smart Life (Health magazine from the Malayala Manorama Group of publications), YourStory (India's media technology platform for entrepreneurs), Avantika (a noir arts and theatre magazine), ZDF (a German public broadcasting company) and others.
In 2006, she was awarded the British Print-Chevening scholarship to pursue a short-term course in new-age journalism at the University of Westminster, U.K. With a double Masters in Globalisation and Media Studies from Aarhus Universitet (Denmark), University of Amsterdam and Swansea University in Wales, U.K., she has also dabbled in academics, travel writing and socio-cultural studies. Mother to a frisky toddler, she hums 'wheels on the bus' while working and keeps a beady eye on the aforementioned toddler's antics.
Why Sugar (And Not Fats) Is Your Villain
A bitter conspiracy if you will – the kind that conspiracy theorists thrive on. Only this time, it is true. Worse, it has resulted in decades of what Gary Taubes terms the "science of things that aren't so".
The fat versus sugar debate is not new. But recent research and a release of historical documents have come together to indicate strongly that our collective understanding of the causes of 'lifestyle diseases' such as some kinds of heart disease, obesity and diabetes are somewhat flawed and, as Taubes puts it, "tragically so".
Newly released documents show that the sugar industry paid scientists in the 1960s to tone down the link between sugar and heart disease and urged them to label saturated fat as the villain. In this hard-hitting extract, Taubes argues it is this combination of misinformation and pathological science that has gotten generations to miss the real story.
This revelation has led to major changes in the FDA guidelines, which removed the upper limit on total fat intake. (This came right on the heels of cholesterol not being a 'nutrient of concern' any longer.) Essentially indicating that fats are much better for us than what they have been made out to be and added sugars are much worse.
This is a game changer that has, curiously enough, not received as much press as it should have. Taubes' extract begins with how this historic 'derailment' occurred, goes on to discuss how, even in 2015, obesity research was funded by Coca-Cola, and argues these two crucial points:
• Refined and added sugars are not just empty calories. They turn toxic over the years and cause specific physiological, metabolic and hormonal changes in the human body, leading directly to diabetes and obesity, never mind the amount of calories consumed.
• It is time for health agencies to shift the decades-old focus from 'eating too much and exercising too little' to these tiny crystals of toxin.
