To think that caffeine & sugar are drugs?

[dieselKiller]

The mood altering effects of caffeine & sugar are pretty obvious, I think, and both positive (more energy) & negative (anxiety, aggression). AIBU to think that we should be more explicit as a society that caffeine and sugar are mood-altering drugs?

Do you talk to your kids about the effects of caffeine and sugar so they’re not caught unawares by them?

I’m glad it’s being taught in schools and everyone you know is really familiar with the effects of caffeine, but you seem to be dismissing a large number of replies on this thread as “nobody” and ignoring my IRL experience, so I don’t think I can do much more to help you see what my issue is. If it’s important for you to understand, have a think about it I guess?

@foghead @ViaBlue Yes, we all know that ketosis is a thing and the keto diet is a thing. But it's a survival mode. It's not the ideal. Your body is designed to use sugar/ carbohydrate to produce energy.

The fact that your body has a survival mode in which you don't need to eat sugar to live is not a reason to teach children that sugar is a drug 😕

up until 1960s/70s and the advent of UPF, people regularly ate sugar in various eatables as part of their diet without gaining excessive weight.

It's not necessarily about sugar per se, but the other things it comes with, the marketing of such sugary products, the availability of them, the advertising of them, the packaging, the addictive UPF style ingredients they are combined with, the way the recipes are designed to be addictive, the emulsifiers, flavourings and so on plus the omnipresence of these products all around, the changes in our food culture. So many factors.

Absolutely agree. The number of people that I have seen develop orthorexia type disordered eating due to keto is madness.

Keto is not a diet for real life. Short term weight loss, maybe.

If you think sugar is a drug, what about salt , some think we consume a lot of ?

I think the point that @sixtyandsomething is making is that caffeine is not harmful to the extent that drugs such as cocaine, cannabis, nicotine, heroin etc are.

You don't need to teach children that caffeine is an evil drug that you need to stay away from it because it will harm you.

Things like coffee also have a lot of health benefits. Sugar is one of the joys of life - a slice of cake is a wonderful thing.

Just teach moderation and due care, same with sugar and chemical additives and all of these sorts of things.

If you instil the fear of god into children about relatively minor things like caffeine and sugar, they are going to end up with food issues and eating disorders.

It's about moderation in all things.

It's not fine though is it? - Because if you teach teenagers that sugar is a drug then you are teaching them something that isn't true 😕

Caffeine is a drug (a legal and relatively mild one, a stimulant). Sugar is not.

I’m not suggesting anything remotely related to “instilling the fear of god” or talking about “evil drugs”. If your response to the word “drugs” is “evil” and “fear”, that’s some powerful conditioning. That’s not related to what I’m saying though.

everyone is taught at school that caffeine is a drug (repeatedly) some people listen at school, some people don't. What do you want to change about it?

.

Christ on a bike, science education in this country is woeful.

Nonsense

There is no evidence that Sugar is addictive other than in scaremongering books that misquote research

If you are going to go down that bat shit road then you'll need to teach them that bread and potato are drugs too because they're all starches and molecularly dealt with the same way in the body.

Yes, sugar causes the release of opioids and dopamine in the brain and people get addicted to the feel good factor that brings not the sugar itself however, that is not the same way the brain reacts to drugs like cocaine.

White sugar is massively addictive.

I switched to decaff and didn't have any withdrawal symptoms.

So where is all the historical data of sugar addiction?

Good for you. Obviously you weren’t sensitive to it, I guess you missed that part.

caffeine withdrawal tends to wear off in a couple of days, it is quite manageable, not like withdrawal to hard drugs or alcohol, etc.

Yes, sometimes it can take longer, particularly if you’re sensitive (maybe I should keep adding a disclaimer). I never stated it was the same as hard drugs and alcohol, maybe you were thinking of another poster?

Clearly not as woeful as nutrition education, judging by some comments on here. Probably due to nutrition being mainly 'taught' by non-specialists, if it's taught at all.

I've once read that casein in cheese is 100x more addictive, than heroin. That might well be true, but printing warning labels on cheese would be step too far...

Every single thing we eat or drink will contain chemicals which have an effect on our bodies. Some people eat or drink too much of some things, and their bodies bear the brunt of it. That's their lookout.

It's not as if the information isn't out there. People need to take responsibility for their own actions, and what they feed their kids.

Sugar isn't 'bad'. What's bad for you is stuffing your face with foods that contain a lot of it. And kids shouldn't really be drinking stuff loaded with caffeine anyway.

You couldn't be more wrong on all of the above! Both are 💯 addictive.

I've given up both caffeine and refined sugar just recently and the difference to my general health, mood and weight has truly been an eye opener - as have caffeine withdrawals, which I didn't know were a thing... until I experienced them.

No it isnt

You started a thread with a title that was always going to be controversial, claiming that sugar should be seen as a drug.

Obviously, this is going to be interpreted as demonising sugar and implying that sugar is evil.

I'm not sure how else you wanted people to interpret your thread title, unless you only titled it that way to get clicks.

You then backtracked and then said you actually only wanted to talk about caffeine, which everyone knows is a drug - a very mild stimulant which is legal. So any debate about whether or not caffeine is a drug is a non-starter. We all know that it is.

Your actual point, whatever it is, is getting very jumbled here.