#AddedSugar #Health #Nutrition
Have you ever wondered why added sugar is considered so detrimental to our health while regular sugar seems to be more accepted? 🍭 Let’s delve into the world of sugars and discover the difference between added sugar and natural sugar.
## The Downside of Added Sugar 🚫
Added sugar refers to sugars and syrups that are added to foods during preparation or processing. These can be found in various forms such as sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup, and honey. 🍬 The major issue with added sugar is that it provides empty calories without any significant nutritional benefits. When consumed in excess, added sugar has been linked to numerous health problems, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and tooth decay. 😨
### Sugar vs. Added Sugar 🍯
Sugar found naturally in foods like fruits and dairy products comes with a package of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other nutrients that are beneficial to our bodies. For example, most fruits have around 10-20g of sugar per cup of fruit. How is this sugar any different than if I were to eat a granola bar with 10g of added sugar? Or have a drink with added sugar? 🤔 The USDA recommends limiting added sugar consumption but says nothing about limiting regular sugar consumption. Is added sugar chemically any different from sugar found in natural foods?
### The Chemical Difference 🧪
Chemically, sugar is sugar. The key difference lies in how the sugar is consumed. When you eat an apple, the natural sugar it contains is accompanied by fiber, which slows down its absorption into the bloodstream. On the other hand, when you consume a candy bar or soda with added sugar, the sugar is quickly absorbed, causing spikes in blood sugar levels and potentially leading to various health issues.
## Conclusion 🌟
In conclusion, added sugar should be consumed in moderation due to its negative impact on health. Opt for foods that naturally contain sugar along with other essential nutrients to fuel your body effectively. By making informed choices about your sugar consumption, you can improve your overall health and well-being. 🍎🥤
Next time you reach for that sugary treat, think about the difference between added sugar and natural sugar, and the impact it can have on your health in the long run. Make wise choices for a healthier future! 💪
Because added sugars typically lack the additional vitamins, minerals, and fiber that whole fruits do, they are empty calories that raise blood sugar levels and trigger a surge in blood sugar that can lead to type II diabetes. They also make you feel hungry for hours afterward, which may lead to overindulgence. When energy dense, high-glycemic index foods give off their initial rush of endorphins, this might result in obesity and a lack of contentment. Your body need the previously stated nutrients as well, and you run the risk of developing deficiencies if you replace foods high in those nutrients with low-nutrient options, like added sugars.
>Is added sugar chemically any different from sugar found in natural foods?
Yes but not enough to actually make that much of a difference
>most fruits have around 10-20g of sugar per cup of fruit. How is this sugar any different than if I were to eat a granola bar with 10g of added sugar?
Try compare the amount of food in a granola bar with 10 grams of sugar versus a portion of food with 10 grams of sugar. The portion differences are very large. People that eat added sugar products are not consuming nearly the same amount of sugar as people who eat fruits.
Example: 1 can of soda contains about 39 grams of sugar. To get that much sugar from strawberries you’d need to eat 800 grams(about 1.3 pounds) of strawberries.
And lastly, fruit has vitamins and fiber. Vitamins keeps your healthy, and fiber keeps you full which stops you from over consuming fruits, along with the other benefits fiber has on your digestion.
edit: Also one more benefit from the fiber in fruit is that it slows down your bodys absorption of sugar, this reduces the blood sugar spikes that are bad for people with diabetes/prediabetes, and even for healthy indiviuals such spikes can cause uncomfortable side effects
What you’re seeing is a compromise that was reached on labeling between the FDA and the fruit industry.
There is a general consensus that more sugar = more bad, regardless of its source. The FDA wanted to highlight how much sugar food contained on the nutrition labels. Fruits in general, and fruit juice in particular, would have looked bad with a nutrition label that overly highlighted how much sugar was in something.
The compromise that the FDA reached was to allow products to list how much sugar they naturally contain and how much sugar has been added.
Drinking 24 ounces of apple juice gets you about the same amount of sugar as drinking 12 ounces of a refreshing, ice cold Coca-Cola®. There is no meaningful difference between drinking those two things from a health perspective. Obviously, if you’re limiting yourself to a single, 12 ounce drink, the apple juice contains half the sugar and would therefore be better for you.
But ya, 1 gram of sugar = 1 gram of sugar from a health perspective, regardless of where you get it from.
It pretty much depends on your diet and lifestyle. In most cases (US especially) the typical diet is too high in sugars/carbs. Biologically, we’re sort of “programmed” to like sugar because it is the major source of energy. Because of this food manufacturers add more sugar to make food more tasty and this makes it very easy to overconsume sugar. It is also possible to overconsume “natural” sugars so the idea of “good vs bad” sugar is incorrect. It is the total sugar consumption that matters.
It’s the dose which makes the poison. Added sugar ISN’T any worse for you than naturally occurring amounts. The problem is that sugar is added to so many things in such excessive amounts. That’s the issue.
You can have the same issue with other things that naturally concentrate sugar too. For example, there might be 10g of sugar in apple. If I were to tell you go eat almost 5 apples, there’s probably no way you’d be able to do that comfortably. If I were to pour you 12 ounces of apple juice you probably wouldn’t have an issue drinking that. Those both have the same amount of sugar.
And if that wasn’t enough, most “juices” have added sugar in amounts that’s not uncommon to see juice with more sugar per cup than soda
Fruit have fiber which slows the absorption of sugar resulting in a lower sugar spike.
>Is added sugar chemically any different from sugar found in natural foods?
No it’s identical, added sugar literally comes from beets or sugar cane or corn. It’s not made in the lab.
They are both bad for you in excess. A lot of “natural” sugars in food have increased in the last few hundred years. These days a banana has the equivalent of several tablespoons of sugar.
https://www.npr.org/2018/10/07/655345630/how-fruit-became-so-sugary
Carbs, added sugar and alcohol has nothing to slow down the glucose spikes and absorption. It’s also often overloading the liver / intestine to the point it can’t cope.
In nature we have fruit (glucose/fructose) which is paired with fibre and water. This is why fruit is ok to eat. The fibre / water slows down spikes and absorption. It’s also nutrient dense which boosts metabolism.
We also have fat and protein found in nature and fibre (an indigestible carb, digested by the gut microbiome).
Ultra processed foods are pure carbs, often lacking any fat or protein. Glucose spikes, which causes fat storage and insulin releases blocking fat burn. They also lack nutrients, slowing metabolism.
This is why it’s good to pair veggies, proteins, fats with carbs – to lessen their impact.
Added sugars aren’t necessarily worse for you than natural sugars. Sugar is sugar. The difference is that products with added sugars usually have a LOT of sugar, without a lot of other nutrients. Natural sources of sugar (e.g. fruit) usually have fiber and vitamins to make the food more balanced, and you’re not as likely to eat as much of it. So you’ll end up eating less sugar if you’re opting for those less processed foods.
I’m not an expert, but my doctor explained it to me as having something to do with the fiber content of fruit. Not that the sugar wasn’t still sugar, mind you, but that the fiber (which is very good for you and slows down digestion) was more than worth it as long as I wasn’t just horking a bucket full of super sweet strawberries in one go. She did also tell me to avoid fruit juices, because it was all the delicious sugar with none of the helpful fiber, haha.
I think it’s also just sheer quantity, as someone else commented. You get a lot more other good nutrients with fruit along with that sugar, compared to something like a soft drink or a cake. Not getting too much sugar is important, but potentially significantly more important is getting a healthy amount of fiber, vitamins, etc, that come with a balanced diet.
“Natural” sugars are also bad for us, and we should limit our sugar consumption regardless of source. However, things with added sugar are more sugar-dense than things that don’t have added sugar, so it’s easier to eat less and yet also overindulge with sugar.
It’s easier to regulate our natural sugar intake because of the bulk of food relative to the natural sugar content.
fresh fruits have fibers in them that prevent the sugar from being absorbed by the liver. Sugar is harmless in this form, and you can take as much fruit as you want without worrying about your sugar intake
however, sugar without these fibers (example: soda, fruit juice, any product with added sugar really) will be absorbed by the liver and can be harmful if you take too much
Sugar isn’t bad for you. Overindulging is. Sugar is just a carbohydrate like rice or pasta. It’s just easy to eat too much of it. Too much of any thing isn’t good for you. Moderation!
As someone with IBS sensitive to high amounts of sugar I sadly have to tell you that while there are some differences in general our body doesn’t much care where sugar comes from.
But a cup of coke you can down in one go or the multiple peaches you would need to eat to get the same amount of sugar means usually you just don’t consume as much sugar as fast with fruits 😉
When the sugar comes in the form of an unprocessed food (like the fructose in an apple, or the starch in a wheat grain) it is surrounded by fiber that slows your body’s absorption of the sugar…so you don’t get the same spike in blood sugar that you do from foods with added processed sugars (sugar, corn syrup, flour, starches, etc.) When you lose the natural fibrous part, you absorb the sugar more quickly, get a spike in blood sugar, which results in more body fat, and higher risks for heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.
Because it directly increases insulin production and resistance, the amount of fruit you need to consume and process to equal a bottle of coke would have you with a sore jaw.
Robert Lustig would like to have a word with you. [Sugar: The Bitter Truth.](https://youtu.be/dBnniua6-oM?si=zuybOODIQ8ANuzgO)
Think of sugar in fruit as being scattered among other parts of the fruit that your body has to break down to get to it. Think of it like the sugar being insulated by plant fiber.
I want to comment from a dental point of view.
Added sugars are usually simple sugars that are broken down easily by naturally existing oral bacterial flora. That influx of simple sugars drives more activity of these bacteria and increases the byproducts of this reaction (acidic byproducts). These byproducts cause damage to tooth surfaces and accelerates decay. It can also affect the bacterial balances in the oral cavity shifting it towards less healthy bacteria, making the whole situation worse.
I would assume a similar effect exists for gut flora.
Even ignoring all the healthful components of fruit (fibre, vitamins, antioxidants), it is less bad as a source of sugar due to its natural portion control. Fresh fruit contains fibre and water which fill you up meaning it’s pretty much impossible to eat too many fruits.
Even if you take relatively sugary tropical fruits like bananas they have about 12g of sugar. To get 50g of sugar you’d have to eat 4-5 bananas which is pretty hard to do as you’ll get full after the first couple. For non tropical fruits it’s even harder.
Meanwhile if you take milk chocolate, that’s got about 50g of sugar per 100g bar, which I could easily eat in one go (and have done several times in the past lol)
Plus, studies have shown that giving people more fruit is associated with reduced diabetic markers and reduced obesity, even though it does contain sugar. Which could be for many reasons, maybe getting full up from fruit makes you less inclined to eat junk food/snacks. Or maybe the fact that the sugar in fruit is packaged with fibre and water means it doesn’t contribute to diabetes like white sugar does.
It’s because natural sugars come with far more fibre and general volume, so it’s not possible to overeat the way you can gorge yourself on processed foods.
The sugars themselves aren’t that different (they are relatively simple compounds) it’s the absence of the other things that makes them ’empty calories’ in junk food.
Pretty much they are the same. Sugar in fruit is tied up in fibre. It is slower to digest and you can only eat so much fruit. Processed sugar can be consumed in much higher quantities and will spike in your blood much faster.
So a lot of people have covered a lot of things. The one interesting thing I was listening to. I think it was a podcast on NPR. They said that the biggest problem we have right now isn’t is the food we eat but the portionings of the food that we eat.
Prior to modern times, calories density was largely dependent on the amount of food you actually consumed. Nowadays that’s not true. Like a honey bun is 500ish calories. You can eat that honey bun in 5 seconds. Your body doesn’t understand that you’ve already consumed 500 calories, so it still feels hungry.
Before modern times it took time to chew food. It took time to consume food so that by the time you finished your meal and over the course of your meal, you would slowly begin to feel full.
That doesn’t really happen anymore. Drinking a soda is 1/8 of the calorie needs of an average human. But it’s not going to make you feel full until your body has time to process some of what it’s gotten.
This is one of the reasons why I add fiber to anything and everything that I eat. You end up reducing the amount of food you consume.
Sugar in fruit isn’t refined sugar, it’s natural sugar and fruit is organic, natural to the earth, much more natural than eating granola.
Sugar is good for you. Your body uses it to make energy. Your body knows sugar is good for it, so it makes sure your brain thinks sugar is good by making it tasty.
When you eat fruit, your brain is told by your body that this is good, you should eat as much as you can, since you might not have sugar again later.
There is a lot of sugar in fruit, compared to other foods. Because of that, we are drawn to fruit, knowing that we get that happy feeling when we taste the sugar. Fruit also has lots of nutrients, as are most tasty natural foods.
A long time ago, we figured out how to separate sugar from sugary food (in most cases, sugar cane). We started making a lot of sugar so it was easier to get it without having to collect and store fruit.
When people started making food with sugar, we started adding it to other things to make them tastier. We added a little bit, and it was great. After a while, we got used to having sugar in all our food, instead of just the fruit we only got once in a while. We got used to the taste of sugar, and became less sensitive to it.
So they started adding more. And more. And more. Every time we got used to how much sugar was in our food, they added more to make it special again.
Now, there is so much sugar in our food that it’s unhealthy. It’s too easy to get too much sugar, one of the most important nutrients our bodies need. The food is made to be as tasty as possible, without any of the other nutrients that we need. A few bites of food is like eating enough strawberries to make you feel full.
There’s too much sugar for your body to use, but your body hates throwing things away. It still treats all the sugar you get like it might not get it later, and could never throw away something so important for life. So, it stores it. It takes that sugar and bundles it up and stores it as fat. It will only use that fat if it has to.
Eventually, the sugar collection becomes a sugar hoarding problem. Your body never imagined it’d ever have so much extra sugar that there’d be this much fat stored. It isn’t prepared to throw it out. The fat starts piling up. It builds up around your organs and weighs you down so much that your body has to work much harder just to keep your heart beating.
If you had only eaten fruit, you’d never be able to eat enough to have health problems. You’d get nutrients as you went, and you’d fill up before it was too much sugar. Maybe if you only ate fruit, but even then your weight wouldn’t reach a dangerous level.
As long as we’re talking about this, how am I supposed to interpret the nutrition label on this
Like taking this as [an example](https://www.fda.gov/files/addedsugars_label_1_0.png) the total number of carbs is 27g, with 25 grams of sugar but 23 grams of it is added sugars that’s 46% of my daily value of carbs or is that 46% of my recommended intake of sugar?
Fruit contains fiber. Fiber makes you feel full so you eat less. Fiber slows down the sugar’s entry into your bloodstream.
Added sugar is fructose. Glucose is the sugar in fruits. Every cell in your body can process glucose. Fructose needs to be broken down by the liver. The liver can’t process the fructose sugar that fast so the sugar hangs around in your blood until it does.