I always read how sugar is the worst thing for you as it’s the only thing that is not needed for daily body function. Salt is needed, so is fat. But not sugar.
Most fruit has a good amount of dietary fiber, which helps regulate blood sugar and prevent spikes by slowing down the digestive process.
They are also generally high in vitamin C and various polyphenols.
Whole foods of all kinds have synergistic nutrient profiles. Fruit for example has a high level of soluble fibre, along with tons of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and plant compounds that can do everything from balance blood sugar to fight cancer.
There isn’t anything wrong with eating bioavailable carbohydrates like the fructose sugars found in fruit, whole food has a natural balance that your body knows how to process.
Vs candy with the same amount of sugar, there’s no real comparison.
> the only thing that is not needed for daily body function
Glucose is the main source of energy for the cells in our bodies, and as such is absolutely needed. The sugar in fresh and frozen fruits comes along with fiber, which largely offsets the additional sugar.
As with anything, too much is detrimental.
You do need a certain amount of sugar to function. The sugar from fruit is burned much slower by your body. It is attached to the fruit fibers, so you get more sustained energy from it. This is different from processed sugar, which your body burns through all at once.
Plus, one apple has like 20g sugar, whereas a 20oz Mountain Dew has 77g of sugar. It will take you a while to burn through that 20g, but you’ll burn the 77g much faster, leaving you feeling like crap afterwards.
There’s other stuff that I’m not very well versed on either. Here’s an article on how tamarind helps promote weight loss, despite being loaded with natural sugars. It’s very interesting.
https://draxe.com/nutrition/tamarind-fruit/
Most people have a single piece of fruit, which has some sugar, but also has the rest of plants huge variety of nutrients.
We absorb some of it quickly, and some more slowly, and some not at all.
Its all the nutrients, and the gradual absorption of different sources of energy that makes fruit safe.
Drink a sugar soda, all you get is sugar, and it’s all at once.
Sugar is neither good nor bad; too many calories is bad. It just so happens that it’s really easy to eat way too much sugar because it’s hyper palatable and very calorie dense.
Fruit is valuable because of polyphenols and flavonoids.
Unless you are eating fruit gummies, there isn’t the traditional “sugar” in fruit. Sugar has carbohydrates that break down into glucose in your blood. Sugar, aka white sugar, has less steps to break down into glucose so it causes spikes. It is processed food. A can of Coke has \~42g of carbohydrates IIRC and two bananas will have \~ 45g of carbohydrates. Why is the banana healthy? Because you get about 8 grams of fiber where as Coke gives you 0 fiber. Fiber is a form of sugar, but it is so complex that your body doesn’t absorb it as quickly.
My personal opinion is that sugar is portrayed too often as the villain and too many people take that at face value. Fats are seen as totally okay even though they have been shown to cause heart disease and contribute to cholesterol issues. I have yet to hear of anyone having a diet that consists of too many fruits and vegetables and scientific evidence supporting that fruit is dangerous.