Fruit is good for you. Sugar is bad for you. Isn’t this a contraddiction? Of course when we talk about sugar, we mean added sugar, but in the end sugar is still sugar. Then why fruit is considered healthy while sugar alone is not? Just because the fruit has vitamins, fibers and water? But that would imply that it’s not actually sugar the problem, but the way you add it to your body (without the other nutrients, basically).
So natural sugars in whole foods have shown to have a significantly lower impact on our blood sugar levels. So much so that they don’t even provide a general recommended limit to it.
I believe this is because our bodies take time breaking down the whole foods which slowly releases the nutrients into our bodies. Whereas with pure sugar, you’re missing that metabolic buffer.
So many people trying to justify their bad habits here. Getting so philosophical with it too lmfao.
“What if.. nothing is actually bad!”
Fruit is good for you because it has lots of micronutrients as well as polyphenols. Many fruits are powerful antioxidants. They also contain fiber.
The sugar in poptarts is the same sugar as in apples, but in fruit, the sugar absorption is slowed by the fiber content.
It is hard, but possible to overdo fruit as well. Not likely to happen if you are reasonable about it.
Sugar in the absence of fiber is very quickly absorbed and spikes blood sugar. Doing this repeatedly over long periods of time leads to insulin resistance, which causes a range of metabolic illnesses.
Sugar is also bad for the gut microbiome. It promotes some harmful microbes that may multiply and displace other helpful ones.
Most people in this thread are talking completely out of their ass. Go on Pubmed and read some studies for yourself about the effect of sugar on inflammation and metabolic health.
First of all, yes. It’s not actually the sugar that’s the problem.
As we don’t usually ingest individual nutrients by themselves, we can’t evaluate them isolated. So, talking about sugar being “bad” or “good” makes no sense.
Usually, when talking about “bad” sugar people refer to added sugar in some kind of processed or ultra processed food, which have a negative impact on health when consumed regularly. In this context, the food also tends to have a high concentration of sugar and higher caloric density (calories/gram of food).
So, when you eat fruit you get: around 10% sugar (let’s say 5-20%, mainly fructose), inside a cell (takes time to degrade and absorb), paired with fiber, vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients (like antocyanins), and water. All this complexity also helps you feel full.
When you eat fruit loops you get 40% sugar (sucrose), 55% starch (which will eventually turn into glucose to be absorbed), added vitamins and minerals. This leads to a spike in blood sugar, massive insulin release, and no satiety.
The problem with sugar occurs when your diet consists of high amounts of added sugar (simple sugars). For example, if you eat a lot of processed food you probably lack fiber and essential micronutrients, things that characterize this food category. Also, processed and high in simple sugars food are easier to overeat and cause less satiety which eventually may lead to weight gain (which is why sugar is being blamed for most of the time). So, is sugar harmful? Yes if it makes you consume inadequate amounts of other nutrients and lead to weight gain due to excessive calorie consumption, and no if you consume it in moderate and controlled amounts (and as a part of a balanced diet) which eventually will help lots of people adhere to their diet.
Micronutrients, vitamins, polyphenols and fiber which slows the absorption of the sugars and consequential blood sugar increase.
Besides sugar itself is not bad necessarily it just easy to over consume.
As long as you stay within your daily required calorie intake and are getting all your macro and micro nutrients you can eat a cookie every day for the rest of your life, and still be healthy happy and fit
Also in some circles such as carnivore, keto and other low carb diet philosophies they do say often fruit is bad
Fibre and quantity. When you eat an actual apple, the fiber in the apple slows down the release of the sugar, so your system doesn’t get hit too fast and your insulin doesn’t spike. When you drink apple juice or pop or any other kind of sugary drink, there is no fiber so it hits your system all at once and your insulin levels rise.
Everything in moderation. You need water to survive. But drinking 20 liters in one sitting will kill you.
Some stuff is more quickly bad for you and one of them is sugar. A little bit of sugar is okay and necessary. But go overboard and you’ll experience the negative effects of too much sugar.
This applies to everything.
Fruit contains less sugar and more vitamins than a cookie.
Your brain needs glucose to function and your body for energy. I think it’s the way sugar is extracted, processed and whitening process which makes it bad. Causes health problems and collagen degradation. Also, having some fruit is different than sugar that’s added to everything these days. Ketchup, breads, etc.
sugar is absolutely necessary and good for you. added sugar can be harmful.
fruits contain a wide variety of nutrition, vitamins, fiber and sugar. but if you only ate fruit (or ate an overabundance of it) you would be missing out on a lot of proteins.
no food is inherently bad. any specific food can be bad if not consumed with a balanced diet.
I think this is a good question. My view is that many fruits have low calorie density because of fiber and water, and navigating the pits and rinds of fruits prolongs eating time. Both of these properties can help you eat less overall.
The problem with added sugar is that it just adds calories for no good reason much of the time.
Anything that spikes insulin causes inflammation, key to eating whatever u want and being healthy is don’t spike insulin multiple times a day. If you eat fruit 5 separate times a day you can develop insulin resistance easily. The best way to approach this problem is eat all your high insulin food at one time and eat low carb low protein if you wish to eat again in the day.
Only the millionth time this question is asked.
Answer - fruit doesn’t only have sugar. It has a lot else with it like fiber that makes it so everything is processed differently and the sugar in it is metabolized differently so it’s very healthy.
Added to that you get many other micronutrients and antioxidants etc.
Fruit is a natural sugar the body needs. Other sugars are chemically processed. The human body breaks down natural fruits bcuz fruit is made up of what the body is made up of. Chemicals in sugar can not be broken down bcuz they’re not made up of what the body is made up of…. And when that happens those chemicals turn into cancers or migraines or low energy but mostly it’s turned into a cancer or some kinda ailment over time.
Sugars are not all the same. Fruits generally have glucose instead of sucrose, which is table sugar. Then there’s fructose which is a common sweetener. The human body can digest glucose far more easily than sucrose or fructose, and doesn’t turn it into fat as easily. There are also other health benefits to fruits, as you noted, such as vitamins, nutrients, and fibers that help counteract some of the problems with glucose.
It mostly boils down to what our bodies are built to digest. We’re made to digest glucose and natural sugars, but not to eat the unnatural sugars we create, which is why they’re not as good for you.
I guess it depends on how processed it is. Sugar is processed from Sugar Cain I think the brown sugar is better than white since it’s not as processed so sugar in fruit is better since it comes straight from the fruit if eaten fresh without being processed? 🤷♀️….
Fruit is not good for you. Only seasonal fruit is okay to eat in moderation. Globalization hurt peoples diet because now we have access to fruits that were only available once a year now available all year round
In part, it is in error; we include the word with vegetables because of similarities, and an unwillingness to throw them out entirely, but for the most part you shouldn’t eat things that you think of as “fruit” as staple foods. The darker berries are probably worth it, if you an afford them.
The structure of food really does matter though; fruit has a particular organization to it’s ‘cellular matrix’ that we evolved around… it matters for a lot of reasons.
The previous answers at the beginning are very good and I like them. But what if I answer this question in this way?? If you stop considering the amount of sugar used, sugar goes through the machine, and other chemicals are added to bring appeal to consumers, and pleasure, for the sake of handling and freezing. I think that is the problem. Because, if the fruits are safe, sugarcane is also safe, the problem is All you have to do is take the sugar cane and put it in the machine so that the sugar comes out, that’s where the problems begin. You see! The small grains of steel that erode due to friction, from the sugar machine is harmful. This makes sense because: I have witnessed many people suffering from scalp rashes after shaving their hair using a new machine, why?? This is because new hair shaving machines, when they are new, have very small metal grains that are dangerous if they touch a person’s body.
also new razors, they are the same, if you shave using them and they come into contact with the body, there is a risk of being within the estimation of getting rashes. Now think, if the head and other parts are affected, the stomach (inside the body)???
I don’t know, I’m just asking, are my thoughts wrong??
I want to learn more.