Natural sugars found in fruit

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xnxnxn
xnxnxn Posts: 1 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi all

I’m very confused with the natural sugars found in fruit/veg. For years we’ve been led to believe that eating fruit is good for you and should be included in your daily diet. So far so good, yet as we know fruit contains natural sugar which really hits into your daily sugar limit. So the question is, do we reverse years of thinking that fruit is a good source of fibre etc and severely cut back in our daily allowance, or do we go with other thinking that purports natural sugars in fruit should not be taken into your daily calorie/sugar/nutrition analysis and that it's the dreaded added sugar/unrefined sugar that we really need to be concerned about? My thinking is that we need to be concerned about the fruit intake too.

Yesterday saw me in the ridiculous situation of wanting to include an apple in my daily diet to find it contained 28g of sugar (yes, a large apple!) and then had to automatically drop it from my intended meal. Likewise with bananas. I find I hardly eat those now too for the same reason so, on the one hand I’m being very good with my recording of fruit/food and losing weight but feel very concerned that I’m dropping my usual fruit intake which I thought was meant to be good for me and included in my daily allowance?

Any views would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
Lorraine
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Replies

  • Packerjohn
    Packerjohn Posts: 4,855 Member
    edited February 2017
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    Fruit is fine. The "hysterics" are about added sugars defined as follows:

    Added sugars are sugars and syrups that are added to foods or beverages when they are processed or prepared. This does not include naturally occurring sugars such as those in milk and fruits.

    The major food and beverage sources of added sugars for Americans are:


    regular soft drinks, energy drinks, and sports drinks
    candy
    cakes
    cookies
    pies and cobblers
    sweet rolls, pastries, and donuts
    fruit drinks, such as fruitades and fruit punch
    dairy desserts, such as ice cream

    https://www.choosemyplate.gov/what-are-added-sugars

    If you want to reduce sugar/calories, look at the items listed first as opposed to fruit.
  • kenyonhaff
    kenyonhaff Posts: 1,377 Member
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    OK, OK take a deeeep breath....

    On a fundamental level, your body does not care if a sugar comes from a peach or a chocolate bar. It all ends up being broken down into chemical components in digestion. Does this mean that you chuck all your produce and go load up on the candy aisle? Probrably not, because eating a peach has sugars, but also fiber, vitamins, minerals, and all sorts of goodies in it. It's very hard to overeat calorie wise on peaches, but very easy to do with candy--something that if you log calories becomes very apparent.

    Now, fruit *can* end up being an issue. There is sometimes an assumption that fruit-based things is automatically healthy...especially juices. But even 100% fruit juice packs a lot of calories and yes, sugar. Nothing wrong with a glass of OJ, but three in a day can be. (This is especially true for children. We inevitably give them juice breakfast lunch and dinner without much thought that juice is as calorie packed as Hawaiian Punch and sometimes more so.) I recently got an Odwalla juice for my husband who has to eat a liquid diet and it comes to 330 calories a serving, as much as a serving of some ice creams!

    As for macros on MFP they are good guidelines but they are just guidelines. I would not think twice about going over my sugar limit because I ate an orange. It's really the calories that matter and even then going over a little (or heck, even a lot) is not a big deal now and then. Unless you are a diabetic, closely monitoring sugar intake is not typically a big deal.
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
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    As with most things, sugar in and of itself isn't the issue. The problem is the balance of sugar with other things. Bananas, for example, are like this miracle food. They are packed with all kinds of stuff that is good for you and they come in their own little package. They are roughly 100 calories. If you are on a 1500 calorie diet, it would take 15 bananas to reach it, if all you ate was bananas. It is unlikely that you could reach your calorie goal for the day because the bulk of the banana would prevent it. The same goes for apples. The sugar, in this case, makes the fruit desirable to eat and it help provides energy for your body, but the other stuff in the fruit works toward keeping your diet in check. This is very different from what you have when you are eating something made with refined sugar. The sugar still provides energy but there is little to keep you from eating too much of it.
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
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    All above explain it very well how we are a bit too hyperfocused on sugar, mostly because it is calorie dense and hyper-palatable making it easy to overconsume.

    But personally I don't even look at sugar in my nutrition summary, I worry about other things way before that.
  • JstTheWayIam
    JstTheWayIam Posts: 6,357 Member
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    Fruit is good for you, I read in "how not to die" that 5 million people worldwide die each year simply because they don't have enough fruit in there diet...

    If you are a body builder and trying to get competition (unhealthy) lean for a short period of time, you may want to get stupid...

    Otherwise, eat your fruit... It will improve your digestive health and aid in your success... Strawberry is great for a guy with a sweet tooth trying to avoid cookies...
  • jordan_bowden
    jordan_bowden Posts: 90 Member
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    EAT THEM AAAAALL!!! As a vegan who eats 80% fruit, (and mostly the high sugar content ones) I can promise you beyond the shadow of a doubt that fructose will not make you gain wait. When a natural sugar is consumed, our bodies convert it to glucose which is basically our main source of energy!
    I think the reason we are told to keep our sugar levels low, is because if people that are getting sugar from sodas, chocolates, and refined foods, they will think it's okay to eat a lot of it. But I'm fairly certain that your body will much more appreciate the multiple nutrients and vitamins from a fruit , as opposed to candy. Hope this helps in some way!
  • cathipa
    cathipa Posts: 2,991 Member
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    Unless you are diabetic do not worry about sugar. For all intensive purposes - Weight gain is caused by eating more calories than you burn, weight loss is caused by having a calorie deficit.
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
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    I'm ignoring both Sugar and Sodium. Don't care about either. Hit my calorie limit, get over 100g of protein and try to do something to up my fiber. I always seem to be under on my fiber. Hey, guess what. I need to eat more fruit.
  • kgirlhart
    kgirlhart Posts: 4,971 Member
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    We should stop buying into the belief that sugar is the devil. Too much sugar is not good for you. Too many calories us not good for you. I find it to be insane that some people think that they need to cut out fruit to he healthy. If you have diabetes then you need to watch your sugars. If not then don't worry about it. If I want an apple or banana and it doesn't put me over my calories then I don't give a *kitten* if it puts me over MFP's sugar goal. I never pay attention to my sugar at all.
  • Caged_Heat
    Caged_Heat Posts: 1,031 Member
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    I appreciate this discussion because I often find myself putting the apple down after pre-logging my food for the day. Even with the fiber, the net carbs are relatively high (as it affects my carb total for the day). Are there "good" carbs and "bad" carbs? Or are they all the same in that if they aren't burned off, they get stored?
  • kgirlhart
    kgirlhart Posts: 4,971 Member
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    Unless you have a medical reason to watch carbs there is no need to worry about it. I personally try to get my protien in and just let fats and carbs fall where they may. There is no need to complicate things.
  • Gizziemoto
    Gizziemoto Posts: 430 Member
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    While both processed and natural sugar are calorie equal, sugar in fruit & veggies have water, vitamins, and fiber (to name a few) that help slow down the process of glucose in your system to avoid sugar spikes. Candy is an nutritional void. Think healthy vs. unhealthy. My goal is to avoid anything with added sugar and eat more fruit and veggies. Giving up soda was the hardest thing I did and now I cannot drink them.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    edited February 2017
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    Gizziemoto wrote: »
    While both processed and natural sugar are calorie equal, sugar in fruit & veggies have water, vitamins, and fiber (to name a few) that help slow down the process of glucose in your system to avoid sugar spikes. Candy is an nutritional void. Think healthy vs. unhealthy. My goal is to avoid anything with added sugar and eat more fruit and veggies. Giving up soda was the hardest thing I did and now I cannot drink them.

    I agree that candy can often be a poor source of nutrients, but this is really going to depend on what one chooses and the overall context of someone's diet. When I have my favorite chocolate bar, for example, I'm getting satiating fat, 25% of my daily iron needs, and nutrients like magnesium, copper, and potassium. Does this mean I should ditch fruit and vegetables for chocolate? Of course not. But since I'm getting lots of fruit and vegetables regularly, I don't see the benefit of eliminating chocolate.
  • JohnnyLowCarb
    JohnnyLowCarb Posts: 418 Member
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    MY ADVICE: Pick a diet that works for you, that will stick with - plug the foods and their nutrients/macros into MFP and see how the calories shake out. If your consuming more calories than burning, tweak it (ie. reduce/remove certain items). If you want Fruit have Fruit, compensate with something else. If your on this board then you most likely already know the foods you should be staying away from, I wouldnt consider fruit one of them,
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    johnnylew wrote: »
    MY ADVICE: Pick a diet that works for you, that will stick with - plug the foods and their nutrients/macros into MFP and see how the calories shake out. If your consuming more calories than burning, tweak it (ie. reduce/remove certain items). If you want Fruit have Fruit, compensate with something else. If your on this board then you most likely already know the foods you should be staying away from, I wouldnt consider fruit one of them,

    My experience: many people have no ideas what foods they should stay away from. They think they have to eliminate bread or rice or pasta or chocolate or wine or potatoes or beef or soda or french fries or [fill in the "bad food" of the moment] in order to lose weight.

    People often mistake weight loss as something caused by giving up certain foods or drastically reducing a macronutrient. Really, it's all about the calories. Some people might like to control their calories by giving up certain foods (and if that works for them, that's great), but it's completely optional.

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