Natural sugars found in fruit

lemurcat12

The posts about avoiding fruit demonstrate why the obsessive focus on sugar alone is wrong. Of course sugar on its own has no nutrients, other than calories. That's so with the sugar in fruit (as opposed to the rest of the fruit) as well as the sugar people add to oats and rhubarb and so on. The bigger issue is that sugar in itself is not bad. Fruit would not be better if you could remove the sugar (although I get the idea that for some that would be so -- and that you sacrifice taste would be an added benefit, as more virtuous to eat for nutrients than based on enjoyment, under that mindset).

Overeating sugar, yeah, that's a problem. It's especially likely to be a problem if you happen to eat a lot of it in high cal/low nutrient foods like many do (since those foods -- which typically have lots of fat too -- are not that satiating and are hyperpalatable, so easy to overeat, and culturally are eaten for reasons other than hunger anyway). Part of our extremist culture seems to be that people turn dramatically from eating a low nutrient diet and lots of sugar with no limit (and usually not from fruit) to this idea that sugar=bad so no sugar=best, no matter what the source of the sugar.

Anyway, sugar itself is fine, if not excessive and within the context of a nutrient-dense diet. Sugar in vegetables, dairy, sweet potatoes, and, yeah, fruit, is all easy to fit in a healthful diet since by definition that sugar is consumed with other things we tend to want in our diets, like fiber or protein or various vitamins and minerals. For many those foods are filling too. Sugar in low nutrient/high cal sweets (or even high cal, moderate nutrient sweets) has to be moderated somewhat to fit in a healthy balanced diet, especially if you happen to be (not everyone is) someone inclined to overdo sugary things.

Anyway, point is that focus on "processed" sugar vs. not misses why sugar should be moderated nutritionally -- the better focus is on foods and their overall ingredients/make-up. It also suggests, incorrectly, that fruit would be even better if we could just remove the sugar, so probably gives rise to weird ideas like that getting vitamins from pills or supplements would be better than getting them from fruit, since sugar free!

As for the idea that carbs, all carbs, are sugar and therefore bad for you, that's false and apparently ignorant of the fact that many of the healthiest diets in the world are high carb, as with the blue zone diets and many other traditional diets.

crzycatlady1

Carlos_421 wrote: »

xnxnxn wrote: »

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

Option 3: we accept that there is nothing unhealthy about sugar ("refined" or not) for non-diabetics.
Thus, our wonderful, healthy fruits can have sugar and still be good for us. Also, we can have treats with added sugars and still maintain a healthy diet.

Overeating is the problem, not sugar.

This. I don't track sugar at all and just focus on my calorie intake.

CSARdiver

LPflaum wrote: »

To Echo above, sugar is sugar is sugar, your body does not care what the source is. Having said that, as long as you're keeping your intake around or under 50g/day, where it comes from doesn't really matter. If you're over that, you're probably derailing your weight loss because you're eating too many calories.

Personally, I am one of those "sugar is the devil" people. This is because sugar, in all of its forms, including bread, wheat products, corn, and potatoes, makes me feel like absolute $h!t. When I cut it out of my diet, it was a whole new world. I don't eat Apples (or bananas, or mangoes) because the pop and crash I get afterward is no different than what I get from a small coke or a candy bar. However, if this doesn't happen to you, there's no reason to be that extreme.

If you're thinking about cutting sugar, start with the low hanging fruit (hah! puns) first. Obviously candy, cookies, cakes, etc should be the first to go. Then look for all the weird crappy places its hiding (look for sugar, cane sugar and HFCS, its all the same)- juice, pasta sauce, jelly, canned goods, pretty much anything processed. Most people can cut all of the unnecessary sugar in their lives out by doing that, then you may eat all the apples you desire!

You are feeling nothing more than placebo.

CattOfTheGarage

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Fruit would not be better if you could remove the sugar (although I get the idea that for some that would be so -- and that you sacrifice taste would be an added benefit, as more virtuous to eat for nutrients than based on enjoyment, under that mindset).

Ah yes, the Calvinist diet. It's weird how widespread this is.

crzycatlady1

CattOfTheGarage wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Fruit would not be better if you could remove the sugar (although I get the idea that for some that would be so -- and that you sacrifice taste would be an added benefit, as more virtuous to eat for nutrients than based on enjoyment, under that mindset).

Ah yes, the Calvinist diet. It's weird how widespread this is.

As someone with a Calvinist background, this made me laugh out loud

earlnabby

crzycatlady1 wrote: »

Carlos_421 wrote: »

xnxnxn wrote: »

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

Option 3: we accept that there is nothing unhealthy about sugar ("refined" or not) for non-diabetics.
Thus, our wonderful, healthy fruits can have sugar and still be good for us. Also, we can have treats with added sugars and still maintain a healthy diet.

Overeating is the problem, not sugar.

This. I don't track sugar at all and just focus on my calorie intake.

I don't either and I am T2 diabetic. For those who do not use insulin, my doctor (a Certified Diabetic Educator) recommends tracking total carbs only. It is up to the individual how they choose to spend their daily carb allowance. I limit my fruit, eat a bunch of veggies, and fill in with grains, bread, or potatoes. I will have a sweet or add sugar to my tea if I have the carbs available.

stevencloser

JohnnyPenso wrote: »

Here's why I avoid processed sugars like the plague:

Orange:




White Table Sugar:


Corn syrup and brown sugar are only slightly above zero with trace levels of a handful of nutrients. Molasses, maple syrup, honey have relatively good levels of a few minerals.

Looks like a pretty compelling argument to me.

You avoid an ingredient because a complete food has more nutrients?
That's...

stevencloser

Olive oil:


Bacon:


Obviously bacon is the healthier choice. And for half the calories too!

Tacklewasher

stevencloser wrote: »

Obviously bacon is the healthier choice. And for half the calories too!

No argument from me

lemurcat12

CattOfTheGarage wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

Fruit would not be better if you could remove the sugar (although I get the idea that for some that would be so -- and that you sacrifice taste would be an added benefit, as more virtuous to eat for nutrients than based on enjoyment, under that mindset).

Ah yes, the Calvinist diet. It's weird how widespread this is.

Precisely.

TR0berts

stevencloser wrote: »

Olive oil:


Obviously bacon is the healthier choice. And for half the calories too!

Well, duh - it's bacon.