Fruit sugar is good sugar?

ericpiccione

I know high amounts of sugar consumption is bad but what about high amount of Apple/banana sugar etc? What should be the maximum sugar intake for a 2600 cal diet (athlete)

TeaBea

Sugar is sugar. Unless you have a medical reason to manage sugar intake, you don't need to track it. I track fiber instead.

That said, sugar should not prevent you from meeting protein and fat goals. Whole fruit has fiber and lots of micronutrients....fruit is good for you.

lemurcat12

ericpiccione wrote: »

I know high amounts of sugar consumption is bad but what about high amount of Apple/banana sugar etc? What should be the maximum sugar intake for a 2600 cal diet (athlete)

Maximum sugar, my approach:

Figure out how much protein you need (1 g for lb of LBM is a good plan if you are trying to build muscle, lose weight, or maximize athletic performance, although you could get away with less).

Figure out how to include a sensible amount of vegetables in your diet, from diverse sources.

Figure out how much fat you feel good including in your diet and make sure you eat that, and in particular make sure you get in healthy fats (those providing essential fatty acids) like those from salmon and other fatty fish, olives and olive oil, avocado, nuts and seeds.

Figure out how much fiber you need and meet or exceed that.

Figure out how many calories you have left and eat as much of that from sugar (assuming you are mostly getting in sugar from nutrient dense sources, of course, or using it in a planned way for athletic purposes) as you like.

Of course, I think that if you do the first four things and just use common sense about mostly eating nutrient dense foods it's not actually an issue at all, no need to specifically watch sugar.

Carlos_421

ericpiccione wrote: »

I know high amounts of sugar foodconsumption is bad but what about high amount of Apple/banana sugar etc? What should be the maximum sugar intake for a 2600 cal diet (athlete)

FIFY

Sugar is sugar. The sugar in fruit is the same chemical substance as the sugar in everything else. The only problem is that it's easier to overeat than many other foods.

dunlol

Your body handles different sugars differently. Unless you eat a ridiculous amount of fruit each day, I believe it won't affect your health to eat sugars from fruits. Also, avoiding overripened and/or high fructose fruits may be beneficial for your health (I'm too lazy to look for and post articles, but pubmed is a great place to start if you are very interested in learning more). Apples, for example, are high in fructose; eating one won't hurt you, but they definitely shouldn't be your primary source for carbs. I don't think you should worry about a maximum sugar intake as long as you consciously avoid added sugars whenever possible. The calories are not the issue; the hormonal repercussions from ingesting too much sugar are why you should be wary.

lemurcat12

What are the hormonal repercussions of eating too many apples?

Medium apple has about 80 calories, 11 g of fructose, btw. Also 4.5 g of glucose and 2 g of sucrose (which is about half and half). For simplicity let's say 12 g of fructose, 5.5 g of glucose, when broken down.

Chocolate chip cookie in my recipe file has about 200 calories and 14 g of sugar, which is sucrose, so let's say about 7 g of fructose and 7 g of glucose.

Pint of raspberries (which is a lot, of course) have about 160 calories and about 6 g of glucose, 7 g of fructose (and not enough sucrose to worry about).

So are the cookies and the raspberries different?

IMO, yes, in many ways: the raspberries are more nutritious (on average, depending on the rest of your day), might be more filling or at least better if you just want to eat and not consume too many calories (I could finish a pint but it would take a while and I normally wouldn't). You might be less likely to overeat (if you are someone who has trouble stopping at one cookie). The cookie has more calories because it has a lot more fat (butter is actually the single highest contributor of calories in these cookies). The raspberries have more fiber.

But to the claim made here, the sugar is different, I don't see how.

You will likely experience the effect of the sugar from the cookie quicker (although fat slows it down, so especially compared to the apple I'm not sure). But in any case that doesn't matter for everyone, or even most, and it especially doesn't matter if you eat the cookie as dessert after a nice dinner of steak and brussels sprouts.

lemurcat12

I will say that I think there are reasons why people are better off eating a diet that is mostly based on nutrient-dense foods, and in that sense fruit is usually a good thing to include if you like it, and most people (not all) may find it easy to grab fruit when wanting something sweet and not blow their calorie or nutrition goals, where they have to be more careful/limited with fat/sugar combos like cookies, which are easily overeaten and provide limited nutrients. So I do think it makes sense to limit added sugar (which to me means high cal/low nutrient sweets, typically) and I think it's nuts that people take that sensible advice and turn it into "bananas are dangerous, sugar is bad, bad, very bad."