Sugar in fruit???
christiantripodi
Posts: 13 Member
the way MFP is set up, sugar from both fruit and processed foods are in the same category for sugar intake. but is eating a lot of sugar through fruit actually bad? will it cause weight gain?
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Replies
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nothing wrong with sugar unless you have a medical condition (like diabeties)9
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Eating more calories than you burn causes weight gain, where ever the calories come from.
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My son (sports writer, nutritionist) tells me that the sugar in fruit is not bad as long as you're not a diabetic. Tells me to ignore the sugar counts.
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Sugar from fruit is the same as sugar from candy. MFP doesn't differentiate between them because food labels don't yet. A calorie surplus is the only thing that will cause weight gain.
Personally, I don't even bother tracking sugar and look for fiber (which fruit also contains) instead.14 -
My son (sports writer, nutritionist) tells me that the sugar in fruit is not bad as long as you're not a diabetic. Tells me to ignore the sugar counts.
Same goes for other sugars. It's all the same. It either fits in your calorie goals for the day, or it doesn't. Exception is actual medical reasons (like diabetes).4 -
Different fruits have different levels of sugar. You can research where to get the most nutritional bang for your buck. Berries are usually pretty good, for instance. Also a roasted potato has 70% of your daily vitamin c and more potassium than a banana. So keep in mind other nutrient sources. Eating an actual piece of fruit is wayyyy better than drinking juice too. All things in moderation! Even fruit
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ClaraKnepper wrote: »Different fruits have different levels of sugar. You can research where to get the most nutritional bang for your buck. Berries are usually pretty good, for instance. Also a roasted potato has 70% of your daily vitamin c and more potassium than a banana. So keep in mind other nutrient sources. Eating an actual piece of fruit is wayyyy better than drinking juice too. All things in moderation! Even fruit
I ... truth here... love snacking on cold boiled potatoes. I boil up a whole bunch of smallish ones and they are a very satisfying, filling snack. I'm a weirdo!
Saying that, there's nothing wrong with fruit or fruit sugar. All of the sensible, informed guidance about sugar is in regards to added, not inherent sugars like those in whole fruits.
As to another point raised in this thread, most diabetics need to worry about total carbohydrates rather than sugar, as far as I know. My grandfather was a diabetic and I can remember him eating bananas all the time.3 -
If you like your fruit, don't have a medical problem limiting fruit intake, and it fits within your calorie allowance (I always make sure it fits) eat up with enjoyment rather than guilt and don't limit particular fruits you enjoy simply because of their higher sugar content. There is so much goodness in a piece of fruit.1
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christiantripodi wrote: »the way MFP is set up, sugar from both fruit and processed foods are in the same category for sugar intake. but is eating a lot of sugar through fruit actually bad? will it cause weight gain?
No, it won't cause weight gain, and no it's not bad (within reason), but neither will eating sugar from other sources.
What causes weight gain is eating above your maintenance calories.
What maximizes body comp (gaining muscle/losing fat, depending on where you are in the process and total calories) is (a) not eating too far above or below maintenance, (b) getting enough protein (.8 g/lb of a healthy goal weight, or maybe a bit more if you are bulking), and (c) your exercise/strength training routine.
With respect to sugar from fruit or any other nutrient dense food, I look at it as follows:
(1) Is my diet in check with the calories?
(2) Am I getting enough protein?
(3) Am I eating lots of vegetables?
(4) Am I getting enough healthy fats?
If yes to all of these, eat away.2 -
Your body doesn't know where the sugar in the chewed up and churned up food in your digestive system came from here or came from there.......
It will make you gain weight if you are in a calorie surplus - only if you are in a calorie surplus.
Enjoy your fruit.6 -
christiantripodi wrote: »the way MFP is set up, sugar from both fruit and processed foods are in the same category for sugar intake. but is eating a lot of sugar through fruit actually bad? will it cause weight gain?
No difference between sugar in fruit and sugar in a can of coke. Sugar is sugar. Fruit is natures candy. If you don't have a problem with sugar, then eat it. Sugar does not cause weight gain, extra calories do.2 -
christiantripodi wrote: »the way MFP is set up, sugar from both fruit and processed foods are in the same category for sugar intake. but is eating a lot of sugar through fruit actually bad? will it cause weight gain?
Sugar doesn't cause weight gain...excess calories cause weight gain.
Sugar is sugar...your body doesn't distinguish between sugars in fruit or added sugars...it's all sugar to the body. Fruit has the added benefit of more vitamins and minerals and fiber...but the sugar is still just sugar. That may or may not be relevant to you...my dad was a type II diabetic and he had to watch his fruit and stuck primarily with berries...because it didn't matter if he was getting sugar from a banana or an apple or from a piece of candy...the sugar was still sugar.4 -
Sugar in fruit will not cause you to gain weight the same way raw sugar will; like candy and pastries, refined sugars. However, too much fruit will make you gain weight. Eat berries--like strawberries. If I'm craving something sugary, I will eat 3 apples or 2 cups of strawberries before I'll eat 2 pieces of cake. I won't gain weight from the apples. I will from the 2 pieces of cake.1
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You can eat a lot more apples than you can candy bars. A calorie is just not a calorie.1
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Sugar in fruit will not cause you to gain weight the same way raw sugar will; like candy and pastries, refined sugars. However, too much fruit will make you gain weight. Eat berries--like strawberries. If I'm craving something sugary, I will eat 3 apples or 2 cups of strawberries before I'll eat 2 pieces of cake. I won't gain weight from the apples. I will from the 2 pieces of cake.
raw sugar doesn't cause you to gain weight either...excessive calorie consumption causes weight gain.
I would also eat some apples and strawberries before I would cake...but if you aren't consuming calories in excess of your maintenance, you're not going to gain weight...'cuz science.10 -
We Asked: Joy Dubost, R.D., is a nutritionist, food scientist and a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
The Answer: Whether it’s in a piece of fruit, your soda or a pastry, sugar is made up of the same two components: fructose and glucose. The molecular structure and composition of sugar molecules is the same no matter where they come from.
The ratios of fructose and glucose are pretty much the same in both fruit and table sugar. Most fruits are 40 to 55 percent fructose (there’s some variation: 65 percent in apples and pears; 20 percent in cranberries), and table sugar (aka sucrose) is 50/50. Neither type of sugar is better or worse for you, but your body processes them differently. [/b]Fructose breaks down in your liver and doesn’t provoke an insulin response. Glucose starts to break down in the stomach and requires the release of insulin into the bloodstream to be metabolized completely.
Don’t get the idea that because the sugar composition is the same in fruit and cake, they’re interchangeable. (Seriously, they’re not.) For one thing, fruit offers good stuff like vitamins, antioxidants and water, while candy and desserts are nutritionally void. Fruit also tends to have less sugar by volume. Half a cup of strawberries: 3.5 grams of sugar. Half a cup of strawberry ice cream: 15 grams.
Plus, whole fruit has a lot of fiber, which actually slows down your body’s digestion of glucose, so you don’t get the crazy insulin spike (and subsequent crash) that candy causes. That also means your body has more time to use up glucose as fuel before storing it — as fat. Even dried fruit, a notoriously sugary treat, has all the fiber and nutrients of its plump forbear. But do watch out for dried fruits with added sugar(check the nutrition label), and don’t eat a ton just because they’re smaller. Picture how many pieces are in a handful of raisins compared with a handful of grapes. See what we mean?
On average, Americans don’t eat enough fruit, so don’t cut it out of your diet in an attempt to limit your sugar intake! Sugar itself isn’t toxic. But getting too much of it from cookies and cake is.2 -
MFP is always telling me I've had too much sugar, because I eat fruit, vegetables, milk, and oatmeal. I just ignore it. If I weren't eating a healthy diet, then it might be a good wake-up call though.
The sugar in fruit is fine. Along with it comes fiber and water, so you're not especially likely to overeat it, and it will fill you up. If you're drinking sugary sodas, on the other hand, it can be easy to gulp down a lot of sugar and calories without noticing it. I don't drink fruit juice for the same reason I don't drink sugary sodas.
Also, sodas and other sugar-sweetened foods usually have a lot more sugar in them than fruit does. A can of Coke has about 39g, and an average apple or pear has about half that.1 -
We Asked: Joy Dubost, R.D., is a nutritionist, food scientist and a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
The Answer: Whether it’s in a piece of fruit, your soda or a pastry, sugar is made up of the same two components: fructose and glucose. The molecular structure and composition of sugar molecules is the same no matter where they come from.
The ratios of fructose and glucose are pretty much the same in both fruit and table sugar. Most fruits are 40 to 55 percent fructose (there’s some variation: 65 percent in apples and pears; 20 percent in cranberries), and table sugar (aka sucrose) is 50/50. Neither type of sugar is better or worse for you, but your body processes them differently. [/b]Fructose breaks down in your liver and doesn’t provoke an insulin response. Glucose starts to break down in the stomach and requires the release of insulin into the bloodstream to be metabolized completely.
Don’t get the idea that because the sugar composition is the same in fruit and cake, they’re interchangeable. (Seriously, they’re not.) For one thing, fruit offers good stuff like vitamins, antioxidants and water, while candy and desserts are nutritionally void. Fruit also tends to have less sugar by volume. Half a cup of strawberries: 3.5 grams of sugar. Half a cup of strawberry ice cream: 15 grams.
Plus, whole fruit has a lot of fiber, which actually slows down your body’s digestion of glucose, so you don’t get the crazy insulin spike (and subsequent crash) that candy causes. That also means your body has more time to use up glucose as fuel before storing it — as fat. Even dried fruit, a notoriously sugary treat, has all the fiber and nutrients of its plump forbear. But do watch out for dried fruits with added sugar(check the nutrition label), and don’t eat a ton just because they’re smaller. Picture how many pieces are in a handful of raisins compared with a handful of grapes. See what we mean?
On average, Americans don’t eat enough fruit, so don’t cut it out of your diet in an attempt to limit your sugar intake! Sugar itself isn’t toxic. But getting too much of it from cookies and cake is.
Nothing in there says that if you eat 200 calories of cake you'll gain weight, but if you eat 200 calories of apples you won't. Obviously they are nutritionally different, but if you maintain weight on 1800 cals, and you've eaten 1600 calories of well-balanced nutrition, whether you eat apples or cake with those last 200 cals will have no affect on your weight.9 -
We Asked: Joy Dubost, R.D., is a nutritionist, food scientist and a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
The Answer: Whether it’s in a piece of fruit, your soda or a pastry, sugar is made up of the same two components: fructose and glucose. The molecular structure and composition of sugar molecules is the same no matter where they come from.
The ratios of fructose and glucose are pretty much the same in both fruit and table sugar. Most fruits are 40 to 55 percent fructose (there’s some variation: 65 percent in apples and pears; 20 percent in cranberries), and table sugar (aka sucrose) is 50/50. Neither type of sugar is better or worse for you, but your body processes them differently. [/b]Fructose breaks down in your liver and doesn’t provoke an insulin response. Glucose starts to break down in the stomach and requires the release of insulin into the bloodstream to be metabolized completely.
Don’t get the idea that because the sugar composition is the same in fruit and cake, they’re interchangeable. (Seriously, they’re not.) For one thing, fruit offers good stuff like vitamins, antioxidants and water, while candy and desserts are nutritionally void. Fruit also tends to have less sugar by volume. Half a cup of strawberries: 3.5 grams of sugar. Half a cup of strawberry ice cream: 15 grams.
Plus, whole fruit has a lot of fiber, which actually slows down your body’s digestion of glucose, so you don’t get the crazy insulin spike (and subsequent crash) that candy causes. That also means your body has more time to use up glucose as fuel before storing it — as fat. Even dried fruit, a notoriously sugary treat, has all the fiber and nutrients of its plump forbear. But do watch out for dried fruits with added sugar(check the nutrition label), and don’t eat a ton just because they’re smaller. Picture how many pieces are in a handful of raisins compared with a handful of grapes. See what we mean?
On average, Americans don’t eat enough fruit, so don’t cut it out of your diet in an attempt to limit your sugar intake! Sugar itself isn’t toxic. But getting too much of it from cookies and cake is.
It's polite to quote your sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/29/fruit-sugar-versus-white-sugar_n_3497795.html7 -
OP, if you haven't ever looked at the "Eat This, Not That" food books, see if your local library has one and take a look. The photos are eye-opening. (Don't bother with their website - it's all fluff.)0
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We Asked: Joy Dubost, R.D., is a nutritionist, food scientist and a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
Do you understand that this does not support the claim you made?The Answer: Whether it’s in a piece of fruit, your soda or a pastry, sugar is made up of the same two components: fructose and glucose. The molecular structure and composition of sugar molecules is the same no matter where they come from.
Mostly true. There are some other kinds of sugar, but those are the big ones (other than lactose in dairy).Don’t get the idea that because the sugar composition is the same in fruit and cake, they’re interchangeable. (Seriously, they’re not.)
In case you are misunderstanding this, it does NOT say that the sugar in cake and fruit are different, quite the opposite. It is saying that fruit and cake are different (as they are, of course), because there are different things BESIDES sugar in both cake and fruit. Thus, if you overeat on cake and gain weight, it is NOT because the sugar in the cake magically causes weight gain when the exact same amount of sugar in the fruit would not. For example, I have a recipe for cookies that are about 200 calories each in my recipe box, and yet they have LESS sugar in them than the average apple. The extra calories are from other ingredients (like a lot of butter).For one thing, fruit offers good stuff like vitamins, antioxidants and water, while candy and desserts are nutritionally void.
This is not totally true -- what about a fruit pie? Or some sweetened yogurt (protein, some other good things)? And you can add sugar to nutrient dense foods too, of course -- to oats or rhubarb or a bit to tomato sauce (I don't, but it is recommended in a good Italian cooking book I have).Fruit also tends to have less sugar by volume. Half a cup of strawberries: 3.5 grams of sugar. Half a cup of strawberry ice cream: 15 grams.
By volume, sure, but not necessary by serving. A half cup of ice cream vs. an apple -- the apple likely has more. The apple and my cookie, again, the apple. Now, the apple has fewer calories, but that's because of (in part) fat, not sugar, so let's not pretend sugar is something other than sugar.Plus, whole fruit has a lot of fiber, which actually slows down your body’s digestion of glucose, so you don’t get the crazy insulin spike (and subsequent crash) that candy causes.
I would get no insulin spike from any of the foods mentioned above. I'd get more of an insulin spike from a piece of plain whole grain bread, I'd bet, than from ice cream (although I don't care much about spikes since I am insulin sensitive). The fat in ice cream tends to prevent such spikes, at least for some.That also means your body has more time to use up glucose as fuel before storing it — as fat.
Now this is just silly and bad information. At a deficit you are unlikely to be storing fat as you won't have full glycogen stores and will be needing the calories you consume for energy. But even if you did, you'd end up using more than you stored, so no harm. The idea that you can gain weight on a deficit because carbs get stored as fat makes no sense (and it takes some calories to turn carbs into fat, so if you were so inefficient as to be always storing and burning rather than using before storing, that could be good for weight loss).10 -
OP, if you haven't ever looked at the "Eat This, Not That" food books, see if your local library has one and take a look. The photos are eye-opening. (Don't bother with their website - it's all fluff.)
How did OP's question about fruit make you think she needed this book? Just curious.1 -
We Asked: Joy Dubost, R.D., is a nutritionist, food scientist and a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
The Answer: Whether it’s in a piece of fruit, your soda or a pastry, sugar is made up of the same two components: fructose and glucose. The molecular structure and composition of sugar molecules is the same no matter where they come from.
The ratios of fructose and glucose are pretty much the same in both fruit and table sugar. Most fruits are 40 to 55 percent fructose (there’s some variation: 65 percent in apples and pears; 20 percent in cranberries), and table sugar (aka sucrose) is 50/50. Neither type of sugar is better or worse for you, but your body processes them differently. [/b]Fructose breaks down in your liver and doesn’t provoke an insulin response. Glucose starts to break down in the stomach and requires the release of insulin into the bloodstream to be metabolized completely.
Don’t get the idea that because the sugar composition is the same in fruit and cake, they’re interchangeable. (Seriously, they’re not.) For one thing, fruit offers good stuff like vitamins, antioxidants and water, while candy and desserts are nutritionally void. Fruit also tends to have less sugar by volume. Half a cup of strawberries: 3.5 grams of sugar. Half a cup of strawberry ice cream: 15 grams.
Plus, whole fruit has a lot of fiber, which actually slows down your body’s digestion of glucose, so you don’t get the crazy insulin spike (and subsequent crash) that candy causes. That also means your body has more time to use up glucose as fuel before storing it — as fat. Even dried fruit, a notoriously sugary treat, has all the fiber and nutrients of its plump forbear. But do watch out for dried fruits with added sugar(check the nutrition label), and don’t eat a ton just because they’re smaller. Picture how many pieces are in a handful of raisins compared with a handful of grapes. See what we mean?
On average, Americans don’t eat enough fruit, so don’t cut it out of your diet in an attempt to limit your sugar intake! Sugar itself isn’t toxic. But getting too much of it from cookies and cake is.
Gee, that's a little embarrassing - you'd think that an R.D. would have at least an elementary understanding of human physiology. Because that's not how any of this works, especially while in a caloric deficit. There is no net storage of fat while in a deficit regardless of how much of any macronutrient you consume. And sugar is also stored as glycogen in the body before de novo lipogenesis begins to take place, even while in a caloric surplus. It's pretty embarrassing to her that she doesn't know that.
Then again, the Huffington Post isn't exactly a scientific journal.8 -
You cant gain weight in a defecit - the only way eating fruit would do that is:
1. Food/ waste weight in your system from the bulk ( if eating a lot)- but thats not body fat, so not a big deal.
2. If the sugar causes blooid sugar jighs and crashes which cause you to eat more and go over your maintenance calories on a regular basis.
Other than that, no problem
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It's not bad for you. I love fruit and eat about 3 servings a day. I just try to avoid the other processed sugar I eat, so I stay below the recommended limit that mfp gives me.0
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Sugar in fruit will not cause you to gain weight the same way raw sugar will; like candy and pastries, refined sugars. However, too much fruit will make you gain weight. Eat berries--like strawberries. If I'm craving something sugary, I will eat 3 apples or 2 cups of strawberries before I'll eat 2 pieces of cake. I won't gain weight from the apples. I will from the 2 pieces of cake.
Wrong. Excess calories are responsible for weight gain, not sugar.5 -
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Sugar in fruit will not cause you to gain weight the same way raw sugar will; like candy and pastries, refined sugars. However, too much fruit will make you gain weight. Eat berries--like strawberries. If I'm craving something sugary, I will eat 3 apples or 2 cups of strawberries before I'll eat 2 pieces of cake. I won't gain weight from the apples. I will from the 2 pieces of cake.
wrong - calorie surplus causes weight gain, not sugar..
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