Monday I had no added sugar, and so far none today.
Although I am tracking everything at the moment just for the experiment, this is the conclusion I came to too. For me, non dessert added sugar tends to be pretty small amounts in savory foods or, most commonly, some sauces or rubs, and I really see no reason to care about that. Plus, it would be hard for that to add up to all that many cals. I really think these no sugar challenges that start by assuming you are eating some huge amount of sugar and then tell you to avoid these incidental sources are rather silly. I think it makes more sense to have people track their sugar, understand where it is coming from, and then consider reasonable changes if it is, in fact, higher than expected, which for most will be reducing snack/dessert foods or sugar-added drinks, with some maybe having more than expected in sugary cereals or trail mixes or granola bars or flavored yogurt. But if someone really loves adding, say, a bit of sugar to coffee or oats, I don't think that's something to be bothered about if the overall nutrition of the day and percentage of added sugar is fine anyway.
I used to use an example of a rhubarb sauce with a little sugar added vs. a homemade apple sauce. Why is the latter inherently preferable to the former? No good reason IMO. (Even Dr. Greger, who has other issues, no doubt, says that objecting to a little sugar or oil if that is how the overall diet becomes more sustainable and is able to incorporate nutritious foods like oats and veg, is not something to worry about.)
One of the points of these challenges is educating yourself about how much sugar, especially hidden added sugar, are in your foods. Including savory and sauces.
You don't care about sugar in sauces? You should. For example, one tablespoon of ketchup contains a full teaspoon of sugar (4 grams). A full 1/3rd of the ketchup you eat is sugar. BBQ sauce like Sweet Baby Rays? Two tablespoons of that sauce contains 4 teaspoons (16 grams) of sugar. So 2/3rds of your BBQ sauce is sugar. What about something savory like a Lean Cuisine? The Chicken Ranch Club contains just over 2 teaspoons of sugar (9 grams). Salad dressings average around a 1 1/2 tsp (6 grams) per tablespoon serving. It all starts adding up in a big way, especially when you should be averaging about 25 grams total per day.
The more important issue is why calories derived from sugar are worse for you than calories from fats or protein. Sugars almost convert straight to fat and worse yet, calories from sugar keep you hungry. There is a hormone called leptin that increases as you take in calories. As leptin increases it tells your brain that hey, we're full. We've got enough food/energy right now and we should work on storing and using it. If your brain is not getting a signal from leptin it thinks it's hungry. When you take in sugar it raises your insulin levels and insulin blocks the signal from leptin getting to the brain. Sugar, from natural sources, is usually paired with natural fiber which is why fruits are ok, it's considered a slow carb. The fiber in the fruit slows down how quickly the sugar is metabolized into fat.
Calories in/calories out is only half true, where you get your calories is equally as large an issue.
Monday I had no added sugar, and so far none today.
Although I am tracking everything at the moment just for the experiment, this is the conclusion I came to too. For me, non dessert added sugar tends to be pretty small amounts in savory foods or, most commonly, some sauces or rubs, and I really see no reason to care about that. Plus, it would be hard for that to add up to all that many cals. I really think these no sugar challenges that start by assuming you are eating some huge amount of sugar and then tell you to avoid these incidental sources are rather silly. I think it makes more sense to have people track their sugar, understand where it is coming from, and then consider reasonable changes if it is, in fact, higher than expected, which for most will be reducing snack/dessert foods or sugar-added drinks, with some maybe having more than expected in sugary cereals or trail mixes or granola bars or flavored yogurt. But if someone really loves adding, say, a bit of sugar to coffee or oats, I don't think that's something to be bothered about if the overall nutrition of the day and percentage of added sugar is fine anyway.
I used to use an example of a rhubarb sauce with a little sugar added vs. a homemade apple sauce. Why is the latter inherently preferable to the former? No good reason IMO. (Even Dr. Greger, who has other issues, no doubt, says that objecting to a little sugar or oil if that is how the overall diet becomes more sustainable and is able to incorporate nutritious foods like oats and veg, is not something to worry about.)
One of the points of these challenges is educating yourself about how much sugars, especially hidden added sugars, are in your foods. Including savory and sauces.
I have read over and over about how much allegedly hidden sugar Americans get in their diet, and how difficult it is to quit added sugar. As someone who always reads labels, and thinks that the sugar in most of the examples given (sugary cereal, flavored yogurt, ketchup, sweetish dressings, etc.) is super obvious anyway, I was skeptical, but I was willing to buy into it to some degree. Therefore, back in January 2014, when I decided to lose weight, I decided to cut out ALL added sugar, and was super conscientious about it (I think I covered this earlier in the thread, but perhaps not). I found it surprisingly easy, and I also learned that I really didn't have any surprises as far as added sugar. This is perhaps because I've been a whole foods based eater for a long time (but for exceptions that I was fully aware of the nutrient content of), and that I make all my own dressings and most of my own sauces. I already knew that sriracha, which I consume often enough, had some sugar, so I eliminated that, and I was very careful about other sauces. I was eating quite healthfully and had cut out snacking, which was great (and something I still believe in for me), but I did not find avoiding added sugar very difficult at all or to have any magical effects (limiting is a different thing, I believe in that for health reasons, and generally for the reasons given by the WHO).
You don't care about sugar in sauces? You should. For example, one tablespoon of ketchup contains a full teaspoon of sugar (4 grams). A full 1/3rd of the ketchup you eat is sugar. BBQ sauce like Sweet Baby Rays? Two tablespoons of that sauce contains 4 teaspoons (16 grams) of sugar. So 2/3rds of your BBQ sauce is sugar. What about something savory like a Lean Cuisine? The Chicken Ranch Club contains just over 2 teaspoons of sugar (9 grams). Salad dressings average around a 1 1/2 tsp (6 grams) per tablespoon serving. It all starts adding up in a big way, especially when you should be averaging about 25 grams total per day.
No, I don't care about minimal sugar in sauces or rubs or other foods with tiny amounts (per serving), which is what kshama and I were talking about.
For the record, I hate ketchup and never eat Lean Cuisines (not a sauce) and also make my own dressings always (and have for years). I eat occasional BBQ rubs (less often sauces) and yes they have a little sugar (same with sriracha, same with a few other sauces I eat), but not a significant amount in a serving, and I fail to see how this negatively impacts my health or would make someone go on a sugar binge. I suspect the same is true with ketchup unless someone eats some truly unfathomable amount.
I don't care about sugar in sauces because they never add up to very much in my diet, IME. Sugar in dessert foods is less my issue than having such foods (with their added fat as well as sugar, and usually lack of significant protein, fiber, or micros) take up too much of my overall diet (although this is hypothetical, since I'm kind of off sweet foods other than fruit).
Re the Lean Cuisine, I looked it up, and it has at least some intrinsic sugar, so who knows how much of that 9 g (36 cal) is from sugar, but as an occasional meal it wouldn't bother me, no (I'm also wondering how you happened to focus on that one, as I picked another at random and although it also has a bit of intrinsic sugar, it was only 4 g total).
I will cover the rest in a second post, as this is long.
Monday I had no added sugar, and so far none today.
Although I am tracking everything at the moment just for the experiment, this is the conclusion I came to too. For me, non dessert added sugar tends to be pretty small amounts in savory foods or, most commonly, some sauces or rubs, and I really see no reason to care about that. Plus, it would be hard for that to add up to all that many cals. I really think these no sugar challenges that start by assuming you are eating some huge amount of sugar and then tell you to avoid these incidental sources are rather silly. I think it makes more sense to have people track their sugar, understand where it is coming from, and then consider reasonable changes if it is, in fact, higher than expected, which for most will be reducing snack/dessert foods or sugar-added drinks, with some maybe having more than expected in sugary cereals or trail mixes or granola bars or flavored yogurt. But if someone really loves adding, say, a bit of sugar to coffee or oats, I don't think that's something to be bothered about if the overall nutrition of the day and percentage of added sugar is fine anyway.
I used to use an example of a rhubarb sauce with a little sugar added vs. a homemade apple sauce. Why is the latter inherently preferable to the former? No good reason IMO. (Even Dr. Greger, who has other issues, no doubt, says that objecting to a little sugar or oil if that is how the overall diet becomes more sustainable and is able to incorporate nutritious foods like oats and veg, is not something to worry about.)
One of the points of these challenges is educating yourself about how much sugars, especially hidden added sugars, are in your foods. Including savory and sauces.
I have read over and over about how much allegedly hidden sugar Americans get in their diet, and how difficult it is to quit added sugar. As someone who always reads labels, and thinks that the sugar in most of the examples given (sugary cereal, flavored yogurt, ketchup, sweetish dressings, etc.) is super obvious anyway, I was skeptical, but I was willing to buy into it to some degree. Therefore, back in January 2014, when I decided to lose weight, I decided to cut out ALL added sugar, and was super conscientious about it (I think I covered this earlier in the thread, but perhaps not). I found it surprisingly easy, and I also learned that I really didn't have any surprises as far as added sugar. This is perhaps because I've been a whole foods based eater for a long time (but for exceptions that I was fully aware of the nutrient content of), and that I make all my own dressings and most of my own sauces. I already knew that sriracha, which I consume often enough, had some sugar, so I eliminated that, and I was very careful about other sauces. I was eating quite healthfully and had cut out snacking, which was great (and something I still believe in for me), but I did not find avoiding added sugar very difficult at all or to have any magical effects (limiting is a different thing, I believe in that for health reasons, and generally for the reasons given by the WHO).
You don't care about sugar in sauces? You should. For example, one tablespoon of ketchup contains a full teaspoon of sugar (4 grams). A full 1/3rd of the ketchup you eat is sugar. BBQ sauce like Sweet Baby Rays? Two tablespoons of that sauce contains 4 teaspoons (16 grams) of sugar. So 2/3rds of your BBQ sauce is sugar. What about something savory like a Lean Cuisine? The Chicken Ranch Club contains just over 2 teaspoons of sugar (9 grams). Salad dressings average around a 1 1/2 tsp (6 grams) per tablespoon serving. It all starts adding up in a big way, especially when you should be averaging about 25 grams total per day.
No, I don't care about minimal sugar in sauces or rubs or other foods with tiny amounts (per serving), which is what kshama and I were talking about.
For the record, I hate ketchup and never eat Lean Cuisines (not a sauce) and also make my own dressings always (and have for years). I eat occasional BBQ rubs (less often sauces) and yes they have a little sugar (same with sriracha, same with a few other sauces I eat), but not a significant amount in a serving, and I fail to see how this negatively impacts my health or would make someone go on a sugar binge. I suspect the same is true with ketchup unless someone eats some truly unfathomable amount.
I don't care about sugar in sauces because they never add up to very much in my diet, IME. Sugar in dessert foods is less my issue than having such foods (with their added fat as well as sugar, and usually lack of significant protein, fiber, or micros) take up too much of my overall diet (although this is hypothetical, since I'm kind of off sweet foods other than fruit).
Re the Lean Cuisine, I looked it up, and it has at least some intrinsic sugar, so who knows how much of that 9 g (36 cal) is from sugar, but as an occasional meal it wouldn't bother me, no (I'm also wondering how you happened to focus on that one, as I picked another at random and although it also has a bit of intrinsic sugar, it was only 4 g total).
I will cover the rest in a second post, as this is long.
Then please tell me which savory foods and sauces you are talking about? Perhaps it would be best to clarify your posts in the context of your own diet? Personally I don't think 6 grams of sugar in a tablespoon of dressing is a minor amount when it's more than 20% of the recommended sugar allowance for the day.
Lean Cuisine is savory which is why I chose it. There are some as high as 21 grams and some as low as 5 grams. I landed at one in the middle.
You're making this sweeping judgment that these are negligible amounts of sugar when they really aren't. A couple of tablespoons of BBQ sauce is about 2/3rds of your sugar allotment for the day. These aren't minimal amounts of sugar.
While you might think this is silly because you claim to have very minimal sugar in your diet the average American eats 94 grams a day and most of them don't realize why.
Perhaps this isn't a good thread for you. This is a thread for people choosing to limit their sugar intake.
The more important issue is why calories derived from sugar are worse for you than calories from fats or protein. Sugars almost convert straight to fat and worse yet, calories from sugar keep you hungry. There is a hormone called leptin that increases as you take in calories. As leptin increases it tells your brain that hey, we're full. We've got enough food/energy right now and we should work on storing and using it. If your brain is not getting a signal from leptin it thinks it's hungry. When you take in sugar it raises your insulin levels and insulin blocks the signal from leptin getting to the brain. Sugar, from natural sources, is usually paired with natural fiber which is why fruits are ok, it's considered a slow carb. The fiber in the fruit slows down how quickly the sugar is metabolized into fat.
So this is largely all untrue, or personal.
No, calories from sugar are not inherently worse than calories from fat or protein. According to the WHO, and the reason for their limit on ADDED sugar (which I agree with), ADDED sugar is a problem in the average diet because it typically comes with excessive cals (often because it is paired with fat, often added fat, which it is also recommended to limit), and because such foods often are low in fiber and micros, as I said above (so if you control cals but eat too much it could squeeze out more nutrient dense foods that are needed). That's nothing about the specifics of sugar (and indeed there is no evidence of any problem from INTRINSIC sugars, outside of a ridiculously unbalanced diet, even though the makeup of the sugars themselves is the same, the difference is the company they keep).
It is also simply NOT true that sugars convert straight to fat. In a calorie deficit, when glycogen stores are not full, sugar (or carbs generally) won't convert to fat at all, and even if for some reason they did you would not add net fat, as more would be burned to fuel you (as you can't use the sugar for fuel if it's being stored, you have to use other fat). More significantly, fat actually converts to fat much, much easier than carbs (including sugar) do, which is why someone with a mixed diet (including fat and carbs) will typically convert the fat, not the carbs, to fat if they have a calorie surplus (they won't add fat absent a surplus).
Insulin does not block leptin. Instead, it stimulates leptin secretion. Even the interview with Lustig and the study by him you site doesn't say what you say it says. Lustig says that excessive insulin over time can cause leptin resistance. Excessive sugar does not = a few grams from sauces in a diet within the WHO recommendations on average. (Also, I note that you are apparently not on an added sugar is bad rant, but a carbs are bad rant.)
Personally, I have tracked my cals off and on for years now, and also eating mindfully without doing so for periods during these same years, and I can say without question that eating sugar does not make me hungry or prevent me from being full, and that is especially the case if we are talking about using sauces or rubs with very small amounts of sugar. (What I think is more likely the issue for some is that the desire for some kinds of so-called hyperpalatable (or perhaps delicious, which is often not the same thing as what some call hyperpalatable) foods outweighs satiety signals. This is why in the past I've been so full at a restaurant that I couldn't finish my meal, and yet had a little dessert after, or why I could be perfectly happy not eating for hours but if something tempting turns up in the break room I want to eat it -- even if no previous food contained the evil demon sugar!) ;-)
I also personally find fruit very sating, although I know not all do.
The one circumstance in which I think added sugar has potentially a specifically negative effect apart from overall nutrient and dosage is if someone is drinking a ton of sugary beverages or eating truly a lot of sweet dessert type food. Then, and the better evidence of this is with soda, although it's not certain as to either, there's a hit to the liver since the soda or sweets lacks fiber and are typically not eaten with a meal to slow them down. In those cases I think there's a risk that it would lead to fatty liver disease, and it's particularly a concern with younger people (soda is a weird item since it accounts for a huge amount of the sugar supposedly in the US diet, but it's mainly consumed by a small amount of people who consume enormous amounts). This is one reason why fiber matters, not that sugar without it could magically cause weight gain in a deficit, it cannot.
Btw, that sugar can have bad effects under these specific circumstances says nothing about moderate consumption (there's no evidence that moderate consumption has worse effects than cutting it out completely). And of course sat fat has bad effects consumed immoderately (and I think there's evidence about excessive protein over time too, or at least there's evidence that diets not so high in protein (not insufficient) tend to be correlated with longer-lived populations/people.
Calories in/calories out is only half true, where you get your calories is equally as large an issue.
For weight gain, loss, or maintenance? No.
For health? Sure, but it's more complicated than "avoid sugar" and someone who thinks nutrition is about avoiding all added sugar isn't well-informed about nutrition. Nutrition is more about what is included in the diet.
Oh, and on "That Sugar Film," which has been discussed and debunked on MFP often, here:
The more important issue is why calories derived from sugar are worse for you than calories from fats or protein. Sugars almost convert straight to fat and worse yet, calories from sugar keep you hungry. There is a hormone called leptin that increases as you take in calories. As leptin increases it tells your brain that hey, we're full. We've got enough food/energy right now and we should work on storing and using it. If your brain is not getting a signal from leptin it thinks it's hungry. When you take in sugar it raises your insulin levels and insulin blocks the signal from leptin getting to the brain. Sugar, from natural sources, is usually paired with natural fiber which is why fruits are ok, it's considered a slow carb. The fiber in the fruit slows down how quickly the sugar is metabolized into fat.
So this is largely all untrue, or personal.
No, calories from sugar are not inherently worse than calories from fat or protein. According to the WHO, and the reason for their limit on ADDED sugar (which I agree with), ADDED sugar is a problem in the average diet because it typically comes with excessive cals (often because it is paired with fat, often added fat, which it is also recommended to limit), and because such foods often are low in fiber and micros, as I said above (so if you control cals but eat too much it could squeeze out more nutrient dense foods that are needed). That's nothing about the specifics of sugar (and indeed there is no evidence of any problem from INTRINSIC sugars, outside of a ridiculously unbalanced diet, even though the makeup of the sugars themselves is the same, the difference is the company they keep).
It is also simply NOT true that sugars convert straight to fat. In a calorie deficit, when glycogen stores are not full, sugar (or carbs generally) won't convert to fat at all, and even if for some reason they did you would not add net fat, as more would be burned to fuel you (as you can't use the sugar for fuel if it's being stored, you have to use other fat). More significantly, fat actually converts to fat much, much easier than carbs (including sugar) do, which is why someone with a mixed diet (including fat and carbs) will typically convert the fat, not the carbs, to fat if they have a calorie surplus (they won't add fat absent a surplus).
Insulin does not block leptin. Instead, it stimulates leptin secretion. Even the interview with Lustig and the study by him you site doesn't say what you say it says. Lustig says that excessive insulin over time can cause leptin resistance. Excessive sugar does not = a few grams from sauces in a diet within the WHO recommendations on average. (Also, I note that you are apparently not on an added sugar is bad rant, but a carbs are bad rant.)
Personally, I have tracked my cals off and on for years now, and also eating mindfully without doing so for periods during these same years, and I can say without question that eating sugar does not make me hungry or prevent me from being full, and that is especially the case if we are talking about using sauces or rubs with very small amounts of sugar. (What I think is more likely the issue for some is that the desire for some kinds of so-called hyperpalatable (or perhaps delicious, which is often not the same thing as what some call hyperpalatable) foods outweighs satiety signals. This is why in the past I've been so full at a restaurant that I couldn't finish my meal, and yet had a little dessert after, or why I could be perfectly happy not eating for hours but if something tempting turns up in the break room I want to eat it -- even if no previous food contained the evil demon sugar!) ;-)
I also personally find fruit very sating, although I know not all do.
The one circumstance in which I think added sugar has potentially a specifically negative effect apart from overall nutrient and dosage is if someone is drinking a ton of sugary beverages or eating truly a lot of sweet dessert type food. Then, and the better evidence of this is with soda, although it's not certain as to either, there's a hit to the liver since the soda or sweets lacks fiber and are typically not eaten with a meal to slow them down. In those cases I think there's a risk that it would lead to fatty liver disease, and it's particularly a concern with younger people (soda is a weird item since it accounts for a huge amount of the sugar supposedly in the US diet, but it's mainly consumed by a small amount of people who consume enormous amounts). This is one reason why fiber matters, not that sugar without it could magically cause weight gain in a deficit, it cannot.
Btw, that sugar can have bad effects under these specific circumstances says nothing about moderate consumption (there's no evidence that moderate consumption has worse effects than cutting it out completely). And of course sat fat has bad effects consumed immoderately (and I think there's evidence about excessive protein over time too, or at least there's evidence that diets not so high in protein (not insufficient) tend to be correlated with longer-lived populations/people.
Calories in/calories out is only half true, where you get your calories is equally as large an issue.
For weight gain, loss, or maintenance? No.
For health? Sure, but it's more complicated than "avoid sugar" and someone who thinks nutrition is about avoiding all added sugar isn't well-informed about nutrition. Nutrition is more about what is included in the diet.
Oh, and on "That Sugar Film," which has been discussed and debunked on MFP often, here:
I gave you a medical journal and you gave me an article from a guy who is a journalist, not a scientist. OK.
I'm done here. I can tell there is no way to have this discussion with you. I'm not on a carbs are bad rant. My concern is specific to sugar and I clearly mention that fruit sugar is fine when it's with the fiber. The average American eats almost 100 grams of sugar per day by the way. That can't all be from fruit. Also, nutrition is 100% about diet. Nutrition is nothing BUT diet. Health is another thing all together.
But again, you don't belong in this thread. This thread is for people avoiding sugar, not for people who have decided 2/3rds of a tablespoon of BBQ sauce being sugar is ok. Bye.
One of the points of these challenges is educating yourself about how much sugar, especially hidden added sugar, are in your foods.
Like I said upthread, I think people who blame "hidden sugars" for an excessive sugar intake are deluding themselves, as sugar is on the label and products with substantial added sugar are usually not surprising. If you read the lists of where the most added sugar in the US and UK diets come from, it's no surprise: sugary drinks, grain based sweet dessert foods, dairy based sweet dessert foods, and sugar cereals. Hidden? Not on your life! Freaking people out about small amounts of sugar in a spicy sauce (or even ketchup) rather than just saying "use your common sense about what you eat and make obvious dessert or sugary foods a once in a while or limited thing" is a rather silly approach. That said, I admit I am coming at this as someone who eats mostly whole foods and thinks the claim that is sometimes made that "everything has added sugar in it" is bizarre, as the vast majority of foods I buy (not only the whole foods, but cottage cheese or plain greek yogurt or canned beans or bagged/boxed grains or pasta or the canned tomatoes and nut butters I choose, etc., have no added sugar. So maybe you are coming from a different normal than I am.)
Anyway, I think kshama and I explained upthread what annoys us personally about the "you must eat no sugar" approach, with some specific examples, but if someone wants to try it for a while (as I did), I support that. I just will not agree with your suggestion that eating even a little is terrible (and the rest of the false claims) or that one must fret about the little bit in various sauces and rubs, etc. (I am talking about ones with only a small amount, again, as that is what we were talking about in the series of posts you responded to).
Also note that I'm not even trying to eat absolutely no sugar (I am okay with small amounts within the WHO limit), but most days I cook for myself all meals I in fact do, even though I log it and count it if sugar is in a sauce or rub.
One of the points of these challenges is educating yourself about how much sugar, especially hidden added sugar, are in your foods.
Like I said upthread, I think people who blame "hidden sugars" for an excessive sugar intake are deluding themselves, as sugar is on the label and products with substantial added sugar are usually not surprising. If you read the lists of where the most added sugar in the US and UK diets come from, it's no surprise: sugary drinks, grain based sweet dessert foods, dairy based sweet dessert foods, and sugar cereals. Hidden? Not on your life! Freaking people out about small amounts of sugar in a spicy sauce (or even ketchup) rather than just saying "use your common sense about what you eat and make obvious dessert or sugary foods a once in a while or limited thing" is a rather silly approach. That said, I admit I am coming at this as someone who eats mostly whole foods and thinks the claim that is sometimes made that "everything has added sugar in it" is bizarre, as the vast majority of foods I buy (not only the whole foods, but cottage cheese or plain greek yogurt or canned beans or bagged/boxed grains or pasta or the canned tomatoes and nut butters I choose, etc., have no added sugar. So maybe you are coming from a different normal than I am.)
Anyway, I think kshama and I explained upthread what annoys us personally about the "you must eat no sugar" approach, with some specific examples, but if someone wants to try it for a while (as I did), I support that. I just will not agree with your suggestion that eating even a little is terrible (and the rest of the false claims) or that one must fret about the little bit in various sauces and rubs, etc. (I am talking about ones with only a small amount, again, as that is what we were talking about in the series of posts you responded to).
Also note that I'm not even trying to eat absolutely no sugar (I am okay with small amounts within the WHO limit), but most days I cook for myself all meals I in fact do, even though I log it and count it if sugar is in a sauce or rub.
No one said you must eat absolutely no sugar. No one. No where.
You cannot deny many supermarket foods, savory and sweet, have an excess of added sugars. Much of it hidden as who would suspect Ragu tomato sauce for example, 8 grams of sugar with some of it coming from added sugar as sugar is one of the ingredients.
You also cannot deny that if the average American eats 94 grams of sugar a day that is probably a likely contributor to the obesity epidemic.
You are not someone that needs to limit your sugar intake. But you suggesting that people who are trying to manage theirs completely ignore added sugars found in sauces and savory foods because *you* find them to be minimal is misguided and not helpful. You already eat a whole foods diet, many of us here in this thread are here because we don't.
For example, you proclaim that canned beans are fine. Well, most of them are except for baked beans which have around 3 teaspoons of sugar (12 grams) per half cup serving. This is why people should be reading the labels and not listening to your suggestion to not worry about it.
Monday I had no added sugar, and so far none today.
Although I am tracking everything at the moment just for the experiment, this is the conclusion I came to too. For me, non dessert added sugar tends to be pretty small amounts in savory foods or, most commonly, some sauces or rubs, and I really see no reason to care about that. Plus, it would be hard for that to add up to all that many cals. I really think these no sugar challenges that start by assuming you are eating some huge amount of sugar and then tell you to avoid these incidental sources are rather silly. I think it makes more sense to have people track their sugar, understand where it is coming from, and then consider reasonable changes if it is, in fact, higher than expected, which for most will be reducing snack/dessert foods or sugar-added drinks, with some maybe having more than expected in sugary cereals or trail mixes or granola bars or flavored yogurt. But if someone really loves adding, say, a bit of sugar to coffee or oats, I don't think that's something to be bothered about if the overall nutrition of the day and percentage of added sugar is fine anyway.
I used to use an example of a rhubarb sauce with a little sugar added vs. a homemade apple sauce. Why is the latter inherently preferable to the former? No good reason IMO. (Even Dr. Greger, who has other issues, no doubt, says that objecting to a little sugar or oil if that is how the overall diet becomes more sustainable and is able to incorporate nutritious foods like oats and veg, is not something to worry about.)
One of the points of these challenges is educating yourself about how much sugars, especially hidden added sugars, are in your foods. Including savory and sauces.
I have read over and over about how much allegedly hidden sugar Americans get in their diet, and how difficult it is to quit added sugar. As someone who always reads labels, and thinks that the sugar in most of the examples given (sugary cereal, flavored yogurt, ketchup, sweetish dressings, etc.) is super obvious anyway, I was skeptical, but I was willing to buy into it to some degree. Therefore, back in January 2014, when I decided to lose weight, I decided to cut out ALL added sugar, and was super conscientious about it (I think I covered this earlier in the thread, but perhaps not). I found it surprisingly easy, and I also learned that I really didn't have any surprises as far as added sugar. This is perhaps because I've been a whole foods based eater for a long time (but for exceptions that I was fully aware of the nutrient content of), and that I make all my own dressings and most of my own sauces. I already knew that sriracha, which I consume often enough, had some sugar, so I eliminated that, and I was very careful about other sauces. I was eating quite healthfully and had cut out snacking, which was great (and something I still believe in for me), but I did not find avoiding added sugar very difficult at all or to have any magical effects (limiting is a different thing, I believe in that for health reasons, and generally for the reasons given by the WHO).
You don't care about sugar in sauces? You should. For example, one tablespoon of ketchup contains a full teaspoon of sugar (4 grams). A full 1/3rd of the ketchup you eat is sugar. BBQ sauce like Sweet Baby Rays? Two tablespoons of that sauce contains 4 teaspoons (16 grams) of sugar. So 2/3rds of your BBQ sauce is sugar. What about something savory like a Lean Cuisine? The Chicken Ranch Club contains just over 2 teaspoons of sugar (9 grams). Salad dressings average around a 1 1/2 tsp (6 grams) per tablespoon serving. It all starts adding up in a big way, especially when you should be averaging about 25 grams total per day.
No, I don't care about minimal sugar in sauces or rubs or other foods with tiny amounts (per serving), which is what kshama and I were talking about.
For the record, I hate ketchup and never eat Lean Cuisines (not a sauce) and also make my own dressings always (and have for years). I eat occasional BBQ rubs (less often sauces) and yes they have a little sugar (same with sriracha, same with a few other sauces I eat), but not a significant amount in a serving, and I fail to see how this negatively impacts my health or would make someone go on a sugar binge. I suspect the same is true with ketchup unless someone eats some truly unfathomable amount.
I don't care about sugar in sauces because they never add up to very much in my diet, IME. Sugar in dessert foods is less my issue than having such foods (with their added fat as well as sugar, and usually lack of significant protein, fiber, or micros) take up too much of my overall diet (although this is hypothetical, since I'm kind of off sweet foods other than fruit).
Re the Lean Cuisine, I looked it up, and it has at least some intrinsic sugar, so who knows how much of that 9 g (36 cal) is from sugar, but as an occasional meal it wouldn't bother me, no (I'm also wondering how you happened to focus on that one, as I picked another at random and although it also has a bit of intrinsic sugar, it was only 4 g total).
I will cover the rest in a second post, as this is long.
Then please tell me which savory foods and sauces you are talking about?
Sriricha is one I mentioned: 2.9 g in a tbsp. kshama mentioned another product that was not a sauce but had a little but minimal sugar.
Personally I don't think 6 grams of sugar in a tablespoon of dressing is a minor amount when it's more than 20% of the recommended sugar allowance for the day.
So don't use that dressing? I personally make my dressings and recommend that.
Lean Cuisine is savory which is why I chose it. There are some as high as 21 grams and some as low as 5 grams. I landed at one in the middle.
Then how come the first one I grabbed at random had 4 g? Also, not a sauce.
You're making this sweeping judgment that these are negligible amounts of sugar when they really aren't. A couple of tablespoons of BBQ sauce is about 2/3rds of your sugar allotment for the day. These aren't minimal amounts of sugar.
A couple of tbsps of BBQ sauce is a LOT, more than I would use for sure, and also you are picking the most sugary sauce. That said, I picked one at random (Stubbs Original) and it only had 4 g for 2 tbsp.
Also, if one uses the 5% number, sure, even that tiny amount is a significant portion of daily totals, but it's not likely you are going to consume a lot more that day (or that it is going to cause you to go over cals or crowd out sufficient nutrition -- depending on what you are using it on the sat fat might be more of an issue there). In any event, you seem to be confusing sugar and added sugar.
While you might think this is silly because you claim to have very minimal sugar in your diet the average American eats 94 grams a day and most of them don't realize why.
False -- as I said before, if you look at where added sugar in the US and UK diets come from (I think you are using a total sugar number, which is misleading again), it is almost all from foods that are obviously full of sugar. The hidden sugar thing is a joke.
Perhaps this isn't a good thread for you. This is a thread for people choosing to limit their sugar intake.
I started the thread. So don't tell me to leave my own thread.
As to why -- it was an offshoot of another thread, and I consume a very limited sugar intake and want to support others reducing sugar or even cutting it out completely. However, I dislike the focus on there being a little sugar in sriracha, since I think it has nothing to do with why most Americans (on average, the average is actually misleading) consume too much and can make limiting sugar to a healthy level unnecessary difficult and complicated for some (and also just further confuses people about what good nutrition is). I also think it's important to have accurate information in this thread, which is why I will correct stuff like "sugar causes weight gain independent of cals" or "if you have BBQ you will be extra hungry."
The more important issue is why calories derived from sugar are worse for you than calories from fats or protein. Sugars almost convert straight to fat and worse yet, calories from sugar keep you hungry. There is a hormone called leptin that increases as you take in calories. As leptin increases it tells your brain that hey, we're full. We've got enough food/energy right now and we should work on storing and using it. If your brain is not getting a signal from leptin it thinks it's hungry. When you take in sugar it raises your insulin levels and insulin blocks the signal from leptin getting to the brain. Sugar, from natural sources, is usually paired with natural fiber which is why fruits are ok, it's considered a slow carb. The fiber in the fruit slows down how quickly the sugar is metabolized into fat.
So this is largely all untrue, or personal.
No, calories from sugar are not inherently worse than calories from fat or protein. According to the WHO, and the reason for their limit on ADDED sugar (which I agree with), ADDED sugar is a problem in the average diet because it typically comes with excessive cals (often because it is paired with fat, often added fat, which it is also recommended to limit), and because such foods often are low in fiber and micros, as I said above (so if you control cals but eat too much it could squeeze out more nutrient dense foods that are needed). That's nothing about the specifics of sugar (and indeed there is no evidence of any problem from INTRINSIC sugars, outside of a ridiculously unbalanced diet, even though the makeup of the sugars themselves is the same, the difference is the company they keep).
It is also simply NOT true that sugars convert straight to fat. In a calorie deficit, when glycogen stores are not full, sugar (or carbs generally) won't convert to fat at all, and even if for some reason they did you would not add net fat, as more would be burned to fuel you (as you can't use the sugar for fuel if it's being stored, you have to use other fat). More significantly, fat actually converts to fat much, much easier than carbs (including sugar) do, which is why someone with a mixed diet (including fat and carbs) will typically convert the fat, not the carbs, to fat if they have a calorie surplus (they won't add fat absent a surplus).
Insulin does not block leptin. Instead, it stimulates leptin secretion. Even the interview with Lustig and the study by him you site doesn't say what you say it says. Lustig says that excessive insulin over time can cause leptin resistance. Excessive sugar does not = a few grams from sauces in a diet within the WHO recommendations on average. (Also, I note that you are apparently not on an added sugar is bad rant, but a carbs are bad rant.)
Personally, I have tracked my cals off and on for years now, and also eating mindfully without doing so for periods during these same years, and I can say without question that eating sugar does not make me hungry or prevent me from being full, and that is especially the case if we are talking about using sauces or rubs with very small amounts of sugar. (What I think is more likely the issue for some is that the desire for some kinds of so-called hyperpalatable (or perhaps delicious, which is often not the same thing as what some call hyperpalatable) foods outweighs satiety signals. This is why in the past I've been so full at a restaurant that I couldn't finish my meal, and yet had a little dessert after, or why I could be perfectly happy not eating for hours but if something tempting turns up in the break room I want to eat it -- even if no previous food contained the evil demon sugar!) ;-)
I also personally find fruit very sating, although I know not all do.
The one circumstance in which I think added sugar has potentially a specifically negative effect apart from overall nutrient and dosage is if someone is drinking a ton of sugary beverages or eating truly a lot of sweet dessert type food. Then, and the better evidence of this is with soda, although it's not certain as to either, there's a hit to the liver since the soda or sweets lacks fiber and are typically not eaten with a meal to slow them down. In those cases I think there's a risk that it would lead to fatty liver disease, and it's particularly a concern with younger people (soda is a weird item since it accounts for a huge amount of the sugar supposedly in the US diet, but it's mainly consumed by a small amount of people who consume enormous amounts). This is one reason why fiber matters, not that sugar without it could magically cause weight gain in a deficit, it cannot.
Btw, that sugar can have bad effects under these specific circumstances says nothing about moderate consumption (there's no evidence that moderate consumption has worse effects than cutting it out completely). And of course sat fat has bad effects consumed immoderately (and I think there's evidence about excessive protein over time too, or at least there's evidence that diets not so high in protein (not insufficient) tend to be correlated with longer-lived populations/people.
Calories in/calories out is only half true, where you get your calories is equally as large an issue.
For weight gain, loss, or maintenance? No.
For health? Sure, but it's more complicated than "avoid sugar" and someone who thinks nutrition is about avoiding all added sugar isn't well-informed about nutrition. Nutrition is more about what is included in the diet.
Oh, and on "That Sugar Film," which has been discussed and debunked on MFP often, here:
I gave you a medical journal and you gave me an article from a guy who is a journalist, not a scientist. OK.
The link to Nature did not support what you claimed.
It did say that obese people are typically leptin resistant, as well as insulin resistant. That does not surprise me (btw, best way to become more leptin sensitive is to exercise).
But again, you don't belong in this thread. This thread is for people avoiding sugar, not for people who have decided 2/3rds of a tablespoon of BBQ sauce being sugar is ok. Bye.
I started the thread.
Also, going back to the Stubbs BBQ sauce I picked at random. It's 4 g of sugar in 33 g of sauce for 2 TBSP, not all of which is added, although most likely is. (As an aside, do you understand why BBQ sauce necessarily has sugar?) So that's 16 cal in a sauce that will be used on one meal on an occasional meal (likely less than weekly), and the meal will include meat and (if one cares about nutrition) veggies, and make up part of an entire day, which will be more or less nutritious depending on overall choices.
So why would it matter how much sugar is in the entire jar of BBQ sauce, which is what you seem to be on about? Do you consume entire jars of BBQ sauce?
No one said you must eat absolutely no sugar. No one. No where.
Um, challenges that posit that as the ideal, and people who believe based on such challenges or propaganda that they must, was exactly what kshama and I were talking about in the series of posts you jumped in to disagree with.
This is why people should be reading the labels and not listening to your suggestion to not worry about it.
I totally agree that people should read labels. It's just common sense. I've always read labels. I always tell people to read labels and look at their sugar when logging to see if any comes from surprising sources. But I find it laughable or just untrue when people claim it's hard to find anything without added sugar, as I explained above, and I think the focus on small amounts from condiments vs. the real sources is just fear mongering or an effort to claim people lack agency in this. I think that's not normally from people who actually decide they want to quit sugar or limit it, but from the media's ridiculous discussion of this (which you seem to have bought into).
Also, again, it's still not true that people in the US or UK get a substantial part of their added sugar from savory items like this. If you look at where added sugar in the diet comes from, it's all obvious stuff.
Again, you are in the wrong thread.
Let's ask the person who started the thread what she thinks?
Can we get back to discussing our own sugar habits and any struggles, please? That's what kshama and I were talking about (equating eating 1 g in protein powder or even 4 g in a BBQ sauce to eating an excessive amount).
Monday I had no added sugar, and so far none today.
Although I am tracking everything at the moment just for the experiment, this is the conclusion I came to too. For me, non dessert added sugar tends to be pretty small amounts in savory foods or, most commonly, some sauces or rubs, and I really see no reason to care about that. Plus, it would be hard for that to add up to all that many cals. I really think these no sugar challenges that start by assuming you are eating some huge amount of sugar and then tell you to avoid these incidental sources are rather silly. I think it makes more sense to have people track their sugar, understand where it is coming from, and then consider reasonable changes if it is, in fact, higher than expected, which for most will be reducing snack/dessert foods or sugar-added drinks, with some maybe having more than expected in sugary cereals or trail mixes or granola bars or flavored yogurt. But if someone really loves adding, say, a bit of sugar to coffee or oats, I don't think that's something to be bothered about if the overall nutrition of the day and percentage of added sugar is fine anyway.
I used to use an example of a rhubarb sauce with a little sugar added vs. a homemade apple sauce. Why is the latter inherently preferable to the former? No good reason IMO. (Even Dr. Greger, who has other issues, no doubt, says that objecting to a little sugar or oil if that is how the overall diet becomes more sustainable and is able to incorporate nutritious foods like oats and veg, is not something to worry about.)
One of the points of these challenges is educating yourself about how much sugars, especially hidden added sugars, are in your foods. Including savory and sauces.
I have read over and over about how much allegedly hidden sugar Americans get in their diet, and how difficult it is to quit added sugar. As someone who always reads labels, and thinks that the sugar in most of the examples given (sugary cereal, flavored yogurt, ketchup, sweetish dressings, etc.) is super obvious anyway, I was skeptical, but I was willing to buy into it to some degree. Therefore, back in January 2014, when I decided to lose weight, I decided to cut out ALL added sugar, and was super conscientious about it (I think I covered this earlier in the thread, but perhaps not). I found it surprisingly easy, and I also learned that I really didn't have any surprises as far as added sugar. This is perhaps because I've been a whole foods based eater for a long time (but for exceptions that I was fully aware of the nutrient content of), and that I make all my own dressings and most of my own sauces. I already knew that sriracha, which I consume often enough, had some sugar, so I eliminated that, and I was very careful about other sauces. I was eating quite healthfully and had cut out snacking, which was great (and something I still believe in for me), but I did not find avoiding added sugar very difficult at all or to have any magical effects (limiting is a different thing, I believe in that for health reasons, and generally for the reasons given by the WHO).
You don't care about sugar in sauces? You should. For example, one tablespoon of ketchup contains a full teaspoon of sugar (4 grams). A full 1/3rd of the ketchup you eat is sugar. BBQ sauce like Sweet Baby Rays? Two tablespoons of that sauce contains 4 teaspoons (16 grams) of sugar. So 2/3rds of your BBQ sauce is sugar. What about something savory like a Lean Cuisine? The Chicken Ranch Club contains just over 2 teaspoons of sugar (9 grams). Salad dressings average around a 1 1/2 tsp (6 grams) per tablespoon serving. It all starts adding up in a big way, especially when you should be averaging about 25 grams total per day.
No, I don't care about minimal sugar in sauces or rubs or other foods with tiny amounts (per serving), which is what kshama and I were talking about.
For the record, I hate ketchup and never eat Lean Cuisines (not a sauce) and also make my own dressings always (and have for years). I eat occasional BBQ rubs (less often sauces) and yes they have a little sugar (same with sriracha, same with a few other sauces I eat), but not a significant amount in a serving, and I fail to see how this negatively impacts my health or would make someone go on a sugar binge. I suspect the same is true with ketchup unless someone eats some truly unfathomable amount.
I don't care about sugar in sauces because they never add up to very much in my diet, IME. Sugar in dessert foods is less my issue than having such foods (with their added fat as well as sugar, and usually lack of significant protein, fiber, or micros) take up too much of my overall diet (although this is hypothetical, since I'm kind of off sweet foods other than fruit).
Re the Lean Cuisine, I looked it up, and it has at least some intrinsic sugar, so who knows how much of that 9 g (36 cal) is from sugar, but as an occasional meal it wouldn't bother me, no (I'm also wondering how you happened to focus on that one, as I picked another at random and although it also has a bit of intrinsic sugar, it was only 4 g total).
I will cover the rest in a second post, as this is long.
Then please tell me which savory foods and sauces you are talking about?
Sriricha is one I mentioned: 2.9 g in a tbsp. kshama mentioned another product that was not a sauce but had a little but minimal sugar.
Personally I don't think 6 grams of sugar in a tablespoon of dressing is a minor amount when it's more than 20% of the recommended sugar allowance for the day.
So don't use that dressing? I personally make my dressings and recommend that.
Lean Cuisine is savory which is why I chose it. There are some as high as 21 grams and some as low as 5 grams. I landed at one in the middle.
Then how come the first one I grabbed at random had 4 g? Also, not a sauce.
You're making this sweeping judgment that these are negligible amounts of sugar when they really aren't. A couple of tablespoons of BBQ sauce is about 2/3rds of your sugar allotment for the day. These aren't minimal amounts of sugar.
A couple of tbsps of BBQ sauce is a LOT, more than I would use for sure, and also you are picking the most sugary sauce. That said, I picked one at random (Stubbs Original) and it only had 4 g for 2 tbsp.
Also, if one uses the 5% number, sure, even that tiny amount is a significant portion of daily totals, but it's not likely you are going to consume a lot more that day (or that it is going to cause you to go over cals or crowd out sufficient nutrition -- depending on what you are using it on the sat fat might be more of an issue there). In any event, you seem to be confusing sugar and added sugar.
While you might think this is silly because you claim to have very minimal sugar in your diet the average American eats 94 grams a day and most of them don't realize why.
False -- as I said before, if you look at where added sugar in the US and UK diets come from (I think you are using a total sugar number, which is misleading again), it is almost all from foods that are obviously full of sugar. The hidden sugar thing is a joke.
Perhaps this isn't a good thread for you. This is a thread for people choosing to limit their sugar intake.
I started the thread. So don't tell me to leave my own thread.
As to why -- it was an offshoot of another thread, and I consume a very limited sugar intake and want to support others reducing sugar or even cutting it out completely. However, I dislike the focus on there being a little sugar in sriracha, since I think it has nothing to do with why most Americans (on average, the average is actually misleading) consume too much and can make limiting sugar to a healthy level unnecessary difficult and complicated for some (and also just further confuses people about what good nutrition is). I also think it's important to have accurate information in this thread, which is why I will correct stuff like "sugar causes weight gain independent of cals" or "if you have BBQ you will be extra hungry."
Again, then why are you cutting out sugar? Your diet indicates YOU don't need to. And why are you telling people not to worry about it when they should be paying attention to everything until they figure out what works for them. It's not the 3 in Sriracha specifically, it's the 3 in Sriracha you weren't expecting plus the 6 in the salad dressing you weren't expecting plus the 9 in the tomato sauce you weren't expecting all adding up...on top of the sweets.
The average american *added* sugar number is 17 teaspoons per day which is 68. Which is still too much coupled with the around 25g of whole foods sugar they already get which is 92, not 94 but still close. Do you think that all comes from sweets?
One person in this thread said they were limiting themselves to 85 grams a day. Do you think that comes from natural sources? Do you think that person shouldn't worry about the 3 grams from Sriracha or do you think they should be looking at all of the sugars they are taking in and try to figure out how to make healthier changes?
No one said if you have BBQ you will be extra hungry. I'm happy to completely start making up things that you didn't say if you want to go down that road. It will be easy.
You clearly do not need to give up sugar so maybe you should go on to give poor advice elsewhere.
No one said you must eat absolutely no sugar. No one. No where.
Um, challenges that posit that as the ideal, and people who believe based on such challenges or propaganda that they must, was exactly what kshama and I were talking about in the series of posts you jumped in to disagree with.
This is why people should be reading the labels and not listening to your suggestion to not worry about it.
I totally agree that people should read labels. It's just common sense. I've always read labels. I always tell people to read labels and look at their sugar when logging to see if any comes from surprising sources. But I find it laughable or just untrue when people claim it's hard to find anything without added sugar, as I explained above, and I think the focus on small amounts from condiments vs. the real sources is just fear mongering or an effort to claim people lack agency in this. I think that's not normally from people who actually decide they want to quit sugar or limit it, but from the media's ridiculous discussion of this (which you seem to have bought into).
Also, again, it's still not true that people in the US or UK get a substantial part of their added sugar from savory items like this. If you look at where added sugar in the diet comes from, it's all obvious stuff.
Again, you are in the wrong thread.
Let's ask the person who started the thread what she thinks?
Can we get back to discussing our own sugar habits and any struggles, please? That's what kshama and I were talking about (equating eating 1 g in protein powder or even 4 g in a BBQ sauce to eating an excessive amount).
Do you not get it? It all adds up. It's not about pointing at any one thing but you dismissing it in sauces and savory foods can quickly add up over the course of a day to 25 or 30 grams on top of the sugars you get from natural sources. Suddenly thats 50 or 60 grams, well over your WHO guidelines.
It doesn't matter who started the thread if the OPs advice is bad.
Monday I had no added sugar, and so far none today.
Although I am tracking everything at the moment just for the experiment, this is the conclusion I came to too. For me, non dessert added sugar tends to be pretty small amounts in savory foods or, most commonly, some sauces or rubs, and I really see no reason to care about that. Plus, it would be hard for that to add up to all that many cals. I really think these no sugar challenges that start by assuming you are eating some huge amount of sugar and then tell you to avoid these incidental sources are rather silly. I think it makes more sense to have people track their sugar, understand where it is coming from, and then consider reasonable changes if it is, in fact, higher than expected, which for most will be reducing snack/dessert foods or sugar-added drinks, with some maybe having more than expected in sugary cereals or trail mixes or granola bars or flavored yogurt. But if someone really loves adding, say, a bit of sugar to coffee or oats, I don't think that's something to be bothered about if the overall nutrition of the day and percentage of added sugar is fine anyway.
I used to use an example of a rhubarb sauce with a little sugar added vs. a homemade apple sauce. Why is the latter inherently preferable to the former? No good reason IMO. (Even Dr. Greger, who has other issues, no doubt, says that objecting to a little sugar or oil if that is how the overall diet becomes more sustainable and is able to incorporate nutritious foods like oats and veg, is not something to worry about.)
One of the points of these challenges is educating yourself about how much sugars, especially hidden added sugars, are in your foods. Including savory and sauces.
I have read over and over about how much allegedly hidden sugar Americans get in their diet, and how difficult it is to quit added sugar. As someone who always reads labels, and thinks that the sugar in most of the examples given (sugary cereal, flavored yogurt, ketchup, sweetish dressings, etc.) is super obvious anyway, I was skeptical, but I was willing to buy into it to some degree. Therefore, back in January 2014, when I decided to lose weight, I decided to cut out ALL added sugar, and was super conscientious about it (I think I covered this earlier in the thread, but perhaps not). I found it surprisingly easy, and I also learned that I really didn't have any surprises as far as added sugar. This is perhaps because I've been a whole foods based eater for a long time (but for exceptions that I was fully aware of the nutrient content of), and that I make all my own dressings and most of my own sauces. I already knew that sriracha, which I consume often enough, had some sugar, so I eliminated that, and I was very careful about other sauces. I was eating quite healthfully and had cut out snacking, which was great (and something I still believe in for me), but I did not find avoiding added sugar very difficult at all or to have any magical effects (limiting is a different thing, I believe in that for health reasons, and generally for the reasons given by the WHO).
You don't care about sugar in sauces? You should. For example, one tablespoon of ketchup contains a full teaspoon of sugar (4 grams). A full 1/3rd of the ketchup you eat is sugar. BBQ sauce like Sweet Baby Rays? Two tablespoons of that sauce contains 4 teaspoons (16 grams) of sugar. So 2/3rds of your BBQ sauce is sugar. What about something savory like a Lean Cuisine? The Chicken Ranch Club contains just over 2 teaspoons of sugar (9 grams). Salad dressings average around a 1 1/2 tsp (6 grams) per tablespoon serving. It all starts adding up in a big way, especially when you should be averaging about 25 grams total per day.
No, I don't care about minimal sugar in sauces or rubs or other foods with tiny amounts (per serving), which is what kshama and I were talking about.
For the record, I hate ketchup and never eat Lean Cuisines (not a sauce) and also make my own dressings always (and have for years). I eat occasional BBQ rubs (less often sauces) and yes they have a little sugar (same with sriracha, same with a few other sauces I eat), but not a significant amount in a serving, and I fail to see how this negatively impacts my health or would make someone go on a sugar binge. I suspect the same is true with ketchup unless someone eats some truly unfathomable amount.
I don't care about sugar in sauces because they never add up to very much in my diet, IME. Sugar in dessert foods is less my issue than having such foods (with their added fat as well as sugar, and usually lack of significant protein, fiber, or micros) take up too much of my overall diet (although this is hypothetical, since I'm kind of off sweet foods other than fruit).
Re the Lean Cuisine, I looked it up, and it has at least some intrinsic sugar, so who knows how much of that 9 g (36 cal) is from sugar, but as an occasional meal it wouldn't bother me, no (I'm also wondering how you happened to focus on that one, as I picked another at random and although it also has a bit of intrinsic sugar, it was only 4 g total).
I will cover the rest in a second post, as this is long.
Then please tell me which savory foods and sauces you are talking about?
Sriricha is one I mentioned: 2.9 g in a tbsp. kshama mentioned another product that was not a sauce but had a little but minimal sugar.
Personally I don't think 6 grams of sugar in a tablespoon of dressing is a minor amount when it's more than 20% of the recommended sugar allowance for the day.
So don't use that dressing? I personally make my dressings and recommend that.
Lean Cuisine is savory which is why I chose it. There are some as high as 21 grams and some as low as 5 grams. I landed at one in the middle.
Then how come the first one I grabbed at random had 4 g? Also, not a sauce.
You're making this sweeping judgment that these are negligible amounts of sugar when they really aren't. A couple of tablespoons of BBQ sauce is about 2/3rds of your sugar allotment for the day. These aren't minimal amounts of sugar.
A couple of tbsps of BBQ sauce is a LOT, more than I would use for sure, and also you are picking the most sugary sauce. That said, I picked one at random (Stubbs Original) and it only had 4 g for 2 tbsp.
Also, if one uses the 5% number, sure, even that tiny amount is a significant portion of daily totals, but it's not likely you are going to consume a lot more that day (or that it is going to cause you to go over cals or crowd out sufficient nutrition -- depending on what you are using it on the sat fat might be more of an issue there). In any event, you seem to be confusing sugar and added sugar.
While you might think this is silly because you claim to have very minimal sugar in your diet the average American eats 94 grams a day and most of them don't realize why.
False -- as I said before, if you look at where added sugar in the US and UK diets come from (I think you are using a total sugar number, which is misleading again), it is almost all from foods that are obviously full of sugar. The hidden sugar thing is a joke.
Perhaps this isn't a good thread for you. This is a thread for people choosing to limit their sugar intake.
I started the thread. So don't tell me to leave my own thread.
As to why -- it was an offshoot of another thread, and I consume a very limited sugar intake and want to support others reducing sugar or even cutting it out completely. However, I dislike the focus on there being a little sugar in sriracha, since I think it has nothing to do with why most Americans (on average, the average is actually misleading) consume too much and can make limiting sugar to a healthy level unnecessary difficult and complicated for some (and also just further confuses people about what good nutrition is). I also think it's important to have accurate information in this thread, which is why I will correct stuff like "sugar causes weight gain independent of cals" or "if you have BBQ you will be extra hungry."
Again, then why are you cutting out sugar? Your diet indicates YOU don't need to. And why are you telling people not to worry about it when they should be paying attention to everything until they figure out what works for them. It's not the 3 in Sriracha specifically, it's the 3 in Sriracha you weren't expecting plus the 6 in the salad dressing you weren't expecting plus the 9 in the tomato sauce you weren't expecting all adding up...on top of the sweets.
I have to do something productive now, so I not going to respond again for a while. But in an effort to communicate:
I started this thread to support someone who was limiting sugar. I also thought it might be useful to use tracking sugar as a reason to get back into tracking again. And because I did find (1) cutting out all sugar as an experiment; and (2) cutting out dessert-type sources of added sugar (foods that had significant added sugar) to be things useful for a period of time back before I lost my sweet tooth, I have an interest in this topic.
Based on my own experience cutting out all added sugar and cutting out all but incidental in savory sauces, etc. (although I read, log, and know what they are, of course), I think that the latter can make it harder than it needs to be for a lot of people, especially those who struggle with sweet trigger foods but don't perceive, say, ketchup as a trigger food (which I think would be quite rare).
The average american *added* sugar number is 17 teaspoons per day which is 68. Which is still too much coupled with the around 25g of whole foods sugar they already get which is 92, not 94 but still close. Do you think that all comes from sweets?
The studies I've seen, as I said before, indicate that the main sources of sugar in the US/UK diets are, in order, sugary beverages (this is misleading since a small amount of people drink most of this, skewing the average), grain-based desserts, dairy-based desserts, and sugary cereals. Savory items and sauces did not play a major role. That is because most people only eat a little bit of those at a time, and often not daily.
One person in this thread said they were limiting themselves to 85 grams a day. Do you think that comes from natural sources?
I don't recall anyone saying they were limiting themselves to 85 g, but if so I'd think they meant total sugar or had a very high cal limit (to make that 10% of total cals which is one of the recommended limits, although I like 5%). You may be talking about kshama saying she had 85 g of added sugar on one day way back on page 1, but I thought it was clear she was eating a bunch of Halloween candy that day (she can clarify, of course), and her planned limit was 5% of total cals.
So anyway, tell us about yourself. Are you all up in arms about this because you struggle with excessive sugar from salad dressings and for some reason can't find lower sugar ones or make your own? Does that sugar make it hard for you to get a nutrient-dense diet, stick to cals, or does it trigger you? If so, yes, you should cut out that dressing, sure. Most are not in that situation.
Do you think that person shouldn't worry about the 3 grams from Sriracha or do you think they should be looking at all of the sugars they are taking in and try to figure out how to make healthier changes?
I don't think the occasional 3 g from sriracha is likely to play a significant role. But if someone thinks it is an issue in their diet, they should act accordingly. In the post you objected to, kshama and I were talking about ourselves -- not giving advice -- and objecting to advice given by others (or fear tactics) that equates eating 3 g to eating 100 g, and asserts that any added sugar in any amount is somehow bad, even if the small amount makes the diet overall more nutritious in a sustainable way. (For example, although this is not me, someone who only likes oats and raspberries with a tiny bit of sugar added, or--perhaps--someone who enjoys their broccoli with a bit of sriracha.)
No one said if you have BBQ you will be extra hungry. I'm happy to completely start making up things that you didn't say if you want to go down that road. It will be easy.
Unless I misunderstood, your argument was that sugar was bad because it would (1) lead to weight gain independent of calories (which is not true); and (2) would cause one to be hungry. That's why I said BBQ sauce in the context of a meal obviously wasn't likely to make you hungry.
No one said you must eat absolutely no sugar. No one. No where.
Um, challenges that posit that as the ideal, and people who believe based on such challenges or propaganda that they must, was exactly what kshama and I were talking about in the series of posts you jumped in to disagree with.
This is why people should be reading the labels and not listening to your suggestion to not worry about it.
I totally agree that people should read labels. It's just common sense. I've always read labels. I always tell people to read labels and look at their sugar when logging to see if any comes from surprising sources. But I find it laughable or just untrue when people claim it's hard to find anything without added sugar, as I explained above, and I think the focus on small amounts from condiments vs. the real sources is just fear mongering or an effort to claim people lack agency in this. I think that's not normally from people who actually decide they want to quit sugar or limit it, but from the media's ridiculous discussion of this (which you seem to have bought into).
Also, again, it's still not true that people in the US or UK get a substantial part of their added sugar from savory items like this. If you look at where added sugar in the diet comes from, it's all obvious stuff.
Again, you are in the wrong thread.
Let's ask the person who started the thread what she thinks?
Can we get back to discussing our own sugar habits and any struggles, please? That's what kshama and I were talking about (equating eating 1 g in protein powder or even 4 g in a BBQ sauce to eating an excessive amount).
Do you not get it? It all adds up. It's not about pointing at any one thing but you dismissing it in sauces and savory foods can quickly add up over the course of a day to 25 or 30 grams on top of the sugars you get from natural sources. Suddenly thats 50 or 60 grams, well over your WHO guidelines.
It doesn't matter who started the thread if the OPs advice is bad.
Okay, one more, and then I really have to go
I did not give advice in the post you are talking about. I said that FOR ME I found the freak out over a little sugar in sririacha and the like to be absurd and that it was not something that I worried about in my diet (and I KNOW how much added sugar from sauces, etc. I get). I also agreed with kshama that her eating a little in protein powder was unlikely to be something to worry about, given that she also was otherwise not consuming a lot.
FOR ME it is not true that the small amounts in sauces and such adds up to much, and that is always consumed with protein, fiber, etc., which matters also.
If someone said it was an issue for them, I would totally encourage them to eat less packaged stuff and consume more foods where they could control how much sugar was added, or to find products with better profiles.
But it is simply not reality that the main source (or even a particularly significant source) of added sugar is "hidden sugars."
Why are you on about this? Are you on a no sugar challenge and think we are not adequately caring about what you are doing, or something? Like I said, I did it, I thought the over-the-top "it's so hard, sugar is in everything" was not true to my experience, and I find it tiresome, but sure, if you are eating lots of sugar from packaged stuff and think it's an issue, cut back or move to more whole foods.
The studies I've seen, as I said before, indicate that the main sources of sugar in the US/UK diets are, in order, sugary beverages (this is misleading since a small amount of people drink most of this, skewing the average), grain-based desserts, dairy-based desserts, and sugary cereals. Savory items and sauces did not play a major role. That is because most people only eat a little bit of those at a time, and often not daily.
It. All. Adds. Up. Most of the main sources of sugar I've seen in studies for the US market is processed foods, period. Savory and sweet.
I don't think the occasional 3 g from sriracha is likely to play a significant role.
It. All. Adds. Up.
I did not give advice in the post you are talking about. I said that FOR ME I found the freak out over a little sugar in sririacha and the like to be absurd and that it was not something that I worried about in my diet.
I thought the over-the-top "it's so hard, sugar is in everything" was not true to my experience,
It. All. Adds. Up. Because it's in also added in foods that most people don't expect. That point is not debatable. Also, based on your whole foods diet you don't have an issue with excess non-natural sugar in your diet because whole foods do not have it.
Why are you on about this?
Just because you don't think that 3 grams here or 6 grams there affects *your* diet it doesn't mean that people who are taking in 50 to 60 grams a day can't get their sugars down to 25 or 30 grams a day by cutting out things like Sriracha here or a salad dressing there. Again, disregarding it is bad advice and again, based on your whole foods diet you shouldn't bother quitting sugar. You don't need to.
I've cut out most added sugars from my diet, I came here thinking I'd find like minded people. Instead I see "ah don't worry about the added sugars hidden here or there, it's no big deal" which is literally the antithesis of the point of the managing your sugar intake. It's like saying "ah, don't worry about logging the random chocolate bar here or there, it's negligible" when you are dieting. It's about learning how much excess sugar you eat and how you can manage it better. It's no different than logging your calories. None.
And yes a calorie of sugar acts differently in the body than a calorie of fat or protein, especially when an excess of it causes a leptin resistance which will ultimately make you fatter. So again I assert that CICO is only half the story. CICO matters but so does WHERE your calories come from.
Monday I had no added sugar, and so far none today.
Although I am tracking everything at the moment just for the experiment, this is the conclusion I came to too. For me, non dessert added sugar tends to be pretty small amounts in savory foods or, most commonly, some sauces or rubs, and I really see no reason to care about that. Plus, it would be hard for that to add up to all that many cals. I really think these no sugar challenges that start by assuming you are eating some huge amount of sugar and then tell you to avoid these incidental sources are rather silly. I think it makes more sense to have people track their sugar, understand where it is coming from, and then consider reasonable changes if it is, in fact, higher than expected, which for most will be reducing snack/dessert foods or sugar-added drinks, with some maybe having more than expected in sugary cereals or trail mixes or granola bars or flavored yogurt. But if someone really loves adding, say, a bit of sugar to coffee or oats, I don't think that's something to be bothered about if the overall nutrition of the day and percentage of added sugar is fine anyway.
I used to use an example of a rhubarb sauce with a little sugar added vs. a homemade apple sauce. Why is the latter inherently preferable to the former? No good reason IMO. (Even Dr. Greger, who has other issues, no doubt, says that objecting to a little sugar or oil if that is how the overall diet becomes more sustainable and is able to incorporate nutritious foods like oats and veg, is not something to worry about.)
One of the points of these challenges is educating yourself about how much sugars, especially hidden added sugars, are in your foods. Including savory and sauces.
I have read over and over about how much allegedly hidden sugar Americans get in their diet, and how difficult it is to quit added sugar. As someone who always reads labels, and thinks that the sugar in most of the examples given (sugary cereal, flavored yogurt, ketchup, sweetish dressings, etc.) is super obvious anyway, I was skeptical, but I was willing to buy into it to some degree. Therefore, back in January 2014, when I decided to lose weight, I decided to cut out ALL added sugar, and was super conscientious about it (I think I covered this earlier in the thread, but perhaps not). I found it surprisingly easy, and I also learned that I really didn't have any surprises as far as added sugar. This is perhaps because I've been a whole foods based eater for a long time (but for exceptions that I was fully aware of the nutrient content of), and that I make all my own dressings and most of my own sauces. I already knew that sriracha, which I consume often enough, had some sugar, so I eliminated that, and I was very careful about other sauces. I was eating quite healthfully and had cut out snacking, which was great (and something I still believe in for me), but I did not find avoiding added sugar very difficult at all or to have any magical effects (limiting is a different thing, I believe in that for health reasons, and generally for the reasons given by the WHO).
You don't care about sugar in sauces? You should. For example, one tablespoon of ketchup contains a full teaspoon of sugar (4 grams). A full 1/3rd of the ketchup you eat is sugar. BBQ sauce like Sweet Baby Rays? Two tablespoons of that sauce contains 4 teaspoons (16 grams) of sugar. So 2/3rds of your BBQ sauce is sugar. What about something savory like a Lean Cuisine? The Chicken Ranch Club contains just over 2 teaspoons of sugar (9 grams). Salad dressings average around a 1 1/2 tsp (6 grams) per tablespoon serving. It all starts adding up in a big way, especially when you should be averaging about 25 grams total per day.
No, I don't care about minimal sugar in sauces or rubs or other foods with tiny amounts (per serving), which is what kshama and I were talking about.
For the record, I hate ketchup and never eat Lean Cuisines (not a sauce) and also make my own dressings always (and have for years). I eat occasional BBQ rubs (less often sauces) and yes they have a little sugar (same with sriracha, same with a few other sauces I eat), but not a significant amount in a serving, and I fail to see how this negatively impacts my health or would make someone go on a sugar binge. I suspect the same is true with ketchup unless someone eats some truly unfathomable amount.
I don't care about sugar in sauces because they never add up to very much in my diet, IME. Sugar in dessert foods is less my issue than having such foods (with their added fat as well as sugar, and usually lack of significant protein, fiber, or micros) take up too much of my overall diet (although this is hypothetical, since I'm kind of off sweet foods other than fruit).
Re the Lean Cuisine, I looked it up, and it has at least some intrinsic sugar, so who knows how much of that 9 g (36 cal) is from sugar, but as an occasional meal it wouldn't bother me, no (I'm also wondering how you happened to focus on that one, as I picked another at random and although it also has a bit of intrinsic sugar, it was only 4 g total).
I will cover the rest in a second post, as this is long.
Then please tell me which savory foods and sauces you are talking about?
Sriricha is one I mentioned: 2.9 g in a tbsp. kshama mentioned another product that was not a sauce but had a little but minimal sugar.
Personally I don't think 6 grams of sugar in a tablespoon of dressing is a minor amount when it's more than 20% of the recommended sugar allowance for the day.
So don't use that dressing? I personally make my dressings and recommend that.
Lean Cuisine is savory which is why I chose it. There are some as high as 21 grams and some as low as 5 grams. I landed at one in the middle.
Then how come the first one I grabbed at random had 4 g? Also, not a sauce.
You're making this sweeping judgment that these are negligible amounts of sugar when they really aren't. A couple of tablespoons of BBQ sauce is about 2/3rds of your sugar allotment for the day. These aren't minimal amounts of sugar.
A couple of tbsps of BBQ sauce is a LOT, more than I would use for sure, and also you are picking the most sugary sauce. That said, I picked one at random (Stubbs Original) and it only had 4 g for 2 tbsp.
Also, if one uses the 5% number, sure, even that tiny amount is a significant portion of daily totals, but it's not likely you are going to consume a lot more that day (or that it is going to cause you to go over cals or crowd out sufficient nutrition -- depending on what you are using it on the sat fat might be more of an issue there). In any event, you seem to be confusing sugar and added sugar.
While you might think this is silly because you claim to have very minimal sugar in your diet the average American eats 94 grams a day and most of them don't realize why.
False -- as I said before, if you look at where added sugar in the US and UK diets come from (I think you are using a total sugar number, which is misleading again), it is almost all from foods that are obviously full of sugar. The hidden sugar thing is a joke.
Perhaps this isn't a good thread for you. This is a thread for people choosing to limit their sugar intake.
I started the thread. So don't tell me to leave my own thread.
As to why -- it was an offshoot of another thread, and I consume a very limited sugar intake and want to support others reducing sugar or even cutting it out completely. However, I dislike the focus on there being a little sugar in sriracha, since I think it has nothing to do with why most Americans (on average, the average is actually misleading) consume too much and can make limiting sugar to a healthy level unnecessary difficult and complicated for some (and also just further confuses people about what good nutrition is). I also think it's important to have accurate information in this thread, which is why I will correct stuff like "sugar causes weight gain independent of cals" or "if you have BBQ you will be extra hungry."
Again, then why are you cutting out sugar? Your diet indicates YOU don't need to. And why are you telling people not to worry about it when they should be paying attention to everything until they figure out what works for them. It's not the 3 in Sriracha specifically, it's the 3 in Sriracha you weren't expecting plus the 6 in the salad dressing you weren't expecting plus the 9 in the tomato sauce you weren't expecting all adding up...on top of the sweets.
The average american *added* sugar number is 17 teaspoons per day which is 68. Which is still too much coupled with the around 25g of whole foods sugar they already get which is 92, not 94 but still close. Do you think that all comes from sweets?
One person in this thread said they were limiting themselves to 85 grams a day. Do you think that comes from natural sources? Do you think that person shouldn't worry about the 3 grams from Sriracha or do you think they should be looking at all of the sugars they are taking in and try to figure out how to make healthier changes?
No one said if you have BBQ you will be extra hungry. I'm happy to completely start making up things that you didn't say if you want to go down that road. It will be easy.
You clearly do not need to give up sugar so maybe you should go on to give poor advice elsewhere.
Wow, this thread took a crazy turn.
@yrguide I suggest you read more carefully, especially before attacking the person who started the thread. I was the one who said I'd had 85 g of sugar, however, that was before I started the challenge, and it included TOM indulgences compounded by the availability of Halloween candy.
I'm going to do this challenge, starting tomorrow (Friday) at 70 grams and reducing by 10% per day
Great idea about gradually reducing!
I haven't officially started yet, just getting a baseline. Wednesday was eye-opening, if somewhat skewed because I am more indulgent at this TOM. But after looking at Wed I managed to significantly reduce for yesterday.
10/23: 85 g
10/24: 48 g
Today, if I make additional changes, including keeping out of the Halloween candy, I'd be at 25 g.
I joined this challenge to see what I can learn from it. And what I learned was that the added sugar in foods like Sriracha, my lightly sweetened tea, and protein powder, was not a problem for me. My issue, especially this time of year, is baked goods, and that is because of the high calories, which are also coming from flour and fat, not just sugar.
My mom sees a pear and sees a pear.
I see a pear and see pear pecan muffins. I've just increased those pear calories from 157 cal in a 258 g D'Anjou pear to 256 calories per muffin x 12 = 3,072 calories. That is way more relevant to me than sugar in Sriracha.
I digress.
Yesterday’s stats: 1 gram total sugar. (0 added) But i didn’t have as many veggies as I like. 🙄 Was running around and ate mostly eggs and poultry. So not ideal.
Today - 10 total sugars. (0 added) Made a great stew with (you guessed it - leftover poultry!) and lovely peppers, greens and onions. 😋 I’ve been on an avocado kick too.
The studies I've seen, as I said before, indicate that the main sources of sugar in the US/UK diets are, in order, sugary beverages (this is misleading since a small amount of people drink most of this, skewing the average), grain-based desserts, dairy-based desserts, and sugary cereals. Savory items and sauces did not play a major role. That is because most people only eat a little bit of those at a time, and often not daily.
It. All. Adds. Up. Most of the main sources of sugar I've seen in studies for the US market is processed foods, period. Savory and sweet.
"The major sources of added sugars in American diets are regular soft drinks, sugars, candy, cakes, cookies, pies and fruit drinks (fruitades and fruit punch); dairy desserts and milk products (ice cream, sweetened yogurt and sweetened milk); and other grains (cinnamon toast and honey-nut waffles)."
The main sources are the obvious ones. The amounts from condiments and salad dressing are pretty tiny.
It. All. Adds. Up. Because it's in also added in foods that most people don't expect. That point is not debatable. Also, based on your whole foods diet you don't have an issue with excess non-natural sugar in your diet because whole foods do not have it.
And this is why I tell people to log and look at sugar to see if it is in surprising things and, of course, to read labels. However, the comments that you took out of context were between two people who are monitoring sugar and are not eating a bunch of unexpected and unknown sources.
Moreover, it is NOT TRUE that sugar is in everything. It is trivially easy to buy foods that don't have added sugar.
Just because you don't think that 3 grams here or 6 grams there affects *your* diet it doesn't mean that people who are taking in 50 to 60 grams a day can't get their sugars down to 25 or 30 grams a day by cutting out things like Sriracha here or a salad dressing there. Again, disregarding it is bad advice and again, based on your whole foods diet you shouldn't bother quitting sugar. You don't need to.
So first, I actually think it's pretty uncommon for people to be consuming 50-60 g a day due to hidden sugars (and they aren't hidden, read the label, sheesh). If they really were doing this, I think there would likely be other issues with the diet that would be identified when looking at if it were overall sufficient, nutrient dense, etc., as I always recommend.
But I was not talking to such people in any case. I'm not sure why you are so intent on misreading the conversation between kshama and me as some kind of advice to the world, but let me reiterate:
We were talking about no sugar challenges. In my mind, in particular, was the reason that led to this thread. A poster was struggling with an inability to control consumption of sugary treats. She found that it felt possibly easier to cut them out than to moderate them. When I started I had issues with emotional eating and found it helpful to cut out sugary foods (and all between meals foods), and I think doing this for a month or so helped and afterwards I was able to moderate most things (although I stuck to the no snacking thing).
She had specifically said that she felt difficulty controlling sugary treats, not savory foods with incidental sugar, and therefore that she was not including them. Even though I did the first time I did this (since I am a little obsessive), I thought that was a sensible idea given her reason for the challenge, and for me too that has made sense when I cut out sugar again (which I've done in other Januaries after getting into bad habits during the holidays with all the treats always around). I have lost interest in dessert foods over the past year, so my reason for doing it this year is to make sure I'm tracking and not mindlessly eating, and it has helped keep me honest about meals that I did not control (i.e., the Panera half sandwich) or little things like a single piece of chocolate (or the sugary-ness of kombucha, although I have kombucha once every week or two, so shrug).
In the context of a NO ADDED SUGAR challenge or goal, it is perfectly reasonable to decide that you don't get that much in incidental savory foods and so don't need to cut them out, especially if one is keeping track of total added sugar, as we are.
My concern, as noted, is that mostly what people who feel a lack of control over "sugar" are talking about dessert-type items, and turning it into "you must give up sriracha" (or whatever, kshama was annoyed about the fact she would theoretically have to give up a protein powder with a gram or two of sugar, which indeed seems pretty silly) makes it seem like there's some hard of having a few grams of sugar in an otherwise nutrient dense and balanced diet, which is not true.
I've cut out most added sugars from my diet, I came here thinking I'd find like minded people. Instead I see "ah don't worry about the added sugars hidden here or there, it's no big deal" which is literally the antithesis of the point of the managing your sugar intake. It's like saying "ah, don't worry about logging the random chocolate bar here or there, it's negligible" when you are dieting. It's about learning how much excess sugar you eat and how you can manage it better. It's no different than logging your calories. None.
So if you actually were eating a ton of added sugars in packaged savory items, then good for you for cutting out "most" of them. Again, we weren't talking about people eating a lot of those. We were talking about the situation when you know you only eat a small amount of added sugar overall from the types of foods we were discussing -- is there a need to cut them out just so you can say you ate absolutely none? Or in many cases is the reason for the challenge (awareness and dealing with foods you are struggling with control over) satisfied without cutting those out? Are there some cases (added sugar in a homemade rhubarb sauce vs. no added sugar in an apple sauce) where claiming the one with added sugar is inherently problematic makes no sense? The rhubarb still has more fiber and less total sugar, after all. These are relevant considerations.
Thus, I think you are (intentionally?) misunderstanding. No one was saying "don't track added sugar from sauces, etc." Indeed, MFP tracks the sugar necessarily, and when you look you can conclude most or all is added, yes. The point was "don't worry about a few grams incidental grams of sugar." Your claim that this is the "antithesis of managing your sugar intake" strikes me as precisely the kind of mistaken idea we were talking about. IMO, managing your sugar intake = avoiding excessive sugar, and to do that a challenge to limit it might be helpful, and the idea of this thread is to provide support for those doing that. But claiming to others -- as you seem to be doing and as the 0 tolerance, avoid sriracha challenges demand -- that ANY sugar is somehow evil and bad and that managing must mean no demonstrates a lack of understanding of the reasons for the added sugar limits, and of nutrition in general.
For what it's worth, we agree on a few things:
(1) read labels and know where your added sugar is coming from;
(2) track it and if you actually do get large amounts from savory items (or other unexpected sources) consider if you can improve your food choices to avoid that, as it may be wasted calories. This thread, though, originated as more about struggling to control dessert type items, and I don't think anyone has said they have issues with lots and lots of sugar from packaged foods. We'd be supportive if they did (I think many things are tastier when homemade anyway, like salad dressing, but I'm sure it's possible to find sugar free ones too).
It also important to go back to the reasons the WHO gives for limiting added sugar: (1) could lead to excess calories (although largely due to coming with fat in many cases); and (2) too much can easily crowd out better nutritional choices. I'd add: (3) lots of people have trouble moderating it so it may take special effort. If one is consuming a calorie-appropriate, nutrition-dense diet, however, with adequate healthy fats, protein, fiber, and micros, a little added sugar (or even an occasional higher day) is no big thing, assuming it doesn't lead to excessive consumption.
And yes a calorie of sugar acts differently in the body than a calorie of fat or protein, especially when an excess of it causes a leptin resistance which will ultimately make you fatter. So again I assert that CICO is only half the story. CICO matters but so does WHERE your calories come from.
So you are using the word "calorie" wrong. A calorie is a unit of measurement, it does not have macros. You seem to be using it as an analogy for "food." So to restate, you are claiming that sugar (technically, carbs) acts differently in the body than fat or protein -- that's true (and fat and protein act differently from each other), but it has nothing to do with making you "fatter" and nothing to do with it being added or not. Importantly, sugar does not lead to an increase in net fat in a calorie deficit (see my prior response on this point, as fat is more easily stored as fat). And sugar does not cause leptin resistance, apparently excess body fat can (and so does weight loss often), based on your own links. If you want to debate these points, please post in debate, as I'd like to keep this one about the experience of various sugar limitation goals and any observations or struggles or positives.
83 sugar today. I didn’t change MFP goal. My goal for today was 85. It came mostly from 2 pieces of chocolate cake with ice cream. A little from milk in my coffee and bread.
That sounds like a high goal, and is certainly more than usual.
But as you previously mentioned this doesn't seem like it's specific to sugar:
My mom sees a pear and sees a pear.
I see a pear and see pear pecan muffins. I've just increased those pear calories from 157 cal in a 258 g D'Anjou pear to 256 calories per muffin x 12 = 3,072 calories. That is way more relevant to me than sugar in Sriracha.
Though it includes sugar this sounds more like a whole food issue.
Replies
One of the points of these challenges is educating yourself about how much sugar, especially hidden added sugar, are in your foods. Including savory and sauces.
You don't care about sugar in sauces? You should. For example, one tablespoon of ketchup contains a full teaspoon of sugar (4 grams). A full 1/3rd of the ketchup you eat is sugar. BBQ sauce like Sweet Baby Rays? Two tablespoons of that sauce contains 4 teaspoons (16 grams) of sugar. So 2/3rds of your BBQ sauce is sugar. What about something savory like a Lean Cuisine? The Chicken Ranch Club contains just over 2 teaspoons of sugar (9 grams). Salad dressings average around a 1 1/2 tsp (6 grams) per tablespoon serving. It all starts adding up in a big way, especially when you should be averaging about 25 grams total per day.
The more important issue is why calories derived from sugar are worse for you than calories from fats or protein. Sugars almost convert straight to fat and worse yet, calories from sugar keep you hungry. There is a hormone called leptin that increases as you take in calories. As leptin increases it tells your brain that hey, we're full. We've got enough food/energy right now and we should work on storing and using it. If your brain is not getting a signal from leptin it thinks it's hungry. When you take in sugar it raises your insulin levels and insulin blocks the signal from leptin getting to the brain. Sugar, from natural sources, is usually paired with natural fiber which is why fruits are ok, it's considered a slow carb. The fiber in the fruit slows down how quickly the sugar is metabolized into fat.
Calories in/calories out is only half true, where you get your calories is equally as large an issue.
You can read more about it here:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/04/20/so-this-is-exactly-how-sugar-makes-us-fat_a_22046969/
I also highly recommend everyone watch "That Sugar Film" if you can.
Oh and PS. Here is an article published in a medical journal outlining the leptin/obesity connection:
https://www.nature.com/articles/0802753
I have read over and over about how much allegedly hidden sugar Americans get in their diet, and how difficult it is to quit added sugar. As someone who always reads labels, and thinks that the sugar in most of the examples given (sugary cereal, flavored yogurt, ketchup, sweetish dressings, etc.) is super obvious anyway, I was skeptical, but I was willing to buy into it to some degree. Therefore, back in January 2014, when I decided to lose weight, I decided to cut out ALL added sugar, and was super conscientious about it (I think I covered this earlier in the thread, but perhaps not). I found it surprisingly easy, and I also learned that I really didn't have any surprises as far as added sugar. This is perhaps because I've been a whole foods based eater for a long time (but for exceptions that I was fully aware of the nutrient content of), and that I make all my own dressings and most of my own sauces. I already knew that sriracha, which I consume often enough, had some sugar, so I eliminated that, and I was very careful about other sauces. I was eating quite healthfully and had cut out snacking, which was great (and something I still believe in for me), but I did not find avoiding added sugar very difficult at all or to have any magical effects (limiting is a different thing, I believe in that for health reasons, and generally for the reasons given by the WHO).
No, I don't care about minimal sugar in sauces or rubs or other foods with tiny amounts (per serving), which is what kshama and I were talking about.
For the record, I hate ketchup and never eat Lean Cuisines (not a sauce) and also make my own dressings always (and have for years). I eat occasional BBQ rubs (less often sauces) and yes they have a little sugar (same with sriracha, same with a few other sauces I eat), but not a significant amount in a serving, and I fail to see how this negatively impacts my health or would make someone go on a sugar binge. I suspect the same is true with ketchup unless someone eats some truly unfathomable amount.
I don't care about sugar in sauces because they never add up to very much in my diet, IME. Sugar in dessert foods is less my issue than having such foods (with their added fat as well as sugar, and usually lack of significant protein, fiber, or micros) take up too much of my overall diet (although this is hypothetical, since I'm kind of off sweet foods other than fruit).
Re the Lean Cuisine, I looked it up, and it has at least some intrinsic sugar, so who knows how much of that 9 g (36 cal) is from sugar, but as an occasional meal it wouldn't bother me, no (I'm also wondering how you happened to focus on that one, as I picked another at random and although it also has a bit of intrinsic sugar, it was only 4 g total).
I will cover the rest in a second post, as this is long.
Then please tell me which savory foods and sauces you are talking about? Perhaps it would be best to clarify your posts in the context of your own diet? Personally I don't think 6 grams of sugar in a tablespoon of dressing is a minor amount when it's more than 20% of the recommended sugar allowance for the day.
Lean Cuisine is savory which is why I chose it. There are some as high as 21 grams and some as low as 5 grams. I landed at one in the middle.
You're making this sweeping judgment that these are negligible amounts of sugar when they really aren't. A couple of tablespoons of BBQ sauce is about 2/3rds of your sugar allotment for the day. These aren't minimal amounts of sugar.
While you might think this is silly because you claim to have very minimal sugar in your diet the average American eats 94 grams a day and most of them don't realize why.
Perhaps this isn't a good thread for you. This is a thread for people choosing to limit their sugar intake.
So this is largely all untrue, or personal.
No, calories from sugar are not inherently worse than calories from fat or protein. According to the WHO, and the reason for their limit on ADDED sugar (which I agree with), ADDED sugar is a problem in the average diet because it typically comes with excessive cals (often because it is paired with fat, often added fat, which it is also recommended to limit), and because such foods often are low in fiber and micros, as I said above (so if you control cals but eat too much it could squeeze out more nutrient dense foods that are needed). That's nothing about the specifics of sugar (and indeed there is no evidence of any problem from INTRINSIC sugars, outside of a ridiculously unbalanced diet, even though the makeup of the sugars themselves is the same, the difference is the company they keep).
It is also simply NOT true that sugars convert straight to fat. In a calorie deficit, when glycogen stores are not full, sugar (or carbs generally) won't convert to fat at all, and even if for some reason they did you would not add net fat, as more would be burned to fuel you (as you can't use the sugar for fuel if it's being stored, you have to use other fat). More significantly, fat actually converts to fat much, much easier than carbs (including sugar) do, which is why someone with a mixed diet (including fat and carbs) will typically convert the fat, not the carbs, to fat if they have a calorie surplus (they won't add fat absent a surplus).
Insulin does not block leptin. Instead, it stimulates leptin secretion. Even the interview with Lustig and the study by him you site doesn't say what you say it says. Lustig says that excessive insulin over time can cause leptin resistance. Excessive sugar does not = a few grams from sauces in a diet within the WHO recommendations on average. (Also, I note that you are apparently not on an added sugar is bad rant, but a carbs are bad rant.)
Personally, I have tracked my cals off and on for years now, and also eating mindfully without doing so for periods during these same years, and I can say without question that eating sugar does not make me hungry or prevent me from being full, and that is especially the case if we are talking about using sauces or rubs with very small amounts of sugar. (What I think is more likely the issue for some is that the desire for some kinds of so-called hyperpalatable (or perhaps delicious, which is often not the same thing as what some call hyperpalatable) foods outweighs satiety signals. This is why in the past I've been so full at a restaurant that I couldn't finish my meal, and yet had a little dessert after, or why I could be perfectly happy not eating for hours but if something tempting turns up in the break room I want to eat it -- even if no previous food contained the evil demon sugar!) ;-)
I also personally find fruit very sating, although I know not all do.
The one circumstance in which I think added sugar has potentially a specifically negative effect apart from overall nutrient and dosage is if someone is drinking a ton of sugary beverages or eating truly a lot of sweet dessert type food. Then, and the better evidence of this is with soda, although it's not certain as to either, there's a hit to the liver since the soda or sweets lacks fiber and are typically not eaten with a meal to slow them down. In those cases I think there's a risk that it would lead to fatty liver disease, and it's particularly a concern with younger people (soda is a weird item since it accounts for a huge amount of the sugar supposedly in the US diet, but it's mainly consumed by a small amount of people who consume enormous amounts). This is one reason why fiber matters, not that sugar without it could magically cause weight gain in a deficit, it cannot.
Btw, that sugar can have bad effects under these specific circumstances says nothing about moderate consumption (there's no evidence that moderate consumption has worse effects than cutting it out completely). And of course sat fat has bad effects consumed immoderately (and I think there's evidence about excessive protein over time too, or at least there's evidence that diets not so high in protein (not insufficient) tend to be correlated with longer-lived populations/people.
For weight gain, loss, or maintenance? No.
For health? Sure, but it's more complicated than "avoid sugar" and someone who thinks nutrition is about avoiding all added sugar isn't well-informed about nutrition. Nutrition is more about what is included in the diet.
Oh, and on "That Sugar Film," which has been discussed and debunked on MFP often, here:
https://slate.com/technology/2015/08/that-sugar-film-science-debunking-links-to-mood-health-fatty-liver-disease-acne.html
https://www.healthyeatinghub.com.au/review-that-sugar-film/
I gave you a medical journal and you gave me an article from a guy who is a journalist, not a scientist. OK.
I'm done here. I can tell there is no way to have this discussion with you. I'm not on a carbs are bad rant. My concern is specific to sugar and I clearly mention that fruit sugar is fine when it's with the fiber. The average American eats almost 100 grams of sugar per day by the way. That can't all be from fruit. Also, nutrition is 100% about diet. Nutrition is nothing BUT diet. Health is another thing all together.
But again, you don't belong in this thread. This thread is for people avoiding sugar, not for people who have decided 2/3rds of a tablespoon of BBQ sauce being sugar is ok. Bye.
Like I said upthread, I think people who blame "hidden sugars" for an excessive sugar intake are deluding themselves, as sugar is on the label and products with substantial added sugar are usually not surprising. If you read the lists of where the most added sugar in the US and UK diets come from, it's no surprise: sugary drinks, grain based sweet dessert foods, dairy based sweet dessert foods, and sugar cereals. Hidden? Not on your life! Freaking people out about small amounts of sugar in a spicy sauce (or even ketchup) rather than just saying "use your common sense about what you eat and make obvious dessert or sugary foods a once in a while or limited thing" is a rather silly approach. That said, I admit I am coming at this as someone who eats mostly whole foods and thinks the claim that is sometimes made that "everything has added sugar in it" is bizarre, as the vast majority of foods I buy (not only the whole foods, but cottage cheese or plain greek yogurt or canned beans or bagged/boxed grains or pasta or the canned tomatoes and nut butters I choose, etc., have no added sugar. So maybe you are coming from a different normal than I am.)
Anyway, I think kshama and I explained upthread what annoys us personally about the "you must eat no sugar" approach, with some specific examples, but if someone wants to try it for a while (as I did), I support that. I just will not agree with your suggestion that eating even a little is terrible (and the rest of the false claims) or that one must fret about the little bit in various sauces and rubs, etc. (I am talking about ones with only a small amount, again, as that is what we were talking about in the series of posts you responded to).
Also note that I'm not even trying to eat absolutely no sugar (I am okay with small amounts within the WHO limit), but most days I cook for myself all meals I in fact do, even though I log it and count it if sugar is in a sauce or rub.
No one said you must eat absolutely no sugar. No one. No where.
You cannot deny many supermarket foods, savory and sweet, have an excess of added sugars. Much of it hidden as who would suspect Ragu tomato sauce for example, 8 grams of sugar with some of it coming from added sugar as sugar is one of the ingredients.
You also cannot deny that if the average American eats 94 grams of sugar a day that is probably a likely contributor to the obesity epidemic.
You are not someone that needs to limit your sugar intake. But you suggesting that people who are trying to manage theirs completely ignore added sugars found in sauces and savory foods because *you* find them to be minimal is misguided and not helpful. You already eat a whole foods diet, many of us here in this thread are here because we don't.
For example, you proclaim that canned beans are fine. Well, most of them are except for baked beans which have around 3 teaspoons of sugar (12 grams) per half cup serving. This is why people should be reading the labels and not listening to your suggestion to not worry about it.
Again, you are in the wrong thread.
Sriricha is one I mentioned: 2.9 g in a tbsp. kshama mentioned another product that was not a sauce but had a little but minimal sugar.
So don't use that dressing? I personally make my dressings and recommend that.
Then how come the first one I grabbed at random had 4 g? Also, not a sauce.
A couple of tbsps of BBQ sauce is a LOT, more than I would use for sure, and also you are picking the most sugary sauce. That said, I picked one at random (Stubbs Original) and it only had 4 g for 2 tbsp.
Also, if one uses the 5% number, sure, even that tiny amount is a significant portion of daily totals, but it's not likely you are going to consume a lot more that day (or that it is going to cause you to go over cals or crowd out sufficient nutrition -- depending on what you are using it on the sat fat might be more of an issue there). In any event, you seem to be confusing sugar and added sugar.
False -- as I said before, if you look at where added sugar in the US and UK diets come from (I think you are using a total sugar number, which is misleading again), it is almost all from foods that are obviously full of sugar. The hidden sugar thing is a joke.
I started the thread. So don't tell me to leave my own thread.
As to why -- it was an offshoot of another thread, and I consume a very limited sugar intake and want to support others reducing sugar or even cutting it out completely. However, I dislike the focus on there being a little sugar in sriracha, since I think it has nothing to do with why most Americans (on average, the average is actually misleading) consume too much and can make limiting sugar to a healthy level unnecessary difficult and complicated for some (and also just further confuses people about what good nutrition is). I also think it's important to have accurate information in this thread, which is why I will correct stuff like "sugar causes weight gain independent of cals" or "if you have BBQ you will be extra hungry."
The link to Nature did not support what you claimed.
It did say that obese people are typically leptin resistant, as well as insulin resistant. That does not surprise me (btw, best way to become more leptin sensitive is to exercise).
I started the thread.
Also, going back to the Stubbs BBQ sauce I picked at random. It's 4 g of sugar in 33 g of sauce for 2 TBSP, not all of which is added, although most likely is. (As an aside, do you understand why BBQ sauce necessarily has sugar?) So that's 16 cal in a sauce that will be used on one meal on an occasional meal (likely less than weekly), and the meal will include meat and (if one cares about nutrition) veggies, and make up part of an entire day, which will be more or less nutritious depending on overall choices.
So why would it matter how much sugar is in the entire jar of BBQ sauce, which is what you seem to be on about? Do you consume entire jars of BBQ sauce?
Um, challenges that posit that as the ideal, and people who believe based on such challenges or propaganda that they must, was exactly what kshama and I were talking about in the series of posts you jumped in to disagree with.
I totally agree that people should read labels. It's just common sense. I've always read labels. I always tell people to read labels and look at their sugar when logging to see if any comes from surprising sources. But I find it laughable or just untrue when people claim it's hard to find anything without added sugar, as I explained above, and I think the focus on small amounts from condiments vs. the real sources is just fear mongering or an effort to claim people lack agency in this. I think that's not normally from people who actually decide they want to quit sugar or limit it, but from the media's ridiculous discussion of this (which you seem to have bought into).
Also, again, it's still not true that people in the US or UK get a substantial part of their added sugar from savory items like this. If you look at where added sugar in the diet comes from, it's all obvious stuff.
Let's ask the person who started the thread what she thinks?
Can we get back to discussing our own sugar habits and any struggles, please? That's what kshama and I were talking about (equating eating 1 g in protein powder or even 4 g in a BBQ sauce to eating an excessive amount).
Again, then why are you cutting out sugar? Your diet indicates YOU don't need to. And why are you telling people not to worry about it when they should be paying attention to everything until they figure out what works for them. It's not the 3 in Sriracha specifically, it's the 3 in Sriracha you weren't expecting plus the 6 in the salad dressing you weren't expecting plus the 9 in the tomato sauce you weren't expecting all adding up...on top of the sweets.
The average american *added* sugar number is 17 teaspoons per day which is 68. Which is still too much coupled with the around 25g of whole foods sugar they already get which is 92, not 94 but still close. Do you think that all comes from sweets?
One person in this thread said they were limiting themselves to 85 grams a day. Do you think that comes from natural sources? Do you think that person shouldn't worry about the 3 grams from Sriracha or do you think they should be looking at all of the sugars they are taking in and try to figure out how to make healthier changes?
No one said if you have BBQ you will be extra hungry. I'm happy to completely start making up things that you didn't say if you want to go down that road. It will be easy.
You clearly do not need to give up sugar so maybe you should go on to give poor advice elsewhere.
Do you not get it? It all adds up. It's not about pointing at any one thing but you dismissing it in sauces and savory foods can quickly add up over the course of a day to 25 or 30 grams on top of the sugars you get from natural sources. Suddenly thats 50 or 60 grams, well over your WHO guidelines.
It doesn't matter who started the thread if the OPs advice is bad.
I have to do something productive now, so I not going to respond again for a while. But in an effort to communicate:
I started this thread to support someone who was limiting sugar. I also thought it might be useful to use tracking sugar as a reason to get back into tracking again. And because I did find (1) cutting out all sugar as an experiment; and (2) cutting out dessert-type sources of added sugar (foods that had significant added sugar) to be things useful for a period of time back before I lost my sweet tooth, I have an interest in this topic.
Based on my own experience cutting out all added sugar and cutting out all but incidental in savory sauces, etc. (although I read, log, and know what they are, of course), I think that the latter can make it harder than it needs to be for a lot of people, especially those who struggle with sweet trigger foods but don't perceive, say, ketchup as a trigger food (which I think would be quite rare).
The studies I've seen, as I said before, indicate that the main sources of sugar in the US/UK diets are, in order, sugary beverages (this is misleading since a small amount of people drink most of this, skewing the average), grain-based desserts, dairy-based desserts, and sugary cereals. Savory items and sauces did not play a major role. That is because most people only eat a little bit of those at a time, and often not daily.
I don't recall anyone saying they were limiting themselves to 85 g, but if so I'd think they meant total sugar or had a very high cal limit (to make that 10% of total cals which is one of the recommended limits, although I like 5%). You may be talking about kshama saying she had 85 g of added sugar on one day way back on page 1, but I thought it was clear she was eating a bunch of Halloween candy that day (she can clarify, of course), and her planned limit was 5% of total cals.
So anyway, tell us about yourself. Are you all up in arms about this because you struggle with excessive sugar from salad dressings and for some reason can't find lower sugar ones or make your own? Does that sugar make it hard for you to get a nutrient-dense diet, stick to cals, or does it trigger you? If so, yes, you should cut out that dressing, sure. Most are not in that situation.
I don't think the occasional 3 g from sriracha is likely to play a significant role. But if someone thinks it is an issue in their diet, they should act accordingly. In the post you objected to, kshama and I were talking about ourselves -- not giving advice -- and objecting to advice given by others (or fear tactics) that equates eating 3 g to eating 100 g, and asserts that any added sugar in any amount is somehow bad, even if the small amount makes the diet overall more nutritious in a sustainable way. (For example, although this is not me, someone who only likes oats and raspberries with a tiny bit of sugar added, or--perhaps--someone who enjoys their broccoli with a bit of sriracha.)
Unless I misunderstood, your argument was that sugar was bad because it would (1) lead to weight gain independent of calories (which is not true); and (2) would cause one to be hungry. That's why I said BBQ sauce in the context of a meal obviously wasn't likely to make you hungry.
Okay, one more, and then I really have to go
I did not give advice in the post you are talking about. I said that FOR ME I found the freak out over a little sugar in sririacha and the like to be absurd and that it was not something that I worried about in my diet (and I KNOW how much added sugar from sauces, etc. I get). I also agreed with kshama that her eating a little in protein powder was unlikely to be something to worry about, given that she also was otherwise not consuming a lot.
FOR ME it is not true that the small amounts in sauces and such adds up to much, and that is always consumed with protein, fiber, etc., which matters also.
If someone said it was an issue for them, I would totally encourage them to eat less packaged stuff and consume more foods where they could control how much sugar was added, or to find products with better profiles.
But it is simply not reality that the main source (or even a particularly significant source) of added sugar is "hidden sugars."
Why are you on about this? Are you on a no sugar challenge and think we are not adequately caring about what you are doing, or something? Like I said, I did it, I thought the over-the-top "it's so hard, sugar is in everything" was not true to my experience, and I find it tiresome, but sure, if you are eating lots of sugar from packaged stuff and think it's an issue, cut back or move to more whole foods.
It. All. Adds. Up. Most of the main sources of sugar I've seen in studies for the US market is processed foods, period. Savory and sweet.
It. All. Adds. Up.
It. All. Adds. Up. Because it's in also added in foods that most people don't expect. That point is not debatable. Also, based on your whole foods diet you don't have an issue with excess non-natural sugar in your diet because whole foods do not have it.
Just because you don't think that 3 grams here or 6 grams there affects *your* diet it doesn't mean that people who are taking in 50 to 60 grams a day can't get their sugars down to 25 or 30 grams a day by cutting out things like Sriracha here or a salad dressing there. Again, disregarding it is bad advice and again, based on your whole foods diet you shouldn't bother quitting sugar. You don't need to.
I've cut out most added sugars from my diet, I came here thinking I'd find like minded people. Instead I see "ah don't worry about the added sugars hidden here or there, it's no big deal" which is literally the antithesis of the point of the managing your sugar intake. It's like saying "ah, don't worry about logging the random chocolate bar here or there, it's negligible" when you are dieting. It's about learning how much excess sugar you eat and how you can manage it better. It's no different than logging your calories. None.
And yes a calorie of sugar acts differently in the body than a calorie of fat or protein, especially when an excess of it causes a leptin resistance which will ultimately make you fatter. So again I assert that CICO is only half the story. CICO matters but so does WHERE your calories come from.
Added sugar 9
Wow, this thread took a crazy turn.
@yrguide I suggest you read more carefully, especially before attacking the person who started the thread. I was the one who said I'd had 85 g of sugar, however, that was before I started the challenge, and it included TOM indulgences compounded by the availability of Halloween candy.
I joined this challenge to see what I can learn from it. And what I learned was that the added sugar in foods like Sriracha, my lightly sweetened tea, and protein powder, was not a problem for me. My issue, especially this time of year, is baked goods, and that is because of the high calories, which are also coming from flour and fat, not just sugar.
My mom sees a pear and sees a pear.
I see a pear and see pear pecan muffins. I've just increased those pear calories from 157 cal in a 258 g D'Anjou pear to 256 calories per muffin x 12 = 3,072 calories. That is way more relevant to me than sugar in Sriracha.
65 degrees here today!
I digress.
Yesterday’s stats: 1 gram total sugar. (0 added) But i didn’t have as many veggies as I like. 🙄 Was running around and ate mostly eggs and poultry. So not ideal.
Today - 10 total sugars. (0 added) Made a great stew with (you guessed it - leftover poultry!) and lovely peppers, greens and onions. 😋 I’ve been on an avocado kick too.
Have a great week.
👩🍳
https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/sugar/sugar-101
"The major sources of added sugars in American diets are regular soft drinks, sugars, candy, cakes, cookies, pies and fruit drinks (fruitades and fruit punch); dairy desserts and milk products (ice cream, sweetened yogurt and sweetened milk); and other grains (cinnamon toast and honey-nut waffles)."
https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2014/07/29/What-are-the-biggest-contributors-of-added-sugars-to-the-US-diet#
https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/100/3/901/4576539
The main sources are the obvious ones. The amounts from condiments and salad dressing are pretty tiny.
And this is why I tell people to log and look at sugar to see if it is in surprising things and, of course, to read labels. However, the comments that you took out of context were between two people who are monitoring sugar and are not eating a bunch of unexpected and unknown sources.
Moreover, it is NOT TRUE that sugar is in everything. It is trivially easy to buy foods that don't have added sugar.
So first, I actually think it's pretty uncommon for people to be consuming 50-60 g a day due to hidden sugars (and they aren't hidden, read the label, sheesh). If they really were doing this, I think there would likely be other issues with the diet that would be identified when looking at if it were overall sufficient, nutrient dense, etc., as I always recommend.
But I was not talking to such people in any case. I'm not sure why you are so intent on misreading the conversation between kshama and me as some kind of advice to the world, but let me reiterate:
We were talking about no sugar challenges. In my mind, in particular, was the reason that led to this thread. A poster was struggling with an inability to control consumption of sugary treats. She found that it felt possibly easier to cut them out than to moderate them. When I started I had issues with emotional eating and found it helpful to cut out sugary foods (and all between meals foods), and I think doing this for a month or so helped and afterwards I was able to moderate most things (although I stuck to the no snacking thing).
She had specifically said that she felt difficulty controlling sugary treats, not savory foods with incidental sugar, and therefore that she was not including them. Even though I did the first time I did this (since I am a little obsessive), I thought that was a sensible idea given her reason for the challenge, and for me too that has made sense when I cut out sugar again (which I've done in other Januaries after getting into bad habits during the holidays with all the treats always around). I have lost interest in dessert foods over the past year, so my reason for doing it this year is to make sure I'm tracking and not mindlessly eating, and it has helped keep me honest about meals that I did not control (i.e., the Panera half sandwich) or little things like a single piece of chocolate (or the sugary-ness of kombucha, although I have kombucha once every week or two, so shrug).
In the context of a NO ADDED SUGAR challenge or goal, it is perfectly reasonable to decide that you don't get that much in incidental savory foods and so don't need to cut them out, especially if one is keeping track of total added sugar, as we are.
My concern, as noted, is that mostly what people who feel a lack of control over "sugar" are talking about dessert-type items, and turning it into "you must give up sriracha" (or whatever, kshama was annoyed about the fact she would theoretically have to give up a protein powder with a gram or two of sugar, which indeed seems pretty silly) makes it seem like there's some hard of having a few grams of sugar in an otherwise nutrient dense and balanced diet, which is not true.
So if you actually were eating a ton of added sugars in packaged savory items, then good for you for cutting out "most" of them. Again, we weren't talking about people eating a lot of those. We were talking about the situation when you know you only eat a small amount of added sugar overall from the types of foods we were discussing -- is there a need to cut them out just so you can say you ate absolutely none? Or in many cases is the reason for the challenge (awareness and dealing with foods you are struggling with control over) satisfied without cutting those out? Are there some cases (added sugar in a homemade rhubarb sauce vs. no added sugar in an apple sauce) where claiming the one with added sugar is inherently problematic makes no sense? The rhubarb still has more fiber and less total sugar, after all. These are relevant considerations.
Thus, I think you are (intentionally?) misunderstanding. No one was saying "don't track added sugar from sauces, etc." Indeed, MFP tracks the sugar necessarily, and when you look you can conclude most or all is added, yes. The point was "don't worry about a few grams incidental grams of sugar." Your claim that this is the "antithesis of managing your sugar intake" strikes me as precisely the kind of mistaken idea we were talking about. IMO, managing your sugar intake = avoiding excessive sugar, and to do that a challenge to limit it might be helpful, and the idea of this thread is to provide support for those doing that. But claiming to others -- as you seem to be doing and as the 0 tolerance, avoid sriracha challenges demand -- that ANY sugar is somehow evil and bad and that managing must mean no demonstrates a lack of understanding of the reasons for the added sugar limits, and of nutrition in general.
For what it's worth, we agree on a few things:
(1) read labels and know where your added sugar is coming from;
(2) track it and if you actually do get large amounts from savory items (or other unexpected sources) consider if you can improve your food choices to avoid that, as it may be wasted calories. This thread, though, originated as more about struggling to control dessert type items, and I don't think anyone has said they have issues with lots and lots of sugar from packaged foods. We'd be supportive if they did (I think many things are tastier when homemade anyway, like salad dressing, but I'm sure it's possible to find sugar free ones too).
It also important to go back to the reasons the WHO gives for limiting added sugar: (1) could lead to excess calories (although largely due to coming with fat in many cases); and (2) too much can easily crowd out better nutritional choices. I'd add: (3) lots of people have trouble moderating it so it may take special effort. If one is consuming a calorie-appropriate, nutrition-dense diet, however, with adequate healthy fats, protein, fiber, and micros, a little added sugar (or even an occasional higher day) is no big thing, assuming it doesn't lead to excessive consumption.
So you are using the word "calorie" wrong. A calorie is a unit of measurement, it does not have macros. You seem to be using it as an analogy for "food." So to restate, you are claiming that sugar (technically, carbs) acts differently in the body than fat or protein -- that's true (and fat and protein act differently from each other), but it has nothing to do with making you "fatter" and nothing to do with it being added or not. Importantly, sugar does not lead to an increase in net fat in a calorie deficit (see my prior response on this point, as fat is more easily stored as fat). And sugar does not cause leptin resistance, apparently excess body fat can (and so does weight loss often), based on your own links. If you want to debate these points, please post in debate, as I'd like to keep this one about the experience of various sugar limitation goals and any observations or struggles or positives.
I was talking about this person, not you.
But as you previously mentioned this doesn't seem like it's specific to sugar:
Though it includes sugar this sounds more like a whole food issue.