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Why do people keep defending sugar?

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Replies

  • jdecker32356
    jdecker32356 Posts: 8 Member
    edited July 2020
    purplebobkat wrote: »
    sijomial wrote: »
    Carbs are a macro nutrient so how can you say they have no nutritional benefit?
    That would be the same as saying fat has no nutritional benefit!

    Maybe also consider that providing energy is a vital part of your diet which carbs (including sugar) do very well.

    Actually I said sugar has no nutritional value. Carbs can be healthy, but sugar is not healthy. So why are so many defending it?

    (Just curious)

    So one of the things I don't see people talking about with sugar consumption side effects: 1. The fact that even if you lift and exercise regularly, particularly for endurance running, and use the sugar spike from a Gu to avoid hitting the Wall in a marathon, those people have done a total 180 on carbing up in the endurance running world because all of Tim Noakes' marathon runners got diabetes and heart muscle calcification. Even though they were able to stay very lean, there were side effects to the insulin response cycle, even though there weren't blood sugar problems. Even the vegan distance runners like Rich Roll don't consume processed sugar, for this particular reason. The conversation on fruit is even a bit tainted because we heavily cultivated it to maximize sweetness so even some fruits consumed in large quantities will give you way too much fructose. 2. The fact that sugar consumption has psychological impacts for most people. Normally people don't consume just sugar, it's paired with high calorie fats, and it normally evokes a dopamine spike in the brain. If you're creating that high spike in the happy effects of sugar on the regular, you run the risk of oversaturating a normal dopamine response, much like weed or cocaine or porn does. Effectively it means that regular task completion/dopamine reward cycles become less attractive.

    I think people defend sugar consumption because in a normal community it is basically impossible to avoid completely, and people like sugar the way crack addicts like crack. Also it's cultural. I don't think anyone can objectively call sugar "good", as a judge of nutrition because of the insulin related side effects, even those advocating it in a mass-gain capacity. I think there are probably a lot of people on MFP who have been duped into thinking that calorie quality doesn't matter, that pure carbs without the micronutrients is still valuable: the other non-energy providing parts of the food could be a significant benefit, like micronutrients, fiber, or antioxidants, because most people aren't going to eat a spoonful of sugar unless it's a Gu, and foods DO have different nutritional uptakes and immediate hormonal impacts. Basically, if you absolutely need sugar at some point, you're always better off picking not a candy bar in the long term because macronutrients aren't the only nutritional element. There is always a nutritionally superior choice, while sugar is the nutritionally WORST choice you could make, but in a situation between choosing none and sugar, sugar MIGHT be better in a very small set of circumstances. Those circumstances are so small that they're negligible. The other argument being that you can't assign moral values to food and call them good or bad. This argument is illogical because you can assign a moral value judgement to consumption of food because you choose to consume food for a reason, and some foods are in line with your intentions and some aren't. The issue is you can't assign a moral value without taking into account intent and situation of the consumer, and you can generalize that most people, since most Western people are overweight, can't have a positive intent with sugar consumption because whatever emotional or cultural benefits they reap should be superseded by health in a moral value hierarchy, because physical health supersedes physical or social pleasure on an objective value scale. Put simply, if you eat sugar, and you're fat, you're harming your health, and that is bad, because the effects get compounded over time, since people make these choices repeatedly over time.
  • jdecker32356
    jdecker32356 Posts: 8 Member
    edited July 2020
    paperpudding wrote: »
    Pogostickers wrote: »
    Maybe they never had half their family die from it


    Is this a serious comment?? :*

    People are not dying from sugar

    well, I guess a type 1 diabetic could go into diabetic coma and die if they ate massive amount and did not take their insulin. I knew somebody once who almost did that - was in ICU with BSL of 48 - but did recover.

    But, most people can eat sugar in sensible amounts. Even diabetics can eat it in small amounts.

    The issue is not sugar per se but over consumption leadng to obesity related diseases or, in case of diabetics, to diabetic complications.

    Context. Dosage.

    You conflated an instantaneous consequence with an average over time consequence, in order to call someone else dumb. People aren't talking about eating a lot of sugar once, they're talking about eating a lot of it over time, which would why diabetes is called a CHRONIC illness. Lol no one eats sugar in "sensible" amounts in the US. Even taking into account the fact that the US nutrition has increased the RDA max for sugar, even a small Snickers bar is larger than the recommended daily allotment for sugar. Most people eat the whole Snickers bar. And your tolerance for sweetness increases; if you eat sugar regularly, you'll need to eat more over time to attain the same level of sweetness, which means eventually you will eat more sugar. When 2/3 of the population is overweight you have no argument.

    *Edited by MFP moderator
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,834 Member
    Pogostickers wrote: »
    My mother, my father, my grandmother all died from Diabetes. (And now my sister is diagnosed) diseases that result in too much sugar in the blood (high blood glucose).

    Have fun with your Sugar ;)

    I'm sorry about your family. My grandmother had it too and I eat sugar in very unmoderated amounts and I'm fine. And old so it's had time to kick in.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,834 Member
    4legsRbetterthan2 wrote: »
    Have y'all ever read the community guidelines? I think it says play nice, be respectful, and stuff like that in there. Feel free to give them a read. Oh yeah, and no name calling please.

    medium.gif

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10701884/play-nice#latest

    Thanks for your cooperation,
    4legs
    MFP volunteer moderator

    I'm allowed to call myself old! :)
  • fitnessjustin01
    fitnessjustin01 Posts: 239 Member
    I don't know... because it's a socially accepted drug? 🤔
This discussion has been closed.

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