Is sugar from fruits bad for you?

ladyark

In my opinion...
if most of my sugar intake comes frome fruits and veggies
then I don't care if I'm over

Exactly....it is hard to stay under what mfp reccomends in my opinion and you get so much out of fruit....in moderation.

KimberleyS0624

I am so glad I found this. I was wondering the same thing. I am generally over in sugar due to fruit. I usually have two a day. I don't usually stress about it but I am glad I found others to validate my thinking. Thanks guys!

MelsAuntie

No, it is not bad for you. Your body runs on sugar. Personally I don't pay any attention to sugar on the trac ker, just total calories.

danielegabaree

My favorite answer to this question:

Try to think of just one person that got fat eating bananas.

Go ahead. Try!

This is so awesome!

izmy

no i dont think

VeganLexi

I eat loads of fruit and veg every day and my blood glucose level is perfect. Obviously everyone is different but fruit is good for you and like most things, moderation is key.

spookiefox

Sugar does not "ultimately turn to fat". Excess calories turn to fat. Fructose (fruit sugar) is okay because it has fiber and nutrients with it meaning it's better than processed, refined simple sugar (sucrose).

Sucrose is a disaccharide composed of the monosaccharides fructose and glucose. Fructose is the sugar that is only processed by the liver, and is hypothesized to be a cause of non-alcoholic liver disease. It is certainly not accurate to say fructose is "okay" and sucrose is not.

Fruit, like everything, needs to be enjoyed in moderation, because you can get too much sugar from too much fruit.

spookiefox

Sugar is sugar, it doesn't matter if it's from a natural source or not. It's all the same to your body.

Yes--but the quantity and the "housing" of it makes all the difference to your health. "Pure" sugars of any kind, in isolation from the foods from which they were derived, are NOT good for the body. They can be thought of as "anti-nutrients" because they consume more nutrients from your body (B vitamins, etc.) than they yield. They only contribute carbohydrates but are stripped of all companion phyto-nutrients. In addition, because of the way that junk "food" are designed, we are invited to eat a giant slug of denatured sugars that simply would not exist outside of manufacturing them. A 12-oz. can of "orange" soda contains the amount of fructose that would be in at least 10 oranges AND there is no fiber to slow down the transmission of those sugars into the body as there would be in the oranges. I don't know anyone who sits down to eat 10 oranges in a short period of time, but it is easy to glug down a can of orange soda. Therein lies the problem.

But equal amounts of fructose from an orange or from orange soda are equally harmful. Your body CANNOT tell the difference.

Please explain the chemical nature of these "denatured" sugars you're describing. They are made up nonsense.

spookiefox

My favorite answer to this question:

Try to think of just one person that got fat eating bananas.

Go ahead. Try!

As fruits go, bananas have a lower percentage of their sugar as fructose, which does make them healthier than say, apples. But fructose is fructose, regardless the source. It doesn't matter.

spookiefox

When you eat the whole fruit, there are also chemicals that tell your body what to do with the sugar, so it has less impact on you blood sugar (and less crashes and such later). This is from an article in Parents magazine, from a nutritionist (sorry, don't have more reference than that).

The other nutrients in fruit (fiber, vitamins, phytochemicals, etc) are good for you, enough to definitely justify the intake of sugar. It would be better to cut out sweets or refined starches.

Go for the whole fruit, not just juice. Better balance of nutrients and will fill you up for longer!

Can you give me some specifics on these chemicals in fruit that tell the body what to do with sugar? Because I can't find a single reference to them in any scientific source. I'd really like to know more. What are they? How do they work?

And fruit juice is nothing but sugar water. Apple juice for instance, has more fructose that soda sweetened with HFCS. You would be better off with 7Up than apple juice, health wise. When they make fruit juice, they take out all the nutrition and all you''re left with is sugar water. It's not a "better balance" of nutrients, it's the difference between nutrients and no nutrients.

CallMeRuPaul

I read a few posts that said, "sugar is sugar," but that's not the case. I consulted with my friend who's a nurse, her mom's a dietitian and I just saw my doctor last week. all 3 gave me the green light on eating fruit as long as it's in moderation. I have about 3-4 pieces of fruit a day. on a side note, I found I was not hitting my "fat" count for the day so I started eating a lot more walnuts, almonds and avocado to get my fat count up. if you continue feeding your body the natural stuff, not McDonald's or processed foods, you'll be ok.

tigersword

I read a few posts that said, "sugar is sugar," but that's not the case. I consulted with my friend who's a nurse, her mom's a dietitian and I just saw my doctor last week. all 3 gave me the green light on eating fruit as long as it's in moderation. I have about 3-4 pieces of fruit a day. on a side note, I found I was not hitting my "fat" count for the day so I started eating a lot more walnuts, almonds and avocado to get my fat count up. if you continue feeding your body the natural stuff, not McDonald's or processed foods, you'll be ok.

How exactly does this post refute the fact that sugar is sugar? It most certainly IS the case. The human body doesn't care if you get fructose, glucose, maltose, lactose, galactose, or any other sugar from an apple or from a Snickers bar, the sugars are identical and are digested identically (and a Snickers bar also has fiber, to slow down the digestion, just like fruit.)

In moderation, and keeping to your calorie and nutrient goals, sugar from any source is not a problem. However, if you eat too many calories, it doesn't matter if you eat an apple or a snickers bar, extra calories are extra calories.

jennaworksout

sugar is sugar....your body doesn't know the difference where its coming from. no such thing as "good sugar" ughhhh...BIGGEST PET PEEVE!!

SanteMulberry

sugar is sugar....your body doesn't know the difference where its coming from. no such thing as "good sugar" ughhhh...BIGGEST PET PEEVE!!

Ahh--but the catch is that, even though sugar is sugar, the other nutrients that "ride along" in fruit (and would not be included in candy or soda, for example) are potent inhibitors of disease. That is why the healthier choice will always be fruit over candy or soda. But an all-fruit diet would be very bad. "Fruitarian" diets (where nothing but fruit is eaten) are associated with pancreatic cancer.

fatfudgery

I understand that sugar ultimately turns into fat

Wat? :noway:

Lesa_Sass

Of sugars, our digestive system can absorb only simple sugars, called monosaccharides. If you break the word monosaccharide into its pieces, mono-sacchar-ide, you'll see mono (one), sacchar (sugar), and ide (class of compounds). So, monosaccharides are a class of compounds composed of single sugars. This class includes fructose, glucose and galactose. These names indicate they are sugars by their -ose endings. These monosaccharides are C6H12O6 molecules of different configurations (thus the different names).

Humans have evolved to identify fructose as the sweetest of all sugars. Fructose is so named because it is found in fruits, and both words derive from the Latin fructus meaning enjoyment or profit. Fruits develop mostly containing glucose, a less sweeter sugar. Part of the ripening process then converts some of the glucose into fructose, and thus, the fruit turns from a not so sweet, unripened fruit into a sweeter, ripe fruit. Thus, a ripe fruit appeals more to humans than unripened fruit.

Our bodies metabolize fructose mostly through the liver. Glucose, for example, stimulates the pancreas to produce insulin, which stimulates cells to absorb glucose from the blood. Brain cells use glucose for energy, so a diabetic with low blood glucose can suffer a diabetic coma because the brain loses its energy source. However, the body can produce glucose, and people don't necessarily need to eat foods containing glucose.

Anyway, there are other sugars called disaccharides and polysaccharides (di- means two, and poly- means many, and I'll let you figure out what class of compounds described by these words). Sucrose is what we commonly called "table sugar", and it's a disaccharide along with lactose found in milk. Polysaccharides is a class of compounds of structures of three or more simple sugars ... what we usually call starches, which we can digest, but also other compounds such as cellulose that we cannot digest.

Basically, if we can't break a disaccharide or polysaccharide into simple sugars, we can't absorb them. This is one way our bodies tell them apart. We break down disaccharides and polysaccharides using enzymes specifically for that job that are called by the complex sugar they break up. For example, sucrase is the enzyme that separates sucrose into its fructose and glucose monosaccharides. We know this name is of an enzyme because of its ending -ase. A problem suffered by some people is often called "lactose intolerance", when more technically, it's "lactase deficiency". If you guess that lactase is the enzyme that breaks lactose (milk sugar) into its glucose and galactose monosaccharides, then you're right. When our bodies don't produce enough lactase to break down the sugar in milk, we do not digest it, and it passes into the large intestine, where bacteria eat it all up, producing gas in the process, and causing cramps, gas, diarrhea, etc. Nasty. When you see milk in the stores for "lactose intolerant" people, the maker has added lactase to it which has "digested" the lactose into its two sugars. It's partly digested milk, which might sound gross, but really isn't.

High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is interesting. Corn syrup (at least in the US) is mostly glucose, and not so sweet. HFCS is produced by converting some of the glucose into fructose, thus making it sweeter to our tongues AND easier to digest than regular table sugar (which is a fructose-glucose disaccharide). This is because the sugars are already in their simple form and there's no need to break them down. So they're absorbed somewhat faster than, say, sucrose (table sugar).

SanteMulberry

I understand that sugar ultimately turns into fat

Wat? :noway:

The original quote should probably be amended to say that EXCESS sugar in the blood is turned into fat by the body. Otherwise, it would be curtains, because the person would go into diabetic coma. Gaining body fat is undoubtedly the better alternative. Anything which contributes to a rapid rise in blood sugar (sugars and starch) will tend to cause fat to accumulate (in the absence of exercise) and anything that slows the rise in blood sugar (eating fats and protein) and brings it down (exercise) will slow or reverse fat accumulation.

ETA: It should be noted that "diabetic coma" is a non-specific term for describing unconsciousness due to a too high level of blood glucose as well as a too low a level of blood glucose.

fatfudgery

Ahh--but the catch is that, even though sugar is sugar, the other nutrients that "ride along" in fruit (and would not be included in candy or soda, for example) are potent inhibitors of disease.

Which nutrients? Care to provide a source for this statement?

But an all-fruit diet would be very bad. "Fruitarian" diets (where nothing but fruit is eaten) are associated with pancreatic cancer.

Yeah, no. Just... no.

SanteMulberry

Ahh--but the catch is that, even though sugar is sugar, the other nutrients that "ride along" in fruit (and would not be included in candy or soda, for example) are potent inhibitors of disease.

Which nutrients? Care to provide a source for this statement?

But an all-fruit diet would be very bad. "Fruitarian" diets (where nothing but fruit is eaten) are associated with pancreatic cancer.

Yeah, no. Just... no.

You are denying the research that strongly suggests the association?

"Which nutrients? Care to provide a source for this statement?"

There are LOTS of studies which demonstrate a link between the consumption of certain foods and health. Check out my thread on the inhibition of angio-genesis. Ellagic acid in strawberries has been found to be a potent inhibitor of angio-genesis and it therefore "applies the brakes" on cancerous tumor growth. Artificially flavored strawberry soda will NOT have the same effect even if the calories are identical.

fatfudgery

HFCS is produced by converting some of the glucose into fructose, thus making it sweeter to our tongues AND easier to digest than regular table sugar

Nope: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17234503?dopt=Abstract