Sugar - Is It Fair To Count Natural the Same As Processed?

I don't pay as much attention to sugars for the very reason you describe. In doing some research the other day on this very issue, natural sugars are processed into energy easier...processed sugars skip a step (and an organ the article said) and don't transfer to energy well and instead, get stored to fat quickly.

As I said, I believe in the natural path - anything that doesn't come from the earth naturally I do not want in my body, anything that has a massive list of ingredients on its package - I am not eating it, anything that even comes in a package to begin with - most likely I am not eating it, anything that is anything other than mininmally processed - you guessed it, I am not eating it, lol.

. But that's me. People have different opinions on this school of thought, but for me, it is the one I subscribe to. :-)

I think thats great, and not having a go or anything. I wouldn;t have the will power to do it myself, much as I would imagine there are massive benefits too it

Was just wondering was all.

This is one of the 'hot button' issues here.

For me sugar is sugar. If you're interested in the chemical background and the reactions etc.. you can watch Sugar: The Bitter Truth on you tube -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM I will agree that fruit is better than HFCS but less sugar = better.

I would like to know where you get your information from, as you have simply made a statement, yet not backed it up with any evidence?

A foodstuff being "organic" refers to the conditions the agricultural crops are grown in, and doesn't point to a lack of processing. I don't think anyone needs evidence to back that up, for example it's blatantly obvious that organic chocolate has been processed from a number of ingredients. Organic sugar is made the same way as any other sugar, but from an organically grown crop. "Chemicals" are used in its processing.

Oragnic all the way. :-)

Organic food is chock full of chemicals and processed as well

I respect your opinion, but I know what I am putting in my body, I read the ingredients on everything I buy.

I would like to know where you get your information from, as you have simply made a statement, yet not backed it up with any evidence?

Are you confused about organic foods containing chemicals or that lots of them are processed?

They are just one of those people, that believe organic food is grown and just magically appears at the grocery store.

The term organic has to be the biggest scam in the food industry.

This is not entirely tru though. Iodized salt is chemical - natural sea salt will be straight from the ocean. I believe very strongly in eating all natural/no chemical foods so I tend to stay away from anything that is procssed.

So now you've piqued my interest. Iodised salt exists for a reason, iodine is a trace element required in the diet to prevent iodine deficiency, which is associated with mental retardation, and it affects 2 billion people worldwide. Many of the 2 billion people that are affected subside on foodstuffs that you'd label 'all natural' and 'unprocessed', so...kind of a self-defeating argument.

There's a difference between 'processed' food and 'all natural / no chemical' foods.

All natural - Did you know all citrus fruit contain very high levels of ascorbic acid - a chemical which is added to many other foodstuffs? You'd also know ascorbic acid as Vitamin C. Without it, food rots / degrades far quicker. So how is consuming citrus any different from consuming a foodstuff with Vitamin C as an additive?

What about either sodium or potassium nitrite? These are commonly-used preservatives. You know where they originate from? Salts. Not sodium chloride salt, but other salts (originally mined from caves; now produced in much purer form in bulk commercially). The reason they're used is they are adept at preventing bacterial infection of meats. The original form of treatment - adding salts to prevent the meat from going off - could loosely be described as 'natural'; if the treatment changes to using a purer substance than is available in nature, and maximising the benefit of the treatment, is there any real difference?

Almost all standard foods are processed in some ways. Cheese? A process. Butter? A process. Milk? A process (pasteurisation). Slaughtered food? Process. Process is required to turn the raw product into a finished product, and process is required to make some foodstuffs safe. Cooking is a process! Fermentation is a process! Curing is a process!

Unless you're digging vegetables straight out of the ground and eating them raw, slaughtering your own animals and eating the meat raw, drinking milk straight out of the cow's teat, picking your own fruit and eating them on the spot, you're not actually avoiding the 'processing' part of the equation.

The final thing which I find really, really hard to reconcile between natural / processed is the amount of processing which is attached to things that actually directly have an impact on our health. Antibiotics and medicines are 100% processed, and even those that are touted as 'natural' are so heavily processed as to not be recognisable as the original form whatsoever. Yet these have a huge net benefit on health and wellbeing - so surely processing cannot be the evil it's made out to be.

I don't even track sugar. It's not that important to me.

I would clarify that fructose is processed almost entirely by the liver. Eating too much of it places a load on the liver that may be unhealthy.

Having a cup of strawberries (maybe 9 g of sugar) won't be an issue, but a granola bar or cereal (25+g of sugar) plus all the other food, beverages, condiments etc that contain fructose as the sugar ... it adds up over a day. If one can reduce the foods that contain sugar (including too much of fresh & dried fruit), it becomes easier to lose weight.