Sugar...why doesn’t MFP know the difference?

disalvatore17
disalvatore17 Posts: 1 Member
edited November 27 in Food and Nutrition
Is MFP working on detailing the difference between added sugars and naturally occurring sugars??

Replies

  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    No
  • DoubleUbea
    DoubleUbea Posts: 1,115 Member
    Can you explain the difference and how your body treats it?
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    disalvatore17 wrote: »
    Is MFP working on detailing the difference between added sugars and naturally occurring sugars??

    Food labels in the US don't differentiate between natural and added sugars and that's where most of the database entries originate. That is/will be changing, but it will still be awhile before the database is populated with that given that most entries are user entered.
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    disalvatore17 wrote: »
    Is MFP working on detailing the difference between added sugars and naturally occurring sugars??

    The vast majority of entries in the food database here come from user-entered data based on nutrition labels. Other entries come from places like the USDA food products database. Since neither of these separate added and naturally occurring sugars, it's not something that's likely to be put into practice here until the information exists somewhere that users can access it.

    I already don't trust 80% of the entries in the database. Asking users to do a little math or take their best guess at what percentage of sugars are added in a product sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.
  • VUA21
    VUA21 Posts: 2,072 Member
    Because your body doesn't know the difference either. Sugar is sugar. The only difference is the type and amount of other micro/macronutrients that are present in the food with the sugar.
  • ccrdragon
    ccrdragon Posts: 3,374 Member
    FireOpalCO wrote: »
    Disagreeing with the crowd here.

    I would like to see naturally occurring sugar separated out from added sugar. If someone was trying to cut their sugar intake, it's the added sugar that would be targeted and tracked. I eat a lot of fresh fruit and see red in sugar over and over again. I'm not gorging on candy bars, I'm having a weighed portion of green grapes as a snack! I'm about ready to turn off sugar as a tracked item because it's effectively useless.

    Which is exactly what you should do - sugar, where ever it comes from is simply a carb and doesn't need to be tracked separately. And again, as has been previously stated, since the nutrition info on the labels has only recently started to separate out added sugar from the naturally occurring sugars, this has not been possible in the past.
  • livingleanlivingclean
    livingleanlivingclean Posts: 11,751 Member
    FireOpalCO wrote: »
    Disagreeing with the crowd here.

    I would like to see naturally occurring sugar separated out from added sugar. If someone was trying to cut their sugar intake, it's the added sugar that would be targeted and tracked. I eat a lot of fresh fruit and see red in sugar over and over again. I'm not gorging on candy bars, I'm having a weighed portion of green grapes as a snack! I'm about ready to turn off sugar as a tracked item because it's effectively useless.

    Until it's on labels, that won't really be possible. I know what I eat, I know where the sugar comes from and I can mentally add up the "added" sugar... Much like those who want to track net carbs can easily subtract fiber from total carbs.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    FireOpalCO wrote: »
    Disagreeing with the crowd here.

    I would like to see naturally occurring sugar separated out from added sugar. If someone was trying to cut their sugar intake, it's the added sugar that would be targeted and tracked. I eat a lot of fresh fruit and see red in sugar over and over again. I'm not gorging on candy bars, I'm having a weighed portion of green grapes as a snack! I'm about ready to turn off sugar as a tracked item because it's effectively useless.

    I swapped Sugar for Fiber (and Sodium for Iron - I'm anemic) a long time ago.
  • loveisapineapple
    loveisapineapple Posts: 38 Member
    I can see how it would be useful, most people are trying to do more than just lose weight - they are concerned about health as well. The daily recommendation is I think no more than 25 gms of added sugar (for women) per day.
    I just look down my food list and it's pretty easy to see what is added and what is naturally occurring so I'm not concerned about it, but I can see why it would be useful to people.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    FireOpalCO wrote: »
    Disagreeing with the crowd here.

    I would like to see naturally occurring sugar separated out from added sugar. If someone was trying to cut their sugar intake, it's the added sugar that would be targeted and tracked. I eat a lot of fresh fruit and see red in sugar over and over again. I'm not gorging on candy bars, I'm having a weighed portion of green grapes as a snack! I'm about ready to turn off sugar as a tracked item because it's effectively useless.

    As has been mentioned, that can't really be done at this point because food labels don't break it out (though that is changing)...so how would people entering something into the database be able to break it out?
  • TrishSeren
    TrishSeren Posts: 587 Member
    TavistockToad wrote: »
    FireOpalCO wrote: »
    I'm about ready to turn off sugar as a tracked item because it's effectively useless.

    i swapped it for fibre a looooooooooong time ago. much more useful

    Ditto, turns out I was barely eating half my recommended fibre intake which is more important to me to track.
  • aokoye
    aokoye Posts: 3,495 Member
    FireOpalCO wrote: »
    Disagreeing with the crowd here.

    I would like to see naturally occurring sugar separated out from added sugar. If someone was trying to cut their sugar intake, it's the added sugar that would be targeted and tracked. I eat a lot of fresh fruit and see red in sugar over and over again. I'm not gorging on candy bars, I'm having a weighed portion of green grapes as a snack! I'm about ready to turn off sugar as a tracked item because it's effectively useless.

    The problem, as people keep saying, is that it's not on food labels. Let's use say, ketchup as an example. Tomatoes have plenty of sugar in them and it isn't at all uncommon for ketchup to have added sugar. The same is true with some commercially produced pasta sauces. What about banana bread? Bananas have sugar in them and most banana bread involves added sugar as well. Strawberry lemonade made with actual strawberries and lemon juice - same deal.

    Of course if you're thinking about fruit having fiber along with sugar then you may as well throw juice right out of the window.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    loveisapineapple wrote: »
    I can see how it would be useful, most people are trying to do more than just lose weight - they are concerned about health as well. The daily recommendation is I think no more than 25 gms of added sugar (for women) per day.
    I just look down my food list and it's pretty easy to see what is added and what is naturally occurring so I'm not concerned about it, but I can see why it would be useful to people.

    There are lots of users here who are concerned about their health and still don't see the point of an arbitrary sugar limit. In the absence of a medical condition that requires it to be limited, most people who are controlling their calorie intake and getting sufficient fat and protein don't need to worry about sugar.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited July 2018
    "Sugar...why doesn’t MFP know the difference?

    MFP doesn't know the difference because MFP isn't a conscious being with your own personal tastes and predilictions and beliefs. It is a calculator that is user operated tacked on to a database that is user generated. It doesn't make decisions, you do. It also doesn't know the difference because objectively speaking there is no actual difference between the fructose derived from eating some grapes and the fructose derived from ingesting a soda flavored with high fructose corn syrup. Fructose is fructose as far as the science, the molecule and your body are concerned and therefore MFP has no basis in which to distinguish the two. If you personally feel that they are different and wish to track them separately you can attempt to do so but I'm not sure what benefit you would get out of doing that.

    The reason that MFP allows you to track sugar and have it turn red if it goes above a certain amount is as an aid to diabetics. If you aren't diabetic then you can probably just go ahead and toggle that off. Not sure why MFP has it on by default to be honest.
  • RaychLeo
    RaychLeo Posts: 1 Member
    edited July 2018
    In defense, most naturally occurring sugar has a lower glycemic load, but the body still treats it the same
This discussion has been closed.

Categories