Why do people keep defending sugar?

magnusthenerd wrote: »

janejellyroll wrote: »

thakurhimanshi815 wrote: »

if we do not eat enough sugar or sugar-polymers, or our bodies do not produce enough sugar, we die

For most of us, this doesn't require eating sugar. As you point out, our bodies will produce it for us. This is why carbohydrates are not considered an essential macronutrient.

It is possible the point of it was that while intake of sugar is nonessential, from a biochemistry standpoint, sugar is essential to human life. That's fair for defending sugar of all kinds.
I do think there are people that think sugar is indefensible and hold rather stringent clean eating views that don't really understand or at least think about that deeper level of the chemistry. Pressed on a point like this, some of them will claim there is something different about the same chemical when it is refined versus when it is in vegetables or when it is produced in the body by gluconeogensis from protein.

Yes, phrased that way it is a perfectly fair point. It's just important to also note (as you do), that we don't need to INGEST the sugar in order to have it for our bodies to operate.

I completely agree that the conversation loses coherence once people begin debating the differences between different "types" of the same chemical. For the majority of people, all the energy spent worrying about various sources of sugar would be much better spent on simply consuming the right number of calories for our activity level. If I'm eating a variety of foods and consuming the right number of calories, it's generally going to limit the number of Oreos and Cokes in my diet to a level compatible with good health.

Why do people keep demonizing sugar?