Natural Sugar v Processed Sugar

Natural sugars are definitely waaayyyy better than processed sugar. However, it's still sugar. Depending on what your goals are, you may want to cut back on some of the fruit. (I ran into the same issue as well and realized I had to cut back.) Please don't get me wrong, fruit is healthy, but if you are going for a full-on clean diet (currently my goal), then you may want to cut back on your fruit and aim for eating it only in the mornings. Good luck!

The USDA recommendation for daily intake of sugar is based on added sugars and so does not account for sugars from fruit or other foods where it occurs naturally. Food labels do not currently differentiate between added sugars and natural sugars. Please note the difference between "processed" and "added." When the USDA says added, they mean sugar added to foods in any form - honey, maple syrup, agave nectar, sugar in the raw, etc. When they say natural, they mean sugars that occur in whole foods. They are not in any way referring to quality.

There are a couple of ways to handle this. You could do mental math, and only worry about sugars in processed foods, baked goods, etc. while ignoring sugar in fruits and whole foods. You could ignore the sugar count all together as it is really inaccurate and captured in the carb count anyway. Some people will say "sugar is sugar" and that all sugar is the same, arguing that your sugar count should include fruits and whole foods. This is the only viewpoint I find to be completely invalid - obviously, an orange is way better for you than a cupcake. And your body does process different sugars differently. If you find an article or chart on the Glycemic Index, which measures the effect of different foods on your blood sugar, you'll see that fructose (the sugar found in fruit - watch out for fructose added as a sweetner to processed foods) has a lower rating on the GI than sucrose (table sugar), sugar cane juice, glucose/dextrose (pure carbs, like white bread), corn syrup, maltodextrin, HFCS, etc. This is the party line the corn industry has been spreading as well, and they are wrong.

In sum, eat fruit. It's good for you.

I avoid processed sugars and prefer to have it naturally occuring in my foods. That doesn't mean I don't occasionally have some, but i avoid as much as possible. Same for artificial sweeteners.

I have been told by a dietetician that sugar is sugar, your body does not know the difference and processes it just about the same way (some sugars a little faster and some a little slower) but in the end, it's all the same.

Now I don't know if this is true but I know that for me, in my eating habits, I have switched back and forth between honey, white sugar, brown sugar, natural sugar etc and I have seen no difference in my weight, stamina or otherwise between using any one of them.

So, bottom line, I really don't know.

Foods with a lot of processed sugar tend to be high in calories and low in nutritional content. Foods high in natural sugar tend to be much higher in nutritional content. I usually have one or two pieces of dark chocolate at bedtime but do try to cut out most other foods high in processed sugar.