Sugar

[Mr. Stevens]

That sounds really tough, having sensory issues to healthier foods. I feel lucky that I've always hated most sugar and salt. Not that I haven't had my own bad habits.

 

[Rodafina]

That sounds really tough, having sensory issues to healthier foods. I feel lucky that I've always hated most sugar and salt. Not that I haven't had my own bad habits.

Maybe I could develop a sensory aversion to sugar.

Although, I haven’t had much luck controlling my other sensory issues.

I was eventually able to equate alcohol with feeling sickly tired and opiates with dying. So, for me, treating it like a real drug is probably my best bet.

 

[grommet]

After listening to and reading Dr Robert Lustig and his information and patient studies about the toxicity of sugar, I did a little bit of research, and what I found was a little bit odd:

500ml of Coke contains 53g of sugar which they claim is 59% of your RDA of sugar.

Then I went on the NHS website and they advise that: "Adults should have no more than 30g of free sugars a day." Free sugar being added sugar.

Unless I'm missing something, the company making the Coke drink is saying our RDA of sugar is 3 times higher than the NHS recommended amount? This mistake seems glaringly obvious, so I can only assume there's some way that they can claim only X amount of the total sugar in the drink is "added sugar" and the rest is naturally existing already?

I guess it would look very bad if they were to sell a 500ml drink and have it labelled as containing nearly 180% of your RDA of sugar. Perhaps this is why they try and claim a 500ml bottle of Coke is "2 servings".

From an article I read on Healthline, according to a 2008 study the average American was consuming 76.7 grams per day.

Ed

There is nothing toxic about sugar. It is a food. Our brains run on it. I think sometimes people demonize things for a sense of control, if they can find the bad thing they can avoid and it make their lives better.

There are no bad foods. Almost a third of our brains are made of cholesterol. A child growing with not enough cholesterol can possibly not develop their brains properly. High cholesterol in adults can lead to disease.

We are made of protein. Too much protein can make our bones weak as the body takes calcium from them to process the excess protein.

Gluten is a protein. With it we can get energy and grow our bodies. Some people with celiac disease can become very ill from eating gluten. Other than those people, nearly everyone can eat the gluten protein.

We need salt to live. Too much or not enough causes problems.

There is nothing inherently bad about sugar. Your brain is using it right now to read this. Sugar left on our teeth can feed a bacteria that as a waste product produce an acid. Our teeth our made of calcium. They break down in acid. Eat some sugar and brush your teeth and it will probably be okay.

100 calories is 100 calories no matter the food but we do not process all foods the same. 100 calories of sugar is used by the body as 100 calories, we can digest it directly. 100 calories of chicken protein is in a form we cannot use directly and so our bodies have to process it into a form of protein we can. That takes energy. 100 calories of chicken protein may only net 75 calories of energy after the energy used to process it.

This is why sugar can lead to weight gain from fat more easily. Sugar is not bad, it has no toxic effects.

Every one's body is unique enough that some people can eat a high cholesterol high saturated fat diet and not have heart disease. Other people will have heart disease from cholesterol build up at an early age and with normal eating.

It is about individual health. If a food causes you a problem you can adjust for it but that food may be healthy for someone else.

Sugar is not bad. No reputable dietician will say sugar is bad or has any toxic effects.

Our brain's only job is to keep us alive. Instincts and adaptation have made it so that it gives you a feeling of pleasure when you do something that supports survival. Modern living is brand new, our brains are still helping us survive in an environment where there is no guarantee of food so it gives us a feeling of delight when we eat sugar because it is the quickest form of energy. It does everything possible to bring you back to that "good thing" (the thing it knows helps you survive). It is so powerful we can feel weak because we can't often decide against it. That is the point. The brain is meant to guide us towards survival without us thinking about it.

There are no bad foods. No foods are toxic. The sugar in honey you find in beehive honeycomb is the same as processed sugar. It comes with other things but the sugar is the same. That sugar found in nature is the same. Honey given to a baby can kill it. Honey put on a wound can prevent an infection. Sugar mixed with an oxidizer can create an explosive.

A Twinkie cake and a carrot are both foods and neither one is better than the other. They have effects and sometimes a Twinkie is the healthier choice, it is not an absolute. Sugar is not toxic, there are no toxic foods, there are no bad foods. Experts in this field will all say that. Anyone not saying that is incorrect, they have no science, only anecdotes and self-conjecture to make their point. It will fall apart when exposed to the science.

Too many to recommend but to start I think you could learn from Abby Langer, one of many registered dietitians who makes claims and always shows the science. She also refers to many other RD's. It is not about opinion or what we want to be true, it is about what is testable and provable or can be disproved and sugar is not toxic.

 

[grommet]

There really isn't any such thing as an "RDA of sugar", per se. Rather, one might think of it as more of a "healthy limit". Whether "naturally occurring" or "added", companies like Coke are required to label the "total". So, they may claim "no added sugars" on the label, but they still have to label the total amount of sugar/serving on the label.
As far as what "a serving" is, is totally arbitrary and up to the company. If you have a bag of potato chips/crisps and the label says 1 serving = 6 chips/crisps, that really isn't a serving, per se, as most people could do that in a few bites and is just a "teaser".

Getting back to the RDA of sugar, keep in mind the body literally does not need dietary sugar at all, as even if you were able to totally remove sugar from your diet (not likely), relying only upon fats and proteins, the body would convert what it needs into glucose (gluconeogenesis) and ketones (ketogenesis). Having said that, even if you are into "hardcore" ketogenic diets and prolonged fasting regimens, the lack of carbohydrates in the diet can have negative effects upon the intestinal microbiome and overall health. So for all practical purposes, even in these situations, some carbohydrates and/or breaking your fast every 3-4 days may have some benefits.

The bottom line is that the manufacturers of these sugary drinks, at least in the US per FDA regulations, must label the nutritional contents of their product. Some of these values (like sugar, carbohydrates, etc.) are on there for "reference". Also consider that this is based upon "the average person", whatever that is, and upon a 2000 calorie/day diet. Most of the time the RDA values are only a reflection of that specific context. For example, a 50lb/23kg child's "healthy" dietary requirements and caloric intake would be significantly different than a 200lb/91kg adult. The medical establishment has a great understanding of all of this, because, in practice, most of our medications and nutritional concentrations and administration rates are based upon infant, pediatric, and adult context, further broken down to the person's "ideal body weight" or "weight for calculations", and then dosed in milliliters, micrograms, milligrams, per hour and/or per kilogram of body weight. In other words, most of the nutritional labels really don't give an accurate representation of "RDA %", as for all practical purposes, to figure all of that out would be far too cumbersome for the average "label reader".

I had not read Neonatal RRT's response before I wrote my own. It is excellent. Please refer to it.

 

[MROSS]

Anybody substitute 'Agave Syrup' for sugar in coffee? Lately, I've been hard-pressed to find 'Agave Syrup' as a choice at my local coffee houses.

 

[lovely_darlingprettybaby]

After listening to and reading Dr Robert Lustig and his information and patient studies about the toxicity of sugar, I did a little bit of research, and what I found was a little bit odd:

500ml of Coke contains 53g of sugar which they claim is 59% of your RDA of sugar.

Then I went on the NHS website and they advise that: "Adults should have no more than 30g of free sugars a day." Free sugar being added sugar.

Unless I'm missing something, the company making the Coke drink is saying our RDA of sugar is 3 times higher than the NHS recommended amount? This mistake seems glaringly obvious, so I can only assume there's some way that they can claim only X amount of the total sugar in the drink is "added sugar" and the rest is naturally existing already?

I guess it would look very bad if they were to sell a 500ml drink and have it labelled as containing nearly 180% of your RDA of sugar. Perhaps this is why they try and claim a 500ml bottle of Coke is "2 servings".

From an article I read on Healthline, according to a 2008 study the average American was consuming 76.7 grams per day.

Ed

They clean cars with coke, soda is so bad. Bad for your gut and bad in terms of sugar and people get addicted and struggle to give it up
I understand emotional addictions with food, addictive behaviour
But USA had a big problem anyway with portion sizes, huge amounts of candy/unhealthy snack portioning like huge packages of foods, fast food consumption, probably too much meat consumption and not as much access to fresh foods, at least that is what I read online.
Like they should start growing some foods like plant some fruit trees or something, they have so much space.
And like potions should be smaller so that there is less waste.

 

[grommet]

They clean cars with coke, soda is so bad.

Coca-cola contains phosphoric acid, it is a degreaser. That is why the drink can be used to clean cars. Phosphoric acid adds that bite to a sip of Coke.