5 ms·

Neither by themselves, but when combined... I read somewhere that when they want to fatten up lab mice they feed them a mixture of 70% sugar and 30% fat or som

• snarf21 10y ago
  I generally agree with you but sugar also tends to make you crave more sugar as it does more crazy things with insulin.
• VT_Drew 10y ago
  Very true, when combined they are horrible. But disagree with "neither". Sugar is really bad by itself, it isn't an "empty calorie" at all, it spikes insulin and will rot your teeth.
  • omgwtfutoo 10y ago
    Beef spikes insulin more than table sugar.
• QuantumAphid 10y ago
  This. Sugar and simple or highly processed carbs cause your body to release insulin in order to regulate blood sugar. Insulin switches off any fat burning and tells the body to store fat. Whenever your diet consists of carbs and fat nutrients, the fat is going to be immediately stored in your fatty tissues, and any excess carbs that you can't burn quickly will go there also.
  • omgwtfutoo 10y ago
    Nope, totally wrong. Sugar does NOT easily metabolized into fat in humans. It does in animals, which is why we feed them lots of carbs. Please learn how de novo lipogenesis works in humans, because you're just repeating a falsehood now. The sugar doesn't get stored, but it does keep fat from being burned, hence the false blame.
• Alex3917 10y ago
  The catch though is that you need fat to live. That is, without fat in your diet you're not able to digest plants. And if for whatever reason you're not eating enough fat, your body will crave sugar. So basically eat healthy fats. If you don't eat enough healthy fat (e.g. from walnuts), your body will start craving unhealthy fats. And if you don't eat either then your body will crazy sugar as a last resort. As far as I can tell that's basically the secret to staying healthy, just make sure to get enough walnuts and avocado or whatever, and once you have your RDI of healthy fats then craving unhealthy fats or sugar won't be an issue.
  • e40 10y ago
    When I started doing intermittent fasting I also started eating lots of walnuts, and I can say my craving for sugar went way, way down. I haven't had sugar once since I started IF (> 30 days).
    • finid 10y ago
      I haven't had sugar once since I started IF Does that mean you haven't included sugar in your foods yourself, or you've managed to avoid eating any prepared food since you started? Practically all prepared foods contain sugar, though they might not call it that in the ingredients list. When next you go boy chicken or turkey, read the list of ingredients. I'm talking about the raw forms, not the already cooked ones. It's shocking.
      • e40 10y ago
        I eat mostly food prepared by my SO. You're right, a lot of packaged foods contain sugar. When I eat those, I look at the label and usually avoid them. For me, the big change was desserts. I was a fiend for those. I've tried a lot of things to ween myself from eating and binging on sugary treats. I wasn't expecting IF to be the thing that worked. That was totally unexpected.
  • cheald 10y ago
    Fats are also a primary component in hormone synthesis. It's very important to get enough - they're just also 9 cal/g, compared to 4 cal/g for protein/carbohydrate, so they can be easy to overconsume if you're trying to manage your caloric intake.
• prostoalex 10y ago
  > Neither by themselves, but when combined... I buy that argument with high-fat zero-sugar diet, but is there a reasonable evidence that eating a high-sugar but low-fat diet is healthy?
  • superioritycplx 10y ago
    No There are essential fatty acids, there are essential amino acids (protein), but there are no essential carbohydrates. The "need" for sugar is completely manufactured, literally and figuratively.
• omgwtfutoo 10y ago
  Mice aren't people. Sugar affects them way differently than us. That's how the whole sugar phobia started and the myth is still being repeated, day after day. Sad.