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The statements "sugar is bad", "fat is bad", "fat is good" are all equally simplistic and misleading. Fruits are high in naturally-occurring sugars and they are

• keymone 9y ago
  While it is tricky with fats, sugar is never good for you (unless some genetic disease where you die if you don’t consume sugar?). Fruits are to various degrees beneficial but not in unlimited amounts. Fruits also don’t have a lot of sugar, see the watermelon comment in the other thread. The problem with sugar is how easy it is in our diets to consume ridiculous amounts of it and how nobody understands that even a little of table sugar is already a ridiculous amount. P.S. even bigger problem is that people don't understand that all the flours and starches are for all intents and purposes sugar, so it doesn't matter that you only have one teaspoon of sugar with your coffee if you consume it in large quantities in other forms.
  • starpilot 9y ago
    Why did we evolve to enjoy the taste of sugar?
    • keymone 9y ago
      i don't think it is a right question. it's like asking why did we evolve to get high on morphine? sure, there definitely are evolutionary benefits to being able to taste sugar and like it, as that will help you to spot nutrients, but this has little to do with the way we industrialized sugar production and consumption in last 200 years. rice, wheat and potatoes are not even sweet but in some countries those are primary sources of glucose.
    • gerardnll 9y ago
      Because you take sweet ultraprocessed food since your a baby. Then, children don't like veggies.
      • esailija 9y ago
        Plain vegetables are not palatable because they have very little nutritional value, like saw dust. If you were as rewarded for eating vegetables as you are for foods with actual nutritional value you would quickly be malnourished. If you ate a vegetable only meal you wouldn't even absorb the fat soluble vitamins from them because they don't have any fat. In the wild where the immediate pressure is on getting enough calories and macronutrients while lack of micronutrients only cause problems in the long term, any human wasting energy collecting and digesting food that doesn't have calories and macronutrients (vegetables) would be quickly weeded out. Look at the nutritional information of any vegetable for yourself. Fruits, nuts, legumes, grains, potatoes etc all come with the fiber, vitamins and minerals that misinformed people think can only come from vegetables while also being loaded with calories, protein and essential fatty acids all which are pretty much completely lacking in vegetables.
        • eeZah7Ux 9y ago
          No. Our sense of taste is far from good at measuring nutritional value. It's simply good enough for humanity to survive without having to evolve a more accurate taste organ.
        • gerardnll 9y ago
          I haven't seen any study suggesting eating vegetables is cancerous but have seen a few from meat and processed meat (studies from the WHO). I'm not vegan, but meat is 30% of my diet. If vegetables are that bad in nutritional value, why can you survive being vegan and just taking vitamin B12 complements? I think using palatability as a way of measuring nutritional quality is not going to help you in the context of a society raised on ultraprocessed foods, because sugar, salt and other chemicals give taste to food without giving it nutritional value. If vegetables don't give you as many calories as meat and as you say: "...any human wasting energy collecting and digesting food that doesn't have calories and macronutrients (vegetables) would be quickly weeded out", why there are so many animals still alive after millions of years eating plants (some of them eating many kilograms every day)?
    • perl4ever 9y ago
      Same reason we evolved to have brain receptors for nicotine? See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinic_acetylcholine_receptor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinic_acetylcholine_recept... I noticed my ears have a notch that appears to be specifically designed to fit the cord of my earbuds.
      • mathgeek 9y ago
        I noticed earbuds and their cords are both designed to fit the human ear.
    • Arn_Thor 9y ago
      We enjoy the taste of sweetness because it tends in nature to indicate that the thing we're eating contains a lot of energy, such as fruits and sweet vegetables. And we underestimate how finely attuned this sense is. Chew on wheat for a little bit and it will begin to taste sweet as the starch breaks down in your mouth and turns into sugar. Sugar is ridiculously sweet. Anyone who's laid off sweets for a few weeks or months and goes back to eating a muffin or having a soda tends to find it offputtingly sweet. We've taken this evolutionary benefit and exploited it for pleasure, which is quite alright in moderation. But the natural pleasure we feel from the sweetness of fruit is set in overdrive with concentrated sweetness such as powder sugar.
      • keymone 9y ago
        > it will begin to taste sweet as the starch breaks down in your mouth and turns into sugar are you sure about this? wheat doesn't have any fructose, and it's the fructose in sugar that gives it sweetness. glucose is taste-neutral.
        • JohnCohorn 9y ago
          Glucose is _not_ taste-neutral. Just less sweet than table sugar. Grab a bag of dextrose from AMZN and try it.
          • keymone 9y ago
            you're right, thanks
      • H1Supreme 9y ago
        Yep. After eating Jif peanut butter for my life, I switched to "natural" about 10 or so years ago. Eating a spoonful of Jif after that, and the absurd amount of sugar is immediately apparent.
  • stinos 9y ago
    sugar is never good for you Sources? I mean, I always thought just like with most things out there, in moderation it's not harmfull. But you are saying any amount is not good? Also by that logic fruit is also bad because it does contain a certain amount ('not a lot') of sugar, no? tldr; I don't completely get the point you are making due to possibly incorrect definitions (what types of sugar?) and seemingly contradicting/overly generalizing statements.
    • keymone 9y ago
      > Sources? https://www.google.de/search?q=sugar+insulin+resistance+pubmed https://www.google.de/search?q=sugar+insulin+resistance+pubm... > in moderation it's not harmfull define "in moderation".
      • shlant 9y ago
        please don't provide such lazy sources for your broad generalizations. I would challenge you to provide a study that used WHOLE fruit as the variable (not fruit juice or sugar alone) and showed it had a negative effect on insulin response. In an effort to do as I say, here are some studies/articles showing the opposite: 1. http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002279 http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou... 2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3836143/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3836143/ 3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3978819/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3978819/ 4. http://www.berkeleywellness.com/healthy-eating/food/article/dont-be-afraid-fruit http://www.berkeleywellness.com/healthy-eating/food/article/...
        • keymone 9y ago
          what is your point? fruits are infinitely better than sugar. fruits still contain sugar, which is why it is recommended not to drink too much fruit juice. what specifically are you contesting about the claim that sugar causes insulin spikes?
          • 9y ago
  • pharrington 9y ago
    You need carbohydrates for energy. Glucose is the primary source of energy for almost every food consuming organism. Too much sugar is harmful, yes, but don't say things that aren't true.
    • ec109685 9y ago
      You don’t need to consume carbohydrates for energy. You can live off of fat and protein.
      • Valmar 9y ago
        The Eskimos traditional diet is a good example of this. Their diet also includes organ meats, so they got all of their vitamins and minerals in good amounts.
        • always_good 9y ago
          https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/25/8/737/4733245 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/25/8/737/4733245 Carbohydrates accounted for 15 to 20% of their calories.
          • Valmar 9y ago
            "Carbohydrate accounted for only 15 to 20% of their calories, largely in the form of glycogen from the meat they consumed."
    • keymone 9y ago
      > You need carbohydrates for energy no you don't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis > Glucose is the primary source of energy for almost every food consuming organism yeah, those carnivores consume so much carbohydrates! > Too much sugar is harmful, yes, but don't say things that aren't true. the problem is with public perception of what is "too much" - it has to be lowered significantly and people have to start counting starches as sugar. but in any case, you could always argue that fruits are good or starchy vegetables are good in moderation, but none of it will ever apply to table sugar.
  • KozmoNau7 9y ago
    >all the flours and starches are for all intents and purposes sugar Only if you look at the most refined and treated flours. Overly refined and bleached flour is obviously not great nutritionally, as with all processed foods. Even just unbleached wheat flour is significantly better, and whole grain types are much better, plenty of fiber and vitamins/minerals. I hope you're not claiming a good wholegrain mixed-grain sourdough bread is the same as eating white sugar.
    • keymone 9y ago
      > I hope you're not claiming a good wholegrain mixed-grain sourdough bread is the same as eating white sugar. no, it's the same as eating 33% of that weight in white sugar, but of course ymmv https://www.eatthismuch.com/food/view/sourdough-whole-grain-bread,569164/ https://www.eatthismuch.com/food/view/sourdough-whole-grain-...
      • deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      • KozmoNau7 9y ago
        First of all, you're looking at a mass-produced ("artisinal" is marketing wank) low-fiber generic bread, with a rather low percentage of whole-grain flour. Not to mention that what the US allows under the umbrella of "whole grain" is problematic. Secondly, you're completely ignoring the fiber, vitamins and minerals you get from the bread, compared to eating straight refined pure white sugar. No food is nutrionally perfect, but good whole-grain bread can certainly be an essential part of a balanced and healthy diet. This war against all carbs is insane. Sure, you should absolutely avoid refined carbs and straight sugar. But that does not make keto/paleo a healthy diet.
        • keymone 9y ago
          > you're completely ignoring the fiber how come? 33% is net carbs, which is carbs minus fiber. i'm not advocating for paleo or keto here. just saying that people overeat simple sugars and often don't know the source. i also don't agree keto/paleo is unhealthy. gotta provide sources for claims like that.
  • TrisMcC 9y ago
    > Fruits are to various degrees beneficial but not in unlimited amounts. You cannot eat too much fruit. https://nutritionfacts.org/2017/02/23/can-you-eat-too-much-fruit/ https://nutritionfacts.org/2017/02/23/can-you-eat-too-much-f...
    • keymone 9y ago
      you can, in form of fruit juice. many confuse the two.
      • TrisMcC 9y ago
        I never mentioned juice. I was talking about fruit. Stop trying to equate the two.
        • keymone 9y ago
          ffs.. how on earth from me saying > many confuse the two you made the conclusion that i'm trying to equate the two?
• gerardnll 9y ago
  When we say "sugar is bad" we refer to the 'simple sugars' found in ultraprocessed foods, not the slow absorption ones.
  • Valmar 9y ago
    Fructose is unhealthy... but glucose is healthy. How they are metabolized is key. :)
    • rurban 9y ago
      Wrong, see above
      • Valmar 9y ago
        You're wrong. If you want to know why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM A brilliant lecture by Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology. He knows his stuff. :)
        • rurban 9y ago
          Ok, thanks. I do trust Lustig. Interesting then that the Europeans do have the opposite opinion. They are not influenced by the sugar lobby.
• RaceRealist 9y ago
  This is just baseless dogma. The most nutritious and healthiest foods you can eat are organ meats of ruminants, particularly liver, but also brain and kidney. You can live indefinitely on pemmican, which consists of nothing but muscle and animal fat. A lean person would last no longer than a year, probably much less, on fruits alone. Frankenfruits, i.e. modern cultivars, which bear little to no resemblance to their naturally-occuring predecessors, have a relative dearth of nutrients. They are as artificial as bread, chocolate, or cookies, and likely just as harmful.
• soneca 9y ago
  Fruits are artificially high in naturally-occurring sugars. Fruits we have today are all fruits of artificial selection of the most sweet. Fruits arent that good because of this.
  • vezycash 9y ago
    Fruits are good. Fruit juice is bad. Why? The fibre content in fruits make consumption self regulated. With juices however, refinement concentrates the sugars and removes fibre. Example: You'd need to eat bags of coca leaves to feel high. A few pinches of cocaine? It's difficult to eat half a stick of sugar cane. But trivial to eat 50 sticks worth of refined sugar. Basically, overdose due to concentration by refinement is the killer.
  • shlant 9y ago
    > Fruits are artificially high in naturally-occurring sugars. Fruits we have today are all fruits of artificial selection of the most sweet. Source? Here is some information to the contrary: https://deniseminger.com/2011/05/31/wild-and-ancient-fruit/ https://deniseminger.com/2011/05/31/wild-and-ancient-fruit/
    • walshemj 9y ago
      No they select for fruits with the longest shelf life for economic reasons
• mnm1 9y ago
  So there's no scientific consensus on what's healthy or not, but surely hamburgers are not healthy? Isn't that a contradiction? Hamburgers can be very healthy. Maybe that's why people make such eating decisions--there isn't enough good information and everyone thinks they have it figured out when they don't.
• pharrington 9y ago
  > Fruits are high in naturally-occurring sugars and they are among the healthiest things you can eat. Can you be precise about what you mean by this, or at least qualify this statement? Modern fruit obviously pushes the definition of "natural" to it's absolute limits, but more importantly, it's at least deeply unintuitive that something that consists mostly of fructose, a little fiber, trace metals, the rare vitamin, and next to no protein or fat could be considered healthy.
  • shlant 9y ago
    Yet another poster on HN, just echoing the platitudes of keto/paleo... > Modern fruit obviously pushes the definition of "natural" to it's absolute limits Modern fruit is not much different nutritionally from wild fruit[1]. Sure, some ancient fruit like bananas were pretty inedible, but that is a far cry from what keto/paleo dogma suggests. As an anecdote, I am living in Borneo right now, and we can go out into the jungles of some of the most untouched land in the world and find the sweetest fruits we have ever tasted. > it's at least deeply unintuitive that something that consists mostly of fructose, a little fiber, trace metals, the rare vitamin I think by "deeply unintuitive" you mean "when compared to my beliefs". Fruit is some of the most nutritionally dense and healthy foods you can eat (I don't think I need to source this, but will if you refuse to yourself). HIGH in fibre, vitamins, phytonutrients, antioxidants, enzymes etc. > and next to no protein or fat could be considered healthy. And here again you reveal your beliefs/dogma. The MACROnutrient content of a food tells you nothing about how healthy it is. 1. https://deniseminger.com/2011/05/31/wild-and-ancient-fruit/ https://deniseminger.com/2011/05/31/wild-and-ancient-fruit/
    • pharrington 9y ago
      Do not put words into my mouth. I said nothing about keto/paleo. (If you are curious about my thoughts about those diets, KozmoNau7 elsewhere in this thread has said most of the relevant information) Fruit, the reproductive organ of a plant, is commonly available in markets without seeds. But again, this truth is tangential to the important claims about what is actually in specific foods. Provide your sources. Before my original post, I bing searched for "apple nutrients," "orange nutrients," and "banana nutrients." I choose these three fruits because they are the most commonly available where I live. Yes, I certainly accept that foods in ecosystems foreign to mine have different nutrient profiles than the fruits I'm familiar with, and if you're in a region where there grows a fruit with a nutrient profile similar to, for example, spinach, then you have access to some healthy fruit! However, I assume most people in the "Was there ever really a “sugar conspiracy”?" thread are Americans or interested in American dietary habits. If you're literally saying the specific nutrient content of a food tells you nothing about how well the food contributes to maintaining vital processes, then we have a breakdown in language. If it clears things up at all, I'm using Wikipedia definition of "nutrient."
• SCdF 9y ago
  > but classic common sense Common sense is kind of a myth though right? You have no clue what is and isn't good for you: that's the point of people demonizing fat one minute and sugar the next, because you can't just do this on "gut feel".
• saosebastiao 9y ago
  There will never be a universal answer to the question of what foods are good and what foods are bad because a universal answer would be a stateless solution to a stateful problem. And that problem is: who are you? What do you do? How much do you move your body? What are your goals? What are your genetics predisposed to? How much do you sleep? What are your causes of stress? At one point in my life, a very well respected nutritionist recommended to me that I eat at least 3 candy bars per day. The reason: I was a D1 swimmer in college, and I couldn't keep my weight on with 4 hours of training per day, and I was having trouble keeping up with the 7000 calorie/day diet she had prescribed for me. Sugars filled that gap. And yes, that would have been unhealthy advice to almost any other American, but for me at the state I was in, it was the healthiest thing for me. Not everybody is a swimmer. But that doesn't matter because there is no "average" human. We're all different in some way or another, and no diet is universal. Maybe we can hone in on basic dietary recommendations, but the idea that we can find universally good or universally bad things is going to be impossible.
  • 52-6F-62 9y ago
    >At one point in my life, a very well respected nutritionist recommended to me that I eat at least 3 candy bars per day. I received equally bizarre advice from my doctor based upon some blood test results. I was explicitly directed to eat more red meat. At the time I wasn't eating much in the way of meat at all (though I wasn't a vegetarian). He recommended that as opposed to only supplementation, and preferably alongside supplementation.
    • cgh 9y ago
      Your doctor was right. Meat is the healthiest stuff you can eat. Throw some liver in there as well and you are covered.