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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 degree
by 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 agoWhy did we evolve to enjoy the taste of sugar?
- keymone 9y agoi 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 agoBecause you take sweet ultraprocessed food since your a baby. Then, children don't like veggies.
- esailija 9y agoPlain 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 agoNo. 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 agoI 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)?
- esailija 9y agoI think I didn't mention meat anywhere. I am actually vegan. There are a lot of plant foods that are relatively high in calories, vitamins, minerals, fat and protein which I mentioned: fruits, nuts, legumes, grains, potatoes, berries and so on. Vegetables (e.g. cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber etc) only have vitamins and minerals when you consider that as human you don't have the digestive system and time to digest tens of kilograms of food in a day. Sugar contains a lot of energy so it's not fooling you when it's tasting great. Can you say which specific animal is alive eating food without much caloric content (and which specific vegetable are they eating)?
- perl4ever 9y agoSame 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 agoI noticed earbuds and their cords are both designed to fit the human ear.
- Arn_Thor 9y agoWe 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 agoGlucose is _not_ taste-neutral. Just less sweet than table sugar. Grab a bag of dextrose from AMZN and try it.
- keymone 9y agoyou're right, thanks
- H1Supreme 9y agoYep. 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 agosugar 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 agoplease 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 agowhat 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 agoYou 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 agoYou don’t need to consume carbohydrates for energy. You can live off of fat and protein.
- Valmar 9y agoThe 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 agohttps://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 agoFirst 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...