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Which will make you fatter? A) Eating a pound/kg of fat B) Eating a pound/kg of refined sugar Correct answer: B Sugar enters your blood stream almos

Which will make you fatter? A) Eating a pound/kg of fat B) Eating a pound/kg of refined sugar Correct answer: B Sugar enters your blood stream almost immediately --- starting in your mouth. Unless you're doing heavy exercise and burning lots of calories, your body has to store most of this excess energy --- as fat. The only way to get consumed fat into your bloodstream is to first convert it into sugar --- which itself burns some energy.

timerol 10mo ago
Note that a kg of fat contains about 9000 calories, while a kg of sugar contains about 4000 calories, so this is really a startling claim, if true
- brodouevencode 10mo ago
  It's not given the ratios OP should have said for calorie-adjusted intake sugar is more fattening.
- jqpabc123 10mo ago
  It is about more than just the calorie content of the food. Unless your digestive system is hyperactive, a lot of this huge glob of fat will likely just pass right through without being absorbed into your bloodstrean. The refined sugar is virtually guaranteed to fully hit your bloodstream and right now. It's enough to send some people into a life threatening diabetic coma. After eating a pound of fat, you may want a nap but dying from it is extremely unlikely.
cyberax 10mo ago
> The only way to get consumed fat into your bloodstream is to first convert it into sugar --- which itself burns some energy. Fat does not get converted into glucose in normal conditions in appreciable quantities. It's used as-is, most of the body can directly utilize fatty acids as a fuel source. Also, body has a lot of mechanisms to deal with sugar. It is normally stored in the liver and then released slowly.
- brodouevencode 10mo ago
  But it will always prefer glucose stores over fat.
- hinkley 10mo ago
  And the muscles. You can’t fight or flight if you have to ask the liver to deliver glycogen. That’s how anaerobic exercise works. You have the fuel but not enough oxygen to burn it so you burn it fuel rich and oxidizer poor.
  - BirAdam 10mo ago
    Not quite. The body will just enter ketosis if glucose and glycogen levels are too low.
    - cyberax 10mo ago
      The grandparent means something a bit different. Muscles can use glucose without _oxygen_ to get short bursts of energy quickly by rearranging glucose molecules (indirectly) into lactic acid. Ketones can't be used for this purpose.
      - hinkley 10mo ago
        Glycogen is stored in the muscles and in the liver, not just the liver. The liver holds around half of your reserves.
jimmar 10mo ago
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7598063/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7598063/ > Carbohydrate overfeeding produced progressive increases in carbohydrate oxidation and total energy expenditure resulting in 75-85% of excess energy being stored. Alternatively, fat overfeeding had minimal effects on fat oxidation and total energy expenditure, leading to storage of 90-95% of excess energy. Also, it's just not true that consumed fat must be turned into sugar before entering the bloodstream. See https://med.libretexts.org/Courses/American_Public_University/APUS%3A_An_Introduction_to_Nutrition_(Byerley)/APUS%3A_An_Introduction_to_Nutrition_1st_Edition/04%3A_Lipids/4.04%3A_Digestion_and_Absorption_of_Lipids https://med.libretexts.org/Courses/American_Public_Universit...
tsimionescu 10mo ago
At the same weight, fat contains way more calories than sugar, so the difference in difficulty of digestion is irrelevant at this level. It's true that if you were to consume 1000 Cal worth of sugar vs 1000 Cal worth of fat, you'd get slightly less fat from the fat - but this should be seen simply as one of many limitations on the "calories in" measurement. The same kinds of differences likely exist between different sugars, different fats, different proteins - and may well be affected by other aspects of how the food containing these nutrients is consumed; and it almost certainly varies a lot between people or even for the same person based on various factors such as age, activity level, time of day, etc.
NoPicklez 10mo ago
There's more nuance to this. Yes sugar enters your blood stream almost immediately which isn't a bad thing, but not all of it. A large amount of that sugar gets stored in the liver as glycogen and any of that not used becomes body fat. But also Yes when you consume fat, it is converted to be used by the body as energy however the excess of that similar to sugar is also converted into body fat. Importantly, 1kg of fats and carbs have wildy different energy levels with 1kg of fat representing 7,700 calories and 1kg of carbs being around 4,000 calories. So yes it burns energy to convert fat into energy, but you have a lot more energy to burn for the same amount eaten. This is why carbs and fats have different recommended daily intake levels. Therefore, most of what causes CVD is actually due to overconsumption rather than a balanced meal that doesn't take you into constant excess of either carbs or fats.

timerol 10mo ago

Note that a kg of fat contains about 9000 calories, while a kg of sugar contains about 4000 calories, so this is really a startling claim, if true

brodouevencode 10mo ago
It's not given the ratios OP should have said for calorie-adjusted intake sugar is more fattening.
jqpabc123 10mo ago
It is about more than just the calorie content of the food. Unless your digestive system is hyperactive, a lot of this huge glob of fat will likely just pass right through without being absorbed into your bloodstrean. The refined sugar is virtually guaranteed to fully hit your bloodstream and right now. It's enough to send some people into a life threatening diabetic coma. After eating a pound of fat, you may want a nap but dying from it is extremely unlikely.

cyberax 10mo ago

> The only way to get consumed fat into your bloodstream is to first convert it into sugar --- which itself burns some energy. Fat does not get converted into glucose in normal conditions in appreciable quantities. It's used as-is, most of the body can directly utilize fatty acids as a fuel source. Also, body has a lot of mechanisms to deal with sugar. It is normally stored in the liver and then released slowly.

brodouevencode 10mo ago
But it will always prefer glucose stores over fat.
hinkley 10mo ago
And the muscles. You can’t fight or flight if you have to ask the liver to deliver glycogen. That’s how anaerobic exercise works. You have the fuel but not enough oxygen to burn it so you burn it fuel rich and oxidizer poor.
- BirAdam 10mo ago
  Not quite. The body will just enter ketosis if glucose and glycogen levels are too low.
  - cyberax 10mo ago
    The grandparent means something a bit different. Muscles can use glucose without _oxygen_ to get short bursts of energy quickly by rearranging glucose molecules (indirectly) into lactic acid. Ketones can't be used for this purpose.
    - hinkley 10mo ago
      Glycogen is stored in the muscles and in the liver, not just the liver. The liver holds around half of your reserves.

jimmar 10mo ago

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7598063/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7598063/ > Carbohydrate overfeeding produced progressive increases in carbohydrate oxidation and total energy expenditure resulting in 75-85% of excess energy being stored. Alternatively, fat overfeeding had minimal effects on fat oxidation and total energy expenditure, leading to storage of 90-95% of excess energy. Also, it's just not true that consumed fat must be turned into sugar before entering the bloodstream. See https://med.libretexts.org/Courses/American_Public_University/APUS%3A_An_Introduction_to_Nutrition_(Byerley)/APUS%3A_An_Introduction_to_Nutrition_1st_Edition/04%3A_Lipids/4.04%3A_Digestion_and_Absorption_of_Lipids https://med.libretexts.org/Courses/American_Public_Universit...

tsimionescu 10mo ago

At the same weight, fat contains way more calories than sugar, so the difference in difficulty of digestion is irrelevant at this level. It's true that if you were to consume 1000 Cal worth of sugar vs 1000 Cal worth of fat, you'd get slightly less fat from the fat - but this should be seen simply as one of many limitations on the "calories in" measurement. The same kinds of differences likely exist between different sugars, different fats, different proteins - and may well be affected by other aspects of how the food containing these nutrients is consumed; and it almost certainly varies a lot between people or even for the same person based on various factors such as age, activity level, time of day, etc.

NoPicklez 10mo ago

There's more nuance to this. Yes sugar enters your blood stream almost immediately which isn't a bad thing, but not all of it. A large amount of that sugar gets stored in the liver as glycogen and any of that not used becomes body fat. But also Yes when you consume fat, it is converted to be used by the body as energy however the excess of that similar to sugar is also converted into body fat. Importantly, 1kg of fats and carbs have wildy different energy levels with 1kg of fat representing 7,700 calories and 1kg of carbs being around 4,000 calories. So yes it burns energy to convert fat into energy, but you have a lot more energy to burn for the same amount eaten. This is why carbs and fats have different recommended daily intake levels. Therefore, most of what causes CVD is actually due to overconsumption rather than a balanced meal that doesn't take you into constant excess of either carbs or fats.