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Is Sugar Really Toxic?

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#101

Post by jacques_chester »

iopq wrote: post #88
hristov wrote: post #69

This article shows how the fructose industry is defending itself. Mostly by confusing the issue. The thing about fructose is that it is not by itself poisonous. The problem only comes about for refined fructose, such as that found in cane sugar and HFCS. In those cases, fructose overwhelms the liver and gets processed by wrong pathways which result in all kinds of problems. But if you eat fructose in the form of frui…

http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-ab...

No, you don't understand. It's a conspiracy. Big Sugar. Cooked up in a lab, they probably cut it with cocaine and old vinyl records played backwards.

It can't possibly be something simple and emergent like "HFCS is cheap" and "people like sweet things".

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#102

Post by brianbreslin »

mullingitover wrote: post #34
brianbreslin wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Assume he cut out 300 calories a day of beer. So a pound of fat is 3600 calories roughly. By just cutting out beer he would need 12 days to lose 1 lb. not the rate he was losing which was 1/3lb per day. Many studies have shown pure caloric deficits do not lead to rapid weight loss.

I figured the same thing--I definitely didn't feel like I was cutting calories in any way. I took up drinking lots of whole milk, eating bacon, and at my desk I'd eat a whole 12-ounce coffee cup full of mixed nuts (still do, in fact) each day at work. I didn't even cut carbs, I ate pizza and pasta pretty regularly. The only thing I did was aggressively eliminate refined sugars and beer from my diet. I'm curious if gu…

Fat is pure energy so you were entering ketosis through the bacon and whole milk etc. nuts are High in fiber as well, so you may have also helped flush out the stuff faster? Pasta and bread I think have less insulin effect than sugars and alcohols so maybe that's all your body needed to avoid fat hoarding.

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#103

Post by pvnick »

philwelch wrote: post #84
pvnick wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your statement is only marginally correct, but mostly misleading to the point of being practically wrong. Depending on what you eat, your body absorbs 80%-97% of calories according to the following (simplified) equation: Energy in = Energy out + Change in Body Stores [1] Where "change in body stores" is, for all intents and purposes, either muscle or fat. So while going from eating 3000 calories of pure butter to eat…

The point is, don't gloss over things by making dumb statements like "it's impossible because of the laws of thermodynamics". The laws of thermodynamics don't preclude engines that either leak fuel or are fantastically inefficient in converting them to any particular form whether it be locomotion, electricity, or adipose tissue. If your point is that the human body is fantastically efficient at producing fat in ways…

Please don't insult me like that without at least reading the article I posted, which directly supports the statement "it's impossible because of the laws of thermodynamics"

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#104

Post by pvnick »

dredmorbius wrote: post #95
pvnick wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you pretty much restated the point of the article in slightly more condensed terms. Eat sugar in moderation and you'll be fine. Eat too much and you'll run into problems. The point you added is that sugar -> less full -> overeat, which is possible, but not the point being debated.

It's not merely the quantity, but the rate of assimilation, including gastric emptying, which matters. So, yes, qualitatively there is a difference not only between eating an apple and a glass of apple juice representing 8 apples, but even when you're juicing a single apple, because that fructose hits your bloodstream immediately . Useful if you're a bonking cyclist or a runner who's hit the wall. Not so much if you'…

You didn't specify the effect you're talking about, you were very hand-wavey and just said "matters," which is so broad and general that you could be literally anything. I'm talking about calories. Whether you drink 500 calories of apple juice or eat 500 calories of apples you're still taking in 500 calories [1]. So insofar as caloric retention is concerned, no, that does not "matter."

[1] http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance...

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#105

Post by hippich »

jmduke wrote: post #37
hippich wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt excluding sugars from your diet made a difference, or excluding alcohol alone did it. Beer in general do not have that many calories, it is usually junk food accompanied beer is what adding a lot of calories and fat. ^^^ IMHO, since there is a chance you were consuming pound of sugar and six-pack of beer daily :)

Beer usually hovers around the 150-200 calorie mark per bottle. If you're putting away a six-pack every weekend, that adds up very quickly. (Which is not to say that you'll magically lose weight if you stop drinking, or that it's impossible to lose weight if you're drinking every week.)

If you drink 6 pack in one evening - this is "overeating" already. All these extra calories will immediately start converting into fat.

On the other hand if you drink 6 pack during the span of the whole week - it will hardly make a difference.

So yeah - it really depends on how much beer peak usage we are talking about here.

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#106

Post by hippich »

grannyg00se wrote: post #35
hippich wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or instead of not eating boxed food, just do a research how much "bad stuff" in it and divide accordingly to meet your calories and nutrients target for a day.

How the hell do you do that? I find this problem with a lot of diet methods. It's complicated as well as difficult. Plus, when you're consuming the "bad stuff" it's even more difficult because of their interactions within the body. If you can manage to research and control "bad stuff" in your diet and that works, go ahead. But why have them in there at all messing everything up?

by "bad stuff" i meant fructose, sugars, fat, etc. (i hope proteins are not blamed)

Americans are lucky to have all of it stated on the packaging, which allows very precise control of nutrients consumption. So if you bought box of Devil Hole (which are delicious!) and read, that one hole comes with 120 calories - eat just one! That simple.

Now... if you can't stop on one, this is completely different issue.

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#107

Post by jawilson2 »

brianbreslin wrote: post #102
mullingitover wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I figured the same thing--I definitely didn't feel like I was cutting calories in any way. I took up drinking lots of whole milk, eating bacon, and at my desk I'd eat a whole 12-ounce coffee cup full of mixed nuts (still do, in fact) each day at work. I didn't even cut carbs, I ate pizza and pasta pretty regularly. The only thing I did was aggressively eliminate refined sugars and beer from my diet. I'm curious if gu…

Fat is pure energy so you were entering ketosis through the bacon and whole milk etc. nuts are High in fiber as well, so you may have also helped flush out the stuff faster? Pasta and bread I think have less insulin effect than sugars and alcohols so maybe that's all your body needed to avoid fat hoarding.

It is hard to say based on the limited info he posted, but you only enter ketosis if you consume under 20-50 g of carbs per day. A single slice of bread, one yogurt, a bowl of cereal, or even a few carrots can take you out of it. You can't really accidentally get into ketosis without very deliberately avoiding carbs.

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#108

Post by isleyaardvark »

nitrogen wrote: post #55
pvnick wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I ended up shedding 30 pounds in 90 days, and have kept it off for a full year >I probably upped my overall calorie consumption but I replaced the sugars with more complex energy sources like nuts Unless you started exercising, these two statements are incompatible with one another (violates the first law of thermodynamics). What's more likely is you felt "fuller" from eating healthy foods and therefore consumed les…

It's possible that they are eating more calories, but digesting or storing fewer (thus passing more as waste).

Possible, but how likely is that? Is it more likely that he's eating foods that are inefficiently digested (and where are the scientific studies on that?) Or is it more likely that he's underestimating calories consumed (numerous studies showing many people doing just that)?

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#109

Post by rfnslyr »

brianbreslin wrote: post #23
rfnslyr wrote: post #6

Man. Sugar is the worst. Take it from me. I moved to the city the moment I turned 18, I didn't know much about cooking. Back in the 'burbs you'd be lucky to live within 10km of a grocery store. Downtown however, totally different story. I went NUTS with sweets and pizza. I gained over 100 lbs in just under half a year. I was eating around 10k calories a day. I then stuck to only these foods and have only been eating…

How has your weight loss progressed since the dietary change?

Back to 200 and shredded. Lean as fuck. I eat a lot of fat and protein, not really many carbs, under around 50 a day.

Re: Is Sugar Really Toxic?

#110

Post by philwelch »

pvnick wrote: post #103
philwelch wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, don't gloss over things by making dumb statements like "it's impossible because of the laws of thermodynamics". The laws of thermodynamics don't preclude engines that either leak fuel or are fantastically inefficient in converting them to any particular form whether it be locomotion, electricity, or adipose tissue. If your point is that the human body is fantastically efficient at producing fat in ways…

Please don't insult me like that without at least reading the article I posted, which directly supports the statement "it's impossible because of the laws of thermodynamics"

I'm not insulting you. The law of conservation of energy is insufficient to support your claim because your claim relies more on the particulars of human physiology than on the basic physics. If it were all down to physics, then my car would get fat when I put fuel in the gas tank and didn't drive it. But even though my car and my body are both governed by the same laws of physics, the details are different.
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