But what about sugar? We should acknowledge that when I,
and many others, address sugar in contexts like these, we
are talking about added sugars, not the naturally occurring
sugars or carbohydrates you find in things like fruit.
Those are, for the most part, not the problem. *Added*
sugars are.
In a world where extremely sugary products such as fruit juice and even sugar cane juice can claim "no sugar added" prominently on the label, I find this statement to be problematic.
It seems a little bit akin to implying that you can drink all the applejack you want without worrying about intoxication because it has "no alcohol added" - instead, water was removed. I can guarantee your liver is not playing pedantic word games around the process by which that beverage got to 40% ABV, all it cares about is whether you're drinking too much alcohol or not.
Too true, fruit juice and smoothies can be very bad for you. If you tried to eat the same fruit that was juiced into your drink you would struggle. There is a lot of fibre and other things which limit sugar consumption from unprocessed fruit.
It's been a common trend to actually add sugar via this method too, using e.g. pear juice concentrate as an ingredient to sweeten the resulting product. This is not really any less "adding sugar" than sweetening a product with sugar concentrated from sugar beets or corn.
This probably stems from the incorrect belief that fruits are somehow "natural" when they are in fact the result of millennia of artificial selection, selecting in particular for sugar content.
In fairness, this is really down to where you live. If you live in the EU you will see exactly how much sugar is in the drink by looking at the label because that's what the law says.
It's up to regulators to hold companies to account. They certainly aren't going to print things that could possibly harm sales on their labels by themselves.
Considering how little we know about nutrition, you should try to eat food that is as little processed as possible because that's what our bodies have adapted to for thousands of years. So an apple is better than apple juice which is better than apple drink (which is a processed food item that may or may not have anything to do with apples).
In spite of our desire to reach for the stars, humans are not isolated creatures, they are figures in a landscape. Remove the landscape and you remove the human (or in this case, the heath of the human).
My wife and I limit our children’s consumption of soda to around four to five times a week.
That's limited?
Once a week, that's limited. Once every weeknight isn't limited, it's a habit.
Given the choice, I'll take a naturally sweetened beverage weekly over an artificially sweetened beverage daily, if only because of the awful taste of artificial sweeteners...
Why do people think that it's OK to allow kids to drink soda? In fact, why do people think that drinking soda is something that anyone must do?
I used to drink soda. Gave it up many years ago. Have not missed it. Have much less of a sweet tooth now; don't eat desserts very often, and when I do, a very small portion is plenty. I think giving up soda helped with that.
If I want a caffeinated beverage, I drink coffee, black or with cream but no sugar. If I want a cool, carbonated beverage, I drink beer (which has most of its sugar fermented out; still has some calories, but not nearly so sweet). If I just need to be rehydrated, I drink water.
It seems to me that so many people have this idea that sugary drinks, whether in the form of soda, sweet juices, sports drinks, and so on, but drinking those on a regular basis is a fairly new thing that I don't thin our bodies are well adapted for.
Cutting out sugars via drinks are some of the easiest empty carbs to cut out of your diet.
One has to consider the amount. 5 micro cans is equal to 1 standard 20 oz. (at least in US sizes). Both of these pale in comparison to having it once a week at a restaurant where you get refills and likely lose count.
I thought the primary argument against artificial sweeteners these days was that they cause the body to expect a large inflow of sugar without actually delivering on that promise. This, in turn, leads to the consumer craving sugar even more, in many cases leading to higher total calorie consumption that if we just ate the sugar in the first place.
It seems to me that by far the best option would be to limit consumption of both added sugars and artificial sweeteners.
Personally, I've done low-carb diets where things with sugar are almost entirely off-limits, minus a small amount of fruit, and whatever small quantities of sugar are present in non-starchy vegetable. During these diets, I've tried them with and without artificial sugars. Those artificial sugars would be consumed in either diet drinks/sodas, or with coffee. I had the occasional desire to consume something with lots of carbs/sugar, but I can't say it was any strong with artificial sugars than without.
If anything, for me, the artificial sugars worked to satiate the desire for something sweet.
You shouldn't swear off artificial sweeteners because of the stigma around them, especially since there's such an abundance of research around them debunking all the purported ill effects (except for maybe laxative effects and bad reactions in phenylketonurics) – you can have your artificially sweetened cake and eat it too.
It's disappointing this article only addressed cancer risk but avoided artificial sweeteners' possible impact on gut bacteria.[1][2] I quit Diet Coke cold turkey after reading several of these studies. I won't extrapolate from my personal experiences -- I really do wish there were more studies about gut bacteria's impact on our health -- but I've felt better after avoiding artificial sweeteners and adding probiotic foods to my diet like greek yogurt and kombucha.
I don't know that there is a way to reliably measure some of the positive benefits of avoiding artificial sweeteners. I briefly tried switching to diet drinks before giving up semi regular soda drinking. Even after I got used to the taste, I seemed to get headaches and/or a general feeling of malaise or bad feeling. I don't know if it is your body thinking it ate something sweet and sending out too much insulin or what. It could totally be a psychosomatic response, but I just feel better when I stick to water, black coffee, or drinks with real sugar(on the occasion I have something like that) I cant really see that being easily quantified though.
Gut bacteria should be pretty stable inside you if you're not taking antibiotics, so constantly eating probiotics seems like it wouldn't do anything long-term (<- didn't look this up).
Greek yogurt is good for you because it has so much protein, but all the popular brands have added tons of sugar since it became popular - except they call it "evaporated cane syrup" in the ingredients. Hope you're eating plain yogurt.
The arguments against artificial sweeteners seem a little like the arguments against e-cigarettes. Yes, there are plausible mechanisms by which the substitutes may cause harm. Yes, further research is needed. Yes, cutting out both the original and the substitute would be better.
But people really like (or "like") sugar and cigarettes, so the most likely outcome of loudly proclaiming the dangers of substitutes is that more people stay with the originals, which are almost certainly worse.
Do artificial sweeteners have any of sugar's other effects beside providing calories? Do they trigger the sweetness taste receptors in the digestive system or trigger an increase in insulin? Or do they simply become inert past the tongue?
I can't speak for all the science behind sugars and sweeteners, but this guy does a really good job of explaining how different sugars are metabolized (and the implications of those processes) here:
I think everyone started out assuming they had no other effects. Recently, though, evidence has shown up [0] that suggests that they have some unexpected effects on gut bacteria. I don't think anyone has figured out why.
Can you really call a discussion about ingredients which have been studied/discussed for decades a 'fad'?
I think the main point is that there is A LOT of misinformation out there, and people have made up their minds on things without adequate evidence. Anti-vaxxers are (rightly) lambasted for this... IMO, anyone who makes public statements about nutrition without doing adequate research deserves the same.
Articles like this one are important. Even though it still has some opinion sprinkled in, it has a lot of links to evidence, and that is what people really need.
There is a lot of evidence that even the sugars naturally present in fruit are not good for you in large amounts either, e.g. in fruit juices. Oranges are best consumed as oranges, not as orange juice, which contains all of the sugar and none of the good stuff like fiber. Also drinking a single glass of orange juice equates to eating a whole bunch of oranges at once, which just doesn't sound healthy.
Actually freshly squeezed orange juice is not completely void of fiber, even if you try to sieve it out. Not sure why are you so certain that fiber is such good stuff anyway.
Problems with sweeteners? "none can be detected with artificial sweeteners" concludes the author. Plenty of peer-reviewed papers suggest that this is either not true or the issue is not adequately resolved. Sugar consumed in the quantities used by many people is certainly dangerous but there is another option which is that of abandoning sweeteners altogether. Food stripped of habitual sweetness as in say, tea and coffee, is so much more interesting.
Generally agreed with the article, but I'm surprised when I see parents still giving their kids soda these days, diet or not.
We generally drink water and it's just fine, when we want something "fancy" we get the sparkling water at Trader Joe's that has the orange or berry essence. They are available at other stores as well, no sugar or artificial sweeteners, and kids still love them.
It may seem like we need everything to be sweetened from habit, but you can easily start a new habit. Once you get used to something, it becomes the new normal.
I don't care which of them is least bad for you, my problem is that all artificial sweeteners taste terrible!
If I consume something that contains aspartame or sucralose, I can taste it, and I don't like it. Even Stevia tastes awful.
And what I really hate is that sucralose is now being used in lots of non-diet beverages that also contain sugar or corn syrup! The Arizona Beverage Company does this with some of their drinks, for example.
>> Interesting that this article didn't mention sucralose (Splenda).
I know someone whose baby was very active in womb to the point that she worried about it. And then she read that sucralose was shown to cause miscarriage in animals so she stopped eating it (it was in something she ate regularly) and the baby calmed right down. But that's just one datum.
I feel like people are actively trying to worsen their diets, despite vocalizations to the contrary. (I'll be speaking from an American perspective here). I mean, people say they want to eat healthy, but all the actions I see are in the opposite direction.
First, there was the anti-fat movement. Everyone ran from fat like it was the plague, believing it to be responsible for heart disease and obesity. Turns out, neither is true, quite the opposite in fact, and fat is generally good for you (excepting, e.g. trans fat). What happened, though, was that fat was replaced by sugar in our diets. Leading to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease...
Alongside the anti-fat movement came olestra, the fat substitute that solved the problem that people created with the fat witchhunt. This was their fat savior, and what was the general response? Everyone was afraid of this scary chemical, worried that it would cause anal leakage (hint: it doesn't); they burned it alive and went about their merry lives with a jug of soda in their hands.
So, now we're knee deep in the consequences of that previous diet, and people say they want to be healthy again. Science creates artificial sweeteners, so as to sate the new desire for sugary food and drink. The response is again one of unfounded and irrational fear.
So people turn to what they view as their last bastion of hope: vegetables. But no, we couldn't just eat vegetables. We could only eat them if they were organic. The general thinking being that organic vegetables must be healthier, and avoid dangerous, scary pesticides (hint: the pesticides on organic food are worse). Problem is, vegetables were expensive and difficult to use in the first place (they spoil quickly, requiring frequent market trips). Organics only made it worse, for both organic and non-organic sources. And to top it off, people are wailing against GMO, which would have presented a solution to the insane desire for "organic" foodstuff.
I just don't get it. The average person bemoans their health and cries for a better diet, but every step they take is towards something worse. A great example I've found is bacon. I tell people that bacon is good for them; a healthy choice. Every time I receive puzzled looks and they think I'm joking. Usually while they stuff their faces with hamburgers. But guess what? That hamburger comes with a calorie loaded, glucose spiking bun, and sugary sauce. The beef it's made from has perhaps the worst impact on the global environment of any animal based food. And people will scarf down their entire 1000+ calorie burger, only to feel hungry enough to eat some fries to top it off. My bacon? It's a measly 43 calories per slice, with me maxing out at 4 slices on my best days. I feel full and sated afterwards, with none of that hamburger bloat. Pork is significantly better for the environment compared to beef. And I didn't have to put sugary sauce or carb heavy buns on my meal. And all that fat? Bacon has the same fat content as a hamburger.
It's the human belief that we can optimize everything and forestall death with better living. I'm sure everything we eat has tradeoffs and we'll never know all of them. I'm also sure that 50 years from now people will look back at us and laugh at what we believe about nutrition - both the harms and benefits, and what can possibly be achieved with nutrition relative to genetics and environment.
My biggest gripe about artificial sweeteners or anything with 'no sugar' is that it feels empty. Yes it is sweet, yes it is delicious but it just doesn't seem to have that fullness I get from consuming sugar. I know sugar is harmful so I prefer artificial sweeteners but I can still detect some something-is-off-this-might-be-chemical-taste feeling. I might be oversensitive here but splenda is a definite step up from aspartame.
It's surprising you're getting a fullness response from consuming sugar, given how poor and short lived of an energy source it is. Typically sugar leaves people feeling a lot less full, which leads to craving more, and comes with an energy crash shortly thereafter.
Maybe try using artificial sweeteners and supplementing your diet with more fiber and or protein at the point you consume the artificial sweetener, both of which will fill you up (or should) drastically more than sugar. That might compensate for the sensation you're getting regarding removing sugar.
The link between real sugar and diabetes is very strong and well-studied, so any effect of artificial sweeteners on the incidence of diabetes would have to be a lot more definite before "replace sugar with artificial substitutes" would be bad advice. (Even if "eliminate sugar and don't replace it" might be better from a purely health-oriented standpoint.)
[+] [-] bunderbunder|10 years ago|reply
It seems a little bit akin to implying that you can drink all the applejack you want without worrying about intoxication because it has "no alcohol added" - instead, water was removed. I can guarantee your liver is not playing pedantic word games around the process by which that beverage got to 40% ABV, all it cares about is whether you're drinking too much alcohol or not.
[+] [-] jsingleton|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _delirium|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] murbard2|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pixl97|10 years ago|reply
"The evidence supports eating foods that are balanced in their portions of carbohydrates, protein, and fiber".
This (long) lecture by Steve Simpson illustrates this rather well.
[Law of the locust: a tale of swarms, cannibals, ageing and human obesity]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rV7zAGdbyA
[+] [-] shaneqful|10 years ago|reply
It's up to regulators to hold companies to account. They certainly aren't going to print things that could possibly harm sales on their labels by themselves.
[+] [-] nickbauman|10 years ago|reply
In spite of our desire to reach for the stars, humans are not isolated creatures, they are figures in a landscape. Remove the landscape and you remove the human (or in this case, the heath of the human).
[+] [-] zzalpha|10 years ago|reply
That's limited?
Once a week, that's limited. Once every weeknight isn't limited, it's a habit.
Given the choice, I'll take a naturally sweetened beverage weekly over an artificially sweetened beverage daily, if only because of the awful taste of artificial sweeteners...
[+] [-] lambda|10 years ago|reply
I used to drink soda. Gave it up many years ago. Have not missed it. Have much less of a sweet tooth now; don't eat desserts very often, and when I do, a very small portion is plenty. I think giving up soda helped with that.
If I want a caffeinated beverage, I drink coffee, black or with cream but no sugar. If I want a cool, carbonated beverage, I drink beer (which has most of its sugar fermented out; still has some calories, but not nearly so sweet). If I just need to be rehydrated, I drink water.
It seems to me that so many people have this idea that sugary drinks, whether in the form of soda, sweet juices, sports drinks, and so on, but drinking those on a regular basis is a fairly new thing that I don't thin our bodies are well adapted for.
Cutting out sugars via drinks are some of the easiest empty carbs to cut out of your diet.
[+] [-] spathi_fwiffo|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] igrekel|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Lawtonfogle|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xffff2|10 years ago|reply
It seems to me that by far the best option would be to limit consumption of both added sugars and artificial sweeteners.
[+] [-] ssharp|10 years ago|reply
Personally, I've done low-carb diets where things with sugar are almost entirely off-limits, minus a small amount of fruit, and whatever small quantities of sugar are present in non-starchy vegetable. During these diets, I've tried them with and without artificial sugars. Those artificial sugars would be consumed in either diet drinks/sodas, or with coffee. I had the occasional desire to consume something with lots of carbs/sugar, but I can't say it was any strong with artificial sugars than without.
If anything, for me, the artificial sugars worked to satiate the desire for something sweet.
[+] [-] rfw|10 years ago|reply
You shouldn't swear off artificial sweeteners because of the stigma around them, especially since there's such an abundance of research around them debunking all the purported ill effects (except for maybe laxative effects and bad reactions in phenylketonurics) – you can have your artificially sweetened cake and eat it too.
[+] [-] eastbayjake|10 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v514/n7521/full/nature1...
[2] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/artificial-sweeten...
[+] [-] S_A_P|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] astrange|10 years ago|reply
Greek yogurt is good for you because it has so much protein, but all the popular brands have added tons of sugar since it became popular - except they call it "evaporated cane syrup" in the ingredients. Hope you're eating plain yogurt.
[+] [-] shaneqful|10 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/user/thehealthcaretriage
I'd also recommend using http://examine.com/ to validate studios on what you are going to eat by yourself.
[+] [-] shaneqful|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evanpw|10 years ago|reply
But people really like (or "like") sugar and cigarettes, so the most likely outcome of loudly proclaiming the dangers of substitutes is that more people stay with the originals, which are almost certainly worse.
[+] [-] nitrogen|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] err4nt|10 years ago|reply
Sugar: The Bitter Truth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
[+] [-] adventured|10 years ago|reply
Check out erythritol, it's superior to most of the others:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythritol
[+] [-] ScottBurson|10 years ago|reply
[0] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/artificial-sweeten...
[+] [-] astrange|10 years ago|reply
On the other hand, they apparently _heal_ cavities instead of causing them.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1291185
[+] [-] hiou|10 years ago|reply
And now we are going to watch the same thing on this thread. Why are these diet fad bits so popular on HN?
[+] [-] gambiter|10 years ago|reply
I think the main point is that there is A LOT of misinformation out there, and people have made up their minds on things without adequate evidence. Anti-vaxxers are (rightly) lambasted for this... IMO, anyone who makes public statements about nutrition without doing adequate research deserves the same.
Articles like this one are important. Even though it still has some opinion sprinkled in, it has a lot of links to evidence, and that is what people really need.
[+] [-] gtrubetskoy|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] misev|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vixen99|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cheapsteak|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mixmastamyk|10 years ago|reply
We generally drink water and it's just fine, when we want something "fancy" we get the sparkling water at Trader Joe's that has the orange or berry essence. They are available at other stores as well, no sugar or artificial sweeteners, and kids still love them.
It may seem like we need everything to be sweetened from habit, but you can easily start a new habit. Once you get used to something, it becomes the new normal.
[+] [-] doodpants|10 years ago|reply
If I consume something that contains aspartame or sucralose, I can taste it, and I don't like it. Even Stevia tastes awful.
And what I really hate is that sucralose is now being used in lots of non-diet beverages that also contain sugar or corn syrup! The Arizona Beverage Company does this with some of their drinks, for example.
[+] [-] astrange|10 years ago|reply
Here, try this: http://www.amazon.com/Teas-Tea-Unsweetened-Green-Ounce/dp/B0...
Also available at Costco or any Asian grocery store (at least on the west coast).
[+] [-] roel_v|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjbiotech|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phkahler|10 years ago|reply
I know someone whose baby was very active in womb to the point that she worried about it. And then she read that sucralose was shown to cause miscarriage in animals so she stopped eating it (it was in something she ate regularly) and the baby calmed right down. But that's just one datum.
[+] [-] fpgaminer|10 years ago|reply
First, there was the anti-fat movement. Everyone ran from fat like it was the plague, believing it to be responsible for heart disease and obesity. Turns out, neither is true, quite the opposite in fact, and fat is generally good for you (excepting, e.g. trans fat). What happened, though, was that fat was replaced by sugar in our diets. Leading to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease...
Alongside the anti-fat movement came olestra, the fat substitute that solved the problem that people created with the fat witchhunt. This was their fat savior, and what was the general response? Everyone was afraid of this scary chemical, worried that it would cause anal leakage (hint: it doesn't); they burned it alive and went about their merry lives with a jug of soda in their hands.
So, now we're knee deep in the consequences of that previous diet, and people say they want to be healthy again. Science creates artificial sweeteners, so as to sate the new desire for sugary food and drink. The response is again one of unfounded and irrational fear.
So people turn to what they view as their last bastion of hope: vegetables. But no, we couldn't just eat vegetables. We could only eat them if they were organic. The general thinking being that organic vegetables must be healthier, and avoid dangerous, scary pesticides (hint: the pesticides on organic food are worse). Problem is, vegetables were expensive and difficult to use in the first place (they spoil quickly, requiring frequent market trips). Organics only made it worse, for both organic and non-organic sources. And to top it off, people are wailing against GMO, which would have presented a solution to the insane desire for "organic" foodstuff.
I just don't get it. The average person bemoans their health and cries for a better diet, but every step they take is towards something worse. A great example I've found is bacon. I tell people that bacon is good for them; a healthy choice. Every time I receive puzzled looks and they think I'm joking. Usually while they stuff their faces with hamburgers. But guess what? That hamburger comes with a calorie loaded, glucose spiking bun, and sugary sauce. The beef it's made from has perhaps the worst impact on the global environment of any animal based food. And people will scarf down their entire 1000+ calorie burger, only to feel hungry enough to eat some fries to top it off. My bacon? It's a measly 43 calories per slice, with me maxing out at 4 slices on my best days. I feel full and sated afterwards, with none of that hamburger bloat. Pork is significantly better for the environment compared to beef. And I didn't have to put sugary sauce or carb heavy buns on my meal. And all that fat? Bacon has the same fat content as a hamburger.
[+] [-] liveoneggs|10 years ago|reply
380 calories for a burger + bacon from fast food; remove the bacon and it's only 280
This monster is 1000 calories: https://www.wendys.com/en-us/hamburgers/daves-hot-n-juicy-tr...
Anyone eating that isn't telling you they are trying to be healthy. :)
ketchup is also an optional choice
[+] [-] golemotron|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ild|10 years ago|reply
Saturated fats are not good either.
[+] [-] curiousjorge|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adventured|10 years ago|reply
Maybe try using artificial sweeteners and supplementing your diet with more fiber and or protein at the point you consume the artificial sweetener, both of which will fill you up (or should) drastically more than sugar. That might compensate for the sensation you're getting regarding removing sugar.
[+] [-] larssorenson|10 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26095119 [2] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v514/n7521/full/nature1...
[+] [-] evanpw|10 years ago|reply