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Health & Wellness Wednesdays

Diet & Nutrition

Does Fruit Have Too Much Sugar?

In my opinion, there are some false claims out there in the dieting culture. In fact, there are so many fads that make their rounds each year in regards to losing weight, and many of them are unhealthy.

Think about dieting culture over the years - it’s been everything from low/no fat to high fat, then to low/no carb, and now onto high protein. These fads each seem to circulate, along with many others.

One of the trends that I’ve seen over the last few years is that you should not eat fruit if you are trying to lose weight. The rationale is that fruit has too much sugar, and that in order to lose weight, you need to reduce your sugar intake.

Now, there’s some truth to the fact that fruit has sugar - natural sugar; however, I’m of the opinion that fruit is not the problem in our world today. It’s all the processed foods that are jam-packed with sugar that are the problem. If we cut out all the refined sugar and processed food, no one would be worried about too much sugar from fruit.

I mean, sure, like with everything we want to use moderation. We don’t want to gorge ourselves on fruit; however, eating a moderate amount of fruit is not the problem in our overweight society.

There are many diabetics out there who have professionals tell them that they cannot eat a banana, for example, because it has too much sugar. These diabetics then take it as the word of law that they cannot eat a banana. However, they often eat a ton of refined sugar rather than eating a natural banana. It all seems a bit backwards to me.

I’m not saying that you should ignore a medical professional’s advice. I am saying that we can get back to common sense and recognize that a banana is a much healthier choice than a chocolate bar when we are considering how much sugar we consume.
We need to start looking at the entire picture of our nutritional health, and if we do, we will likely find that fruit is not the problem in our overconsumption of sugar.

Recommended Book

BOOK

The Case Against Sugar

Dec 27, 2016

ISBN: 9780307701640

Interesting Fact #1

Fruit sugars occur naturally within plant cells that consist of fiber. The body has to break these cells down to absorb the sugars inside, slowing their absorption and reducing spikes in blood sugar levels.

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Interesting Fact #2

Overall, fruits also tend to contain less sugar than products with added sugars. They also provide additional benefits such as vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.

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Interesting Fact #3

Fruits tend to contain less sugar per serving than candies, desserts, and many other foods with added sugar.

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Photo of the day - Fruit

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Video of the day - If Sugar Is So Bad, Then Why Is Fruit Healthy? | Dr. Eric Berg

Quote of the day

“In 2012 about 56 million people died throughout the world; 620,000 of them died due to human violence (war killed 120,000 people, and crime killed another 500,000). In contrast, 800,000 committed suicide, and 1.5 million died of diabetes. Sugar is now more dangerous than gunpowder.” ― Yuval Noah Harari

SOURCE

Article of the day - Fruit Sugar – is it a healthy alternative to table sugar?

Fructose – also called fruit sugar, can be found in all fruits along with another type of sugar called glucose. Fructose is naturally in honey, maple sugar, fruits, berries, some vegetables (e.g. cassava, onions, potatoes) and even found in some grains.

Fructose, like other types of sugars (sucrose and glucose, for example) help to make foods sweeter, however fructose is primarily metabolised by the liver and typically doesn’t spike blood glucose or insulin levels in the body. This is particularly important for people who suffer from conditions such as diabetes. Fructose is usually quickly used by the body for energy and <1% appears to be directly converted to fat.

What’s the difference between fruit sugar and other types of sugars?

Fructose tastes sweeter than sucrose and has slightly less kilojoules per gram at 15.6 versus 16.5 kilojoules per gram of sucrose.

The major difference between fructose and other types of sugars like white sugar, cane sugar, palm sugar or high-fructose corn syrup (a product used in the USA but not common in Australia or New Zealand), is that fructose is a naturally occurring sugar found in all fruits, many vegetables and other natural food items such as honey, sorghum, maple syrup and agave syrup.

From a nutritional perspective fructose isn’t typically consumed by itself as it’s only found naturally and most commonly in fruit. The consumption of fruit also gives the body a range of different nutrients, vitamins, minerals as well as fibre and antioxidants combined with any fructose found in the fruit being eaten.

This combination of nutrients, fibre and sugars give the body a chance to metabolise the sugars found in fruit at a slower rate. Fruit is also lower in kilojoules than most sweet snacks so makes a great sweet alternative to chocolate bars, cakes or other sugar-sweetened snacks.

Is fructose healthier than other sugars?

Like most things in life, the answer to this question isn’t a straightforward yes or no, the devil is in the details.

Studies have shown fructose does not have any specific effects on the body that causes weight gain or obesity when consumed in line with sugars; however, the fact that fructose is a naturally occurring sugar in fruits and vegetables means it’s much harder to consume high levels of fructose in its natural state.

Having large amounts of pure refined fructose will cause weight gain and affect blood fat levels but in reality we don’t eat pure refined fructose at all. The same as other sugars, we should have fructose in moderation.

References

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/86/4/895/4649668

https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(15)01651-0/fulltext

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34408323/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4078442/

https://www.fda.gov/food/food-labeling-nutrition/raw-fruits-poster-text-version-accessible-version

SOURCE