How Fructose In the Diet Contributes To Obesity (sciencedaily.com) 154
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ScienceDaily: Eating fructose appears to alter cells in the digestive tract in a way that enables it to take in more nutrients, according to a preclinical study from investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian. These changes could help to explain the well-known link between rising fructose consumption around the world and increased rates of obesity and certain cancers. The research, published August 18 in Nature, focused on the effect of a high-fructose diet on villi, the thin, hairlike structures that line the inside of the small intestine. Villi expand the surface area of the gut and help the body to absorb nutrients, including dietary fats, from food as it passes through the digestive tract. The study found that mice that were fed diets that included fructose had villi that were 25 percent to 40 percent longer than those of mice that were not fed fructose. Additionally, the increase in villus length was associated with increased nutrient absorption, weight gain and fat accumulation in the animals.
After observing that the villi were longer, the team wanted to determine whether those villi were functioning differently. So they put mice into three groups: a normal low-fat diet, a high-fat diet, and a high-fat diet with added fructose. Not only did the mice in the third group develop longer villi, but they became more obese than the mice receiving the high-fat diet without fructose. The researchers took a closer look at the changes in metabolism and found that a specific metabolite of fructose, called fructose-1-phosphate, was accumulating at high levels. This metabolite interacted with a glucose-metabolizing enzyme called pyruvate kinase, to alter cell metabolism and promote villus survival and elongation. When pyruvate kinase or the enzyme that makes fructose-1-phospate were removed, fructose had no effect on villus length. Previous animal studies have suggested that this metabolite of fructose also aids in tumor growth. From an evolutionary standpoint, the findings make sense. "In mammals, especially hibernating mammals in temperate climates, you have fructose being very available in the fall months when the fruit is ripe," said one of the researchers. "Eating a lot of fructose may help these animals to absorb and convert more nutrients to fat, which they need to get through the winter."
Humans, on the other hand, did not evolve to eat the amount of fructose they consume now.
After observing that the villi were longer, the team wanted to determine whether those villi were functioning differently. So they put mice into three groups: a normal low-fat diet, a high-fat diet, and a high-fat diet with added fructose. Not only did the mice in the third group develop longer villi, but they became more obese than the mice receiving the high-fat diet without fructose. The researchers took a closer look at the changes in metabolism and found that a specific metabolite of fructose, called fructose-1-phosphate, was accumulating at high levels. This metabolite interacted with a glucose-metabolizing enzyme called pyruvate kinase, to alter cell metabolism and promote villus survival and elongation. When pyruvate kinase or the enzyme that makes fructose-1-phospate were removed, fructose had no effect on villus length. Previous animal studies have suggested that this metabolite of fructose also aids in tumor growth. From an evolutionary standpoint, the findings make sense. "In mammals, especially hibernating mammals in temperate climates, you have fructose being very available in the fall months when the fruit is ripe," said one of the researchers. "Eating a lot of fructose may help these animals to absorb and convert more nutrients to fat, which they need to get through the winter."
Humans, on the other hand, did not evolve to eat the amount of fructose they consume now.
Also interesting ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I found this 90 min lecture from 2009, Sugar The Bitter Truth [youtube.com], by Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology very interesting:
[He] explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin.
The video explains in detail how fructose is metabolized by (and only in) the liver in a fashion very similar to alcohol -- noting that while alcohol consumption is self-limiting, fructose consumption is not and discusses the problems that can cause, like "fatty liver" (even in children).
Re:Also interesting ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Corn syrup added to everything is an epidemic in this country.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, the only fructose we should be eating is from whole, fresh fruit (not fruit juice either!) Don't forget that table sugar, sucrose, is ~half fructose too (fructose + glucose = sucrose, a disaccharide).
Re:Also interesting ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't forget that table sugar, sucrose, is ~half fructose too (fructose + glucose = sucrose, a disaccharide).
Noting that glucose can be metabolized by every cell in the body, while fructose can only be metabolized by/in the liver.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget that table sugar, sucrose, is ~half fructose too (fructose + glucose = sucrose, a disaccharide).
Noting that glucose can be metabolized by every cell in the body, while fructose can only be metabolized by/in the liver.
Noting that there is no significant difference between granulated sugar and corn syrup [healthline.com], and even most HFCS is only like 5% more fructose-laden than normal corn syrup. Unfortunately the packages don't have to tell us which grade of HFCS is used, because we have limp consumer protection laws in the USA.
Re:Also interesting ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
It's because HFCS is an incredibly common ingredient on American food labels.
Re:Also interesting ... (Score:5, Insightful)
But is there any good reason why people talk about HFCS in particular, instead of fructose in general?
HFCS and granulated sugar are equally bad. The most common HFCS used is chemically identical after the body breaks it down as sugar. In sugar the fructose and glucose are bonded and broken down in the gut. In HFCS they are already separate. In both cases they are absorbed the same way.
I think the major issue is in America HFCS is in fucking everything! Like everything is unbearably sweet. Sure, a cola in Europe and a cola in the USA both contain 11% sugar or HFCS in equally nutritionally crap amounts, but move beyond the intentionally sweet and you find big differences. HFCS added to juice, guys, seriously juice already has sugar in it. HFCS added to tomato sauce, HFCS added to a damn loaf of bread.
Travelling to America it takes some adjusting to the fact that everything just tastes sweet, often sickeningly so.
Re: (Score:2)
Noting that there is no significant difference between granulated sugar and corn syrup [healthline.com], and even most HFCS is only like 5% more fructose-laden than normal corn syrup. Unfortunately the packages don't have to tell us which grade of HFCS is used, because we have limp consumer protection laws in the USA.
You're doing the math wrong. HCFS in its most common form is 55% fructose, versus sucrose, which has 50%. So for a given amount of HFCS, you have 10% more fructose than in that same amount of glucose (because 55 / 50 = 1.1).
That's not a small difference. It's not a huge difference, but it's not a small difference, either. :-)
Re:Also interesting ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Noting that there is no significant difference between granulated sugar and corn syrup [healthline.com], and even most HFCS is only like 5% more fructose-laden than normal corn syrup. Unfortunately the packages don't have to tell us which grade of HFCS is used, because we have limp consumer protection laws in the USA.
You're doing the math wrong. HCFS in its most common form is 55% fructose, versus sucrose, which has 50%. So for a given amount of HFCS, you have 10% more fructose than in that same amount of glucose (because 55 / 50 = 1.1).
That's not a small difference. It's not a huge difference, but it's not a small difference, either. :-)
...which is a completely moot point because people/food industry don't add sweeterners (be it surcose of HFCS) until the food contains some preset amount of glucose, they add it until it's sweet enough. And considering that a mixture of glucose and fructose is sweeter tha surcose [wikipedia.org] and that of the two, glucose and fructose, fructose is much sweeter, it takes quite a bit less of HFCS to reach the same sweetness as surcose.
And no, US doesn't have obesity problem because of using HFCS instead of sugar, it's because of how much you guys use the bloody stuff. I can tell, as anyone visiting USA from Europe can as well, the first thing you notice is how sickeningly sweet everything is. Drinks, BBQ sauces, meats even, for some reason you guys add sugar to *ham*, and the worst offender: bread. I mean, US bread is sweeter than some of our pastries. To me, a ham sandwich in the US tastes like eating cake with ham...
A second, much more insidious thing one notices when coming to US, is how it takes only about a week to adjust to all that sweetness, and to stop noticing...
Re:Also interesting ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Noting that there is no significant difference between granulated sugar and corn syrup [healthline.com], and even most HFCS is only like 5% more fructose-laden than normal corn syrup. Unfortunately the packages don't have to tell us which grade of HFCS is used, because we have limp consumer protection laws in the USA.
You're doing the math wrong. HCFS in its most common form is 55% fructose, versus sucrose, which has 50%. So for a given amount of HFCS, you have 10% more fructose than in that same amount of glucose (because 55 / 50 = 1.1).
That's not a small difference. It's not a huge difference, but it's not a small difference, either. :-)
...which is a completely moot point because people/food industry don't add sweeterners (be it surcose of HFCS) until the food contains some preset amount of glucose, they add it until it's sweet enough. And considering that a mixture of glucose and fructose is sweeter tha surcose [wikipedia.org] and that of the two, glucose and fructose, fructose is much sweeter, it takes quite a bit less of HFCS to reach the same sweetness as surcose.
That still kind of misses the point. The difference in the amount of sugar you get between a 50/50 mix and a 45/55 mix or whatever isn't a lot, but the difference in the amount of fructose is significant. And if fructose causes biological changes that encourage weight gain not only from the sugar, but also from non-sugar energy sources, then even though you're consuming less sugar, you're still potentially absorbing more calories.
Also, the other big difference between glucose and fructose that folks often overlook is the fact that glucose triggers an insulin response, whereas fructose doesn't. And insulin is at least in part responsible for making you feel full. So when glucose is replaced with fructose, you consume more than you otherwise would. So even if there is less sugar per serving with a higher fructose-glucose ratio, you're likely to consume more servings.
And no, US doesn't have obesity problem because of using HFCS instead of sugar, it's because of how much you guys use the bloody stuff. I can tell, as anyone visiting USA from Europe can as well, the first thing you notice is how sickeningly sweet everything is. Drinks, BBQ sauces, meats even, for some reason you guys add sugar to *ham*, and the worst offender: bread. I mean, US bread is sweeter than some of our pastries. To me, a ham sandwich in the US tastes like eating cake with ham...
Although all sugars in too great a quantity are bad, HFCS is considerably worse than glucose, for the reasons previously mentioned.
That said, I agree that we consume too much sugar (in all forms). One big reason for that is because of the "low fat" hoax, where the sugar industry managed to convince policymakers that fat was the enemy. Unfortunately, fat also makes you feel full, which made people eat more. And when you remove fat from foods, you have to replace it with something, or else the food tastes bad, and that fat was often replaced with sugar or HFCS.
Re: (Score:2)
Corn syrup added to everything is an epidemic in this country.
Ironically, unmodified corn syrup is fine. It's basically pure glucose, which causes you to feel satiated because it triggers an insulin response, and doesn't cause this secondary impact on your digestive system.
What's bad is high-fructose corn syrup, where they have modified it to convert some of that glucose into fructose, both because you have the same amount of sugar content with half the insulin response and because of what they're talking about here.
Re: Also interesting ... (Score:2)
Re:Also interesting ... (Score:5, Interesting)
The video explains in detail how fructose is metabolized by (and only in) the liver in a fashion very similar to alcohol
That's correct. It's also why fructose does not need insulin to be processed and thus doesn't have a contribution towards diabetes. However, as pretty much indicated everywhere, for what upside fructose has over sucrose in monosaccharides you should absolutely not make consuming either a regular thing. For the very reason you've just stated, regular fructose consumption will pummel your liver like none other because it's not self-limiting. And for obvious reasons over consumption of sucrose will shred your pancreas.
It's just insane how much we've added both of these things to everything we eat when it's very clear that we didn't evolve to consume this stuff in large amounts. Non-Alcohol Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is no joke to have and in the US the incidence of it has tripled [nih.gov]. It's just unreal how prevalent NAFLD has become in recent years.
Re: (Score:2)
"t's also why fructose does not need insulin to be processed and thus doesn't have a contribution towards diabetes."
That is wildly incorrect. Fructose doesn't cause an insulin response but it is a major contributor to diabetes.
"However, as pretty much indicated everywhere, for what upside fructose has over sucrose in monosaccharides..."
There are no upsides.
Re: Also interesting ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The prevailing view is that obesity causes insulin resistance rather than insulin resistance causing obesity. That view has been challenged though and the full relationship isn't clear. IMO this new study demonstrates a much stronger potential correlation between fructose and obesity than the liver metabolism correlative effect that Lustwig discussed.
Interesting point, though both are probably problematic and may happen together and neither sound like any fun.
Re: (Score:3)
I found this 90 min lecture from 2009, Sugar The Bitter Truth [youtube.com], by Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology very interesting:
And here's part 2 - Fat Chance: Fructose 2.0 [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3)
I've noticed that Japanese food tends to be very, very filling. To the point where I often can't finish a bowl of something that most Japanese people would clean out easily. My friends worry that I don't like the food and I have to explain that it takes a while to get used to the very high levels of protein that make you feel full.
They eat less sugar in general but it's not for lack of sweet things to buy. I think it's just the nature of Japanese food, and that it's normal to get a proper cooked lunch etc.
Re:Also interesting ... (Score:5, Interesting)
We eat desert at the end of the meal because long, long ago we found that when you were full, you could still eat something sweet. It was a way to cram in more calories so we could go longer without eating, work longer, shiver more, etc. Think northern European middle-ages.
Satiety comes from the flow of sugars (coming from the breakdown of complex structures, one hopes) flowing from your stomach. In other words, once initial processing starts in the stomach, you start to feel full.
But sugar on the tongue overrides that. Or rather the sensation of sweet on the tongue overrides it, so artificial sweeteners still get you fat because you eat more other things because it messes with your satiety response.
Because of this, adding sugar to everything makes us keep eating. Japanese food, without sugar, is normal food. Modern Western food is food designed to keep you eating by overriding the satiety you would normally feel. Which is nuts.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But the economy! (Score:2)
<Sarcasm>
But what about the economy! Real sugar has to come from South America, and Asia as only a small portion of the US can grow it. But the US can grow Corn. So it will fuel American Jobs and the economy. For those people who get health problems from it, it is just their fault for buying American food to eat in America. They will also boost the economy by paying for extra health care services. Sure their reduced health may lower their productivity to produce and contribute to society, but they
Re: (Score:2)
Re:But the economy! (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do you place sarcasm-tags? That is exactly how the food industry thinks.
Re: (Score:2)
As if most people / food makers even use good cane sugar over beet sugar. "Corn sugar" (as the industry likes to call it) is just cheaper than beet sugar due to subsidies.
Re: (Score:2)
As if most people / food makers even use good cane sugar over beet sugar. "Corn sugar" (as the industry likes to call it) is just cheaper than beet sugar due to subsidies.
And U.S. grown sugar is cheaper in the US than foreign sugar because of subsidies to the US farmers. Without them, there probably wouldn't be US grown sugar -- for consumption anyway, not ethanol.
Re: (Score:2)
Long story about sugar in the U.S. [nytimes.com] and how it came to be, but in the very beginning it mentions the U.S. sugar industry receives $4 billion each year in subsidies, in the form of price supports, guaranteed crop loans, tariffs and regulated imports of foreign sugar. So year after year it costs U.S. taxpayers $4 billion to keep the price of sugar higher than it should be.
Utter, complete bullshit (Score:2)
Humans, on the other hand, did not evolve to eat the amount of fructose they consume now.
Humans consume huge quantities of complex carbs from grains, not simple carbs from fruit - HFCS notwithstanding.
Re: (Score:2)
there is a researcher who has shown that eating the carbs from grains also produces fructose in your body
Re: (Score:2)
there is a researcher who has shown that eating the carbs from grains also produces fructose in your body
Complex carbs are just simple sugars stuck together, it would be bizarre if they didn’t break down to simple sugars like fructose.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, but reality *is* bizarre. :)
Turns out there are different ways in which those sugars can bond together, apart from there being many different types of sugars.
And some micro-organisms just can't break some types of bonds.
Especially branching carbs are a tough nut for the very ones that give you Leptin resistance (aka overeating and fat misdigestion, aka obesity).
They have to be digested slower. Resulting in longer satiety, lower glycemic load, and hence your insulin system not panicking.
But fructose i
Re: (Score:2)
Especially branching carbs are a tough nut for the very ones that give you Leptin resistance (aka overeating and fat misdigestion, aka obesity).
Leptin resistance [nih.gov] does not make you over eat or “misdigest” anything. It’s simply limited to appetite regulation and some increased resistance actually leads to decreased appetite. It’s true that it’s a statistically likely component of obesity because there are cases where it can simultaneously cause increased appetite and decreased metabolism.
Also complex carbs are broken into simple sugars like fructose, typically glucose - they are nearly identical rings just differ in
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
You have a huge chip on your shoulder. Here's the whole quote from the article:
Dr. Goncalves added that humans did not evolve to eat what they eat now. "Fructose is nearly ubiquitous in modern diets, whether it comes from high-fructose corn syrup, table sugar, or from natural foods like fruit," he said. "Fructose itself is not harmful. It's a problem of overconsumption. Our bodies were not designed to eat as much of it as we do."
Re: (Score:2)
For specific definitions of "harmful" that may be true.
Another thing true about fructose, it is not needed in any amount by the body and we would all be at least as well off consuming none of it.
Claiming that fructose is "not harmful" is whitewashing it.
I would not have known that (Score:2)
were this not spelled out to me by writing "not" and "grains are not human food" in all caps.
Thanks! You have directed me back to the path of healthy eating.
Re: (Score:3)
Give up on that high fructose bee vomit (Score:2)
Re:Give up on that high fructose bee vomit (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Humans evolved from fruit eating primates (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
That's not clear...at least not as stated. It's true that it appears that the ancestral stock ate fruit...among other things. Orangutans evolved to specialize in fruit, Gorrilas to specialize in leaves and stems. Chimpanzees and humans remained more generalist, which a sizeable meat component. (Hunter-gatherers get most of their calories from root and vegetables, but the meat is a very strong minor component.)
So if you go back to the common ancestor of humans and orangutans you get an animal that could
Re: Humans evolved from fruit eating primates (Score:2)
More recent evolution of our ancestors had us as obligate fish eaters, unlike any other primate.
Modern humans can eat just about anything, basically we're very flexible trash eaters. Far more adapted to garbage than raccoons or seagulls.
Human nature (Score:2)
Humans, on the other hand, did not evolve to eat the amount of fructose they consume now.
For billions of years our ancestors spent every waking moment scrounging for enough food to eat, countless organisms losing their lives to starvation. While in the last 50, high calorie foods are now super cheap, fast, and everywhere. I’m pretty sure this problem isn’t going away until all that easy to get food does or humans evolve out of it being a problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The solution is actually simple: Eat less crap and eat less.
As with any simple solution to a serious problem, a rather large part of society cannot do it or refuses to do it for no good reason.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Turning carbs directly into fat is a survival adaptation as carbohydrate sources (before farming) were episodic and short.
It’s more, and yet far worse than that - to ensure that creature took part in this food source, it evolved to be fucking delicious. Now that technology has made it perhaps the cheapest food on a calorie per dollar basis, humans need to fight evolutionary instinct just to stay healthy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Billions? Surely you can't be serious.
You are the end product of an unbroken line of successful organism reproduction dating back probably 3.5ish billion years. There is direct biological evidence (among a mountain of other sources and types) that Adam and Eve is just a myth. Best to rip that band aid off now.
Re: (Score:2)
lol. Whoever said anything about Adam and Eve?
For billions of years our ancestors spent every waking moment scrounging for enough food to eat
"Our ancestors" doesn't mean the organism that came about 3.5 billion years ago (which didn't spend every waking moment scrounging for enough food to eat). Our ancestors are apes. Even if I give you the earliest mammals [wikipedia.org] as our ancestors, that's only 300 million years ago. So saying "billions" of years is just plain wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
if you go back far enough to early mammals, or even further back to sea stars, then you can find that food drive. It's what carries members of a species through a famine.
And so (Score:2)
It's air conditioning. There was a study of rats fed low calories, some kept in cool temps, others warm, clearly the cold ones would lose weight faster since they had to burn more energy to stay warm.
Yet the opposite happened. Cold rats lost weight slower. Autopsies showed the cold rats developed more efficient longer intestines to extract more energy.
Re: (Score:2)
So what are you saying? Hot tubs for fatties?
Re:And so (Score:5, Interesting)
That anything that simulates the cooler months in nature signals the human body to prepare for a lean winter with a limited food supply.
Re: And so (Score:2)
Finns have saunas and use them obsessively, but there are still obese people there.
Re: And so (Score:2)
Surprise? (Score:2, Funny)
Somethings wrong here... X food, 2X food, 2X+1 food... which group gets fatter? Sugar is like fructose and fructose is like sugar...
Re: (Score:3)
In Mice (Score:2)
Worth putting that in any title.
Anyway, "Humans, on the other hand, did not evolve to eat the amount of fructose they consume now"?
That's really not the problem. Having an abundance of food is very recent in terms of human history. Extracting more nutrients from food is excellent for keeping people alive when food is scarce. It only hurts when there's so much food that eating what you can get your hands on becomes a problem.
There's a little too much "people did not evolve for..." on different subjects. What
Re: (Score:2)
There is a difference between "evolved to" and "evolved from". It is not "complete bullshit" despite your unrelated point.
Re: (Score:2)
Not so clear (Score:2)
Mice do not generally eat fruit or other sweet things, so it is far from clear that findings about mouse digestive systems apply to humans. The deleterious effects of fructose are already well known due to the fact that it is metabolized only in the liver in humans, unlike other sugars such as glucose. Also, because sucrose is a disaccharide which immediately is broken down to glucose and fructose, it has similar bad effects.
Jesus F. Christ is this outdated! (Score:3, Interesting)
Low-fat/high-fat? What is this? The sixties? I thought it was common knowledge now, that obesity from fat misdigestion is just the result of a microbiome caused by highly processed (!) carbs.
How can so-called scientists be so ignorant and building on knowledge that's been outdated for years or even decades?
But first of all: Mice?
Mice are not humans!
Might as well test it on horses that were fed mostly grasses like oats.
Could you at least try monkeys? Like those that eat fruit, for example.
Next: Again, they are building their research on western gut microbiomes. Which are already severely ruined. Like studying how humans poop by looking at Goatse. Actually, even worse.
The problems with fructose all stem from a gut, so ruined, the normal process of digestion is not even possible anymore, because the organisms are gone.
You can already test easily, if a gut is healthy: If beans or onions make you fart, it's not.
If sugar makes you fart, it is.
The biome that causes the former and the Leptin resistance it entails, is the source of the obesity in table 1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
Essentially, those things that "cause an upset stomach" because they are "hard to digest" are actually what keep your gut healthy. It's not those foods that are the problem. It's the crap you ate that ruined your gut for actual food so badly that you feel stuck.
If you'd compare human food to Opium, then what we eat nowadays, would be mostly Krokodil and Fentanyl.
Re:Jesus F. Christ is this outdated! (Score:5, Informative)
The War on Fats is deeply entrenched in America, and dietetics programs are not swiftly incorporating new research against it. It's amazing that we go on and on about our health care and insurance spending in this country and how it's out of control versus other countries, but we don't do much at all about our food sources, which are quite different from those other countries. We complain about our outputs and aren't making the appropriate changes to our inputs. You are what you eat.
Paywalled but great article on the subject: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html [nytimes.com]. Seriously - there are few things in the last century of American history where corrupted government officials have caused more significant and lasting damage. Hell, due to the disease this has caused and the years of lives lost, the economic damage is likely staggering as well.
Thst settles it (Score:2)
To be fair (Score:5, Interesting)
Humans, on the other hand, did not evolve to eat the vast quantities of ANYTHING they consume now.*
*in the developed west.
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair to the conversation, some facts are relevant to show how bad it is in US society.
The CDC/FDA & Medicare divisions know because they pay a lot of the bills & collect & "follow the data":
About 90 million (mostly a supermajority or more of 120 m seniors) Have:
a. Chronic GI problems
b. Obesity
c. 5+ prescription medications (let alone OTC meds) with many being caused directly or i
Re: To be fair (Score:2)
... the west? We didn't evolve to eat unenriched/fortified rice and flour either. Malnutrition is a worldwide problem.
Non-obvious application of this research (Score:2)
Re:So no honey then? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Tribal people usually just smoke them out. Seen it done. It's not that hard. You just smell like smoked ham afterwards. :D
Re: (Score:3)
who eats honey all day like they do fructose?
Re:So no honey then? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So no honey then? (Score:5, Funny)
His title in General Secretary (Score:2)
And the bowl that eats out of is labeled "hunny"?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:So no honey then? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Honey is something rarely available during human evolution and if available the only in small quantities. Obviously. But your use of "never" already indicates you are tolling and know that what you say is bullshit.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, it's like western humanity set itself up eat the most unhealthy things possible in the name of fighting obesity and doing good.
Lots of glucose,
no fructose (which is fermented in your gut)
lots of starch that's so pure and white it might aswell be a drug from the pharmacy,
no complex, long, branching carbs "because they are hard to digest" (aka they give off a slow and steady stream of energy, instead of a ultra-short massive rush like a drug) and "give you an upset stomach" (aka you ate so much cra
News for nerds (Score:2)
What do you think people around here eat?
Re: So no honey then? (Score:2)
No, enjoy your honey, but you don't add it to everything you eat and drink do you? Why would you, everything has corn syrup in it already, dumbass.
Re:Excellent... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll just go from eating apples, bananas, grapes, etc. back to that sucrose laden glazed doughnut.
I know you're joking, but actually... eating the actual fruit is much better for you than, say, simply drinking the juice as the fruit has its fructose locked up with fiber -- which slows the digestion of that fruit. In addition, a LOT of fruit goes into one glass of juice and one apple (for example) is probably more filling for the calories than the 3-4 apples (according to a quick Google search) that go into making one glass of apple juice.
On the other hand... doughnuts. :-)
[Which, of course, is *exactly* the problem.]
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And so you get half of the fructose as you would with fructose alone as a sweetener.
Re: (Score:2)
No. Almost all the "sweetness" you get is due to the fructose. You use less sweetener when the sweetener has more fructose.
This is why corn syrup is modified to become HFCS, by increasing the fructose percentage they can use less of it for the same effect.
Re: (Score:3)
Almost all is an exaggeration. Glucose does taste sweet by itself. It may mean more calories consumed for the same sweetness, but if it doesn't have the effect noted in TFA for fructose, it may ultimately result in less calories absorbed. If you still have a healthy metabolism, the glucose will also "burn off" easier.
LOL (Score:5, Interesting)
I like talking to people who think one sugar is significantly better for you than another, even though they are chemically the same thing.
"I don't eat any fructose, I only use natural sweeteners like honey"
"Honey is fructose and glucose."
"Honey doesn't have any fructose!" looks it up "Well honey is natural!"
"All fructose is natural and your small intestine doesn't give a crap where it comes from."
Re: (Score:2)
"Fructose is structurally different from other sugars like glucose, and it gets metabolized differently," said senior author Dr. Marcus DaSilva Goncalves, the Ralph L. Nachman Research Scholar, an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism and an endocrinologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. https://www.sciencedaily.com/r... [sciencedaily.com]
True (Score:2)
I'm not saying it's different, I'm saying most natural sugars have fructose in them. Sucrose is just glucose and fructose combined, so thinking you are not ingesting fructose if you drink soda with cane sugar is wrong. Ditto honey.
Re: (Score:3)
The various sugars *are* significantly different. If you've been consuming too much of one, another may well be less harmful. The also have different levels at which you reach "too much". Even dextrose and levulose (i.e. fructose, but given a structural name) are different. Then there's things like sorbitol...which is technically an alcohol, but which is used as a sugar replacement.
Note that each sugar is metabolized differently. This doesn't imply that one is better than another in any particular situ
Re: LOL (Score:4, Insightful)
Honey is good because it is expensive and you tend to eat it in moderation.
HFCS is bad because it is cheap and can be added to everything to boost sales.
Re: (Score:2)
Aside from your joke about sucrose (fructose + glucose), fresh fruit really isn't always better than donuts.
1 banana has 14 grams of sugar. 1 Krispy Kreme glazed donut has 10 grams. Yes, the donut has more total carbohydrates (22g). But so does the banana (27g - 3 of those are fiber).
Bananas are certainly more nutritious overall, but your example really illustrates the point that it doesn't matter where the sugar comes from to an extent. It's the percentage of your diet that matters more.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, the banana's an extreme case -- fruit in general is designed to explode sugar quickly -- right there in the mouth -- because the plant really wants you to eat a bunch of it and poop out the seeds elsewhere.
But generally, the slower those sugars come out the better, and the glazed doughnut has completely free sugar right on the surface of the food.
Re: (Score:2)
And I imagine bananas (which have about 3g of fiber btw) are higher in potassium than glazed doughnuts ... :-)
Re: (Score:2)
because the plant really wants you to eat a bunch of it and poop out the seeds elsewhere
I don't think you understand evolution as well as you think you do.
Re: Excellent... (Score:2)
I don't think you understand anthropomorphic language as well as most people.