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Sugar Health Effects, Fructose vs Glucose, Natural Sugar vs Refined Sugar, Sugar on Food Labels, Sucrose, Fructose, Glucose, Insulin Resistance, Fatty Liver, Sweet Drinks, Fruit Juice Sugar Content, Whole Fruit Fiber Sugar Absorption, Honey Mineral Antioxidants Negligible, Date Sugar Fiber Content, Chewing Slows Sugar Absorption, Christmas Treats Sugar Intake Smart Strategies
It’s that time of year again to enjoy mulled wine, sweet brandy and syrup-drenched puddings. Some people may tell you that you can limit the harm by being careful about what type of sugar you eat. They’ll say avoid refined white sugar and instead look for healthier “natural” things like raw sugar or honey. Unfortunately, this advice is wrong—the type of sugar you eat won’t make a difference to your health. However, it may be how you eat it.
More than 250 different types of sugar may appear on food labels. But whether you look at sugar (for example, brown, coconut, cane or crystal), nectar or syrup (for example, corn, maple, agave or grape), their sweetness comes from the same two ingredients: fructose and glucose. When they are bound together in equal proportions, they form sucrose – the familiar plain white sugar.
When consuming sugar, no matter what form it is in, the most important thing is to eat it slowly. Glucose is the body’s main source of fuel, used for metabolism within cells. Consuming too much at once will increase the amount in your blood, followed by a sharp drop that will make you feel hungry (cue snacking). Over time, repeated spikes can also impair blood-glucose control and lead to diabetes.
Fructose, found primarily in fruits and honey, is sweeter and does not cause spikes because it first has to be processed into glucose and other compounds inside the intestine and liver. However, excess fructose is converted to fat by the liver and, in some people who cannot deal with this sugar well, a lot of unabsorbed fructose can remain in the gut, feeding harmful bacteria and causing inflammation and other problems.
Another useful tip is to avoid drinking sugar. Drinking more sugary drinks is worse than eating the same amount of sugar in food, simply because drinking can cause more sugar to be swallowed faster. It’s best to avoid fruit juice – separating the fruit sugar from the pulp results in a cocktail of glucose and fructose that is almost identical to plain white sugar. A glass of orange juice generally contains as much sugar as a glass of Coca-Cola of the same size.
On the contrary, you will have difficulty eating three oranges at one sitting (the number required for a glass of orange juice) due to the fiber present in the pulp. It helps that when both fructose and glucose are consumed with fiber, or protein, or fat (cake with nuts, say) they are absorbed more slowly. All these macronutrients hinder the access of sugar to the intestinal wall and make you feel full for a longer period of time. Chewing also slows down the speed of sugar reaching the stomach.
Other ingredients in “natural” sugars are unlikely to make them healthier. Date sugar, which is ground dried dates, contains some fiber; In some brands, it accounts for about 10%, although this is too little to affect the speed of sugar absorption by the intestine. Honey contains some minerals and antioxidants but you would need to eat several jars of it to get the amount you get from one cup of blueberries.
Unless your Christmas hamper is a basket of fruit, the notion that any one item in it is healthier than the others is, in the case of sugar, sadly not true. However, there are ways to be smart about your sugar intake – eat slowly, like a cake, preferably with lots of nuts. Happy Holidays.
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