A lot of the time when I crave sweet things its not for the sweet taste itself that I’m after, but for the sugar itself - e.g. after / during a long day with lots of learning new things / making decisions / tough algorithmic work etc.
I’m after the mood boost that sugar itself provide, the quickening of thinking that you get from it. Eating substitutions for me kinda misses the point, like if they replaced 50% of it, I’ll just need to consume twice the amount to get the same effect.
Also I’ve noticed that at least for me if I live active enough life (cycle to the office) and eat sweets during the day when I actually need it most, I can eat them every day and it will not negatively affect my body. Though I still try to make sure not to do that of course :)
Its just that I honestly don’t get the whole search for sugar replacements. I guess the idea would be that if you’re addicted to sugar, having a substitute would allow you to wane off of it more easily, kinda like a nicotine patch?
But still I would use sugar for its other properties not the sweetness itself, so what would I replace it with?
The average American consumes 17 teaspoons of sugar per day. Because the average American doesn’t like the taste of most processed foods unless it is sweetened significantly.
Look at savory snacks like crackers - even those are loaded with sugar.
Take something like Wheat Thins Tomato and Basil flavor. Sounds savory? A 30g serving has 4g sugar. Yes, a savory snack consisting of 13.3% sugar.
I feel like there is a significant demographic who (for example) drinks coca cola as a “pick me up” (aka energy boost/mood regulation if they’re addicted).
In my own case, I’m much more likely to get on the sugar train if I have not slept properly and I’m trying to claw my way through the day.
I don't quite get what is the deal with sugar. Those 17 teaspoon are around 50-100g, making around 10-20% of an adults daily caloric intake.
That doesn't sound too crazy. Can't you just eat less starchy stuff, after all, that gets broken down to sugar anyway. Or is it that food gets so tasty that people generally eat too much?
I know the statistics point to sugar as being evil incarnate, but I feel there's more wrong with the American cuisine and now sugar gets the blame for all of it.
Personally I eat around 5 teaspoons of sugar a day, mostly in the form of marmalade and ketchup and don't seam to have any adverse effects.
Also I guess you'd have to drink sweetened beverages to get to 17 teaspoons, cause at 10 teaspoons a day all my food would be unbearably sweet.
It‘s not “American cuisine”, it‘s overly processed foods. Which exist everywhere. In fact quite a large amount of countries in Western Europe fall squarely 2x over the WHO’s 2015 recommendations at over 100g per day.
I do agree that sugar is taking the blame for the companies selling us these sugary treats. I mean its literally JUST yummy carbs, it’s not like its a carcinogen. And the average person has been so completely numbed by a life of excess sugar that it makes the already predatory food companies push even more sugar in to compete.
It was remarkable to me when I switched to unsweetened, unsalted peanut butter that after about 5 days of it tasting bland, it started tasting amazing.
Since then I've been cutting the sugar in every recipe down to 1/3 to 1/4 of what's specified. You just plain don't need it: at least provided you've largely dropped sugar out of your regular diet (so very limited off the shelf food - which now tastes incredibly sweet to me these days).
> I’m after the mood boost that sugar itself provide, the quickening of thinking that you get from it.
This is a myth, studies show "sugar rush" is just a placebo. Unless you are diabetic and have low blood sugar, eating sugar will not affect your mood, energy levels, or behavior any more than a placebo
Reminds me of a discussion I had with someone who also ran a 10 miles just like me. He said: "Yeah, at the midpoint I had low energy, but then I ate some dextrose and instantly had energy again".
I thought to myself "You probably should have taken it at the start of the race".
But hey, placebos do work of course, so I didn't want to crush his dream :D.
Can you point to the studies please? Would be curious to check them out.
I have experimented quite a lot during the years and sugar (sucrose) for me definitely has positive effect.
I’ve tried tea, other things to eat, even gluten stuff, and sugar sweets was the only thing that made me retain my decision making focus state at the 16:00 lul ours where you still have a few hours to work, but don’t “feel” like it.
When I care more about me than the company’s well being I just accept that I will not be very productive then, but if there is a crunch and I really do care about the project, I can hack it with some sweets.
Maybe it is a placebo, but as long as its not too unhealthy… there are worse ways to live one’s life.
I mean most of the time I would be able to hack it if I really wanted to without sweets. Its just focusing on things gets a lot easier with the sugar. But I do not get overly active if I’m in a stable state, just get more to “normal” when I’ve exhausted my mind with mental work.
Can confirm. I am (was) really, really addicted to sweets. I thought I couldn't function without them. Coke Zero/Pepsi Max are doing wonders for me. I'm 40+ years of age, drinking about 2-4 cans a day and went down from 101 kg obese BMI to 79 kg normal BMI in a few months just by removing excess sugar and a little calorie counting. No effort whatsoever, and the zero-free sodas cover most of my "sugar" requirements.
Sugar is energy to the body, or at least it metabolizes into something that is. It may not affect mood or behavior, but it surely affects energy levels.
Countries are having huge costs, financial and societal, by having people with diabetes, obesity and dental decay. The concern is not with Bob bringing a banana on a bike ride.
Fascinating!
I consume zero sugar (not even from fruit) and if I occasionally do, I don't feel different in any way.
When I used to eat sugar I did a few weird things (like drinking squash raw, without mixing it with water, I had no idea I was supposed to do that) but never felt different because of it.
When I was going to sugar was to cope with life / depression. It was kind of an addiction, not unlike alcohol.
Fructose is not just in fruit. Table sugar is 50% glucose and 50% fructose.
In extreme moderation nothing is unhealthy. One drink a week, one cigarette a weak, a teaspoon of sugar a day or one fruit a day are all perfectly fine.
Overconsumption is unhealthy.
Fructose is more unhealthy than glucose because glucose is absorbed by your whole body and fructose by your liver.
Liver is small so it's easier to over tax it. Just like a car engine will fail faster if you drive at max speed all the time, your liver will stop working well if you constantly overload it with processing fructose.
Fructose turns into fat which is deposited in your belly (you get fat / overweight) and in your liver, which is worse.
It leads to fatty liver disease i.e. the fat prevents optimal liver functions which leads to insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and other metabolism / autoimmune issues. You're more likely to catch a flu or die from covid.
> A lot of the time when I crave sweet things its not for the sweet taste itself that I’m after, but for the sugar itself
Now I’m curious (though HN is not the platform for getting closure on this): Have you experimented with consuming the same amount of sugar in capsule form so that you get the dosage with absolutely no mouth sensation?
They won’t necessarily eat fewer calories though. Not least because they will become accustomed to eating very sweet food.
My prediction is that this is likely to worsen the obesity epidemic rather than help it. The solutions to overweight are fairly clear at this point. They involve removing the financial incentives for multinational firms to sell us processed food.
There is no reliable definition of processed or ultra-processed food though. Not one you'd recognise: for example under the NOVA system[1] you can get a lot of weird outcomes. For example pasta is a processed food (though also, bad for you - calorie dense).
The problem really is overconsumption of glucose which creates overproduction of insulin which over time (years) make you fat (overweight or obese), insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
Diabetes is basically a state of elevated levels of glucose and insulin in your body which fucks up your metabolism.
So addiction to sugar is bad mostly because it causes overconsumption of glucose (sugar is 50% glucose, 50% fructose).
And almost everything you buy in grocery store is loaded with sugar: coke, red bull, cereal, all the sweets, cakes, pastries even things like yogurt or ketchup.
So in theory if if replaced all the sugar in all the products with this thing and it didn't have harmful effects on the body by itself, then we would greatly reduce the consumption of glucose so it stands to reason we would greatly reduce diabetes.
You can still get too much glucose by over consuming carbs (bread, pasta, pizza, rice, tomato, anything with flower) but it's much harder to eat 5 pizzas than to drink 5 liters of coke loaded with sugar.
Sugar is glucose and carbs are converted to glucose. Glucose leads to production of insulin. Too much glucose leads to too much insulin production which leads to diabetes. Diabetes is basically "you have too much insulin in your body" disease.
This is the nutrition intuition equivalent of someone wearing a continuous glucose monitor and thinking that any time it goes up, it's a horrible thing that must be minimized, even when they're eating a round meal of broccoli, quinoa, and tofu.
I’m after the mood boost that sugar itself provide, the quickening of thinking that you get from it. Eating substitutions for me kinda misses the point, like if they replaced 50% of it, I’ll just need to consume twice the amount to get the same effect.
Also I’ve noticed that at least for me if I live active enough life (cycle to the office) and eat sweets during the day when I actually need it most, I can eat them every day and it will not negatively affect my body. Though I still try to make sure not to do that of course :)
Its just that I honestly don’t get the whole search for sugar replacements. I guess the idea would be that if you’re addicted to sugar, having a substitute would allow you to wane off of it more easily, kinda like a nicotine patch?
But still I would use sugar for its other properties not the sweetness itself, so what would I replace it with?