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Comment by greywolve | Hacker News Reader

Sugar is just an empty calorie, there's plenty of studies that also show that it has no real net negative effect. The problem is when your diet consists primarily of empty calories, then obviously you are going to have health problems, from lack of nutrients. If your diet is nutrient rich, a bit of extra sugar will not do anything bad.

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Sorry, but you are the one that tripped the final wire for me:

What exactly is an "empty calorie"? What metric is it low on? It has calories. What is it empty of?

"Nutrients" (according to the parent). The hypothesis being that diabetes is caused by lack of nutrients. But this is clearly false because impoverished countries don't have disproportionately high amounts of diabetes. Not to mention that AFAIK the jury is out on sugar causing diabetes.

So, a "calorie" is just a measurement of energy produced when something is burned. Like, really, that's it.

Proteins have specific uses, and some of them can't be produced by your body, so that would be an example of a "non-empty" calorie. Same thing with lipids. Carbohydrates are, essentially, sugar. (Once they're broken down). Obviously you can use them for energy, and they're useful in that regard, but once you have "enough" carbohydrates to fuel whatever activity you're doing adding more just causes your body to convert them into fat. So, that's why they're considered "emtpy" -- they have no nutritional value other than being converted to glucose.

Your answer is informative, so I can't fault you for that, but I already know this. I asked because "empty calories" is (almost) always uttered in the same breath as either 1) no real information or 2) comparing to other carbohydrates.

I do however take issue with this:

> but once you have "enough" carbohydrates to fuel whatever activity you're doing adding more just causes your body to convert them into fat. So, that's why they're considered "emtpy"

That's true with any calorie. By that definition any calorie you're not using is empty.

Well sure, eating too much of any nutrient is not great. Think of it this way, if you just ate a bag of sugar everyday you'd have energy but be malnourished. Hence why theyre empty.

I believe it is quite literally a contraction from the saying "empty of nutritional content." (If this helps.)

From Wikipedia: "A nutrient is a component in foods that an organism uses to survive and grow. "

I'd say the primary for survival is energy. Sugars (carbs) are very high on that. There are of course secondary nutrients like eg amino acids in protein that are very important.

What is in your opinion "nutritional content"?

My opinion ultimately doesn't matter on this. I was just speaking to the saying.

That said, it is trivial to find primary items for survival if we just discuss things you would die without. Consider, water has zero calories, but you would die without it.

But your interpretation of nutrients do color your interpretation of "empty calories". Unless proven otherwise, I'll stand by that it's a useless phrase distracting from the conversation of nutrition.

It is a shortening of "empty [of nutrient providing] calories." This is pretty straight forward. If you were to eat nothing but sugar every day, you would die. Same as if you drank water, which is "empty of caloric or nutritional" content.

Are they worthless? No. They do provide caloric value. But they do not provide any nutritional value. This isn't even really at debate, is it?

The same would be true with eating a bag of rice. Is rice empty calories?

I'll say it again: Talking about "empty calories" is in my experience always when masking a lack of real nutritional knowledge. Because when I hear it it's always comparing one sugar with another carb (eg flour), or sometimes even better comparing sugar with honey, as if that is any better.

If what you mean by "empty calories" is foods with only carbs and no proteins or fats, then I agree it could be a useful term. If you mean something else I'd like to know more about your reasoning.

I don't think that diabetes is caused by a lack of nutrients.

You should always google the opposite view points too, and not just consider the main stream opinion on things.

There are forums of people that take the opposite viewpoint, and do very well too. It's best to be open minded. We don't have everything figured out yet.

There are forums of people that take the viewpoint that the world is a disc and that the media is run by shapeshifting lizards, too. That doesn't mean they deserve to be taken seriously.

You really skipped several steps between "people who think that excess sugar is bad for you" and "flat-earthers".

>"people who think that excess sugar is bad for you"

Parent is referring to people who think polyunsaturated fats are bad for you, though. And what I'm taking issue with is the argument that because there exist 'entire forums' of people who have accepted a claim, their views should be given credence.

And a calorie is just a proxy for energy stored. It will certainly correlate with energy related metrics. Just like kloc will correlate with code related metrics.

However, if you are in position to measure other items, I'd highly suggest it.

at least try to google "sugar calories".

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