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The author identifies "resetting sugar-addled taste buds" and becoming mindful of how many foods have added sugar as benefits. Having gone without sugar for a month, I can affirm that both of these things were true. And, of course, willing abstinence from certain foods is a part of many spiritual traditions.

Given that the author is suggesting that interested people undertake this as a month long exercise, and only claims to have undertaken this exercise twice, it is not clear why you are characterizing this as an extreme diet.

The resetting the taste buds effect is amazing. Several months ago, I started trimming back my sugar intake, with a goal of putting almost none of it in food I make myself, and generally avoiding dessert-type items.

What I've found is that restaurant food all tastes incredibly sweet. All of it. There has to be so much sugar they're putting in food, and I just used to be used to eating that much.

Getting a chai-type beverage, if they add sweetener at all, it's wayyyyyy too much. I've started requesting no sweetener in my chais, and that now tastes normal to me.

I still eat fruit, but no more than one piece a day. Even a whole apple often feels like a little too much sweet for me.

The biggest take-away I have from all this is just how easy it is to get accustomed to foods, one way or another.

The biggest benefit has been weight loss and having my energy throughout the day feel almost totally steady and even now. Even when I get hungry, it's a sensation I can mostly delay gratification of, where I used to get crazy and distracted from hunger.

Salt is another big one - if you go on a low-sodium diet for a while, many "normal" (American, at least) foods start to taste super salty.

My wife and I cook quite a lot at home, and tend to under-sweeten and under-salt things compared to the status quo, and my perception is that we're both much more sensitive to salt and sugar levels in foods we don't prepare as a result.

Unless your home cooking involves processed foods or you get your sodium elsewhere, you would need to add salt to what you cook, otherwise you're going to harm yourself.

Sodium is essential to being healthy; the reason it's made out to be a big deal is due to how much processed food the average person eats. It's almost as though it's assumed that people are going to eat processed food regularly.

We add salt, we just don't add as much as "normal". We generally cut salt from a recipe about in half, or skip it if we're adding another salted component (ie, salted butter, bullion, etc). Salt is generally added as a finisher to the recipe to enhance the flavor profile, rather than just throwing a bunch of it in to start out with. We're definitely aware of the value of electrolytes.

We're not anti-salt or anything, we just tend to use less of it than recipes call for, and the effects has been that we notice oversalting more in other foods.

This sounds like a bad way to salt, depending on what you're cooking. I think it's better to salt parts of the dish independently during cooking. That brings out flavors individually like the dish intends. Salting at the end tends to make something taste salty rather than just enhance flavor.

Apparent saltiness increases when you use it to finish because it's usually consumed before it's dissolved into or been absorbed by the media. If you salt very much at the end of cooking, especially for liquids, use less than you think is needed, and give it good time to mingle and meld.

We still use salt in the cooking process, just less than usually indicated. It's easy to make something saltier, but it's pretty hard to take it out once it's in there. :)

Exactly, its very important to get enough sodium. Cook your own meals and add salt.

For anyone who works out or is starting to its good to remember you lose salts while you sweat as well.

I throw a pinch of salt into my post-workout protein shakes exactly for that reason - replenishing lost electrolytes is really important for recovery.

Sodium is normally in protein shake, and certainly in sports drinks.

The body needs around 1/4 of a teaspoon of salt every day. Most people get that without adding any salt to their food.

Y'know, I wish one of these personalised biometrics startups would come up with a good way of telling me whether I'm getting enough X or too much Y personally, rather than just as a statistical artefact. Because I have a "salt tooth" and occasionally wonder if this represents some mineral deficiency.

Indeed, I've had a similar experience. Almost a year ago, I decided to eliminate butter from my diet. I'm now capable of enjoying a nice piece of plain toast (on homemade bread), which I never thought I would. My family has always cooked with relatively little fat, salt, and sugar.

As a result of that, and some other dietary changes, I'm also 25 pounds lighter.

Today, almost all restaurant food tastes way too salty and sweet, with the worst offender being pizza. I've noticed that one by one, even the independent or local pizza places have added more and more sugar to the crust and sauce.

I've had the same experience. I am Type 2 diabetic, officially diagnosed a few years ago (I'll be 40 in a few months), and six months ago I cut out any added sugar. Now the slightest bit of added sugar gives me a stomach ache and a feeling of nausea.

I don't crave it at all any more, and my doc said I probably added ten years to my life just doing that. I also lost over 20 pounds the first month and with exercise I could probably convert another 10-20 to muscle and bone weight.

I also don't get "sick" as often, as in I've had only one chest cold since I started this diet, whereas in the past I'd have had two or three at least by now. Anecdotal, I know, but it's been a huge boost to my quality of life.

Type 2 here, as well. Care to share your experience with this, offline? This is a huge struggle for me.

Type I diabetic.

I am convinced that a real change is a lot more realistic when it is part of a larger lifestyle change. Habits are hard to break one by one because they reinforce eachother.

I suggest that you collect all your bad habits together and break them all at once. Or, with the next change in your life (new city, new job, marriage, first child) also change your diet.

It sounds harder but I think it's easier. Baby waking you up three times in one night, and you won't care how food tastes anyway.

I think a big enough change triggers something in your mind that says "this is how life is now".

Another tip is that embarassment and disgust are powerful emotions, so use them. When I got married I was literally too embarrassed to keep my old diet. And if you think about it the right way, sugar everywhere is disgusting. It makes your mouth sticky causes rapid bacterial growth and bad breath.

There's not much more to say, other than the worst part for me was giving up coffee. I'm a coffee fiend, and right about the time I started grinding my own beans and getting into some really good brands, I made the decision to cut out sugar. I have tried using artificial sweeteners but it's just not the same; it kills the natural flavor of the coffee and most artificial sweeteners don't agree with me (not to be gross but severe gastrointestinal issues with every sweetener I've tried).

I do occasionally still have black coffee or with just half and half, but that is too much temptation to put "just one spoonful of sugar" in there, and I have to make myself stop.

It has also been difficult giving up cooking desserts; I love to bake and I also enjoy cooking Asian cuisine, which (depending on the dish) can be very sugar-dependent. There are a few fruit-based desserts that don't require much or any added sugar, but when you're diabetic even the natural sugars from fruit can be harmful.

I've never liked sugar in my coffee. H&H is enough to make it smooth. I think, like everything, it take a few tries until you get used to the new taste, and forget the sugar-coffee taste.

> Even a whole apple often feels like a little too much sweet for me.

I had to switch to Granny Smith and similar. If you don't mind the acidity, they are a real treat :)

A lot of Europeans have this reaction on coming to the US, that all the food is way too sweet.

I legitimately puckered and my chest felt tight when I had some drinks in SFO. Even the iced tea tasted like pure sugar. I stuck to tap water after that.

Coming back to the US for a conference a few years ago we got some "fresh lemonade" type drinks at the San Francisco airport. They were so sweet they made my teeth hurt, I couldn't have more than a sip. I had a hard time believing people drink this stuff on a regular basis, but there were lots of people in the store drinking larger cups of what looked like the same drink!

Drinks like lemonade in the US are bad :( I just drink unsweetened ice tea most of the time, almost everything else you get from restaurants/fast food outlets would be way over-sweetened. Fortunately more and more place started having unsweetened ice tea. There are other drinks that can be made with minimal or no sugar but it's hit-or-miss.

I've had this experience with candy. Like Snickers and Butterfingers... They're so sweet there's a burning sensation in my mouth whenever I've tried eating them. I swear they're _much_ sweeter than they were when I was a kid. The only candy I can eat these days without the burning sensation are the relatively low sugar types of chocolate. But all the mainstream stuff is totally unappealing because it's too sweet.

I've reduced carbs/sugar in the early part of the day (I'm not quite so rigorous at dinner), because I was getting really sleepy in the middle of the afternoon. Fixed that problem, but also had the unexpected benefit you mentioned-- no more "hangry", just my body gently telling me to eat at some point.

Years ago when I was 320lbs the first step toward living healthier was cutting out sugar drinks. I lost 20lbs within 3-6 months without making any other changes. On the rare occasion I drink a sugary drink now I never finish it because I find the sugar to be overwhelming and too sweet.

Abstaining from sugar really does help reset your preferences; give it a try.

(I made other subsequent changes and got down to 250; moving to SF meant walking more and I got down to 220, though I switched jobs to a South Bay tech company and have started creeping back up since it is far less walkable down there.)

Agree, I've eliminated most sugar-added food and it's easier than you think once you get over initial short period. I still eat sugar-added foods sometimes - mainly sweets, I really love sweets :) but do it rarely and consciously. Just as one would consume any other substance that is not good for you but can be enjoyed in moderation if you are careful - alcohol, etc...

It is fascinating how much sugar some foods have - if you imagine making them yourself and putting like two tablespoons of sugar into a cup... now that just sounds weird and somewhat disgusting. Some over-sugared foods I just can't eat. But it's not a big loss. For many foods there are substitutes that taste even better (at least once your brain is over the "good = sugar" mindset), others you can just do without. Nothing extreme here.

Some of the secret names of sugar I came across when I was sleuthing in the supermarkets—agave nectar, corn sweetener, corn syrup, or corn syrup solids, dehydrated cane juice, dextrin, dextrose, fructose, fruit juice concentrate, glucose, high fructose corn syrup, honey (probably heated and not raw, thereby losing all its nutrients), invert sugar, lactose, maltodextrin, malt syrup, molasses, raw sugar, rice syrup, saccharose, sorghum or sorghum syrop, sucrose, syrup, treacle, turbinado sugar, xylose, etc.

Naturally occurring sugars in fruits and vegetables have a completely different impact on your body than the processed sugars found in packaged foods (and directly through sugar, of course):

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/is-sugar-really-bad...

The article doesn't say that - it says that glucose and fructose are handled differently (which is true; both occur from natural and processed sources) and that naturally-occurring sugars often come in high-fiber foods, and fiber impacts sugar uptake (which is also true). Sucrose is sucrose, whether naturally occurring or from processed sources.

The issue with "processed sugars" is that they appear in forms which cause you to not necessarily get enough fiber with them, and in form factors that are very easy to overconsume, but biochemically, 19g of table sugar and a couple of Benefiber caps are going to do approximately the same thing as an apple. Being processed doesn't make it magically toxic.

I may be nit-picking here but I said that the impact of the 2 sources is different...because of fiber, etc. I didn't mean to imply that the sugars themselves were different.

Sorry, the way I read it was "the sugars have different impacts". Even if you didn't mean it that way, it is a common pseudosciency belief that "natural" and "unnatural" sugars are chemically different. So many people ignore that at the end of the day, the body is just making glucose out of the cabrohydrates you feed it.

Actually both are true, glucose and fructose have way different biochemical impact on the both. For starters, only 20% of glucose is metabolized by the liver, rest goes to muscles, brain etc. While fructose completely goes to the liver, since muscles and brain cannot make use of fructose directly. Another effect fructose has is that it sort of suppresses ghrelin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghrelin), the hunger hormone. So it is highly likely that you will not feel full when you have food with fructose. The advantage of having sugars (especially) fructose in fruits is that due to fibers you tend to feel full faster. Fiber also helps in ensuring that fructose is releases at a slower rate vs. a can of soda.

Different sugars are digested differently, but natural fructose in a fig is the same C6H12O6 that's in a processed fructose source like HFCS.

People like to talk about "processed" sugars like it's the sugar itself that has transformed, when really the problem with processed sugars is that it's just the sugar, and it's too easy to consume too much of it.

I think "completely different" is overstating it, the money quote from the article you linked is “the liver doesn’t know whether it came from fruit or not”.

Naturally occurring sugar is just as bad, but has some other ingredients deemed to have positive impact. The analogy here would be opposing the claim that smoking is bad for you with the statement that some cigarettes can contain menthol or eucalyptus, which are known to have soothing effects and pleasant odors, and therefore are "completely different".

But back to sugar. The usual pro-sugar argument with naturally occurring sugars involves vitamins and nutrients. Unless you have a severe case of vitamin deficiency, your body does not need extra supply of those vitamins, at least doesn't need them urgently enough to justify sugar as a delivery mechanism.

Nutrients can be obtained from zero-sugar green leafy vegetables - watercress and kale tend to be the bomb as far as nutrient load.

Also "naturally occurring" is a misnomer by itself - modern commercially available fruit has been bred to have longer shelf lives and higher contents of sugar to appeal to general public.

Recently I tasted a wild orange. The seller at a health shop warned that it would be rather bitter. That was a severe understatement. Eating it was initially OK, but the bitter aftertaste was extremely strong and stayed dispute mouse washing. And I have not perceived any trace of sweetness.

So indeed nothing stays natural after a touch of civilization.

There's a wild tangerine grove on a path I occasionally hike. The taste is so intensely sour and bitter, I've had lemons that were sweeter.

Are you sure it's not a sour orange? They are a distinct breed and not really the same as sweet ones.

https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/sour_orange.html

mouse washing, LOL!

The article you cite says essentially the opposite of what you claim it does: that in effect there is no difference between sugar added to food and sugar naturally occurring in food.

In practice, I think the difference between naturally occurring sugar and added sugar is satiety: sugars that occur naturally are bundled with fibers, and fiber makes it more difficult to overeat. That's what's so dangerous about sugar soda (which really needs to be legally regulated).

I don't agree. Since I was forced to give up sucrose (due to dermatitis that I found out (accidentally) was caused/triggered by sucrose) I've noticed so many health benefits it's insane.

I no longer miss sugary 'treats', and happily much on apples instead of chocolate bars as I used to.

I sleep better, feel better, concentrate better, control weight better, I'm more productive... the list goes on.

I, also, feel much better when I capitalize on the placebo effect. I take Vitamin D every day, but days I forgot, I become grumpy and depressed.

That isn't to say that your sugar-free experience isn't meaningful, significant, or impacts your life.

My point is that your sugar-free lifestyle results are indistinguishable from placebo. Or little green moon men, really.

Maybe. But the lack of scabs on my face is a definite plus, and one I've demonstrated to relatives with multiple experiments.

Yes, but is unlikely that you overdose your daily sugar intake with fruits whereas with a can of coke or a bag of ships you're already overdosing. Besides that, fruits have nutrients and other elements that help fight the possible downsides of the fructuose.

You'd be really surprised - fruits contain a lot of sugar. Dried fruit and fruit juices (which many people think of as "healthy") can zip you past sugar quotas in a hurry.

Honestly, I think it's probably just easiest to limit carb intake overall. Don't bother with the nonsense about subtracting fiber and all that, just set your carbohydrate goals for the day and stay under that. Sugar-heavy foods tend to get naturally eliminated in such a routine because the calorie-to-satiation ratio sucks.

Just adding on as to one of the reasons: we've bred fruits over thousands of years to be packed with sugar.

http://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-what-fruits-and-vegetable...

Studies have been done on this, for some reason, whole fruit sugar is immune to the negative effects of sugar. The mechanism isn't entirely known though and doesn't apply to dry fruits.

link to studies?

Can you link to the studies?

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/making-the-case-for...

http://www.nmcd-journal.com/article/S0939-4753(08)00088-4/ab...

etc..

>fruit juices

Yes, these are deceptive. You're typically getting all of the sugar, but none of the fiber along with it that slows digestion (along with other benefits). Eating an apple and drinking apple juice are very different in terms of sugar content and the resultant insulin spike.

That said, I doubt anyone has ever experienced negative health effects from eating too many apples.

I experienced "negative health effects" after eating in my childhood about 8 kilos of apples within 24 hours. My parents even considered to call an emergency.

What are the effects of eating that many apples in a day?

> What are the effects of eating that many apples in a day?

You turn into an apple.

At least, according to all nannies & parents.

I got high fever and diarrhea.

Well, I mean... Yeah, you can drink too much water too, but within reason...

Edit: wait, so you ate ~53 apples (googled average weight, came back at ~.15kg)? I call BS.

I was alone at home and there was a full bucket of tasty apples that our relatives brought from their garden. As a lazy teenager I decided to feed on those rather than prepare food.

And consider that if one just eats 3 apples per hour, than in 16 hours that gives 48.

...That's a lot of apples

You ate >50 apples in 24 hours? Wow.

That's an apple every half hour, or every twenty minutes if he slept eight hours. I've kept that pace too for hours while coding. Much better to stuff on apples than Cheetos.

Why wouldn't fruit juices contain fiber? Say I put an apple in my mixer grinder, add some water, grind and mix to create apple juice, what part of this mixing and grinding process would get rid of the fiber?

As far as I understand, the fiber should still stay in the juice because I did nothing to take the fiber out of this mixture.

poster above is assuming the consumption of store-bought juice, which is highly filtered and usually from concentrate. not many people have the time or equipment to juice apples themselves.

If you do that you're all good. That's not how store bought juice is prepared though.

It's a really good question. I've tried researching it before and it seems to be an open question whether blending destroys fiber.

But even if the fiber stays intact you're going to drink and potentially overdose on a smoothie more easily than a while fruit.

You don't digest fiber for calories. Counting that the same as carbohydrates for most dietary purposes doesn't make any sense at all.

I know, but given that people trying to lose weight generally have a problem overeating carbs, "giving yourself credit" for fiber carbs overcomplicates tracking and most people tend to underestimate digestable carbs taken in, so counting fiber against your quota can help correct for that error. Trying to "game" your carb intake by padding with fiber will work for the ultra-disciplined, but will probably just result in a false sense of intake levels for most people.

Not necessarily. I've heard of are studies which show that high-carb diets without fructose are equally healthy to high-fat diets.

The article is pretty light on useful facts, but theres nothing "extreme" about not eating things your body doesnt need.

whole 30 says dairy is not allowed, except ghee

Ghee has the milk proteins removed though. I guess some might remain in the fat?