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Comment by Tharkun | Hacker News Reader

Fruit & vegetables full of sucrose? That seems a little exaggerated. An onion, for instance, is 90% water, 4% sugars, 3% other carbs and 2% fibre. A coke, on the other hand, is 90% water, 10% sugar (either HFCS or sucrose, depending on your locale) and not an iota of fibre.

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Would a coke onion (84% water, 10% sugar, 5% fibre, [1% other stuff {caramel colouring, deactivated coca leaf extract, etc.}]) be a bad source of sucrose?

Pineapple is about 6% sucrose, red delicious Apples are about 2% sucrose (the rest being mostly fructose, and some glucose), bananas have more than 5% sucrose (As do mangoes, nectarines, and varieties of apple like pink lady).

Current thinking is that the binding of the sugar to fibre in fruit and veg makes it better than raw sugar.

no that's not true. current thinking is just that if you eat fruites and vegs that you probably don't eat so much that you can get sick.

however when it comes to drinks (i.e. smoothies, apple juice, orange juice) we already know that they could be as worse as cola. (from a sugar perspective). fructose is as worse as sacarose for a human beign if you eat/drink too much of it. it is just worse in another way i.e. it can give you different diseases. Well the problem is just that people consume way more sucrose than fructose. That's why there is probably never a bad word about it.

Basically everything should be consumed with care and moderation, but with the current generation it gets harder and harder (less time -> less time to cook -> excessive use of fast food, etc..)

no, really, current thinking is that whole fruit is better than juice or smoothies because blending releases the sugar, which is otherwise somewhat bound to the fibre.

Of course, it's far easier to overconsume blended fruit, but there are studies showing an increased risk of t2 diabetes from drinking limited amounts of fruit juice, and over consumption isn't the whole story.

https://www.nhs.uk/news/diabetes/fruit-may-lower-diabetes-ri...

https://www.nhs.uk/news/diabetes/fruit-juice-and-type-2-diab...

Right, fruit juice is definitely problematic since it completely removes the fibre. I only skimmed those articles but it seemed to be talking about juice, not e.g. smoothies where the fibre from the fruit is still present. If I make a smoothie from a packet of blueberries, I assume that gives more or less the same benefits as eating them.

I guess an important point to make is how easy it is to consume a sugary drink. I can very easily sit down and drink a tall glass of orange juice but not so easily could I sit down and eat the six oranges that would be used to make that oj.

I just ate 3 carrots and I definitely don't feel for a 4th.

Meanwhile, I'd have to eat 3 pounds to equal a bottle of coke: http://www.sugarstacks.com/carrots.htm

Pretty crazy. And eye-roll inducing when people bring up sugar in vegetables/fruits. As if it's your apple habit keeping you wide.

A peeled apple is about as bad - little fiber, and 10% sugar.

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