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Comment by edoo | Hacker News Reader

The problem is the sugar load. No amount of nutritional value can justify it. You can get those nutrients elsewhere without the insulin response.

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Exactly - If you eat an apple, you get a modest amount of sugar with some fiber to go with it. The fiber helps slow down the absorption of the sugar and lessens the insulin response.

If you drink a big glass of apple juice, you get the sugar load of eating multiple apples and get none of the fiber. It's basically like drinking soda.

How many apples does a persona typically eat in one sitting?

How many apples' worth of sugar is in a 8/12/20 ounce serving of juice?

The usual claim on premium juice is 2 kg orange per 1 l (=1 kg) juice.

Whole oranges? Orange peel / rind probably accounts for a significant portion of the weight of fresh oranges.

Whole oranges, for sure. I can't see how you'd lose 50% mass if you've already discarded the peel/rind.

FWIW, citrus peel is a fairly valuable commodity since it's the raw material for production of limonene, which is a really good and biodegradable degreaser. IIRC it was discovered by NASA searching for a solvent for cleaning the space shuttle.

These read like rhetorical questions, but for anyone else who didn't know the answer to the second one:

- apple juice has ~10g of sugar per 100ml; that's ~35g per 12 US fluid ounces.

- Google tells me that apples (variety is unspecified) have 10g of sugar per 100g. 100g is a plausible weight for a single apple, so that's ~10g per apple.

An important detail is also how fast the sugar is absorbed.

Juice is pretty much instant.. Where as an apple takes time to break down, even if you chew well :)

Except that soda has other things in it that are bad and aren't called sugar. And juice still has many vitamins and minerals retained.

I get what you're saying, and I'm not claiming juice is healthy. But it's certainly heathier than soda. Whole fruit is, of course, far healthier than juice

For most of us vitamins is rarely a problem.. so if we ignored that.

Then do we have any studies to suggest soda contains "bad" stuff that juice doesn't.. I feel like we often associated natural things with being healthy, without necessary justification :)

> For most of us vitamins is rarely a problem.. so if we ignored that.

What are you basing that on?

> Then do we have any studies to suggest soda contains "bad" stuff that juice doesn't

Probably.

Look at a few labels of various sodas. You'll often find things like phosphoric acid, artificial colours, artificial preservatives, caffeine, artificial sweeteners etc.

Are these the worse things in the world? Probably not.

Are many of these things good for you? Probably not.

Do they do more harm than good? Possibly.

> I feel like we often associated natural things with being healthy

I feel like we often look at nutritional labels and draw conclusions based off of macronutrients/calories - without much contemplation of the ingredients

> Look at a few labels of various sodas. You'll often find things like phosphoric acid, artificial colours, artificial preservatives, caffeine, artificial sweeteners etc.

This is still just the Natural = Good, Artificial = Bad fallacy. You can't just list some stuff with chemically sounding names and say "look - scary bad chemicals!". What specifically are you claiming is bad?

You went from "soda has other bad things in it" to "probably, possibly, maybe" as soon as you had to be more specific.

> You can't just list some stuff with chemically sounding names and say "look - scary bad chemicals!"

I didn't say "look - scary bad chemicals!", you did.

> What specifically are you claiming is bad?

I provided a non-exhaustive list of things previously. You seem aware of that, so I'm not quite sure what you're asking here. If the list isn't specific enough, what were you looking for?

> You went from "soda has other bad things in it" to "probably, possibly, maybe" as soon as you had to be more specific.

Sure. I usually don't speak in definite terms - especially when I haven't looked up things of this nature and studies of these particular ingredients for years - probably over a decade. So I'm going off memory.

Feel free to research various ingredients in soda that fall under the categories I've listed (and beyond) and refute them being bad with data. Otherwise, you just aren't being very specific

Edit:

> This is still just the Natural = Good, Artificial = Bad fallacy

To be clear, I am not making that argument. I do not believe this, and this is a miscategorization of my point.

Soda is not equally as healthy/the same as juice. Whether marginally, or not, my point is that juice is healthier than soda

I asked what you were claiming was bad because I can't find any evidence that any of the things you listed are bad, the worst thing I can think of is the addictive properties of caffeine.

> Soda is not equally as healthy/the same as juice. Whether marginally, or not, my point is that juice is healthier than soda

I said almost, there is of course some tiny amount of dietary fiber in orange juice, and vitamin C (which would only have an effect if you were deficient). The downsides due to the large amount of sugar, and acid on your teeth would be roughly the same for both.

> what were you looking for? "artificial colours, artificial preservatives, artificial sweeteners"

Which ones? Your repeated use of the word artificial is why I believe you are succumbing to the "artificial = bad" fallacy.

> "phosphoric acid" From Wikipedia: "Products such as soft drinks that contain phosphoric acid pose no threat to human health in general."

I'm not going to do any more research than this, I only have so much energy for internet comment arguments, but feel free to provide justification for your claims.

I'm very tempted to invoke Hitchens Razor here.

> Which ones? Your repeated use of the word artificial is why I believe you are succumbing to the "artificial = bad" fallacy.

I opted to generalize in those instances. As there are a multitude of artificial colours/preservatives/sweeteners used in the soda industry.

Sure I could have said E150d/E102 instead of artificial colours. Or sodium benzoate/etda instead of artificial preservatives. Or acesulfame potassium/sucralose instead of artificial sweeteners.

However, someone could then point out "well X mainstream soda I drink doesn't have all those". Which could be accurate, as the formulas and ingredients of sodas vary.

However, the vast majority of mainstream sodas use at least one of those _types_ of ingredients.

Listing them all out felt unnecessary, I assumed the reader would have heard of or seen an example(s) of each/some and understand my point.

There are a few others per category that are widely used in the soda industry, so it would be a decently long list - to the point where such a list would likely detract from the point (or not, from your perspective)

Edit:

> "phosphoric acid" From Wikipedia: "Products such as soft drinks that contain phosphoric acid pose no threat to human health in general."

Phosphoric acid has been linked to kidney stones and osteoporosis. Does that mean everyone who drinks a coke will get a kidney stone and break their limbs? No.

If you could avoid drinking a coke/mountain dew every morning and have fruit juice instead, would you live a radically healthier life? Probably not, but it's healthier.

As I have mentioned earlier, it could just be marginally, but I think it's quite strange to suggest they are equally as heathy/bad as each other - which you appear to support

Do you know what dietary fiber is?

> soda has other things in it that are bad and aren't called sugar

Be specific.

Except sugar isn't inherently bad for you. Refined sugar isn't great, because it lacks nutrients, but juice doesn't have that problem. Also, juice can improve insulin sensitivity and elicits a lower insulin response than most starches and proteins. The overall effect on glucose and insulin is neutral. Sugar also contributes to fatty liver less than saturated fat, and only does so in the context of a hyper-caloric diet.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261757046_Effect_of... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/29844096/

> Sugar also contributes to fatty liver less than saturated fat

I’ve seen multiple studies suggesting otherwise, sugar being in general responsible for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

That assertion will also be difficult to swallow for anybody that ever attempted a Keto diet. I can talk from my own experience with Keto, when I binge ate butter on cheese (aka fat bombs). I did not lose any weight and yet my fatty liver was gone after the 3 months I was on it. Also all my liver’s ALT and AST levels are perfect. And I must insist on this point: no weight loss was involved.

Also note that the study you’re linking, with 38 subjects observed for 3 weeks, is statistically insignificant and probably flawed, as small studies tend to be. When changing somebody’s macros, there’s an adaptation period involved and 3 weeks is not enough.

The funny thing about all claims regarding the negative effects of saturated fats is that:

(1) saturated fat was a major caloric source throughout all of human history and yes, we know what humans ate in the Paleolithic

(2) human fat itself is saturated, you know, the one the body starts consuming when hungry

Humans are equipped to efficiently digest saturated fats and starchy plants rich in glucose. Well actually humans only need about 600 calories from carbs, any excess is converted to fat.

Fructose on the other hand is completely unnecessary, when digested it is converted to fat or glucose and it’s toxic in high doses. You can live your whole life without eating another gram of sugar. You can’t say that about saturated fat ;-)

Funny enough you can make the same argument about the other public enemy, salt. You will literally die without enough sodium in your diet and yet the healthcare industry is fixated on vilifying salt, but not sugar. A huge double standard that has no basis in actual science.

Humans store saturated fat because it's stable and calorically dense.

I'm actually not against saturated fat, I'm just not against sugar, or any other macronutrient. The food matters more than the macronutrient composition. If your argument against sugar is that it's converted to fat, I don't really follow, especially given you're a proponent of a high fat diet.

Would like to see those studies om sugar and fatty liver (compared to other macronutrients).

Also, why do you believe saturated fat is necessary? Okinawas eat a very low saturated fat diet (traditionally) and have great longevity.

You didn’t lose any weight on keto because you were eating too much. You can still gain weight if you eat 4000 calories worth of spinach.

I know. But no, it’s impossible to eat 4000 calories from spinach :-)

I have a problem with binge eating and I think it is emotional.

Not impossible, mathematically speaking, but yeah, no one is going to willingly eat that much spinach.

But I bet you didn’t lose weight on the keto diet because you were eating too much cheese or something like that; perhaps not enough exercise to keep a decent weekly calorie deficit. That’s where you went wrong.

I agree on binge eating yeah but so is anorexia or bulemia.

>Except sugar isn't inherently bad for you. Refined sugar isn't great, because it lacks nutrients, but juice doesn't have that problem.

It's the nutrients to volume to "how easy to gulp a gallon" ration that matters, not merely having nutrients.

The nutrient:calorie ratio is more important than those other metrics you listed. Whey protein shakes are "easy to gulp" but show fairly high satiety ratings, for example. Liver has a very high nutrient:volume ratio and is considered healthy, brocalli has a low nutrient:volume ratio and is considered healthy.

>The nutrient:calorie ratio is more important than those other metrics you listed.

For health benefits. For the propensity to make you fat, the "easy to gulp tons of calories quickly" is also interesting regardless of the nutritional value of what you gulp on. Water for example has no nutrients and no calories, but even so it's better than an orange juice diet wise.

I hear that a lot in the US (never elsewhere), but the only people in bad shape are those who abuse fat food and sodas. I’ve never seen anyone obese from drinking too much fruit juice alone.

I have a feeling that that is because refined sugar is absorbed in a different manner than the sugar in juice. Just speculation though.

You can "prove" this by looking at the glycemic index. Glycemic index is not a napkin math thing, its done by making people eat or drink something and watching what their blood sugar does.

A raw orange is 31-40.

Orange juice is 46-54.

Coca-cola is 63.

I think juice may be a _LITTLE_ better than soda. I still choose to drink neither, and think I am better off for it.

Right, fruit > juice > soda, and the gap between juice and soda is as high or higher than the gap between fruit and juice. To say juice is only a little better than fruit is to say fruit is only a little better than juice. If you have access to fresh fruit, great, but not everyone does and having juice might be better than no fruit products at all.

"I think juice may be a _LITTLE_ better than soda. I still choose to drink neither, and think I am better off for it."

You're making a very good choice. I would encourage you and others to consider the raw oranges 31-40 GI as, itself, very high and akin to something like dessert or a special treat.

Or, to expand on what a child of your post expressed:

soda < juice < fruit < ... < ... < vegetables/nuts

It depends on the fruit / vegetable. Some fruits like avocadoes and olives have very low GI and some vegetables like potatoes have very high GI.

It's stupid honestly, fruit juice are healthy in normal quantity. Like everything don't abuse it.

Just like alchohol, but that's not how people think of the juice they buy at the grocery store.

Maybe in the US. But I've never heard about abusing fruit juice before moving here.

I Just look at total g of sugar and total calories.

Most countries don’t have the sugar most Americans do in their daily diet. Look at the sugar in white bread.....

Do you mean people who abuse carbs? Fatty foods don’t really get you. It’s the carbs.

Around here, that’s mostly a cost issue. Hawaii for example has a real obesity problem relating to fruits and fruit juces.

However, insulin response is not just about total calories. Fruit juice is at the extreme edge becase of how rapidly you can consume and absorb sugar.

Do you have a study showing the average breakdown of the Hawaiian diet?

Fish, rice, spam, sugar and salt. With a few loco mocos thrown in for fibre.

It is not abuse, it is biochemistry. Your body is extremely efficient at absorbing carbs because in nature they only appear mostly encapsulated in fiber which gates their abortion. If you absorb a large amount of sugar your body has to immediately turn it to fat with insulin or you die. This results in a situation where you have met your caloric needs for the day but you will get very hungry again even though you met your needs. Most people can't deal with that and succumb to the natural desire to eat. The high sugar loading destroys your satiety mechanisms.

Your post is very well-written, but fructose does not affect insulin. Fructose is absorbed directly in the gut and converted to starch in the liver.

I don't want to stop the anti-carb echo chamber, though, because it's helped a lot of people.

High fructose consumption has its own set of health problems. There is still a lot of glucose in fruits. There is usually a large difference in glycemic index for whole/juiced fruits. Soda being mostly high fructose corn syrup still has a tremendous glycemic load.

This doesn't sound right.

The Wikipedia entry for fructose[1] has this to say:

Excessive consumption of fructose may contribute to insulin resistance, obesity, elevated LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, leading to metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

So it would appear fructose does cause an insulin response.

However, it then goes on to say:

Uptake of fructose by the liver is not regulated by insulin. However, insulin is capable of increasing the abundance and functional activity of GLUT5 in skeletal muscle cells. (emphasis mine)

GLUT5 is also expressed in skeletal muscle,testis, kidney, fat tissue (adipocytes), and brain.[2]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLUT5

Insulin doesn't turn sugar into fat. It causes cells to uptake nutrients, including glucose, to be used as fuel. Only the liver converts sugar into fat, and the effect is pretty minimal, on the order of a few grams of fat per day (outside of a hyper-caloric diet).

Lipogenesis does not only occur in the liver. Lipogenesis occurs in adipose cells as well, and insulin stimulates this process.

"I hear that a lot in the US (never elsewhere), but the only people in bad shape are those who abuse fat food and sodas. I’ve never seen anyone obese from drinking too much fruit juice alone."

You need to point your gaze downward. There are a great many children in the US who are given a sippy full of apple juice every waking minute of their lives - and they have the body mass to go with it. I'm sure they all graduate to soda or "sports drinks" by the time they're in your field of view.

I guarantee you that those kids eat fattening things besides juice daily too.

> I’ve never seen anyone obese from drinking too much fruit juice alone.

You have whether you realized it or not. Fruit juice has just as much sugar as soda and none of the fiber from fruit that decreases your absorption. There are millions of people going to the gym and trying not to eat onion rings when the orange juice (or cranberry, or coconut water, etc.) they drink is what is actually keeping them fat.

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