Hacker News Reader

Comment by gnicholas | Hacker News Reader

> “I have a very simple rule,” he says. “I eat fruit, but I don’t eat anything that has sugar added to it.

I'm curious to know how people actually draw lines around sugar intake. Presumably fruit juice is not allowed? What about foods that have fruit juice as an ingredient? Do you decide based on what the ingredients are, or how much of the ingredient there is? Seems like there's a number of reasonable ways to make rules, but it isn't immediately apparent which one is most principled, or easiest to stick to.

EDIT: Any explanation on the downvotes? I'd love to know how folks draw lines around eating sugary foods. If you've got it all figured out, please share your secrets!

View on HN

I think it's a totally reasonable question because there lots of nonsense out there.

I keep it simple. The heuristic I use for sweets is, if a child would cry for it in a supermarket, then I can't have it.

I've been losing ~1 kg a week since I cut out sweets like this 3 weeks ago. Was at 81kg, slightly overweight for my sex/age/height, now at ~78kg.

So no candy, chocolate, biscuits, cookies, potato chips, cake, cordial, fruit juice, soda, milkshakes including "breakfast shakes" which aren't actually food, even if you want to believe they are like I did. Also dessert versions of real food, like flavored, sweetened yogurt.

I still have takeaways once or twice a week and still drink alcohol if I feel like it.

My main cravings are soda and candy, so I have some sugar-free alternatives I use to satiate that.

We are sugar free in our house w/3 kids and draw the line at fruit juice. Not allowed in our house. We will blend our own smoothies that have some bananas and berries but also include greens.

It is very hard to avoid sugar completely. It’s in everything especially anything marketed toward kids.

I do smoothies like that as well and have assumed it’s ok to have a banana in the mix. I add milk, kefir, and frozen spinach (much tastier than fresh blended) and peanut butter powder to mask the flavor. My young daughter loves it. What’s your recipe?

The issue is not juice in and of itself, but the amount. A small glass a day is a good way to get some of the benefits from fruit.

We're not sugar free, but sweets are for occasional eating, not for week days. We watch a Disney show every Friday, and my children get to make a small bag of candy (100g) for that. They rarely eat it all. Beyond that we simply load them with greens, and make sure there is always some green that they like and some they have to taste. Hungry when they get home from school? Grab a carrot. Hunger 1 hour before dinner? Take an apple. Need an late lunch snack? Eat some nuts. The battle is won if parents give their children healthy eating habits in their daily life.

Fruit is not processed, contains fiber (necessary to slow absorption), is more compatible with our biology.

I am type 2 diabetic and half an apple will send my glucose levels into orbit. The same goes for many other fruits. Fructose is still sugar, and I haven't particularly noticed fiber slowing down its uptake in my metabolism. I just steer clear of most fruits except for strawberries and blueberries, and limit even those.

You have a condition that means you cannot freely eat fruit. Most people, and children in particular, have no problem with fruit or fruit juice. The problem is, as with everything else in life, lack of moderation. 1 small glass of juice a day and 2 pieces of fruit are perfectly fine, recommended even, for healthy people.

Some fruit have more sugar than others, and some apples have more sugar as well.

You should try granny smith apples or raspberries, they are lower in sugar content. Any internet search can help you find lower sugar fruits.

Many of the modern hybrids are extremely sweet and come close to being a "processed" food.

Watermelon, bananas, melon. These fruits are basically water + sugar + pulp in convenient packaging.

Are you saying they're okay to eat? Or not?

He's saying they are basically sugar, so not okay.

Strawberries are a good fruit to eat.

Edit: The graph here is pretty helpful https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit#Nutritional_value Unfortunately it doesn't show the amount of sugar in each fruit.

I'm sure you're an adult and can make your own choices, so don't take what I said as meaning "Don't eat this!". Just an observation that fruits are delicious _because_ they are so high in sugar.

I have to avoid all fruits since I am on the keto diet. My mouth waters thinking about a cantaloupe drink, but if I drank even 4oz I'd be undoing a lot of work.

I wouldn't eat fruits if I needed fiber, for that I would just add some psyllium husk to a drink.

Ripened bananas sure, but bananas that are still at least a bit green instead contain a lot of resistant starch which functions like dietary fiber and works miracles for the bowels.

The sugar content of bananas is highly variable with ripeness.

Do less-ripe fruits contain fewer calories, and somehow “gain calories” as they ripen? Is energy transformed from less-digestible forms like complex carbohydrates or fibers into simpler sugars? I have long wondered about this.

Yes.

The resistant starch in bananas is essentially unavailable filler, but when ripened enzymes turn it into sugar.

A green banana has medicinal value; you can use it to stop (or prevent) diarreah because of the resistant starch. But when ripe the effect is gone.

To me, it’s about the quantity. If I drink a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, it’s like eating 3 oranges at once (reduced by some of the good stuff which is in the fruit but removed for the juice). While this won’t kill or harm anyone, it’s obviously not what one usually would do or what would be necessary from a health perspective, and there is little point in doing it other than indulgence. Which is fine if one wants to indulge.

There are low glycemic fruits and high glycemic fruits...stick with the low ones. I’m on keto and will ocassionally have berries (all considered low). Avoid fruits like grapes, mangos, watermelon...etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com