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Comment by Ragib_Zaman | Hacker News Reader

Most fruit are nowhere near as healthy as most people expect they are. They have been selectively bred over many hundreds of years to be far larger, sweeter and more devoid of micronutrients than they were hundreds of years ago. The amount of sugar (especially fructose) in fruits like apples, oranges and bananas is shockingly high, and can cause or exacerbate conditions such as obesity, fatty liver, type 2 diabetes, gout and other metabolic or inflammatory diseases.

Replacing some fruit with vegetables instead, and choosing less sweet fruit like various berries or melons may be a good idea for most people.

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Obese people avoiding fruit is one of the biggest eye roll on offer. I had a fat roommate who measured out the raw almonds he ate because they were calorie dense the same day he’d eat two whole pizzas for dinner.

Meanwhile, almonds and bananas aren’t the things making people fat. Looking at my own fat friends, some tasty fruit is the only fiber they even get.

And vegetables aren’t even on the menu of most fat people I’ve lived with. Don’t discourage the only healthy habits people do have.

Look at the the actual diet of an obese / fatty liver / type2 person and you’ll see how silly this advice is. It ain’t the fruit.

My own anecdote is that my dad was diabetic and he definitely didn't understand how much sugar was in fruit. He did ok controlling his blood sugar, but he considered fruit to be "healthy" and so ate about as much of it as he wanted, which regularly caused blood sugar spikes.

And I know it's not the same thing, but the number of times our small kids get offered juice as a "healthy" option when it's got almost as much sugar as soda... I think it's a real phenomena that certain things have a reputation for being much healthier than they are and it causes problems.

Sadly, as said elsewhere in the thread, many (but not all!) modern fruit varieties have been selected for sugar content.

However, some fruits and vegetables are particularly important for their fiber content even if you can't get rid of the fructose.

Things like inulin or resistant starch are very important to avoid having too many Bacteroides and too few Bifidobacterium, which is one of the big differences in westernized human guts vs more traditional ones.

It wasn't "advice". It's a true statement: Most fruit isn't as healthy as people think it is.

If you've got someone eating an unhealthy diet, but sticking some token fruit in, then that means that even their token nods towards good diet aren't as good as they think, and they should be made aware of that.

Even so they’re getting fibre, vitamins and other micronutrients they wouldn’t otherwise get.

> making people fat

This thread isn't about being fat, it was about gout.

I've never been fat but had plenty of gout attacks. Back when I was getting my worst gout attacks I was in the best shape of my life but the problem was I was consuming too much fructose. From a combination of drinking fruit juices (a single glass can have more than my limit of 10g/day!) and not paying enough attention to sugar content of regular foods. When I finally started adding it all up I was easily reaching 100g of fructose per day.

> From a combination of drinking fruit juices and [other stuff] ...

Yes! Juices and smoothies are bad for you. Eat fruit in solid form only, to make your digestive system work harder (as designed), and slow down your rate of calorie ingestion.

It's getting harder and harder to find fruit that hasn't been bred to maximised sugar content, though.

My grandfather was getting obese and had a risk of getting diabetes.

I always assumed he ate healthy food, since he always made an effort for it.

When his medic reviewed all his food choices... the issue was actually fruit, in particular various kind of oranges, my grandpa just loves oranges and will eat them often, several per day.

To add to your very generic statement:

Fruit juice contains a lot of sugar; Oranges contain a lot of sugar;

Make sure you check how much calories you take in regardless of the food.

A good understanding of food healthiness is to understand what you are eating.

The difference between fruit juice and actual fruit is massive. Volume for starters it’s far easier to overconsume juice than whole fruits. Then there’s the matter of the rough fibrous matter being strained out and the glycaemic index ... (EDIT not to mention the various adulterations for shelf life and added sugar and stuff)

It’s far harder to go wrong with whole fruits.

So my statement, you are commenting on, is wrong?

"Make sure you check how much calories you take in regardless of the food."

I was agreeing with you, and reinforcing your point.

It's such a shame our reflex is that if somebody responds to something they must be disagreeing.

Most national dietary guidelines encourage eating fruits and vegetables, with an emphasis on the vegetables. The sugar amount in fruit has a direct impact on the overall calories you consume but since fruit are also high in fibre, the contained sugar is not comparable to, say, a chocolate bar.

> The sugar amount in fruit has a direct impact on the overall calories you consume but since fruit are also high in fibre, the contained sugar is not comparable to, say, a chocolate bar.

I think a more precise way to say this is:

Due to the water and fiber in fruit, they tend to be more satiating than eating something like a chocolate bar on a calorie normalized basis.

My understanding is that the fiber literally prevents absorption of fructose, so parent's comment is accurate

Fructose is almost always absorbed; fructose malabsorption causes SIBO. Fiber reduces the glycemic index and makes fruit more satiating. Glucose aids the absorption of fructose preventing SIBO.

But in the case of fruit w.r.t. gout, the missing variable here is that while fructose increases the production of uric acid, potassium promotes the excretion of uric acid [1], and fruits are generally an excellent source of potassium while soft drinks contain little to none. The net effect of fruit on gout risk seems to be inconclusive [2] but it's clear that fruits are much less concerning than foods with added fructose. Since a significant fraction of Westerners do not consume enough potassium [3], and potassium is key to preventing hypertension and stroke [4,5], it is bad advice to suggest reducing fruit consumption for most people, unless you're already eating like Steve Jobs.

1: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S008525381...

2: https://academic.oup.com/rheumatology/article-abstract/58/7/...

3: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02709...

4: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%252Fs11906-011-019...

5: https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/1...

True, but what I was actually trying to get at was that sugar is also metabolized differently in the presence of fibre.

Most national dietary guidelines are backed by weak epidemiology and are rarely corroborated by RCTs. See: the food pyramid

And are instead heavily guided by ag industry lobbyists.

You are comparing the sugars in raw food to something heavily processed. That's not a good comparison.

Sugar is sugar. HFCS is a bit worse, but in the broader context of dietary intake it will make no difference.

That’s a very simplistic way of looking at things which isn’t supported by medical science.

Specifically glucose, fructose, sucrose, are worth treating differently for the purposes of diet management.

>> Sugar is sugar.

>> That’s a very simplistic way of looking at things which isn’t supported by medical science.

I agree with you on this one but from what I've heard, it is likely that fruit juices and smoothies are not fruits either. If that is correct, the message can get very muddied.

>> Specifically glucose, fructose, sucrose, are worth treating differently for the purposes of diet management.

Now we need to not only treat different sugars differently, we also need to treat the delivery methods differently as well. At some point, the message just becomes too complicated.

> from what I've heard, it is likely that fruit juices and smoothies are not fruits either. If that is correct, the message can get very muddied.

Not really. The original comment in this chain talked about processed foods vs unprocessed. Fruit juices are fairly obviously processed so this rule works for them too.

It is simplistic, but for most people it is probably a great start.

When people talk about sugar like this they are talking about fructose. Bringing glucose into it confuses people since it is scientifically sugar, but not what people mean when they talk about eating sugar, which is just eating sweets, soda, juice, etc.

> When people talk about sugar like this they are talking about fructose. Bringing glucose into it confuses people

I believe people are actually usually talking about sucrose, which breaks down into equal parts fructose and glucose v early in digestion.

Fructose is the monosaccharide and is the problem. It doesn't always come from sucrose.

> Fructose is the monosaccharide and is the problem

Glucose is also a monosaccharide.

"sugar" (table sugar, maple syrup, etc) are mainly sucrose, which is one part fructose and one part glucose (joined together, into a disaccharide)

I agree that fructose is the troublesome part of this pair. But when people say "sugar", they aren't referring to fructose, they're referring to sucrose.

Do you also think processed rice products like flours, pasta are the same as whole rice cooked?

It is in the context of dieting advice “instead of a chocolate bar, eat an apple” (still about 20 grams of sugar/100 kcal, but about half that of the chocolate bar)

The other difference is that while chocolate bar makes you more active if you was low on sugar, you are still quite empty, hungry and looking for more to eat shortly after you ate that.

If you eat apples, you hit limit soon. Apples also do not work all that much if you actually need quick energy when doing something straining. It does not have that "immediately feel better" effect (which motivates you eat more and more).

Diet containing a lot of fruit can be healthy . Sugar consumed through fruit has a massively different effect compared to consuming only that sugar.

Fiber with sugar is not the same as pure sugar.

I’m not sure there are any studies demonstrating what you claim.

The fiber will impact the absorption rate and insulin spike, but in the end you’ll have consumed the same amount of sugar. For calorie-counting purposes, or say, avoiding gout due to fructose intake, there will be no difference.

Why wouldn't the absorption rate have an impact? Seems like it could slow down absorption enough for your kidneys to filter out byproducts that can lead to gout. Interested to learn if you know something different.

Let me formulate it different:

Its 'healthier' to consume the same amount of sugar through fruits than through pure sugar due to its being easier for your body.

It does not change your calorie intake at all as its the same amount.

> It does not change your calorie intake at all as its the same amount.

Glossing over what an insulin spike makes your body do with those calories is a bit disingenuous.

Exactly this.

The most common and pervasive misconceptions about nutrition use the extremely simplistic view of it, believing that in the end all matters is that you end up with N grams of say sugar.

The effects on the body of consuming an apple versus the equivalent two table spoons of raw sugar are not even remotely similar.

They are when you look at the calorie intake.

That is the point i made and still make.

The problem is that there’s no study demonstrating what was stated. Consuming a fructose concentrate will not have the same outcome as consuming the same amount of fructose through fruits.

There isn’t a study that shows the outcomes are equivalent . I have no idea where OP got his conclusion that fruits are an issue.

Yes, keeping an eye on glycemic index or FODMAP for people with metabolic disease works but I can’t find studies showing that you can eat so much fruit to get diabetic or gout.

> I have no idea

Here

> I drastically cut back on fructose, limiting myself to no more than 10g/day. I have been gout-free now for 7 years.

You're implying that total calorie intake is the most (or even the only) important factor.

This is starting to resemble a political thread.

No, fiber does not have that big of an impact on absorption. That's why most fruits are a big no on keto diets

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h....

> Studies also have shown that high-fiber foods may have other heart-health benefits, such as reducing blood pressure and inflammation. Helps control blood sugar levels. In people with diabetes, fiber — particularly soluble fiber — can slow the absorption of sugar and help improve blood sugar levels.

Seems like it impacts time to absorb

The amount of sugar (especially fructose) in fruits like apples, oranges and bananas is shockingly high, and can cause or exacerbate conditions such as obesity, fatty liver, type 2 diabetes, gout and other metabolic or inflammatory diseases.

If you want some idea of how bad it is: monkeys get diabetes from bananas now

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/monkeys-bann...

I have yet to meet someone who is obese and his calorie intake is primary from fruits.

Edit: I just did napkin calculation. Sedentary 170cm high male weighting 66kg would need to eat 20 apples a day to keep his weight. Or 3600 grams per day. The shocking high sugar content still means nearly uneatable quantity of apples just to get enough calories for rather small office worker who does no sport.

I don't think 20 apples is that much.

And we are talking about people who are obese, they are consumgint oo many calories per day, every day.

Now lets take a real example: obese people tend to drink juices and replacing soda with juice because they assumed juices are healthy.

I can easily drink 2 liters of water or 2 liters of juice/soda every day. 470 calories for 1 liter -> 900 calories additional.

easy

Juice is not apple, that is competely different argument. 20 apples is quite a lot and dude I picked is small - I intentionally made him smaller then average.

I am 100% confident that pearl clutching over need to replace fruit by vegetables else people will be obese is really not even close to why people get fat.

I think its a combination of all.

I myself stoped drinking soda because of it; Its surprsing how quick you consume extra calories due to needing caffeine.

I have yet to meet someone who is obese and his calorie intake is primary from fruits.

I see people drinking smoothies thinking they are the healthy choice not realising a smoothie has more sugar in than a Coke. They are not even a good post-surf recovery drink for the surfers who invented them and gave them the infantile name!

That, or 400g+ of chocolate. No conclusion to be taken here.

It is easy to eat 400g of chocolate per day. Not at one sitting, but if you have whole day for it, you can do it without any issue.

Also, it would be 350g of dark chocolate for my hypothetical guy.

> It is easy to eat 400g of chocolate per day. Not at one sitting,

Challenge Accepted.

That's only 2 apple pies, assuming you don't eat any of the crusts. I don't think that's uneatable other than the fact the crust is the best part.

I would assume we talk about fresh apples. If you process it in such a heavy way it is something completely different. You can also eat a lot more dried apples then fresh ones. Or you can drink a lot more apple juice then eat apples.

Fruit is pretty much sugary water in fruit form these days.

> The amount of sugar (especially fructose) in fruits like apples, oranges and bananas is shockingly high, and can cause or exacerbate conditions such as obesity, fatty liver, type 2 diabetes, gout and other metabolic or inflammatory diseases.

While vegetables are often superior to fruit for the reasons you indicate, if your diet contains neither then you could still consider fruit a 'step down' from the ever-popular refined carb snacks. Most fruit contains enough fiber to help you feel more satiated than a refined carb snack would.

Melons are basically sugar water: 84% water, 14% carbs, 1% protein, 1% fibre

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