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Comment by tylerag | Hacker News Reader

I've completely eliminated sugar from my diet. People are genuinely confused on how I do it. (the answer: just don't eat it.) But honestly, your sense of sweetness adjusts to it. Things with sugar in it are foul, as in I can't even eat them (for example, A1 steak sauce or spaghetti sauce).

The other thing that the article doesn't mention is that some of the alternative sweeteners are terrible for your gut biome, and an unhealthy gut biome is already linked to obesity.

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It takes a bit of work, but it is possible to start by removing things with sweetener (for example, it is possible to find ketchup that has no added sugar but they often have some other sweetener, you want stuff that is very simple).

Example ketchup: Organic Tomato Concentrate, Organic Balsamic Vinegar (Organic White Wine Vinegar, Organic Grape Must), Organic Distilled Vinegar, Salt, Less Than 2% Of: Organic Onion Powder, Organic Garlic Powder, Organic Spices

Normal ketchup: Tomato Concentrate From Red Ripe Tomatoes, Distilled Vinegar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Salt, Spice, Onion Powder, Natural Flavoring.

Other things like unsweetened ice tea, etc, can help, too.

The best way to avoid eating ketchup with added sugar is to replace all usages of ketchup with mayonnaise.

the jar of hellman's in my fridge has sugar on the label.

You can make your own mayo in 5 minutes.

Well, if we're making stuff, you can also easily make your own ketchup.

There is a brand that has no added sugar that I believe the poster up thread is mentioning based upon the ingredients. It's ok, but honestly tastes a little like just thick tomato sauce, could be a little more fermented/more vinegar, but it's a fine substitute for HFCS based ketchups.

[1] https://www.primalkitchen.com/products/organic-unsweetened-s...

Yep, that's the one. I've not eaten it myself so I can't comment on "how it goes" as I mostly just try to avoid sauces like ketchup in general when possible.

A tablespoon of mayonnaise is 90 calories.

A tablespoon of the most HFCS sweetened ketchup is 20 calories.

It may be a win on taste but I'm not sure it's a win on calorie reduction. I do love some mayonnaise fries, tho.

But if we go one level deeper, fat does fill you up much better than simple carbs like HFCS. In fact, HFCS will create more appetite (more than even plain sugar) down the road which at the end will make you eat more - and probably even of the same kind. Therefore, it's not very clear to me it's a win in calorie reduction either.

> but they often have some other sweetener

I actually fell for this trap while looking for no added sugar or sugar alternatives specifically. The products are advertised as "No added sugar", meanwhile Stevia! Infuriating.

Heinz has a no added sugar product that adds stevia, and a no HFCS product that uses sugar. None that just reduces sweetness as far as I know.

I've also then seen the stevia-sweetened products advertised as "No added sugar and no artificial sweeteners", which is infuriating when searching for unsweetened (or under-sweetened) products.

Yep, because it's technically natural! Hate it.

I only buy ketchup with supernatural sweeteners!

What I really want is food with less sugar. Call it a harm reduction approach.

A gram of sugar isn’t as bad as 20g, but it’s really hard to find just less sweet products. They all use artificial sweeteners to make it as sweet tasting or more.

Why is it so hard to find a ginger ale with only 5g of sugar? Or ketchup with 1/10th the sugar? It’s easy to find low sodium products.

Speaking of low sodium, I also wish more foods would mix potassium salt in with table salt. It’s not as “salty” but still improves the flavor and balances out the lack of potassium in Western diet.

I suspect food labelling laws - the term "diet" probably can't be used if it contains any sugar or whatever.

I'm seeing more "low sugar" options pop up here and there, but even then you have to ride the damn ingredients because sometimes it's "low sugar" on an item that normally has no sweetener at all, or it is being compared to some hard-to-find version that apparently is pure sugar.

Primal Kitchen makes products like this. They have a ketchup with no sweeteners.

https://www.primalkitchen.com/products/organic-unsweetened-k...

You must mean added sugar, right? Or do you really eat no fruits, nuts, etc?

You must mean simple sugar, right? Or do you really eat no saccharides?

We've bred fruit to be much sweeter than they used to be.

Personally I dislike a lot of them because they're simply too sweet

https://www.smh.com.au/national/zoo-won-t-panda-to-taste-say...

Sure, but virtually all vegetables also have sugar, and I doubt the OP is eating a diet completely devoid of fruits, nuts, and veggies.

I eat a lot of veggies and some nuts. Vegetables and fruit have a lot of starch in them, which slows down the rate your body absorbs the sugar. I rarely eat fruit, most things are too sweet and disgusting.

> your sense of sweetness adjusts to it

Speaking of this, what has always been puzzling to me is that the US bakery has so much sugar in it, to the point that even the smell of the bakery screams too much sweetness. In contrast, European and Hong Kong/Taiwan bakeries use much less sugar, or at least their cakes taste so.

Because it tastes good.

It tastes good with cheaper ingredients, too.

You can find "European" bread in the USA if you want it, but it's often not the cheapest.

That's too blanked. It tastes _sweet_ and you're _used_ to sweetness in bread.

I love and eat a lot of candy of all types, but I don't want my actual food to taste sweet since I'm not used to it. Because of that sugar in bread doesn't taste good to me, just sweet.

When used to that level or a level slightly below it.

That's the point of the thread. We really don't need that much sugar to get good taste. The level of sugar in a cake made by, say Safe Way, hurts my throat.

It tastes good because it's a drug and you're addicted *

I tend to bake my own stuff. I can't stand all the sugar in most grocery/bakery stuff here (US). People have asked what kind of cake I like so they can buy one for my birthday, but it's kind of a dick move to be like "I only like homemade cakes".

I find Mainland Chinese cake to be incredibly sweet, way too sweet for me, and I don't think this is just a mainland baker phenomena. Sponge cake with whip cream can hardly be healthy for you.

In many parts of Asia they instead use sugar in other things, like meat dishes. Thailand for instance.

Same here. I was ordered to keep away from sugar for medical reasons for a few months. The most interesting part of that experience was noticing how my taste changed. So much so that I didn't really get back into sugar when I was allowed to do so. I can't stand the taste of classical sweets anymore. And most softdrinks simply taste weird. I am a bit of an outsider now, snce I decline almost every offer for a piece of cake for coffee. And I totally stopped sweetening coffee and tea. Something I couldn't even have imagined before I went on this journey.

I did the step down approach. Reducing my sugar by an unnoticeable amount each day, until I was down to nothing.

I did the same with foods containing sweeteners. Now, I find the taste of any sweeteners absolutely revolting, nasty chemical flavour. Hard to understand how I ever liked them.

Agreed - aspartame tastes like corroded metal smells.

From my understanding the evidence of gut biome modification is weak, and would require a large volume consumption. Some NSS will cause temporary stomach upset if it’s your first few times consuming them. But I don’t think this has any long term impacts on gut health. Some NSS are healthy for your oral micro biome (erythritol for sure).

This is probably impossible but also inadvisable since you likely can't eat any fruits or vegetable.

> Things with sugar in it are foul, as in I can't even eat them

Same experience here, even most modern fruits are disgustingly sweet

Once you get out of the addiction is extremely easy not to eat/drink sweets, you don't even need willpower

I had a similar experience, I remember when I had completely eliminated sugar things like Reese's cups were foul. Everything in them tasted overly sweetened.

I’ve stopped eating sugar, and several weeks later, had an IPA. it tasted sweet, which confused me because those always tasted very bitter to me.

Use alternatives sugars while drinking kombucha? Balance it out?

Probably best to just skip them altogether.

There are studies undergoing probiotics. And some say that most probiotic bacteria don't survive the stomach acids.

If you want a healthy gut bacteria, better to just eat good foods and slowly build it over time.

"your sense of sweetness adjusts to it."

Similar for salt for people on low sodium diets.

Sodium is harder to avoid than sugar, it is in everything.

Eh, it's more prevalent than sugar, but also has more reduced sodium options due to some common medical restrictions. I would equate a low sodium diet with a no added sugar diet - there are many sources of natural sodium as well as natural sugars.

you can't quit sugar, fruits contains lot of sugar

what you wanted to say perhaps was: "i quit added sugar from my diet", that makes more sense

sugar is not the problem

While you may not quit sugar entirely, you can certainly choose to not eat any fruits, at all.

You can eat very little sugar (as in, voluntarily avoid foods that contain it) and I don't mean "added sugar" foods).

And "sugar is not the problem"? It's a completely meaningless statement without referencing quantities.

> you can't quit sugar, fruits contains lot of sugar

You don't necessarily have to eat fruits, most modern fruits are water and sugar with very little health benefits

You can get all you need from veggies in term of vitamins and fibers anyways

Well, it depends, many fruits are good for your health, apples for example, they contain interesting phytonutrients that help protect against prostate cancer

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