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Comment by tcbawo | Hacker News Reader

In the grocery story the other day, I noticed Kit Kat cereal on the shelf. Who would buy that and consider it an even remotely nutritious meal, I don’t know.

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You don’t buy it for nutrition. You buy it because it’s delicious and turns the milk into chocolate milk.

> Who would buy that and consider it an even remotely nutritious meal, I don’t know.

While I wouldn’t consider it nutritious, my kids have definitely gotten me to impulse purchase them lots of these goofy cereals like Reese’s puffs and Icee cereal. Almost always they try them and say they are disgusting and want to go back to the classics: Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs, Fruity Pebbles etc.

I've gotta say your comment really fooled me there. They way you started and ended was not at all where I thought you were heading.

Unless it was sarcasm, then kudos - becauaw I did actually laugh aloud at that twist ending.

Have people forgotten that sugar is literally a nutrient?

As a part of a balanced diet, yes.

In the quantities we're all taking about, it's hard to say these "breakfasts" are positively contributing though.

> As a part of a balanced diet, yes.

It's a nutrient. This is an enumerable set of chemicals. Balancing nutrition is a different matter entirely.

> In the quantities we're all taking about, it's hard to say these "breakfasts" are positively contributing though.

I eat sugary cereals every morning, and it's about half my daily sugar consumption. I don't see any problem with it—I don't have diabetes, I have a healthy weight, etc. The idea that foods are somehow inherently bad because they're sugary is ridiculous. It's the eating habits that are unhealthy, not the food. Sugar isn't rat poison ffs.

I'm guessing rat poison in low enough quantities probably isn't rat poison either.

The problem is to some people sugar is also more addictive than alcohol or their favorite recreational drug. I'm going out on a limb and guessing rat poison isn't as addictive to rats.

> The problem is to some people sugar is also more addictive than alcohol or their favorite recreational drug.

That's not a sugar problem, that's a consumption problem. It's also a necessary nutrient to function, so it's addictive somewhat by definition, like water is addictive, or oxygen is.

This is taking the argument to extreme limits, you have to admit? I'm aware of no widespread instances of people self-reporting craving more oxygen than they need to function. There's probably a reason why there isn't an equally prevalent term like "sweet tooth" for many of the other daily required nutrients. It's probably because there aren't that many nutrients that illict an addiction that causes excessive consumption of said nutrient in a single day.

> This is taking the argument to extreme limits, you have to admit?

So is classifying foods as "unhealthy" or "healthy" but people do that all the time.

Warfarin is a particularly good example of the dose making the poison, as it is both a rat poison and a common prescription medication for people who are at risk of blood clots. An anticoagulant can be a useful medication, but taking too much is dangerous.

That's rather my point—it's not the chemical itself but rather the rate of consumption that is the issue.

type and how you consume sugar matters. HFCS is really really bad for you or consuming sugars in fruits with fiber lowers the insulin spike and absorption rate.

https://youtu.be/dBnniua6-oM?si=1_OBYqk6vmQl4N5K

So I’m sorry but some sugary foods ARE inherently bad and sugary cereals are one of them and that’s not even getting into the addiction side of it and how marketing them to kids sets many up for obesity and chronic diseases

Btw you can also be “skinny fat” from sugars

I don't deny this at all, but this still requires context to determine "health". I truly resent the conception that sugar is somehow a toxin and not a necessary nutrient.

I also don't want to truly deny the addictive nature of sugar. It can have enormously negative effects on peoples lives. The answer is not to reject sugar, though! It is to moderate sugar intake.

The thing about addiction and the way pure sugar acts on some people is they cannot moderate- especially when the addiction is formed at a young age

People who start smoking before their 20s have a much MUCH harder time quitting.

Sure, but nicotine can be completely eliminated from a diet. Sugar cannot be. The idea of rejecting sugar as unhealthy is beyond absurd.

added sugar IS unhealthy. Too much nature sugar IS unhealthy. acting like its not is silly.

Sugar is a toxin that we can derive caloric nutrition from. It would be like reminding people that alcohol is a nutrient.

Sugar is a subset of carbohydrates which is a macronutrient. But you don't need sugar specifically if you want carbs and in fact it is a bad carbo alternative unless you are doing some vigorous activity and need a little boost.

Personally though I eat a lot of it myself. Ideally I would only get maybe 15 grams of sugar a day, tops.

> But you don't need sugar specifically if you want carbs

That's what carbs are. Carbs are sugars. I don't see many people out here living off formaldehyde. If you eat bread, it's metabolized into sugars. If you eat potatoes, these are metabolized into sugars. I don't get the point.

“Sugar” is sucrose, which is fructose and glucose. We can use glucose as a nutrient… fructose is debatable.

“Sugars” covers a wide variety of more complex chemicals, from maltose to lactose.

> sugar is literally a nutrient?

so is iron, selenium, fats, proteins etc. dosage makes the poison.

consider that in nature, the only way to get anything nearly as sugar dense as sugar was to invade the nests of territorial colonies of venemous wasp like insects. getting a spoon full of sugar took guts and commitment!

> so is iron, selenium, fats, proteins etc. dosage makes the poison.

Sure, but since when has "nutritious" meant "not poisonous"? It means "full of nutrients".

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