So should we stop eating fruit? what's the actionable takeaway here for someone already avoiding high-fructose corn syrup?
Also, fructose itself is not in such a high dose in an apple, you are far away from fructose syrup concentration which was added to everything pretty much at the same time the obesity epidemic has started.
Finally, fruits contains a lot of other beneficial nutrients, so benefits outweigh the harm fructose can do to you.
We metabolize fructose fine in reasonable doses and with fiber. It has been part of our diet for thousands of years.
It's not just the fructose. Any raw sugar is bound to have nasty-side effects. Our wheat flour is too processed, so the bread and pasta is not great for us as well. But a bit of whole pasta and bread will not spike your insulin level much.
We are, as usual, overdoing it.
HFCS is called high-fructose not because its some incredibly high level of fructose compared to most everything else, its because compared to regular corn syrup it is high. Regular corn syrup is nearly 100% glucose, so a mixture of 45% or 55% fructose is extremely high in that context. Table sugar is 1:1 fructose/glucose, but we don't call it high-fructose table sugar.
> Most fruits are really not that high in fructose, compared to stuff like high-fructose corn syrup
An apple is going to have like 19g of sugar. So a little over 12g of fructose. A serving of Buffalo Wild Wings Asian Zing sauce (2tbs) has 19g of sugar. I don't know what variety of HFCS, so we'll assume HFCS 55. That's 10.45g fructose.
So an apple has more fructose (total) than a few buffalo wings with HFCS-based sauce.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose
Why doesn't either HFCS want to crystallize into sucrose, or sucrose want to melt into 50% HFCS, given a bit of time, water, heat, or stirring?
Sucrose will hydrolize and break apart in water on its own, but it does take some time. Adding a little bit of acid will rapidly break it apart.
Therefore, worrying about fruits because of fructose is unwarranted. Well unless you have fructose intolerance.
The average is usually 45-55. By far the most common variety is HFCS-55.
I'm not disagreeing with the idea its easier to pound a lot of sugar drinking sweet beverages. I'm just disagreeing with the concept "fruits don't have much fructose" and people thinking HFCS means its generally way higher fructose content than other common sugars. An apple has more fructose than a serving of BWW Asian Zing sauce, as I pointed out in another comment. I'm not arguing wings are healthier than apples, I'm just pointing out the raw numbers of sugar. A cake made with sucrose will have a similar amount of fructose ratio as cake made with HFCS, assuming similar amounts of total sugar content.
Works for me to eat a banana before I eat white pasta: I get less tired.
YMMV. But it's always better to stick to healthier meals if you can.
I know I can't. I got a sweet tooth.
Are they actually mitigating the side effects, or adding bulk/satiety so you don't eat as much? It's unclear how dietary fibers mitigates the following:
>fructose reduces the active energy (adenosine triphosphate) in the cell, while blocking its regeneration from fat stores. This is mediated by intracellular uric acid, mitochondrial oxidative stress, the inhibition of AMP kinase and stimulation of vasopressin. Mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation is suppressed, and glycolysis stimulated.
Part of that is down to manufacturers, who especially in the US put loads of sugar in pretty much everything. Part of that is down to the consumer, which chooses convenience over awareness; part of that is things like take-out or drinking culture, but part of that is also diet culture, a diet telling you "stop eating this, only eat that". That too is convenience.
As is calling certain foods "healthy" vs "unhealthy", because that's no absolute either, and it's a lazy descriptor - as in, "please explain to me why it is healthy / unhealthy". The crux of it is, nothing is healthy or unhealthy unless it's literal poison, it's more about calorific content and quantities.
The solution is a simple number on food (1-100) that tells a consumer how healthy (or not) a product is and takes into account caloric content, additivies, sugar content, etc. This is something the government should be doing but since the US is governed by radical conservatives that are immensely corrupt it’s likely not going to happen. There is an app I’ve recently started using called Yuka that does this.
I’m also not opposed to banning certain categories of unhealthy products entirely.
Your point about overconsumption is valid but again, I don’t believe this is the fault of consumers, this is just a result of the capitalist system which encourages overconsumption in order to keep the system from falling apart.
What's the evidence on interventions like this? We tried adding calorie counts on packaging and menus, but obesity rates are still going up.
Not sure of the utility of that.
But I rely very much on the calorie count!
Different bodies need different things, and no single dumbed-down number like that can ever take that into account.
What we need is better ways of making clear just what those needs are to people, which ultimately comes down to better education. Is it a quick solution? Absolutely not. But it's the only one that can genuinely help people to improve their own health through nutrition.
That said, we can also improve our regulation around these things based on the best science we have available, to do things like ban or require labeling and appropriate disclosure of substances that are known to be universally or commonly harmful.
Key takeaways: also avoid high glycemic and high salt diets. Basically avoid fast-food. Make your own meals. Eat less or no heavily processed foods. Watch your sugar and salt intake. Keep staying away from HFCS or corn syrup in general.
> Conclusions: Current evidence suggests that whole, fresh fruit consumption is unlikely to contribute to excess energy intake and adiposity, but rather has little effect on these outcomes or constrains them modestly. Single-meal RCTs, RCTs lasting 3–24 weeks, and long-term observational studies are relatively consistent in supporting this conclusion. Whole, fresh fruit probably does not contribute to obesity and may have a place in the prevention and management of excess adiposity.
Many "healthy" snacks and desserts don't want HFCS on their labels so they use cane sugar, but that's a mix of glucose and fructose.
And foods with a high glycemic index like white bread, potatoes, and rice might stimulate endogenous fructose production.
You might think this study exonerates paleo diets, but there's evidence that excessive protein intake may contribute to gluconeogenesis, potentially increasing fructose production endogenously.
Sucrose is effectively 50% fructose.
And the supposed benefits of fruits are pretty much non-existent.
No fiber and no phytonutrients. The supposed benefits of both are basically hypotheses with really crappy observational data to support them.
Excess of anything is harmful by definition (otherwise it is not in excess).
The only question is how much is too much.