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Comment by a8da6b0c91d | Hacker News Reader

Sodas are sugar water. We already know what sugar does: provide clean, metabolically efficient, allergen free calories. If you're on the road or out and about and hungry, a coke is often the healthiest choice you can make. The quality of options such as fruits and meat and baked goods are typically atrocious at convenience stores and fast food restaurants. Just get a coke and some milk. Available at McDonald's and gas stations nationwide.

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This is borderline insane. Pure sugar results in huge swings of actual blood sugar levels. Coke has zero fat, protein or complex carbohydrates all of which are much better macronutrients than pure sugar.

If Coke is your only option, sure, but I've never seen a doughnut so terrible that I'd take a coke instead.

Let me get this straight: you're advocating commercial dough deep fried in corn or soy oil over some sugar? You have no idea what you're talking about.

Sugar does not produce major swings in blood sugar levels unless you're diabetic. Have a working pancreas? Good, then sugars are a perfectly healthy source of calories which your system will merrily mop up into glycogen. Anyway, starch produces a larger insulin response than sugar, so the sugar phobes are laughably ignorant on this count.

As for your concern with nutrients, the fact is an adult male needs 2400+ calories a day. Protein and other nutrient needs are very easily met with some servings of foods such as eggs and milk and potatoes, still leaving a large calorie deficit. Sugar is a perfectly viable way to add four hundred or so calories to your daily diet. Sugary fruit is best, but high quality perfectly ripe fruit is surprisingly difficult to find. Low quality, unripe fruit has many allergens and toxins. In this context sugar is a very good choice.

Personally I daily have about 12 tsp of sugar (in coffee) and a coke. I'm shredded, btw.

How on earth is it hard to eat 2500 calories?! What do you eat? Paper and cardboard? If you find yourself 400 calories short, try a pork pie. If you're 800 calories short, eat two. If you're 1200 calories short, stop skipping lunch.

I thought it was known by now that carbs are the Problem and not the solution.

Who eats 1200 calories for lunch? A whole Chipotle burrito and a drink is only 900 and you'd have to eat that much for breakfast, dinner, and lunch to get past 2500 calories.

>> Who eats 1200 calories for lunch?

1 big mac 540 calories, 1 large fry, 500 calories 1 large Coke 32 oz 310 calories total

Well, perhaps my post was mildly facetious. Just that going by my recollection of the period I was monitoring my food intake, 2500 calories per day didn't seem that hard. Though having consulted the spreadsheet I kept in order to double check, I have to admit that it looks like it isn't that hard to eat less either :)

Snacks can add up surprisingly quickly so if you do have a shortfall I'm not sure it's necessary to resort to eating sugar. For example, 2 bananas and a tin of salmon will be something like 500 calories. That's 20% of your budget right there.

> Personally I daily have about 12 tsp of sugar (in coffee) and a coke. I'm shredded, btw.

That's what I was like too, before I turned 25. That's just how it goes, independent of your diet (within reason).

>Let me get this straight: you're advocating commercial dough deep fried in corn or soy oil over some sugar? You have no idea what you're talking about.

1) He wasn't advocating for either.

2) Coke doesn't have sugar. It has HFCS. So your comparison should be - commercial dough deep fried in corn oil over water with coca leaf flavoring and corn oil.

3) I'm sure lots of books say males need 2400+ calories a day. They are probably wrong. Just as "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" is wrong. There's plenty of studies that say that second hand smoke isn't bad for you. But these studies are from the early 90's and subsidized by tobacco companies.

I have never had any issues meeting my daily calorie intake, quite the opposite really. And while not all fruit is in optimal condition for eating raw, I don't know what you mean by "unripe fruit has many allergens and toxins" - allergens are specific to what your own allergies are and "toxins" is an overused word that I don't understand in this context. Mercury is toxic. An unripe apple is not very tasty and may cause a little gastrointestinal distress. At any rate, yes, I'll take a donut over a coke if we're having a false dichotomy contest.

Besides, I don't have to know what I'm talking about as I can go read actual data. Coke has a glycemic rating of 63 (http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/Glycemic_index_and_gl...) - this list doesn't include donuts and yes, you are correct that things like white bread are actually higher than a Coke but if we take iced vanilla cake as a proxy for a donut the glycemic rating is 44. So yes, to me that seems preferable. Even better would be actual food which is why I don't get most of my nutrition in remote gas stations.

>If you're on the road or out and about and hungry, a coke is often the healthiest choice you can make.

Most people, particularly most biologists and health-care practitioners, would disagree with that.

Uh, just do yourself a huge favor - grab the milk and forget the coke.

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