I am trying to cut down on fructose. I am in Australia if that matters.
very little. though you should be cutting down sugar in general instead of worrying about fructose specifically.
Yeah, what harm do you think fructose is going to do you that other sugars won’t?
Fructose has been specifically linked to worsening some peoples’ depression and has been linked to weightgain.
Any other sugar (well, hexose sugar, but they are the ones that matter really) eaten in equal quantities will cause exactly the same amount of weight gain as fructose. The only relevant difference that I am aware of is that there seems to be some (fairly weak, I believe) evidence that eating fructose does not satisfy the appetite quite as much as other common sugars do. That means that, if you were not paying attention to your sugar intake, and if you are trying to satisfy your appetite largely with sugar, you might be inclined to eat more fructose than you would if you were eating other sugars. As you clearly do intend to pay attention to your sugar intake, and as I am sure you know that for satisfying an appetite there are numerous alternatives that are not only healthier but more effective than sugar, it does not seem as though this would be a relevant consideration for you. Just keep your general sugar intake low, and avoid relying on sugary snacks to satisfy hunger (though they are mostly sucrose, anyway), and you will be fine, even if the sugar you do still take in is mostly fructose.
I haven’t heard the thing about depression before, but I am very skeptical.
There is that “Fructose is Poison!” guy, Robert Lustig. Although he is a professor of a relevant discipline at a respectable university, having seen some of his presentations on YouTube I am still not convinced that he isn’t a crank.
I understand that - he’s really challenging our basic fundamental ideas about nutrition. I, for one, have become convinced, although “Fructose is Poison” is a bit hyperbolic for me. For now, I’m in the minority, but the science is building up. Give it five years and see where we are.
You realize that most fruit is full of fructose, right? Fruit that nearly all nutritionists say we should be eating more of; fruit that was the staple diet of the primates that we evolved from.
High fructose corn syrup may be a somewhat less healthy sweetening agent than sucrose (which, of course, is not very healthy stuff), but I can’t see how there could be all that much difference.
If what is being said is that sugar in general, as an ingredient added to foods or eaten by itself, is bad, then that is nothing surprising or original. If fructose is being singled out, as significantly worse than other sugars, then I don’t believe it. I still remember enough biochemistry to know that all the naturally occurring sugars quickly get burned up and turned into the same stuff in the body (be it energy, CO2 and water, or fat).
[quote=“njtt, post:8, topic:648898”]
You realize that most fruit is full of fructose, right? Fruit that nearly all nutritionists say we should be eating more of; fruit that was the staple diet of the primates that we evolved from.
High fructose corn syrup may be a somewhat less healthy sweetening agent than sucrose (which, of course, is not very healthy stuff), but I can’t see how there could be all that much difference./QUOTE]
More importantly, the wonderfood brocolli is rich in fructose. I’m not giving that up no matter what.
As for high-fructose corn syrup, it’s actually not that high in fructose.
It’s about 55% fructose, that might sound a lot, but in comparison, table sugar is 50% fructose… the difference is insignificant.
The problem is that fruits, brocolli, and other veggies that contain fructose also contain fiber. Fruit juices and high fructose corn syrup do not. Fiber slows down the digestion of the fructose, which is a good thing.
The big problem (and this is wading into IMHO territory) isn’t with fructose per se, but the fact that HFCS gets put in damned near everything. Even shit that doesn’t need it, like bread.
Indeed, but the problems here are from too much sugar, not fructose specifically. It would be just as bad if it were glucose, sucrose, or whatever. The reason that HFCS has (arguably) become a problem is that it has become ubiquitous because it is so darned cheap.
If you’ve ever made bread yourself, you’d know that sugar is necessary if you want it to rise with yeast (they feed on the sugar and produce CO2, which makes the dough rise). Note also that as far as your body is concerned, bread, even many whole-grain breads, might as well be mostly sugar anyway and can actually have a higher glycemic index than table sugar (and presumably HFCS) alone, because starch breaks down into glucose with very little digestive effort (this is also one reason why HFCS is claimed to be worse than sucrose, but the energy needed to split sucrose is negligible).
The main problem with it (and sugar) is that they simply use it too often/too much, especially in “food-like” substances (aka junk food).
Of note also, HFCS was introduced around 1970 and quickly rose in popularity but total sugar consumption remained relatively stable until 1985, so the later increase in HFCS and total sugars is likely more due to people eating more food in general (and according to this paper, while calories from added sugars increased by about 23% from 1985 to 2000, so did added fat calories, a larger percentage of total calories, with grains increasing at double the rate of sugars - of course, these three together make up the Junk Food Triad™):
So it isn’t simply the use of HCFS or even too much sugar in general (even the increase in fruits and vegetables has contributed to weight gain because all excess calories cause weight gain; of course, added fats and sugars, and refined grains to a large extent (“enrichment” only replaces some of what is lost), have little nutrition other than calories).