They sound like is sugar is like poison. I now feel as if the little sugar I am putting in my coffee and tea is going to be destructive for me.
Is there a certain amount that humans should not exceed?
What if you like coffee and tea a lot? How much sugar is allowed? Should one get used to drinking coffee and tea without sugar?
Sugar is not poison. Your body uses it for energy. However, it used to be taught fats were undesirable. Trans fat still is, and saturated fat should be limited to 30% of intake. But too much sugar probably causes undesirable types of obesity.
Sugars from fruit (fructose) should be considered healthy. Wouldn’t even keep track of it; don’t avoid eating fruit. It would be reasonable to limit added sugars to 35 grams a day on average. Sweeteners have been well researched; I believe they are okay at reasonable levels. Too much sugar has been linked to fatty liver and other problems. But no need to avoid anything sweet. If very concerned, you could limit it too before and after exercise where it will be used or replace glycogen.
Practice portion control. Eat a varied diet of minimally processed foods from all food groups. As soon as you reach the point of satiation, stop eating. Eliminate recreational eating entirely. The trace elements in fruit are more important than the sugar. Your saliva turns many types of carbohydrates into sugar.
It’s not just your saliva. Your body converts grains to sugar.
It’s not that sugar itself is terribly unhealthy, it’s that eating it leads to blood sugar spikes and drops. When your blood sugar drops you immediately feel hungry again and overeat.
I heard that eating tons of sugar (e.g., in the form of soft drinks) can increase the risk of type-II diabetes, not to mention weight gain definitely does. So consuming 150 g/day of sugar is known to be bad.
There’s been no good evidence uncovered thus far that shows sugar to cause diabetes directly. But obesity has been show to cause diabetes. So excess intake of carbs (including yummy, yummy sugars), fats, and proteins can all lead to obesity, and thus to diabetes.
If you are looking for an absolute number - you won’t find it. No one knows. Plus it depends on your weight, activity level, type of sugar and whether it is consumed around exercise.
35g is reasonable. If you are active, it could be higher. The main point is: 1) sugars are not toxic but it is smart to limit them 2) fruit is healthy with much fibre and nutrients and should be eaten daily without fear (don’t count sugar from fresh fruit); 3) juice and other sugars should be limited, but no need to avoid reasonable portions of tasty treats 4) pick tasty treats lower in sugar more often 5) it doesn’t matter if the sugar comes from honey or exotic sources, it’s still sugar 6) eat sugars just before exercise when possible, and exercise more 7) sweeteners are extremely well studied and good alternatives if you like sweet stuff
Most people do not understand diabetes, especially younger people. They tend to think that sugar causes diabetes and it is the fault of the person for eating to many sweets. In response diabetics tend to explain the situation in simple terms that an even an idiot can understand. Sugar is poison to me, if I eat too much sugar I may go into a coma and die. Going into a diabetic coma is a joke line for most young people, for adults with diabetes it is an actual real event that can be fatal. Another point that young people miss is that if you stop eating carbs you will return to “normal”. No, it’s a disease and there is no cure for it. While it is possible to control it can still do your body much harm. You can still have kidney failure, blindness and lost of feeling in your feet even if you are doing everything perfect and under a doctors watch.
So yes, it may not poison to you but it is poison to me. So please understand that not all people are the same, there is no one size fits all answer . Calling it a poison is just a way to get people to understand how it reacts to there own body.
Some people use the term poison to fear monger, yes. But some people use it to describe their own personal experience with sugar. Or would you say that sugar isn’t poison to a diabetic and that they are being over dramatic?
I for one would say that if you’re describing something that has different effects on different people that poison is the wrong term. What you’re describing is an allergen.
Oak pollen isn’t a poison, no matter how debilitating your reaction to it may be. Strychnine is a poison.
And I have type 2 diabetes, so I’m not looking at this from the outside.
Read the OP. “Poison” was used because of the way a quack was describing the effects of sugar for everyone. You ended your post with “Calling it a poison is just a way to get people to understand how it reacts to there own body.”
Nope. That’s not “just” what it is. Sugar has been the new boogeyman for a while with plenty of quacks referring to it as a poison.
Yes, sugar is poison to diabetics is factually inaccurate. I’m not up for debating how overly dramatic calling it poison is; that wasn’t my point.
I’m a physician. I have taken direct care of thousands of diabetics, both type I and type II, for nearly 4 decades. In addition, my daughter has a form of type I diabetes, and I am a type II diabetic.
I would NEVER refer to sugar as a ‘poison’ to any of my diabetics, because it’s not true, not in any helpful sense, or by any standard medical definition. Using such a term would only unduly alarm a patient. It’s not a poison, no more than water can be, or vitamin A, or trans fats, or salt, or almonds. Too much may be unhealthy for any of those subjects, along with most anything we eat or drink. But any diabetic who is under proper treatment can safely consume reasonable amounts of sugar, and need not fear being poisoned.
And I would never expect a doctor to explain it to a patient as poison, not my point. My point is that many people don’t understand anything about someone else’s disease and only refer back to their own experiences. To shut them down it’s easier to just explain that too much sugar is “like” poison to me. A reasonable amount will not hurt or kill me, but going on uncontrolled sugar binges can cause serious damage or even kill me (like a poison). I’ve stopped trying to educate the world properly about diabetes since the world obviously doesn’t care.
I’m not convinced you “need all the sugar you can get”, in fact I can get entire bags of sugar pretty cheaply, and also it absolutely does provide calories. Though, 20 g of pure sugar does not provide 800 calories, maybe 80 if you estimate 4 kcal/g
Mentioned previously on the Dope about a coworker with her heart in the right place that made me a beautiful chocolate birthday cake, with chocolate ganache icing … where the icing was made with diabetic chocolate [the whole department had never been so … regular snicker]
I have explained to people to not go to any effort to cook ‘diabetic’ for me, as my doctor and nutritionist had baked in a random 180 calories a day of whatever I wanted to eat, and that if I had any idea there was going to be dessert I oculd adjust my other meals accordingly, and that if I really felt like it I could grab a bag of sugar and a spoon and eat straight sugar for 180 calories if I felt like it. Not that I would, I don’t have much of a sweet tooth to be honest [now potato chips, especially salt and vinegar, those are my kryptonite!]
Sure, I agree. I was responding to the now-deleted spammy comment, mainly to dispel the paradoxical notion that, on one hand, sugar has no nutritional value (such as energy for physical activity), but on the other hand, you need as much of it as you can get, and, on the third hand, just 20g supplies one with 800 calories.
The “you need as much sugar as you can get” comment reminds me of the single-panel cartoon with the bloke sitting in the “All You Can Eat” diner and the stern waitress telling him, No, mister, you can eat more than that.
PS I don’t know what diabetic chocolate is, but I prefer my chocolate with 0% sugar, why mess with the taste? Unless I’m cooking up some hot chocolate recipe with sugar and milk and/or chillis. But chocolate icing on cake does not excite me that much; I’d rather leave it. Unless it’s really good…