[EForEndeavour]

The AHA recommends a maximum added-sugar intake of 25 g/day (6 teaspoons/day) for women, and 39 g/day (9 teaspoons/day) for men. Similarly, the WHO recommends that no more than 10% of total calories ("ideally less than 5%") should come from added sugar, which works out to 25 grams for a 2000-kcal diet. For comparison, the average American consumes roughly 70 grams of added sugar per day. [1]

I can't find a specific source for a ceiling of 5 g/day, but it's pretty uncontroversial that more added sugar is never better. The lower you set your maximum intake, the harder it is to maintain, since sugar is added to so many foods.

5 g/day is a somewhat arbitrary cutoff that's lower than official recommended maximums, but this doesn't imply that there should be no limit. Pick one. Or start with "as little sugar as practical," log how much sugar you end up consuming under this plan (using a food diary, food scale, etc.), and adjust as needed.

[1] http://sugarscience.ucsf.edu/the-growing-concern-of-overcons...

[SilasX]

>I can't find a specific source for a ceiling of 5 g/day, but it's pretty uncontroversial that more added sugar is never better.

Gatorade for athletes.

[dominotw]

> but it's pretty uncontroversial that more added sugar is never better.

> this doesn't imply that there should be no limit.

Who is even claiming these things. :/

[isoskeles]

> official recommended maximums

I don't know what this means. Are you referring to the manual that came with human existence or are you referring to what the FDA says?

[EForEndeavour]

My comment above explicitly describes what I refer to as "official recommended maximums": the maximum daily intakes recommended by the AHA and WHO (among others around the globe), presumably through an audit by domain experts of the totality of epidemiological and clinical evidence, together with an unknown amount of interference from non-scientific interests.

To address your analogy, researchers are in a sense writing the Missing Manual for Humans, as our species didn't come with one.

You're free to accept or refute these recommendations, but I personally am inclined to put at least some trust into their collective efforts. Or if you trust different recommendations more so than these, I'd love to see them.

[isoskeles]

I agree with the recommendations, I just disagree with referring to them as "official."

This mentality coupled with incorrect recommendations helped the trend of "fat free" foods that would be high in sugar, not that long ago either.

[EForEndeavour]

The WHO is a 71-year-old UN agency whose constitution has been signed by 61 countries. One of the organizations it incorporated was the Office International d'Hygiène Publique (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_International_d%27Hygi%...), an international public-health organization.

I have to say I find your pushback at the term "official" perplexing. Why do you disagree with this descriptor? They're literally official. It doesn't get more official than this. Sure, they're sometimes wrong, as your fat-free reference suggests, but that's beside the point.