FWIW, I am indian, and sugar is never a bad thing in our culture. The firsts thing that comes to mind is just 'sweet'. It's got positive connotations for me.
I don't think he meant sugar in the sense of being bad when he compared it to heroin. The comparison was to highlight the similarity of addictiveness of sugar in children and heroin in adults. Addictiveness isn't necessarily always bad.
> and sugar is never a bad thing in our culture
Sugar IS bad, scientifically speaking. I wouldn't be surprised if sugar is an important reason for the high levels of obesity and heart diseases in India. In the end, I think we need to move ahead from traditional values and selectively and logically think about the parts of our culture we want to retain.
I don't use Slack, but from what I gather it's general slowness and the way it aids constant distraction means it is a pretty good productivity killer, so calling it 'Slack' is actually Truth in Television.
It is not sugar per se. It is being able to concentrate and crystallize it and then eating it in a completely non natural way.
Fructose in nature , on fruit, has lots od fiber(celulose), that makes release of sugar in the bloodstream slow, that is
Glycemic Index low.
Refined sugar on the other way, specially in dissolved water, like with milk, coffee or soda, release enormous amount of fructose in a very short amount of time.
In nature, only honey does that. Refined sugar was a luxury until 200 years ago.
US by the way produces the worst sugar of all, because it is not fructose, but something they could produce from corn, way cheaper than brown sugar that comes from tropical places.
It is most certainly not. The soluble and insoluble fiber in fruit is good for humans because it prevents rapid absorption of fructose, which is most definitely toxic. (Paracelsus was right when he said that the dose makes the poison! It just so happens that even small doses of fructose have an outsized impact on appetite.)
Fructose is toxic because it is primarily metabolized by the liver. It has been shown to be at the root of overeating because of its effects on satiety signaling via leptin and ghrelin.
> Fructose also has the best ability to be absorbed by muscle cells without the need for insulin, compared to other sugars.
This is simply false. (Google it!) When used by an athlete after strenuous activity, it is true that fructose replenishes _glycogen_ in the liver, which is released as glucose, which muscle can use. But most people haven't just finished running a marathon when they gulp down a liter of Gatorade. So the effect 99% is to just fatten you up.
I recommend a few educational videos to bring you up to speed on a great deal of science that has been discovered in the last 15 years or so. Dr. Lustig (endocrinologist at UCSF) lays it out:
Fruit is absolutely healthy for humans - physiologically we are frugivorous apes, after all. Hence why nearly all evidence-based nutritional guidelines from all around the world encourage whole fruit consumption, as part of a diet with other whole plant foods like grains, legumes and vegetables.
> gulp down a liter of Gatorade. So the effect 99% is to just fatten you up.
This could not be further from the truth. Humans are notoriously inefficient at de novo lipogenesis - the process of turning sugar into fat. The myth that sugar causes weight gain (on its own, not accompanied by a high-fat diet) is just that - a myth. Not to say gulping down Gatorade is a good idea, but it isn't nearly as harmful as consuming a steak, or a stick of butter, when it comes to weight gain.
There is a huge discussion amoung evolution scientist if we can even adapt that fast. It usually takes muuuuch longer to adapt. We certainly did do selective breeding to ensure that the current population of humand is "better" at surviving meat/dairy/grain/extracted-fat consumption. But adapted? That's much contested.
And yes, high meat is one thing in modern diets. But dairy/grains/extracted-fats certainly also need to be considered as "foreign to our original diet"
you are literally claiming the opposite of almost everyone else. could you back that up with some evidence please?
for decades the word has been that fat is bad, now the narrative is slowly changing to sugar. now you are either turning it around again, and if so, i'd like to see the evidence for that. (and by that i mean current studies that prove that other studies about sugar are false) or you are simply repeating what we have been told for decades which has been shown to be false.
One cannot say any diet component is absolutely bad or good. It needs to be compared to something else, quantities/quality needs to specified, bodily condition needs to be considered.
If you're interested see Greger, McDouggal, Esselstyn, Fuhrman, they are evidence based "meta study" doctors, that try to bring all evidence together. They also (each) have videos showing how to spot a paid for study (like the one showing butter is not bad by comparing it to huuuuge intake of coconut oil, which no-one does, but then "butter is back" get's printed on TIME mag).
Fat has more calories and is more easily stored by the body than carbohydrates. Processed carbs, simple sugars give a greater rise in the hormone insulin, which basically puts fat into fat cells. It is not carbs' conversion to fat which causes weight gain, but their consumption in the presence of a high-fat diet.
One can only gain weight when over eating calories.
But if one over eat calories but NEVER takes high fat foods it becomes A LOT harder to put on weight.
If one overeats but eats a lot of fats (especially saturated fats) COMBINED with sugars (the softdrink at the snack meal) and COMbINED with inflammetory foods (all animal drive foods and processed foods) then putting on weight is super easy.
Making fat out of carbs (sugars+starches), lipogenesis, is something humans are not good in. Eating low fat is healthy, but do the math because you will easily think you eat low fat without even going under 10cal% from fat (which is like the cut off value for actually a low fat diet — I dont reach that usually, but then I'm not gaining weight).
I think you got it wrong. Fructose is more inflamatory than glucose (which is not good in high concentrations as well). Fructose-Glucose would be saccharine, the most common type of sugar extracted from cane and beet.