[santry]

One day about 3 years ago I quit sugar "cold turkey." At the time I was rather highly motivated by seeing a friend nearly killed by necrotizing fasciitis. (Not that his illness was sugar related. It's just that seeing a close friend nearly die puts things in perspective.)

My taste changed within just a couple of weeks. By the third or fourth week if I accidentally drank sweetened iced tea instead of unsweetened I would nearly spit it out due to the awful taste. I also cut out all artificial sweeteners, effectively eliminating any experience of sweetness from my diet. I think previously I had drunk so much Diet Coke and eaten so many sugary things that I had conditioned myself to need that sweet taste on a regular schedule. I think one thing that helped was that I started making tea using high-quality, whole-leaf teas from adagio.com. They have such interesting flavors, I find they don't need sugar.

I'm not sure I can speak to the work-related effects of not eating sugar since I was spending most of the time in the hospital with my friend. I can say that my overall mood became much more stable; there were no more mid-afternoon crashes and I genearlly found I had more energy. Being about 360 pounds at the time, this one dietary change was enough for me to lose 60 pounds over the next 12 months while still leading a mostly sedentary lifestyle.

[stcredzero]

I have just quit sugar cold turkey. Carbohydrates in general, actually. (< 20 grams per day.) One thing that I will highly recommend to everyone who is trying to do this: small amounts of powdered Psyllium supplement. The best known brand in the US is Metamucil. This might set off some mental alarms, as it is marketed as a "laxative." However, it's just a concentrated source of soluble fiber that acts to bulk up material passing through the gut, helping to keep it passing through. This prevents many of the disadvantages of eating mostly foods that are rich in proteins and fats. The instructions on this stuff allow for 1 to 3 doses per day. I'm only taking 1/2 a dose at any one time, so it's acting more as a fiber supplement.

That said, I also cook and eat lots of vegetables. (Green beans are quick and great! Just rinse them, steam them, and don't eat any inedible looking ends. It's best if you don't overcook them.) I never feel run down after meals any more like I used to, though I can still feel a bit tired after a particularly high fat meal. On the whole, I have a lot more energy, though I have been told that I'm a lot more irritable now. Maybe it's time to do some programming "in anger?"

[Ixiaus]

There is a major misconception that all carbs are bad. Specifically bad sources: refined sugar, high-fructose corn syrup (much worse than sugar), grains (wheat - gluten, is the worst, worse than sugar; rice, etc...), and legumes (particularly soy beans).

Sweet potatoes as carbs are very good for you; fruit (particularly pears, apples, coconut - very good for you, pineapple, bananas).

The topic is quite complicated and difficult to navigate, but there's a lot of good information out there. Particularly in the primal/paleo lifestyle (which I think is a little bit extreme but the knowledge and rationale is sound).

[shawnz]

> high-fructose corn syrup (much worse than sugar)

> gluten, is the worst, worse than sugar

These sound like dubious claims to me. Do you have a citation?

[ars]

It's not just dubious it's wrong. Gluten is a protein, not a carb.

And to say legumes are bad when they are actually by far the best kind of carb you can eat is nuts. (Nuts are good too.)

[Ixiaus]

Most people think bread is a carb, which there are many carbs coming from it - you also get gluten in that mix. You're right that it is a protein [gluten] and not a carb but this is a classic example of an unhelpful HN comment thread where pedanticism is slowly taking over unless my writing has the quality of oral debate speech followed by scientific citations.

[ars]

Bread is a carb and a protein, obviously.

You think you were helpful and I am not because you believe what you say. But you have not stopped to consider that perhaps you are simply wrong and I am calling you out on it.

Your problem is that you wrote something wrong - doubly wrong. You wrote that gluten is a carb, and that it's bad for you. But not only is it not a carb, it's also not bad for you unless you are sensitive to it. Wheat is what took humanity from weak scattered encampments to full civilizations, it's not called the staff of life for nothing.

And when you added the legumes are bad for you, all doubt I had if perhaps you were right vanished.

[Ixiaus]

I'm glad you're so skeptical but honestly no, I do not have citations, nor do I have the time to find the original source s that provided that information to me many years ago.

[ars]

I hope you learn from this thread. Because that source was wrong, and you need to update your beliefs.

[Devilboy]

HFCS and sugar are almost identical - both are about half fructose and half glucose. I don't think one is significantly worse than the other.

[pyre]

Sucrose (sugar) is a glucose bonded to a fructose.

HFCS is a solution of unbonded fructose and glucose. The most common HFCS is 45% glucose / 55% fructose.

HFCS may be worse for you if fructose is worse for you. That said, the concentrations aren't that much different.

[natrius]

The bond in sucrose makes little difference. We've evolved to break that bond very easily. Since the internet tends to be a big fan of Lustig's sugar video, can I just cite him as saying they're the same?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose#Metabolism_of_sucrose

[peteretep]

> HFCS may be worse for you if fructose is worse for you. That said, the concentrations aren't that much different.

I'm not going to dig out the citations (because I'm not sure where I'd find them) but I'm pretty certain I read recently in a credible source:

* Fructose is worse for you

* ... but HFCS and sugar contain similar amounts

* HFCS is really bad for you

* ... but no worse for you than sugar (which is also really bad for you)

[fingerprinter]

>There is a major misconception that all carbs are bad.

Define "bad".

Lots of these posts seem to come around to the same few topics so if you've read this before, safely move one.

But, IMO, carbs are about your fitness goals. The way carbs interact with your body dictate that they should be considered in conjunction with your fitness goals. I don't consider carbs "bad", but I do consider them completely misunderstood.

When I'm trying to lose weight, say for a meet or a show or perhaps for getting ready for my preseason, I limit carbs and use my own modified carb-cycling routine.

When I'm trying to get much stronger and gain weight, I use another version of my own modified carb-cycling routine.

Carbs are the key. Of course carbs aren't bad (so I agree with the overall statement), but they can be extremely detrimental for someone looking to lose weight or a sendentar person looking to just maintain.

I've written about this extensively in my fitness books. Each book recommends a certain general food philosophy based on the goals of the book generally geared around carbs: type to consume, when to consume and how much. I firmly believe that if more people understood the interaction with carbs and the hormones in their body they would have the capability of leading healthier lives.

[Ixiaus]

What you've written here is pretty much what I meant to write in my comment. What is the name of your book by chance?

[pmahoney]

> high-fructose corn syrup (much worse than sugar)

This is controversial at best (see, for example, http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-sweetener-...). I know there's money behind corn/HFCS, but what is your source for this claim?

[dllthomas]

While this seems reasonable, and I whole-heartedly endorse your push for sources, it does call to mind a corn-industry sponsored commercial I saw a while back about HFCS that I found amusing. It said, "Sugar is sugar; your body can't tell the difference!" which sounded common-sensical buuut fructose, sucrose... well, lactose is a sugar too, and some of our bodies seems to be able to tell the difference there!

Of course, this isn't evidence one way or the other for the claim in question, really. Bad arguments for side A aren't arguments for side B - just hoping others find it as amusing as I did.

[pmahoney]

I know that ad. I always angrily yell at the TV, "yes they're the same: equally bad!"

[stcredzero]

> There is a major misconception that all carbs are bad.

For people in general, they aren't. For me in particular, they might be especially bad. In any case, I'm essentially doing the Atkins Diet as an experiment. (I suspect I'm pre-diabetic.)

[jwdunne]

This is a little. It off topic and I could be really wrong but why don't you try a low calorie diet in general for 2 weeks followed by a healthy, balanced diet inc. both your proteins and complex carbs rather than doing the Atkins diet?

I've read in a few places that restricting your diet to 600 calories a day for 2 weeks has shown a reversal in type 2 diabetes. If you believe you're pre-diabetic, perhaps this may help? If it works for full blown diabetics, could it also work for a pre-diabetic?

There are tonnes of pages in Google on this but the jist is that this study was done at the Uni of Newxastle and it's funnily enough called the 'Newcastle diet'. Here's a link with more info: http://www.diabetes.co.uk/diet/newcastle-study-600-calorie-d...

[natrius]

600 calories a day is hard. Atkins is easy. I suspect both approaches will work, but Atkins will succeed more often because adherence is easier.

[stcredzero]

> I've read in a few places that restricting your diet to 600 calories a day for 2 weeks has shown a reversal in type 2 diabetes. If you believe you're pre-diabetic, perhaps this may help? If it works for full blown diabetics, could it also work for a pre-diabetic?

That's excellent information. Thanks!

[Evbn]

Also called "South Beach" diet.

[nigori]

I'm not grokking how legumes are bad, can you please elaborate?

[Devilboy]

Most plants evolved mechanisms to stop their seeds and sprouts being eaten and digested. Legumes can be toxic to eat raw, contain aflatoxins and cause digestive issues - but they don't contribute much to your diet besides a bit of protein.

[Evbn]

And most humans developed a method to make inedible foods edible: cooking.

[spleeyah]

This sounds like a keto diet. If so, welcome! :)

http://reddit.com/r/keto

[Zenst]

It's interesting you mention diet coke, the whole artificial sugars are probably doing as much damage and your right to mention them as any artifical sugar substitute is designed to feed into that sugar addiction/stimulate taste buds and will effect how you taste and eat food.

I'm still on my transition phase, having moved from desert spoons to teas spoon in my coffee and diet softdrinks, though I do like a full fat cola with food. But have been interested in this berry they have which makes bitter/sour things taste sweeter. That is something that does seem to be a more palatable approach to quelling sugar addiction and could make for a rather nice cup of coffee, evern the cheaper stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsepalum_dulcificum is the bean which I'm on about and you may of heard of it already in the name `miracle fruit`.

All that said, I don't think anybody can name a person that has regretted giving up sugar, though I'm happy to sit in the moderatly decling usage and wont deny it.

But we all blame the sweets as children, even though as children we have a bias towards sweet tasting foods. This is genetic and a health preserving one as well as sour/bitter foods are in general covers most posioness edibles and it is not until we get older do we loose that bias and aquire a more palatable acceptance to bitter/sour tasting foods and drinks. Our eyesight also is biased to the red spectrum when were younger and biases towards blue as we get older, again red being dangerous in nature.

So geneticly there are reasons we are all born sugar addicts, and given the reasons and the way civilisation is modernising forward then it is a trait that may eventualy drop from our genetic code, though that will still be a long way away due to the benifit it serves babies and small children who are still learning what and what they can and can not eat.

[StavrosK]

> the whole artificial sugars are probably doing as much damage

Wikipedia says:

> Aspartame has been found to be safe for human consumption by more than ninety countries worldwide, with FDA officials describing aspartame as "one of the most thoroughly tested and studied food additives the agency has ever approved" and its safety as "clear cut", but has been the subject of several controversies, hoaxes and health scares.

Do you have a reference for that assertion?

[Zenst]

Historicaly artificial sweetners of some types have been proven to increase the chances of cancer and I have. I also said probably as nothing is fully proven until many many years later as we all know. In general it is one of those open debates that again only time proves. As for specifics there was no one report I have refered to or any one sweetner, again why I used the term probably. Not everybody has died from smoking a cigerrette or the effects of, everybody is different and all the FDA approval means that it is safe by there standards, based upon there results at that point in time and unless something comes along to prove otherwise to a unaceptable level then that won't change. I drink diet soda, its a acceptable risk in my book. That said natural alternatives have by definition been tested over a longer time with the effects upon humans as a rule and pretty much most people are much happier with that assurance over FDA approval. The thing is you can find assertions arguing both ways as it is still one of those nothing truely proven one way or another situations. I find the thought that any product I purchase in the UK that has it, has a warning label by law. But a fairer way to look at it would be are there are no references on that wiki page you refer to in that it is healther than sugar, so I will stand by my statement that it is probably doing as much damage.

[lotsofpulp]

Your first two sentences contradict each other. In addition to that, there's quite a few assertions and leaps of logic in the rest of the post, especially in the last sentence.

However, the point is, artificial sweeteners have been around for quite some time, and there haven't been any indications that sweeteners cause cancer. On top of that, there have been numerous studies by the FDA and other organizations in Europe, all coming to the same conclusion. So unless you are implying a lack of credibility in those institutions, I don't see how claiming "sweeteners probably increase chances of cancer" as anything but fear mongering.

[Zenst]

"sweeteners probably increase chances of cancer" you said that, I didn't. I said "sweetners are probably as bad for you" in the context of a comparision with sugar.

Fact the FDA has banned unbanned and rebanned and unbanned so many of these artificial seetners that even they over time you can see why people are so unsure becasue historicaly that is how they have been themselfs. I also stated I drink diet soft drinks which contain them, my choice so you can see that fear mongering is realy my main agenda, clearly.

Now if a institution changes it's mind more than once, I'm sure some aspect of there crdibility is in question. I live in the UK said products have warning and given that, I have resonable doubts about them being 100% safe in every aspect of use, but it is an acceptable risk and may or may not even be a risk at all, we just don't know.

I'm not saying there bad, I'm not saying there good, there have been some that currently appear to do no harm and some that are stilll banned or withdrawn from market historicaly, there are many types of artificial sweetners, some are currently banned some are currently allowed and in that when I say they are probably just as bad as sugar then that is exactly what I mean, there is no 100% prove either way that they are not are that they are, they could be less bad than sugar and they could be alot worse, sorry I didn't quantify it with exact brands but if anybody knew the exact answear then great, but they don't so I excersise resonable doubts.

Until somebody can clearly state that artificial sweetners are safer than sugar overall with regards to health then the debate will always carry on.

[iwejfweoifjweif]

Aren't most artificial sweeteners only 40-50 years old? Asbestos has been used for 4500 years but only in the past 100 have we realized its dangerous.

[mistercow]

If you buy packaged food from stores, you're regularly consuming dozens of compounds that have been around for a comparable amount of time to sucralose and whose long term effects are comparably poorly known. If you drive a car more than 10 miles a day, your cost benefit analysis would be better spent on figuring out how to reduce that than on trying to mitigate the tiny odds that a randomly singled-out food additive might be causing some marginal health effect.

Also, you can't really compare the way things were vetted for safety over a century ago to how they are vetted today.

[chipsy]

I personally have taken the stance that there is negative campaigning going on from both sides, dirtying the science. This is why you keep seeing people cry out that the sweeteners cause cancer - it's one of those easy, believable, fear-inducing lies that is also difficult to either prove or dismiss.

The best words I have to say in favor of artificial sweeteners are - you aren't seeing high-profile lawsuits claiming health damages. Lots of FUD, no money. On the other hand, real sugar has a few easily discovered examples, generally derived from the sugar being used in products with "nutritious" or "healthy" labelling:

http://www.inquisitr.com/226431/nutella-settles-lawsuit-for-...

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-204_162-2926923.html

[graeme]

There's some evidence that sweeteners harm gut flora. Here's a random study I found on splenda affecting the gut flora of rats:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18800291

[mistercow]

A panel of experts from multiple universities (including Duke, where the study originated) smacked that study down pretty hard: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19567260

[Devilboy]

Aspartame is perfectly safe physically. It does affect how you perceive taste of course. Your brain links the sweetness of the aspartame with the caffeine high. But remember caffeine alone is addictive anyway so I don't think this is anything to worry about.

[Zenst]

Oh I totaly agree the level of risk from unknown factors later on is less impacting than the effects of worrying about it. Suppose in some ways artificial sweetners are like methadone.

[stan_rogers]

Just as an aside, that "miracle fruit" (available as tablets made from dried fruit from ThinkGeek if you can't find a local source) is an absolute lifesaver for people suffering from serious illnesses that put them off their feed.

My own experience leads me to think that the body goes through a process that runs something like this: "I don't know what's happening, but I feel like crap. Maybe it's something I ate? Let's crank up the anti-poisoning safeguards, just to be safe." Unfortunately, since both bitter and sour can be indicators of unsafe foods, with the safeguards cranked up, everything that has even a hint of tartness or bite tastes like absolute crap. Suppressing the gag reflex is difficult, and reverse peristalsis after healthy meals is not uncommon. Turning off the tongue's ability to detect bitter and sour makes almost all healthy foodstuffs palatable (although you should probably expect to undergo a little bit of cognitive dissonance -- Brussels sprouts aren't supposed to taste like almost-overripe plums, they just do after sucking on one of these little pills).

They won't give you back your appetite, but they sure make eating feel a lot less like a punishment for unspecified crimes in a previous life or some such.

[Zenst]

Thank you, glad to hear that it not only works but has other possibilities with regards to health. Oh and doube thanks about that brussel sprout insight, you may of very well saved christmas/thanksgiving dinner from many a argument.

[hristov]

Congratulations! But I should note that it is very very difficult to quit refined sugar completely. Many things that are not sweet at all can have sugar or hfcs added to them. This includes most bread, pizza, ketchup, all kinds of sauces and marinades, most salad dressings, etc.

Tragically, when cheap hfcs appeared, the food industry decided to start putting the stuff everywhere. Now it is very hard to avoid it even if you do not eat anything sweet.

[peteretep]

It's very difficult to quit it completely, but quite easy to find food that doesn't derive the majority of its calories from sugar.

I consciously quit sugar about 6 months ago, and lost a ton of weight, and feel much better for it. However, I recently had to travel to the US for work, and avoiding sugar there was near on impossible. You guys have the chips stacked against you...

[troymc]

I also love interesting teas and find that Red Rose orange pekoe tea is delightful without any sweeteners. It used to advertise as being "only available in Canada" but surely that's no longer true. (What fool would limit their business to such a small market?)

[qxcv]

> Newegg.com does not currently ship internationally; we only deliver to locations within the United States and to Puerto Rico.

Granted, Newegg are retailers rather than manufacturers, but country-based product restrictions are surprisingly common[0].

[0]: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22we+only+ship+to+locations...

[spc476]

As a kid, my Grandmother weaned me off soda (and she wasn't sly about it---she outright told me what she was doing). At first, she got me to drink iced tea with as much sugar as I wanted. Once I got to the point of drinking tea out of habit, she then had me slowly lower the amount of sugar I added.

These days, I prefer unsweetened iced tea. I may add sugar to hot tea (usually black teas) but not often. I also found that soda tastes a bit odd to me these days.