When we talk about sugar, what image do you get in your head? Most people think of table sugar. However, sugar comes in many forms and most people don’t know when they eat a ton of sugar. For example, if you eat a potato, it is full of sugar but because it is in starch form, you can’t taste the sweetness. But it is still sugar!
Some people also think that there is a difference between different forms of sugar, such as table sugar vs natural sugar, such as date sugar, or sugar in a fresh fruit, and most also have no idea that a slice of sourdough bread may has as much as 18 teaspoons of table sugar equivalent in starches that they can’t even taste as sugar. And this sugar I just listed is not added sugar. It is sugar within the food because a potato or a slice of bread or rice or beans, none sweet tasting, but they are all made of plants. Plants contain carbohydrates and carbohydrates are sugars!
What is your opinion?
Do you think there is a difference in sugar between the following items?
1 cup of cooked white rice (205 gr) —59 gr carbohydrates, 15 teaspoons of sugar
vs 15 teaspoons of sugar?
1 slice of sourdough bread (139 gr) — 72 gr carbohydrates, 18 teaspoons of sugar in starch
vs 18 teaspoons of table sugar?
Two cups vanilla ice cream (132 gr) — 62 gr carbohydrates, 15.5 teaspoons of sugar
vs 15.5 teaspoons of table sugar?
Two cups (16 oz) Minute Maid, lemon flavor — 58 gr carbohydrates, 14.5 teaspoons of sugar
vs 14.5 teaspoons of table sugar?
Two cups (16 oz) unsweetened orange juice (fresh & concentrate) — 57 gr carbs, 14.3 teaspoons of sugar
vs 14.3 teaspoons of table sugar?
4 Medjool dates (96 gr) — 72 gr carbohydrates, 18 teaspoons of sugar
vs 18 teaspoons of sugar?
I decided to add a comment that I posted also on Facebook:
A serving of banana, 136 grams without skin, has 31 gr total carbohydrates, of which 3.5 gr is fiber, so 27.5 gr net carbs, which is equal to nearly 7 teaspoons of sugar and it has no other nutrients, except for potassium. 136 gr banana has 487 mg potassium.
A California avocado, weighing 136 gr (without seed and skin) has 690 mg potassium and only 12 carb grams, most of which is fiber, so the net carbs that turn to sugar is 2 grams, or half a teaspoon.
So let me get this straight:
A nutritionist suggested that eating a banana is better in nutrition than, for example, an avocado of the same size, although the avocado has 1/4 of the sugar but nearly twice the potassium? And I didn’t even compare the banana to salmon or beef, both of which have more potassium or at least as much potassium, zero sugar, and a ton more nutrients!
If you think there is a difference between sugar vs sugar:
Please comment and explain: why?
Comments and questions are welcome, as always, and are moderated for appropriateness.
Angela A Stanton, PhD, is a Neuroeconomist focusing on chronic pain--migraine in particular--physiology, electrolyte homeostasis, nutrition, and genetics. She lives in Southern California. Her current research is focused on migraine cause, prevention, and treatment without the use of medicine. As a forever migraineur from childhood, her discovery was helped by experimenting on herself. She found the cause of migraine to be at the ionic level, associated with disruption of the electrolyte homeostasis, resulting from genetic variations of all voltage dependent channels, gates, and pumps (chanelopathy) that modulate electrolyte mineral density and voltage in the brain. In addition, insulin and glucose transporters, and several other variants, such as MTHFR variants of B vitamin methylation process and many others are different in the case of a migraineur from the general population.
Migraineurs are glucose sensitive (carbohydrate intolerant) and should avoid eating carbs as much as possible. She is working on her hypothesis that migraine is a metabolic disease.
As a result of the success of the first edition of her book and her helping over 5000 migraineurs successfully prevent their migraines world wide, all ages and both genders, and all types of migraines, she published the 2nd (extended) edition of her migraine book "Fighting The Migraine Epidemic: Complete Guide: How To Treat & Prevent Migraines Without Medications". The 2nd edition is the “holy grail” of migraine cause, development, and prevention, incorporating all there is to know. It includes a long section for medical and research professionals. The book is full of academic citations (over 800) to authenticate the statements she makes to make it easy to follow up by those interested and to spark further research interest. It is a "Complete Guide", published on September 29, 2017.
Dr. Stanton received her BSc at UCLA in Mathematics, MBA at UCR, MS in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University, PhD in Economics with dissertation in neuroscience (culminating in Neuroeconomics) at Claremont Graduate University, fMRI certification at Harvard University Medical School at the Martinos Center for Neuroimaging for experimenting with neurotransmitters on human volunteers, certification in LCHF/ketogenic diet from NN (Nutrition Network), certification in physiology (UPEN via Coursea), Nutrition (Harvard Shool of Public Health) and functional medicine studies. Dr. Stanton is an avid sports fan, currently power weight lifting and kickboxing. For relaxation (yeah.. about a half minute each day), she paints and photographs and loves to spend time with her family of husband of 45 years, 2 sons and their wives, and 2 granddaughters.
Follow her on Twitter at: @MigraineBook, LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelaastantonphd/ and facebook at https://www.facebook.com/DrAngelaAStanton/
Psyllium is a soluble fiber. It is a bulk-forming laxative. It can pick up some sugar from the digestive tract and take it to the gut flora to be used by the flora itself. Soluble and insoluble fiber both have a happy place in our gut if we eat plants. Note the caveat: if you eat plants, you should eat whole plants so that you have both soluble and insoluble fiber because these absorb or retain, soluble and insoluble fiber, respectively, sugars, so you don’t get it for yourself.
In other words: eating an apple with its insoluble fiber in tact and whatever soluble fiber it has, is way better for you than drinking the same apple as a juice with the fiber added back into it as “pulp”. The fiber must be natural and undisturbed in the food when you eat it. Adding fiber from a bottle to what you eat/ate won’t have the same effect in insoluble fiber at all but may have a similar effect in soluble fiber to what it would be have you eaten the fiber with the fruit/vegetable. It’s unclear.
In any case: if you eat fruits and vegetables as you should, meaning whole and not juices or blended, then there is no reason for you to eat psyllium separately. And if you drank fruit juice or ate fruits in other processed way, it may not help you either. The one thing that fiber does predictably is that it causes constipation. Everyone I have ever met and talked to who moved to the carnivore diet without any plants and thus without any fiber, no matter how badly constipated they had been in their lives, it improved.
Is there a difference between sugar in a cell (natuaral source) and sugar not in a cell (processed: bread for example and special natural source: honey)?
Otto thank you for your question. I am not sure what “in the cell” or “not in the cell” means. There are no “cells” in honey any more than sugar is water or sugar in any substance or sugar inside an apple. So my answer incorporates “in cell” as within plant cell, aka fiber, and “not in cell” as juice or similar.
Where there is a difference is whether you eat that apple whole with fiber (there is not much fiber in an apple or in a banana) vs if you juice that apple or banana, because in the juicing process the fiber gets destroyed. So in a natural fruit or vegetable, without any changes to that fruit and vegetable, the sugar is within the “cell” of the plant and is, therefore, enclosed in fiber–however little fiber some of these fruits have. The fiber amount itself is not digested by the person eating the fruit but by the flora in the gut gets it all, and so we subtract the fiber from total carbohydrates and get to “net” carbohydrates, which I demonstrated in the article.
In terms of the actual sugar within different items, such as a natural source, like the sugar in banana or honey, or processed source, such as in bread: there is no difference. The chemical base of glucose in nature is C6H12O6 and for fructose it is C6H12O6 (they are identical only connect in a different way to other things), whether it is made in the lab or honey or banana or bread. And once you ate the food, whatever sugar content it has, your body will use that sugar exactly the same way, because, for your body, sugar is: C6H12O6.
You can test this by using a CGM (continuous glucose monitor) to some degree, to see the spike of your blood glucose. There will be some differences in that fructose connects differently, but most of the fructose converts to glucose or alcohol in the body, making fructose worse than glucose, alas it shows less as a glucose spike.
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Angela what do you think about psylium?
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Erika,
Psyllium is a soluble fiber. It is a bulk-forming laxative. It can pick up some sugar from the digestive tract and take it to the gut flora to be used by the flora itself. Soluble and insoluble fiber both have a happy place in our gut if we eat plants. Note the caveat: if you eat plants, you should eat whole plants so that you have both soluble and insoluble fiber because these absorb or retain, soluble and insoluble fiber, respectively, sugars, so you don’t get it for yourself.
In other words: eating an apple with its insoluble fiber in tact and whatever soluble fiber it has, is way better for you than drinking the same apple as a juice with the fiber added back into it as “pulp”. The fiber must be natural and undisturbed in the food when you eat it. Adding fiber from a bottle to what you eat/ate won’t have the same effect in insoluble fiber at all but may have a similar effect in soluble fiber to what it would be have you eaten the fiber with the fruit/vegetable. It’s unclear.
In any case: if you eat fruits and vegetables as you should, meaning whole and not juices or blended, then there is no reason for you to eat psyllium separately. And if you drank fruit juice or ate fruits in other processed way, it may not help you either. The one thing that fiber does predictably is that it causes constipation. Everyone I have ever met and talked to who moved to the carnivore diet without any plants and thus without any fiber, no matter how badly constipated they had been in their lives, it improved.
Best,
Angela
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Is there a difference between sugar in a cell (natuaral source) and sugar not in a cell (processed: bread for example and special natural source: honey)?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Otto thank you for your question. I am not sure what “in the cell” or “not in the cell” means. There are no “cells” in honey any more than sugar is water or sugar in any substance or sugar inside an apple. So my answer incorporates “in cell” as within plant cell, aka fiber, and “not in cell” as juice or similar.
Where there is a difference is whether you eat that apple whole with fiber (there is not much fiber in an apple or in a banana) vs if you juice that apple or banana, because in the juicing process the fiber gets destroyed. So in a natural fruit or vegetable, without any changes to that fruit and vegetable, the sugar is within the “cell” of the plant and is, therefore, enclosed in fiber–however little fiber some of these fruits have. The fiber amount itself is not digested by the person eating the fruit but by the flora in the gut gets it all, and so we subtract the fiber from total carbohydrates and get to “net” carbohydrates, which I demonstrated in the article.
In terms of the actual sugar within different items, such as a natural source, like the sugar in banana or honey, or processed source, such as in bread: there is no difference. The chemical base of glucose in nature is C6H12O6 and for fructose it is C6H12O6 (they are identical only connect in a different way to other things), whether it is made in the lab or honey or banana or bread. And once you ate the food, whatever sugar content it has, your body will use that sugar exactly the same way, because, for your body, sugar is: C6H12O6.
You can test this by using a CGM (continuous glucose monitor) to some degree, to see the spike of your blood glucose. There will be some differences in that fructose connects differently, but most of the fructose converts to glucose or alcohol in the body, making fructose worse than glucose, alas it shows less as a glucose spike.
I hope this answered your question.
Angela
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thanks Angela! I stick to carbs from vegetables in a prominently meat-based diet.
I love my “quiet” brains. And not 1 headache for more than 10 years!
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Super to hear Otto! Great job!
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once again a great message Angela. George. www.takebackyrhealth.com
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Thank you!
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