Sugar v's Sugar

[Thisismyusernamefornow]

I have a friend who claims that all sugar is the same regardless of where we are getting it from.

I would rather my children had fruit and veg sugar. The friend doesn't mind if their children's sugar comes from sweeties and soft drinks.

My friend is a very intelligent lady and can usually back up her argument with a scientific, factual response. I don't have the nutritional knowledge to defend my opinion.

Is all sugar the same?!

[Happyspud]

No. One is refined, the other is naturally occurring. One comes packaged with fibre and bits and minerals, the other is just pure sugar carbs. The body metabolises them differently I believe but that might be quantity related rather than because their quality is different? Not sure.

[Happyspud]

Oh and these manufactured fructose syrups etc are lethal. They actually affect permanently how your body metabolises food.

[7Worfs]

On a biochemical level she is correct, however natural sources of sugar are still healthier - they have other micro nutrients and a lot less calories. Less sugar too, if you compare an apple to a Kit Kat. Plus refined sugar products have a lot of additives that aren’t great

[Mrsmorton]

AFAICR, all sugars are made up of different ratios of fructose, sucrose, glucose (& then some weird ones like maltose & galactose?)

So yes, all "sugars" are the same. The difference being the accessory benefits you get from fruit & veg: fibre, moisture, protein, vitamins etc.

[BlueCornsihPixie]

All sugar is the same yes

However fruit comes the added benefit of fibre and more nutrients. So is healthier than sweets, because there is a lot of benefit to eating it and because it is less sticky so won't stick to teeth and less acidic for their teeth.

Fruit generally will have less sugar than soft drinks/Sweets as well.

So whilst the actual sugar component is still the same the foods are entirely different

[Mrsmorton]

Just looked it up! Sugars are made of fructose, glucose and or galactose in different ratios to make sucrose and lactose.

[Iamnotacerealkiller]

She is right that the sugar is the same. However they come with different things don't they. Fruit cones with fibre and vitamins and you need to eat a lot of them for the same amount. Sweets and fizzy drinks contain god knows what on top of the sugar.

A better comparison would be with fruit juice which is terrible for you and should be avoided. It's basically sugar water with all the good stuff stripped out. As much sugar as a can of coke without the mitigating fibre which will slow down the absorption of the sugar into the blood.

[NoWayNoHow]

From a processing perspective, sugar is sugar is sugar in terms of what your body does with it. However, it's obviously better if that sugar comes from something that also has vitamins, nutrients, fibre etc rather than just E numbers and food colouring.

[JennyK76]

No - all sugar is not the same. For example, table sugar is actually 50 per cent fructose and 50 per cent glucose and honey is 40 per cent fructose and 30 per cent glucose. However, with honey, you also get water, pollen and minerals, including magnesium and potassium.

Of course, the chemical structure of the fructose and glucose in both is identical but the way your body deals with the fructose in, say, an apple and in a glass of coke are totally different. The sugar in an apple will be broken down slowly and released into your body over time preventing dangerous sugar spikes that cause diabetes. At the same time, your gut bacteria will eat the fibre in the fruit and release compounds that travel into your system and help your body regulate your metabolism - preventing obesity and diabetes (and there is some evidence to say these compounds also reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease). The sugar in a fizzy drink will all hit your system in one go causing dangerous spikes in your blood sugar and increasing your risk of diabetes. There is no fibre or other compounds in the drink that your system expects - so the other processes that happen in a normal healthy metabolism do not take place.

Fructose in WHOLE fruit has not been shown to have any negative health impacts (fruit juices are too high sugar and low fibre so they are also unhealthy unless drunk in small amounts). However refined fructose found in processed foods has been shown to have some very nasty effects.

Sugary fizzy drinks are the worst because of the high volumes of sugar and also the carbonation. Zero-calorie carbonated drinks also have some very nasty effects so the combination of carbonation with high sugar is doubly bad. So you are much better off giving your child a piece of fruit than a fizzy drink even if the absolute levels of sugar are the same.

[MrsMozartMkII]

My body reacts differently to refined sugars as opposed to natural sugars. The former is unpleasant as a rule, the latter is hardly noticeable (apart from pears, it doesn't like those for some reason).

[venusandmars]

Well... it depends. If you are giving your dc fruit juice (lots of sugar, no fibre) multiple times a day and thinking it is healthy, and she is giving her dc one artificial sugar drink, knowing it is laden with sugar (and therefore limiting it), then your dc are likely to be less healthy than hers...

However if you're giving your dc raw broccoli and cucumber and she's giving them a Mars bar, it's the other way round.

Bottom line is that we should be discouraging a 'sweet tooth' however that sugar is delivered. It all triggers an insulin response. Our bodies are marvellous and cope with this, but we were designed to cope with an insulin spike a couple of times a year, not 4 times a day.

[Thisismyusernamefornow]

Thank you everyone. I think I'm getting it. The science is helpful.

[Camomila]

Does anyone know what the deal is with oranges vs orange juice?
When I was on iron tablets I was told to drink orange juice to help with iron absorbtion. I'm guessing in that case the juice is better as otherwise you'd have to eat 2/3 oranges in one go?

[JennyK76]

Vitamin C helps you absorb iron from your food. So eating any form of vitamin C will do the job. All citrus fruit have good levels of vitamin C (as whole fruit and juice) as do dark green leafy vegetables, bell peppers, melons and strawberries. So you don't have to rely on orange juice - it is very high in sugar so you don't want to be having lots of it. Vitamin C supplements do the job too - so one of those dissolvable vitamin C tablets taken with your supplement should work fine too.

[Thisismyusernamefornow]

so we definitely don't want to be giving the haribo out because all sugar is the same do we ?

[lazylinguist]

No, because apples have good stuff in them as well as the sugar. I suppose, arguably... if your friend's dc ate nothing but really healthy nutritious food all day, but then snacked on Haribo, they could still be better off than a child who wasn't allowed sweets but ate generally less healthily the rest of the day... Meh. Fruit's good, sweets are bad!