Sugar as a primary dietary food source..?

[dannn]

Just wanted to share a wildly divergent perspective on the most healthy way to feed oneself.  ...with sugar

This person advocates carbohydrates as your primary food source (rice, pasta, fruit, fruit juice, and literally table sugar).  He strongly advocates starting the day by eating fruit covered in refined table sugar.

It's such heretical thinking that it really caught me off guard and I knee jerk just blew this off as ridiculous, because I've been following along with the keto VS carnivore VS vegan slog fest and trying some of these.  And everyone knows that refined sugar is "bad."  And most in 'western culture' including myself view complex carbs as dubious or something that should be avoided.

But if you actually follow the video all the way through, the logic seems good.  Basically that every cell in the body is powered by sugar.  Sugar is the 'nutrient' that you actually run on.  So what should you eat for mental and physical energy?  ...sugar, dummy

Here's the video:  And background context, he's vegan, an endurance athletics coach, and appears to blur into like a life coach to his coaching community.

And one more video, specifically for Leo (more unsolicited advice, sorry buddy can't help it).  I noticed and watched this one about SIBO and leaky gut.  It's kind of an obnoxious rant and I think overly dismissive and sarcastic about the situation.  But towards the end he kind of goes into his childhood gastro problems and how he comes from a fat family etc...  I think it's an interesting card to consider as part of strategizing on how to re introduce food.  ...table sugar dissolved in water.  This is the most efficient and easily digestible strategy to get a full power up injection ATP into brain and muscle cells.  White table sugar is not synthesized in an industrial chemistry lab BTW, which I always assumed for some reason.  It's pulled out of the leaves of sugarcane plants and de-colorized.

 

[4201]

20 minutes ago, dannn said:

But if you actually follow the video all the way through, the logic seems good.  Basically that every cell in the body is powered by sugar.  Sugar is the 'nutrient' that you actually run on.  So what should you eat for mental and physical energy?  ...sugar, dummy

What this logic fails to see is that sugar is basically everywhere and everyone takes way too much of it, causing massive cases of obesity, diabetes, etc. What does your body do when it has too much energy? It stores it obviously and thus you get fat. Eating more sugar might be good for extreme athlete but if you are an average person doing an average amount of physical exercise, it's likely you consume way too much sugar for what you need already and your lack of energy in life is not related to a lack of ATP in your system but probably a lack of other vitamin you would only get eating a rich and varied diet.

 

[dannn]

hmm, yeah what you said there is par for the course that excess sugar causes obesity, diabetes, bad stuff etc...  and sugar is bad.  I totally agreed as that's one of those beliefs that's programmed in by default in western culture, I think.  Serious, I was totally on board with anti sugar, been trying low carb diets for years, cut out sugary drinks, candy, etc...  Totally in line with the doctors orders and common western dietary thinking.  But yeah this guys video content was quite a shock to my system.  Maybe sugar is good?

worth trying to me, I'm in for a couple month long experiment.

he says every cell in the body runs on sugar, so eat sugar.  Really resonates with me in a very sort of childlike pure logic.  And for some psuedo sciency type backup if that's needed, well u could just watch the guys video's, but what he says is that all sugar that you eat goes into the blood and excess sugar is purged out by the kidneys and pissed out and not stored as fat.  Whereas all fat that you eat goes directly into fat storage and only burned off when muscle glycogen is depleted and that's hard to maintain psychologically, and it makes people lethargic as compared to a high carb diet, and throws your endocyn system out of wack long term.  And also that diabetes is actually caused by too much dietary fat intake and fat blocking ATP receptors or something and not allowing sugar into the cells.  Anyhow, it's all beliefs until verified by doing it, I've never actually seen an "endocrin" haha.  gonna give it a go.

[Leo Gura]

Raw sugar feeds bacteria. So for SIBO it is a fail. That is a bacteria's favorite food source.

The problem with eating raw sugar is that it is pure calories with zero nutrients. For optimum health you want to maximize the amount of nutrients you get per calorie. A pound of sugar will contain lots of calories but zero nutrients. Whereas a pound of blueberries will contain less calories but a thousand times more nutrients. Those nutrients are what keep your body young and healthy. Antioxidants, phytochemicals, natural plant pigments, fiber, etc -- that's what keeps you healthy.

Also, sugar it not very filling compared to fibrous foods, fats, and proteins.

If you're gonna eat sugar, at least replace it with raw honey to get some nutrients.

[Michael569]

There is a difference between carbohydrates and table sugar. When people say low-carb what they often mean is low-sugar diet e..g no bread no candy no cracker and bullshit cereals. Complex high fibre forms of carbohydrates like fruit, vegetables, legumes and whole grains are actually beneficial. I totally agree with Durianrider that most people need to eat more fruit and less crap. 

But his advice on needing to eat more refined sugar is totally whacky. Most people already eat too much of that anyways and after hearing this many will be like "oh, let me get extra tablespoon of sugar in my coffee because it is good for me". We already have a great problem in diabetes. People's sugar is through the roof and 1 out of 3 will become diabetic in their lifetime in the west. Children as young as 12 are becoming full-blown diabetics. The last thing we need is more sugar in the general diet. With the rise of high-fructose corn syrup, keeping normal levels of blood glucose is becoming difficult in those who are not aware of its dangers. 

This advice is missing a more complex and holistic picture which is that carbs are not bad but we need to be picky with our carbohydrate intake. Equally, he is wrong on fat. Fat does not make you fat, we need dietary fat for many reasons such as the health and integrity of myelin sheet covering all your neurons of the central nervous system and for optimal endocrine and glandular function. Only if you overeat, does fat in the diet become the fat around the belly. 

Also the advice that "sugar that you don't need is peed out" is not as simple and we know that excess sugar causes a rapid release of insulin and sudden hypoglycemia. f that keeps happening, adrenaline has to be released all the time and over years this causes reactive hypoglycemia and often leads to blood sugar management complications as the balancing systems become exhausted. 

The problem with these theories is that the majority of population have very little nutrition knowledge and so information like this that sounds exciting and comforting is actually quite harmful because people will selectively bias. It is like when Eric Berg says we should all eat beef so people start eating double portions of beef burgers with their fries because "it is good" But what Eric really mean was "eat steak but load it up with a second plate of 1 pound of vegetables". 

Durianrider has a lot of good content but many of his videos are insane, inaccurate and he has been criticised for making stuff up which is why his account was banned and unbanned many times. 

 

[4201]

10 hours ago, dannn said:

hmm, yeah what you said there is par for the course that excess sugar causes obesity, diabetes, bad stuff etc...  and sugar is bad.  I totally agreed as that's one of those beliefs that's programmed in by default in western culture, I think.  Serious, I was totally on board with anti sugar, been trying low carb diets for years, cut out sugary drinks, candy, etc...  Totally in line with the doctors orders and common western dietary thinking.  But yeah this guys video content was quite a shock to my system.  Maybe sugar is good?

worth trying to me, I'm in for a couple month long experiment.

he says every cell in the body runs on sugar, so eat sugar.  Really resonates with me in a very sort of childlike pure logic.  And for some psuedo sciency type backup if that's needed, well u could just watch the guys video's, but what he says is that all sugar that you eat goes into the blood and excess sugar is purged out by the kidneys and pissed out and not stored as fat.  Whereas all fat that you eat goes directly into fat storage and only burned off when muscle glycogen is depleted and that's hard to maintain psychologically, and it makes people lethargic as compared to a high carb diet, and throws your endocyn system out of wack long term.  And also that diabetes is actually caused by too much dietary fat intake and fat blocking ATP receptors or something and not allowing sugar into the cells.  Anyhow, it's all beliefs until verified by doing it, I've never actually seen an "endocrin" haha.  gonna give it a go.

The problems of excess sugar is not a "belief of western society" it's one of the main problem of current western society. With half of the american population obese, there's an overwhelming amount of research on it you can access online for free.

Maybe you are an "I don't belive in academia" type of guy and you really want to "try it out yourself". Then how do you know lead is poison? If you think it's poison because you've been told it's poison it's just a "belief of western society". According to your logic you won't ever know if something is poison before dying from it. If you want to base your nutrition entirely on bro-science, you'll just worsen your health and make your sugar addiction more intense.

Edited June 21, 2021 by 4201

[Leo Gura]

It would be interesting to run a test where people eat nothing but pure glucose for 10 years.

Who knows, maybe they would come out healthier? Think of how many toxins and chemicals and pesticides and heavy metals they would avoid.

Compared to a SAD diet it would probably come out on top. But SAD diet is such a low bar.

And eating glucose for 10 years is no fun.

[4201]

59 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It would be interesting to run a test where people eat nothing but pure glucose for 10 years.

Who knows, maybe they would come out healthier? Think of how many toxins and chemicals and pesticides and heavy metals they would avoid.

Compared to a SAD diet it would probably come out on top. But SAD diet is such a low bar.

And eating glucose for 10 years is no fun.

I mean we already know what happens when someone doesn't eat vitamin C for a couple of months. Now that for every nutrient your body needs and 10 years? You'd prob go to the ER after 2 months lol

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, 4201 said:

I mean we already know what happens when someone doesn't eat vitamin C for a couple of months. Now that for every nutrient your body needs and 10 years? You'd prob go to the ER after 2 months lol

Well, of course they'd supplement basic vitamins.

[dannn]

4201 yur last comment to me was quite rude and if this was a DM I'd simply bail out and avoid a shit slinging contest, but as this is a public forum with other people possibly interested I'll elaborate.

I have an idea baked into my brain that "sugar is bad" and that carbs should be restricted.  I did Tim Ferriss' 'slow carb diet' for quite a while in 2017 to decent effect (that's basically replacing all starches with lentils, eat yur vegetables, and don't eat fruit because it has sugar).  Currently basically my entire extended family and a lot of people at work etc... is on the keto diet.  Lots of fatty meat, extremely restricting carbs, bacon is back in fashion.  Seems like a violation of common sense but hey it's backed up by science with doctors and influencers and podcasters everywhere discussing the wonders of ketosis and how satiating fat is.  I've always maintained good health and vitality but I've seen my weight kind of fluctuating over the years as well as those around me sort of struggling with BMI and experimenting with macronutrient distribution, and all the while there is a background belief that sugar (carbohydrates) should be limited and definitely refined sugar is "bad."  So it was quite revelational to me to discover a huge community and body of work that's pro sugar, pro carb, with sound logic to back it up.  The message is simple, eat sugar (cabohydrates, any of them) to fuel your brain and body for work and maintain full resting glycogen store in muscle and brain so u have max potential energy for work.  Take in some protein and plenty of micronutrients (veg, green drinks, sups, etc...) for your body to maintain itself.  Limit fat intake until your at the BMI that you want and then hold and simply manipulate your BMI with your fat intake, understanding that all fat consumed goes directly into storage and it's not easy to burn off excess fat.  This is basically the opposite of the current macro nutrient zeitgeist, and is completely heretical because fruit juice and refined sugar is used strategically and appreciated as a nutrient.

I'm not planning to eat a pure table sugar diet, with lead poison sprinkled on top.  Or even to maintain a severely fat restricted diet super long term.  But yeah this seems like an interesting experiment to drop the 10kg fat I've been carrying on and off for 10 years.  Anyhow, I'm doing the kempner diet as an experiment. (vid below)

Here's another video.  I'm assuming no one watched the previous ones because they're like 1 hour rants.  But watch this one.  It's only 6 minutes long, and cites various pub med studies and medical researchers and their work over the last half century.

 

[4201]

12 minutes ago, dannn said:

4201 yur last comment to me was quite rude and if this was a DM I'd simply bail out and avoid a shit slinging contest, but as this is a public forum with other people possibly interested I'll elaborate.

I have an idea baked into my brain that "sugar is bad" and that carbs should be restricted.  I did Tim Ferriss' 'slow carb diet' for quite a while in 2017 to decent effect (that's basically replacing all starches with lentils, eat yur vegetables, and don't eat fruit because it has sugar).  Currently basically my entire extended family and a lot of people at work etc... is on the keto diet.  Lots of fatty meat, extremely restricting carbs, bacon is back in fashion.  Seems like a violation of common sense but hey it's backed up by science with doctors and influencers and podcasters everywhere discussing the wonders of ketosis and how satiating fat is.  I've always maintained good health and vitality but I've seen my weight kind of fluctuating over the years as well as those around me sort of struggling with BMI and experimenting with macronutrient distribution, and all the while there is a background belief that sugar (carbohydrates) should be limited and definitely refined sugar is "bad."  So it was quite revelational to me to discover a huge community and body of work that's pro sugar, pro carb, with sound logic to back it up.  The message is simple, eat sugar (cabohydrates, any of them) to fuel your brain and body for work and maintain full resting glycogen store in muscle and brain so u have max potential energy for work.  Take in some protein and plenty of micronutrients (veg, green drinks, sups, etc...) for your body to maintain itself.  Limit fat intake until your at the BMI that you want and then hold and simply manipulate your BMI with your fat intake, understanding that all fat consumed goes directly into storage and it's not easy to burn off excess fat.  This is basically the opposite of the current macro nutrient zeitgeist, and is completely heretical because fruit juice and refined sugar is used strategically and appreciated as a nutrient.

I'm not planning to eat a pure table sugar diet, with lead poison sprinkled on top.  Or even to maintain a severely fat restricted diet super long term.  But yeah this seems like an interesting experiment to drop the 10kg fat I've been carrying on and off for 10 years.  Anyhow, I'm doing the kempner diet as an experiment. (vid below)

Here's another video.  I'm assuming no one watched the previous ones because they're like 1 hour rants.  But watch this one.  It's only 6 minutes long, and cites various pub med studies and medical researchers and their work over the last half century.

 

I apologize if I came off as rude but what you are suggesting is not healthy and very misleading. @Michael569 went much deeper than me in his explanation on why sugar is bad for you and I'd recommend you at least consider his arguments. Following a single youtuber's opinion over an established body of research is not a good decision even if it "sounds good" on the surface. Flat earth theory "sounds good" to the people believing in it too. You lean toward "simple logic" probably because you like the simplicity of it but the truth is much more nuanced than "I need energy thus I take the most energy dense food".

There is no one diet that rules them all, the best is to fully understand every nutrient or food source individually and make informed choices about them. You do not seem to understand the health risks about processed sugar or why fruits are much better than processed sugar nor the way in which fats do not make you fat but sugar does. I'm in no way against fruits which contain a lot of nutrients and fiber your body need, but the massive amount of processed sugar everywhere without fiber or anti oxidants IS the main problem with the standard american diet right now. 

Not to mention this stuff is highly addictive. It's not easy cutting sugar out of your life even if you really try.

Edited June 22, 2021 by 4201

[dannn]

alright thanks, cheers man.

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, dannn said:

But yeah this seems like an interesting experiment to drop the 10kg fat I've been carrying on and off for 10 years.

If you want to lose weight, cut out all carbs. You will shred fat so fast. There is no need to re-invent the wheel. This has been field-tested by millions of people.

[Michael569]

8 hours ago, dannn said:

But yeah this seems like an interesting experiment to drop the 10kg fat I've been carrying on and off for 10 years. 

I'll give you 2 simple tips for easy weight loss. 

1. 30minutes of physical activity every day 

2. cut out your dinners 

BONUS TIP: drink nothing but water, herbal teas, vegetable juices and black coffee (unless caffeine free) . Nothing else is necessary and most of the other stuff is usually detrimental 

[One Day]

10 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

If you want to lose weight, cut out all carbs. You will shred fat so fast. There is no need to re-invent the wheel. This has been field-tested by millions of people.

Facts. Intermittent fasting with black coffee (not more than 2 cups per day) + Low carb will shred fast.

Weight lifting also increases metabolism.

What I am doing now for a week is doing Intermittent Fasting for 6 hours, then bulletproof tea (tea blended with grassfed butter and coconut oil in 2:1 ratio), to semi-prolong the fast. I am having stomach issues which causes extreme acid reflux and bloating when eating. Just like Leo I found that plants have the worst effect on this. So Fasting and high fat works extremely well for me. I eat veg only in the evening but it causes the most pain of all foods except for maybe sugary foods which I have cut out completely, grains almost completely.

[Thought Art]

12 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

If you want to lose weight, cut out all carbs. You will shred fat so fast. There is no need to re-invent the wheel. This has been field-tested by millions of people.

I feel uncomfortable seeing you make states like this. "No need to reinvent the wheel" Doesn't work in a nutritional context imo. It also isn't agreed among many scientist whether cutting sugar works so linearly. It might be more nuanced as to the types of sugar, as well as the whole diet itself as certain foods change how the body relates to what is it in at the time. Plant based nutrition, for those can consume it are skinny... Have you see a fruitarian? 

Anyway, just thinking out loud

[Hap E-Boi]

From my perspective and experience an important culprit for many diseases in our western diets besides sugar is excess glutamate, it can be found in things like dairy, wheat, MSG. Cutting out those made a day and night difference for my mental health, and even brought me a week long ego dissolution experience. Besides that, cutting it out of your diet will burn a lot of fat.