Fake sugars sneak into foods and disrupt metabolic health

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/interactive/2023/sugar-substitutes-health-effects/

by pseudolus • 3 years ago

193 172 3 years ago

eggy• 3 years ago

On my second round of children, and I track these things.

The article is distracting if you are used to reading well-written text. You need to watch a bunch of one-liners with swiping graphics to get to the 'meat' of the argument.

Too much sugar in the presentation of the material ;)

0xdeadbeefbabe• 3 years ago

Too much sugar in the presentation of the material ;)

Yes exactly, even if it isn't propaganda it's too sweet for any purpose. Someone should study this.

hbcondo7142• 3 years ago

  Another study published in Nature Medicine linked the sugar substitute erythritol to higher rates of heart attacks and strokes

This study was discussed here last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34965453

  Two sweeteners in particular, saccharin and stevia, worsened the participants’ blood sugar control

These are commonly-used; I wonder if my PCP will ever discuss / contact me in regards to this.

orangepurple3• 3 years ago

Most doctors know and follow the "standard of care" which is excellent for treating acute symptoms and diseases. Doctors are generally terrible about dietary recommendations and knowing how to treat diseases of civilization.

treeman793• 3 years ago

I was having constant stroke symptoms. dozens of doctors in all specialities. One mentioned that I shouldn’t take triptans for migraines as it could trigger a stroke. Not a one mentioned anything else. Including 4 neurologists.

Symptoms stopped the moment I went on blood thinners.

vanilla-almond• 3 years ago

The Washington Post article say: "Two sweeteners in particular, saccharin and stevia, worsened the participants’ blood sugar control"

But the research paper from Cell says "Sucralose and saccharin supplementation impairs glycemic response in healthy adults." Stevia in the research paper is not stated as "impairs glycemic response". [1]

Is the Washington Post article correct about the research paper findings?

[1] https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(22)00919-9

loeg• 3 years ago

It isn't clear to me if that study makes any attempt to control for confounding variables. Like, maybe people that are already obese or suffering from heart disease are more likely to consume sugar substitutes? I haven't had time to read the original study and ctrl+F did not locate the phrase "3rd variable" or "confound[ing|er]:" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02223-9.epdf

kubectl_h• 3 years ago

Wet streets cause rain.

rudolph92• 3 years ago

But studies suggest that fake sugars can also have unexpected effects on your gut and metabolic health and even promote food cravings and insulin resistance, a precursor to Type 2 diabetes.

I can’t help but think (other than being annoyed the studies aren’t linked right there) that it’s more of a correlation than causation that the artificial sweeteners are changing gut bacteria . Presumably you gut is adapt to high sugar intake, then all the sudden you’re not getting high sugar intake? Wouldn’t you expect these changes regardless of the artificial sweetener and wouldn’t the short term changes be basically a withdrawal from high amounts of table sugar which would be hard on the body in the short term but better off in the long term?

Floegipoky• 3 years ago

You're making some pretty big assumptions about the design of these unnamed studies. I don't think it's safe to assume the test population started with high sugar intakes, that the studies only tracked short-term effects, nor that they didn't use a control group.

kragen4• 3 years ago

this is wrong; the experiments in question did hold sugar intake constant

adrr• 3 years ago

In rats and mice.

rudolph92• 3 years ago

Do u have a link to the experiments? I couldn’t find them in the article

TheCapn• 3 years ago

As far as I can recall, the last time I read a study on the subject the conclusion was that artificial sweeteners do have an affect on gut bacteria, but the study purposely did not state whether the change is of any actual harm/benefit.

The discussion on the study was here on HackerNews and as I recall most people agreed with the methodology and outcomes. What is problematic is people reading conclusions into the study that were never there: that the change was harmful.

zwieback3• 3 years ago

I've been hearing about sweeteners and gut flora for years and it still seems inconclusive. If there's a smoking gun it seems like it's hard to find and we've been eating artificial sweeteners for decades. What's creepy is that it's no longer a "diet" food but showing up unannounced.

NickM• 3 years ago

I don't know if this is true of all types of fake sugar, but I've found that I can easily taste the difference in many cases, even when I'm not expecting it or looking for it.

Like the article says, it's often with food where I wouldn't expect to find artificial sweeteners, but there's a very distinctly odd, kind of sickly sweet taste that I'll notice sometimes; whenever I do, I check the ingredients label and always find fake sugar on the list.

nerdponx4• 3 years ago

Not only can I taste it, but I dislike the taste strongly, and my stomach definitely does not appreciate it. I actively look for and avoid fake sugars of all kinds, both traditionally artificial (aspartame, sucralose) and "natural" (stevia, monkfruit).

Real sugar makes me feel worse, but differently worse, if I consume more than a small amount at a time. However, small amounts of real sugar seem subjectively less poisonous than small amounts of fake sugar, especially if the real sugar is buffered by other non-sugary food (e.g. a drop of maple syrup in oatmeal vs. a gummy bear on an empty stomach).

The only exception to my fake sugar rule is that every once in a while I go for a pack of Orbit/Trident/Extra chewing gum, or a Diet Coke / Dr Pepper / Red Bull (yes I like the taste) when I'm on a long car ride and I want a little caffeine and something that tastes entertaining to fight the boredom. My stomach always hates me for it, but it's a once in a while thing, and I appreciate my body's reminders that I shouldn't consume that stuff on a regular basis.

lotsofpulp2• 3 years ago

I prefer the taste of low calorie sweeteners to HCFS and regular table sugar from corn or sugarcane or beets.

strken• 3 years ago

I hate sweeteners too. They all seem to have an almost but not quite menthol aftertaste, and some also have an unpleasant slimy or oily mouthfeel.

Kye• 3 years ago

I have been accused of being anti-science when refusing fake sugars because people assume it's based on safety. They don't want to believe someone can have a different experience of taste. "No, I don't care about the studies, it just tastes horrible." It's taken as an excuse.

sjf• 3 years ago

Agreed, artifical sweetners, particularly stevia, are the most horrible things I have ever tasted. The first experience I have consuming stevia now makes me refuse any kind of product that is likely to have it without checking the ingredient list first. Side note, I cannot find a protein shake, except for plain protein powder, that does not have artificial sweetners. Please, someone start producing a savoury shake :(

vl• 3 years ago

I gave up and just use plain protein isolate powder. It doesn’t taste great, but at same time it doesn’t have this horrible chemical taste flavored versions do.

I sometimes add unsweetened cocoa powder or vanilla to spice it up, but more often than not just drink it straight up.

jakub_g• 3 years ago

I can definitely taste a difference between stevia-sweetened tea vs sugar-sweetened tea. "Sickly sweet" is a good description of stevia. Xylitol on the other hand feels quite similar to the regular sugar.

tracker111• 3 years ago

I find a mix of sweeteners is usually less offensive, part of why erythritol is usually combined with monk fruit sweetener. Of course the effects of each will vary from person to person... including glucose response.

What happens with your liver and pancreas in response to something sweet crossing the tongue can work against you... it's amazing how sweet everything tastes, too much so, when you don't eat refined foods (including sweet fruits) for a while.

orangepurple3• 3 years ago

Ah yes, those pesky fake sugars sneak into foods all on their own! Title should be: "Food producers seek new addictive adulterants as an alternative to sugar"

nerdponx4• 3 years ago

It's the standard language of victim-blaming and deflection by moneyed interests, like single-use plastic recycling and household carbon footprint.

Yes, to some extent, individual choices matter, but there are people will strong financial investment in making those individual choices harder and skewing them towards certain outcomes.

CyberDildonics2• 3 years ago

Exactly, systemic problems require systemic solutions.

thiht• 3 years ago

The title made me cringe.

voisin• 3 years ago

“Sneak into foods” like the culprit is the fake sugar itself and not companies making decisions.

zwieback3• 3 years ago

Reminder to read the ingredient list on everything. Something I do anyway but I realize I'm a nerd and many consumers don't want to do this.

ambicapter• 3 years ago

There are ways to get around the ingredient list requirements. Tic tacs famously don't list any sugar because the quantity in a single tic tac is below the threshold for reporting. I've seen "dehydrated cane juice" listed as an ingredient...that's just another name for sugar.

conradkay3• 3 years ago

Some others to look out for: agave nectar, Cane juice crystals, Diastatic malt, Barley malt, Brown rice syrup.

kragen4• 3 years ago

i was astounded a few weeks ago to discover that sprite and 7up now have acesulfame k in them, at least here in argentina

not the diet versions, to be clear, the sugary versions

nerdponx4• 3 years ago

I've noticed this too in the USA: artificial sweeteners being added to "non-low-sugar" junk foods. Dietary labeling laws and greater public awareness of the dangers of sugar have led people to start checking the sugar content. So they add artificial sweeteners to bring down the labeled sugar content without reducing perceived sweetness.

autoexec6• 3 years ago

We just need artificial sweeteners added to the labels right under added sugars. Giving consumers more information and letting them make choices for themselves is something everyone should be able to get behind.

masfuerte• 3 years ago

Same with tonic water in the UK. You have to buy the much more expensive premium products if you don't want artificial sweeteners.

tracker111• 3 years ago

Generally, it's to better comply with limits on HFCS/Sugar. Not sure it's better or not... I generally consume zero calorie drinks, and try to limit them to with meals (caloric intake).

kleer001• 3 years ago

Whole foods and foods you cook yourself don't have any added fake sugar.

treeman793• 3 years ago

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/popular-artificial-sweeten...

They also found that some fake sugars increases clotting. Particular interest in that I used to clot like crazy when having drinks that contained that same sugar.

notfed4• 3 years ago

I propose that in discussions like this we don't group all alternate sweeteners together as if they're one thing.

For example, saying "some fake sugars increase blood clotting" subliminally throws shade on all alternative sweeteners even if only one has been studied in a study.

Also, the term "fake sugars" implies that somehow sugar is real while all other sweeteners are "fake", which is again just a way to throw shade. (For example, erythritol and stevia are natural.)

ccooffee• 3 years ago

Aside: I am not a fan of scroll-interactive stories with rare exceptions. Even though it is "just" an intro for this article, it sets up a very childish (?) framing for the article, which makes the rest of the content suspicious. If the data were good and the reasoning sound, would they still need a scroll-by cartoon of ingredients sneaking into a grocery?

ZeroGravitas• 3 years ago

I think we'll soon discover that the sugar industry is paying a lot of money for all this 'research' and 'news coverage' on sugar alternatives.

The phrase 'non-nutritive sweeteners' is just too loaded a term for me to accept.

Any article that doesn't heavily emphasise that excess sugar is right now killing people is suspect.

Studies show that when other countries, including Chile and Australia, instituted policies to reduce sugar consumption, the result was an increase in artificially sweetened foods and beverages.

Oh no, artificial sweeteners replacing the "natural" corn syrup in my caffeinated beverage. How frightening, I want good old fashioned corn syrup killing me while providing empty calories.

meroes5• 3 years ago

I'm the opposite - I want my food to match my biological expectations, one of the largest being sweet = I just took in quick calories. Not for any grand reason other than I let my hunger and energy levels guide my food choices. I find that the best way long term.

I don't have a strong biological instinct of discerning corn syrup from "natural sugar". That is something reading labels helps me with. But I can't fight the biological urges the same way.

Empty calories are still somewhat beneficial. I eat a lot of fruit for energy, but sometimes I just want something even quicker and easier to digest and process for my calories, like jelly beans or something. And fruit is more expensive.

eldaisfish• 3 years ago

The important piece here is context, as it always it. One example - i grew up eating bread that used no sugar or very little sugar. North American bread tastes too close to cake. Many North Americans don’t share my opinion because their baseline is different.

Almost all food is a combination of flavours and it is not easy to spot added sugar. The idea of « sweet » is a lot more difficult to use in the real world.

tracker111• 3 years ago

I'm mostly inclined to agree... I try to keep my total carbs below 50g/day and net carbs under 20g/day, I'm diabetic and prefer to minimize my use of exogenous insulin. The cap on the total, is because there are definitely affects from fiber, sugar alcohols, etc that aren't accounted for otherwise.

Too many people will turn to the alternatives as an all you can consume buffet and not realize that what is being consumed still has 40-60% of the effects that sugar does on glucose control alone. And that doesn't cover the effects on gut flora.

I'm not fond of the vegetarian push in TFA though. I think animal products are perfectly natural and generally good nutrition sources and that the refined fats and sugars are far more dangerous generally speaking. Fruit juice in quantity being as or more dangerous as soda.

Fructose does everything bad to the liver that alcohol does without the negative reinforcement of a headache after.

lo_zamoyski2• 3 years ago

I let my hunger and energy levels guide my food choices.

Perhaps "inform" (as in a signal that does not determine decision) might be a better approach. Hunger is not strictly correlated with need. That is, hunger and appetite are also subject to habituation. If someone is accustomed to eating three large meals a day with snacks in between, they will likely feel hungry when one of those meals is eliminated, or even when snacks are reduced. We hardly need as much as we generally consume, and the last thing we need is to be led around by our appetites. Like children, they can tell us what they want, but it is we who must assess what is actually needed or within healthy limits. Lack of hunger should also not form the basis for not eating. I suspect that's why you included "energy levels" as another signal. If you're not merely hungry, but feeling weak, and you know you haven't eaten in a while, then you could probably use some food.

I would argue that adopting a schedule and using fasting to reduce intake and "noshing" and conform hunger reoccurrence to this schedule are a good approach. Fasting also has the benefit of helping us discipline our appetites, something people are generally miserable at unless they practice self-denial or have them disciplined by outside causes. Disciplined appetites sharpen the mind and strengthen the will and contribute to virtue and therefore true freedom (in the classical sense, not the liberal sense which is a recipe for enslavement). This latter benefit is more important than the first. Furthermore, human beings are animals, but we are not beasts. We do not merely guzzle slop from a trough. We eat meals. Meals are not merely about obtaining nutrition.

Alex3917• 3 years ago

I want my food to match my biological expectations, one of the largest being sweet = I just took in quick calories

Except for that your biological expectations should be that sweet foods are relatively slow calories. We've co-evolved over millions of years to get sugar from fruit and other complex carbs. Refined sugar has only existed for a couple thousand years, and has only been ubiquitous for a few hundred years.

To the extent that your body is expecting a quick rush of calories after eating something sweet, that's only because your body is very reactive based on your prior eating habits, not because that makes any sense from an evolutionary perspective.

LewisVerstappen• 3 years ago

It's best to just read what actual researchers/doctors think rather than rely on bullshit corporate media like WaPo/CNN/etc.

You can read

- Peter Attia (Stanford MD) -> https://peterattiamd.com/more-hype-than-substance-erythritol...

- Layne Norton (Nutritional Sciences PhD) -> https://youtu.be/Ad8_scQtHFM

They both think the study is being sensationalized by the media for clicks (as usual)

hbcondo7142• 3 years ago

the sugar industry is paying a lot of money for all this 'research' and 'news coverage' on sugar alternatives

This has happened before. In the 1960's, the sugar industry funded research that downplayed the risks of sugar and highlighted the hazards of fat:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074...

waboremo• 3 years ago

Sugar isn't the only industry either, Dairy operated the same ways. Funding nonsensical research about how healthy and great it is, meanwhile the study is just on added vitamin D, something milk doesn't have naturally. It's how they get away with it, and all you would see in news and ads is "drink milk it's healthy!"

Dairy even worse in many ways, because there was no requirement in the food pyramid (and it's related forms) to have a bunch of sugar. However, it's been standard for decades to push multiple full cups of milk per day.

pkaye• 3 years ago

Don't also forget when margarine was considered healthier than butter. Or that activists were pushing McDonalds for switch from tallow to vegetable oils. Now we consider trans fats and many vegetable oils bad. Or that one time eggs were considered to raise your cholesterol.

2OEH8eoCRo0• 3 years ago

Saturated fat and added sugar are both bad. I think the issue with "added" sugar is that basically all everyone eats all the time contains "added" sugar. It's a tough pill to swallow to be told that your entire diet is shit. Now you aren't just up against the sugar lobby but all processed foods.

Fauntleroy• 3 years ago

Deal with a bout of fake-sugar-induced gut fauna chaos and you'll be singing a different tune. It sure woke me up on the subject.

seizethecheese• 3 years ago

I really doubt that sugar is more profitable than fake sugar for industry.

Teknoman117• 3 years ago

Regardless, I do wish products containing them were labeled better. My dad is allergic to most of them. We nearly had to make an ER visit after he ate some pickles because Kosher decided that they suddenly needed to put artificial sweetener in their pickles.

dayvid• 3 years ago

Agree. Sugar also blasts your immune system:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32395846/

Better to reduce sugar and artificial sweeteners, but sugar alone, especially in a concentrated food/drink additive form is far worst for you than artificial sweeteners.

brainzap• 3 years ago

International Life Sciences Institute

hedora• 3 years ago

From what I can tell, sugar is much better than corn syrup, and corn syrup is much better than 100% of well-studied non-nutritive sweeteners.

Most of the issues with all those things boil down to “they blow up your metabolism and gut microbes”.

The whole organic artificial sweetener thing is clearly just cynical labeling. Worse, the soda industry found that young people almost unanimously avoid diet soda, so they renamed it “light” and added some sugar back in (to screw over the diabetics and cement their status as products that should not exist.)

FollowingTheDao3• 3 years ago

No. Absolutely not. These are drugs that we do not see in high quantities in nature, JUST LIKE SUCROSE.

This is a whole 'nother industry with the same bad interest; their profit. They aim to serve people pleasures over their health.

Just eat natural foods, it's not hard.

sitzkrieg• 3 years ago

its not hard if you can afford it

Tarq0n• 3 years ago

That's just the appeal to nature fallacy. When people talk about natural food the main benefit is the lack of processing for palatability and heterogeneity (varied eating). There's no reason why molecules occurring in nature would automatically be healthier.

zzzeek• 3 years ago

these articles are useful because the change that has to occur is that people's dietary habits simply have to change. trying to "substitute" sugar in an attempt to keep someone's experience of food exactly unchanged is futile.

the answer is not that people should go back to using sugar, it's that food should be *much less sweet*. Sweetness itself is an addictive thing that one can and should lose their dependence on.

datavirtue• 3 years ago

"Any article that doesn't heavily emphasise that excess sugar is right now killing people is suspect."

It is emphasized multiple times in the article.

datagram• 3 years ago

Instead of using artificial sweeteners, another option is to just make things less sweet. In most cases I feel like I would prefer that.

hawk_2• 3 years ago

There's misguided government policies leading to weird consequences where I am. Other than Coca Cola original, it's impossible to find any carbonated drink that doesn't have artificial sweeteners mixed in. Apparently sugar above some threshold triggers tax but there are no restrictions on artificial sweeteners. This is probably not going to end well.

Ambitious1325• 3 years ago

In the area I am in (Philadelphia), drinks with artificial/zero-calorie sweeteners are actually taxed the same way as sugar/corn syrup.

tracker111• 3 years ago

Will vary from region to region... I think GB and EU are stronger on this than in the US as an example.

conradkay3• 3 years ago

Most of them have diet or zero in the name which makes it pretty easy to tell. The tricky ones contain some sugar (likely from fruit) and some artificial sweeteners,the only one I know of being the v8 sparkling energy drinks. I don't know of any soda that has partial HFCS and artificial sweetener.

hawk_2• 3 years ago

Not where I live (some EU member), not so obvious. For example all Fanta has some artificial sweetener. Diet fanta has no sugar at all.

SaintSeiya842• 3 years ago

Ah yes, everything good in life is bad and cause cancer and diabetes and heart attacks....the blaming game has come for artificial sweeteners that were created because we were blaming sugar of everything wrong with the world. Who's next?

jmugan• 3 years ago

For me it is a labeling issue. I really don't like the fake sweet flavor. It used to be you could look at the ingredients for a small set of known fake sweeteners, but they seem to invent a new kind every month so I can't keep track.

zuminator• 3 years ago

What these articles never seem to discuss is whether artificial sweeteners are anywhere as bad for you as HFCS.

zwieback3• 3 years ago

... or whether HFCS is really that much worse than sugar water.

tracker111• 3 years ago

I don't really hold that HFCS is really much worse than regular table sugar... the ratios are similar. Not to mention your pancreas and liver don't really care about the source and it's broken down almost exactly the same. Fruit juice (much higher fructose) content is imo much worse than HFCS even, in that only the liver can metabolize it and the negative effects are roughly the same as consuming alcohol in similar quantities.

SaintSeiya842• 3 years ago

Studies also reveals that companies has been sneaking Dihydrogen oxide even in store salads!!! the same substance that's been shown to cause hyponatremia. This world is becoming unlivable!

frumper• 3 years ago

Not just companies add this. Farmers spread it on their crops.

Covzire• 3 years ago

Sucralose gives me hives within about 30 mins of ingestion that lasts for days and diarrhea that lasts for at least a week.

conradkay3• 3 years ago

Excessive maltitol (easy if you eat a ton of sugar-free gummy bears) gives most people the latter.

tpush• 3 years ago

To dampen the media and consequent HN frenzy, here's [0] a substantive analysis on the recent Erythritol paper and why people should be cautious of some of the headlines run by the media.

[0] https://kcklatt.substack.com/p/the-alchemy-of-metabolomics-e...

mixmastamyk3• 3 years ago

Guy needs an editor.

xnx• 3 years ago

Hard to imagine that the negative effects of sugar alcohols could be anywhere near as bad as added refined added sugar.

londons_explore3• 3 years ago

If I were a regulator, I would try to directly link foods to health outcomes.

Ie. If someone eats lots of bigmacs and then dies young, mcdonalds should have to pay a 'killer food' penalty.

If someone eats lots of apples and lives to 100, then the apple farmer should receive some kind of reward.

I would implement this by having some subset of the population volunteer their purchase data and health data, and have the regulator issue rewards and fines each year based on which food producers managed to make/keep their customers healthiest.

The end result should be that healthy foods are both profitable and cheap, and there is an incentive to reformulate foods to keep the eaters healthier.

That entirely bypasses the current problem of having food manufacturers trying to make their food look healthy while it actually isn't.

notfed4• 3 years ago

It's completely impossible to prove that eating some food X caused someone's death. Also, anything can kill you if you have otherwise poor health and eat enough of it, including apples.

londons_explore3• 3 years ago

No, but you can take data on 1 million customers of food X, and see how many died, vs the non-customers.

Sure, there will be ways to game the system, like "Buy 6 of this soda and get free gym membership!". But is that a bad thing?

ghostbrainalpha• 3 years ago

Your first job as a regulator, should be to realize that McDonald's is the government.

Your second job is to not piss off "the government".

danoni• 3 years ago

Sucralose and acesulfame-k, are regularly used in Greek yogurts,

"Greek-style" yogurt? Yes. The original Greek strained yogurt has no sugar. It is inedible. Choke-hazard.

zagrebian• 3 years ago

processed foods ⇒ cancer

notfed4• 3 years ago

Artificial sweeteners are not processed foods, so what's your point?

mewse-hn• 3 years ago

Love how this article has diagrams of how insulin resistance works to scare people against using artificial sweeteners that might, "according to some studies", cause insulin resistance.

SUGAR causes insulin resistance.

BizarroLand• 3 years ago

My takeaway was that you should try your best to consume neither of the two products, and that you shouldn't assume that a non-nutritive sweetener was perfectly healthy and that you can consume it in unlimited quantities.

ec109685• 3 years ago

And it took many paragraphs to reach this conclusion:

“The most rigorous clinical trials show that when people replace sugary drinks with artificially sweetened beverages like Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi it helps them avoid gaining excess weight.”

smm11• 3 years ago

I noticed a commercial last week, "65 percent of all soft drinks sold last year had little to zero sugar."

Then the next morning "artificial sweeteners cause heart attacks."

oldstrangers• 3 years ago

I still wonder why Athletic Greens uses stevia. It just tastes terrible. Even if it's natural.

unglaublich• 3 years ago

Fake sugar? Is that like "fake leaded petrol"?

jakedata2• 3 years ago

"When given a choice between cocaine or water sweetened with saccharin, rats will almost always choose the artificially sweetened beverage."

This is how I know I am not a rat. Not that I am in the habit of drinking cocaine water but I am absolutely one of the people who are revolted by the taste of artificial sweeteners.

Black coffee all day long for me, though usually decaf nowadays.

toast02• 3 years ago

I mean, I'd definitely pick the water sweetened with saccharin given those options; maybe these rats grew up in arcades and know that Winners Don't Use Drugs[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winners_Don%27t_Use_Drugs

jakedata2• 3 years ago

Diet Coke vs really really OG classic Coke.

WalterBright2• 3 years ago

I finally gave up on protein powder. It's impossible to buy just protein powder. They always sneak in one sweetener or another. The latest is erythritol, another one suspected of causing metabolic problems.

If I wanted sugar in it, I'd add it.

I switched to eating a hard boiled egg instead.

I'm glad I can still buy coffee that is just coffee.

anonuser123456• 3 years ago

Naked Nutrition sells 5lbs containers of just whey, no other ingredients.

dragonwriter2• 3 years ago

Naked Nutrition Naked Whey is Whey Protein Concentrate, which has no added sugar but does have some sugars. (Of course, so do hardboiled eggs.)

There are manufacturers that sell Whey Protein Isolate without any sugars (added or otherwise).

dragonwriter2• 3 years ago

I finally gave up on protein powder. It's impossible to buy just protein powder. They always sneak in one sweetener or another.

There are, in fact, protein powders with no added sweeteners, though most of them still have some sugars (and usually also fat and/or nonsugar carbs) from whatever the source of the protein is (but these can be very low; e.g., Naked Nutrition Naked Pea protein powder has 27g of protein, 2g sugars (0 added sugar), and 0.5g fat per 30g serving.)

But, if you really want protein powder without sugar, you can, in fact, find protein powders without it (e.g., Whey Protein Isolate.)

I switched to eating a hard boiled egg instead.

At 0.5g sugars for 5.7g protein? Why, exactly, are you avoiding protein powders, again?

WalterBright2• 3 years ago

Sugar in its natural state (not refined, not artificial) is fine.

miles• 3 years ago

...allulose, stevia and monk fruit extract, are referred to as “natural” because they’re derived from plants.

You are unlikely to find plant-derived allulose in many products[0]:

"Because it occurs naturally in very small amounts, the allulose you find packaged for sale isn’t its natural form. It has been created artificially by food scientists from fructose (fruit sugar)."

Physician and nutrition expert Michael Greger recently did a survey of the medical literature around allulose, which appears to be cautiously optimistic.[1]

[0] https://health.clevelandclinic.org/what-is-allulose/

[1] https://nutritionfacts.org/video/does-the-sweetener-allulose...

DebtDeflation• 3 years ago

I would wager that most people are consuming way more sugar and artificial sweeteners in the form of beverages than food. Once you get used to drinking water as your primary beverage (unsweetened tea or coffee in the morning and beer in moderation on the weekend is fine) you will soon find yourself repulsed by soda, sports drinks, sweet tea, juice, etc. The amount of sugar (and/or artificial sweeteners) in this stuff is astounding.

zerocrates• 3 years ago

I think people are pretty aware that something like soda is just sugar water, but sugar added to just sort of generally improve flavor in food items isn't as obvious, yet it adds up. Sugarier "low fat" options would be one of those areas where it's easy not to notice.

jay_kyburz4• 3 years ago

When I'm packing my kids school lunches I try to avoid "sweet" food and prefer "savory" snacks. I play a game with myself where I try and guess the amount sugar in something. Some savory crackers are good at only 10% sugar. Some have as much as 40% sugar.

julianeon• 3 years ago

This is one thing I've never been able to relate to.

I'm thin - at the bottom of my weight range for my height. I eat healthy. I have very little tea & coffee (maybe once a week, tops) and zero alcohol.

But I've always liked sweet things. "Does a cake taste good to you?" Yes, as good as it ever has. It tastes as good as it did when my diet was unhealthy trash.

I was able to change my eating habits, and have stuck to the change for well over a year, but my "taste buds" haven't changed at all.

amval• 3 years ago

No, beer on the weekends is not fine, at least if you are somehow rating it as worse than soft drinks. There is no "moderate" amount of alcohol that you can drink that does not have negative health outcomes.

orangepurple3• 3 years ago

Fructose and ethanol follow the same biochemical metabolic pathways and are equally harmful. You just don't get buzzed from fructose. https://youtu.be/dBnniua6-oM?t=3424

TjZkxkxeky• 3 years ago

I really want augmented reality in a google glasses like format for in-person shopping. Lookup the nutrition facts and put X's over the items my configuration says I don't want.

jakzurr• 3 years ago

OMG Yes, please.

mrfinn• 3 years ago

Stevia is not a quoted "natural" thing, stevia is a plant. And a medicinal one by the way. Been drinking stevia infusions for a long time and tastes great. Nice try sugar lobby.

bmacho• 3 years ago

Am I the only one who likes sugar? You know that is substracted from fruits and vegetables. The one that all my 2^n ancestors consumed for billions of years. It gives me calories, so I can do stuff. (So do carbs, fats and protein.)

I don't like artificial sweeteners ( I don't really like sweet stuff ), as they are not proven to be safe. (Even when natural, they are substracted from weird stuff, not from carrots or grapes or whatever.)

jay_kyburz4• 3 years ago

Everybody likes sugar the way our ancestors consumed it, in naturally occurring fruits and veggies.

We object to it being added to every single food you can buy in the supermarket.

meroes5• 3 years ago

Fake sugar is not the solution to that.

meroes5• 3 years ago

Increasing my sugar intake helps me exercise more and be healthier overall. Fake sugars are worse than sugar being added to food. They are not the solution to that. Anyone bringing that up is strawmanning. (I bring it up only because many posters are seemingly saying, hey at least fake sugar combats extra added sugar in bread and stuff).

Food with added sugar - at least it will give you energy to go do something with. Whether or not you do is up to you. Fake sugars mislead your body into thinking it just acquired energy to go do things. It has no good longterm purpose. Being low energy and hungry and ingesting fake sugar to stave off that feeling is misunderstanding the problem.

That's my experience over 7 years of trying to lose weight and be healthy long term. I had a diet soda/fake sugar phase in there and it worked for a few years maybe, but I am better off overall abandoning that whole idea.

thaumasiotes• 3 years ago

The one that all my 2^n ancestors consumed for billions of years.

Your ancestors don't increase exponentially as you go back in time. Consider that the number of humans in existence gets smaller, not larger, as you move into the past.

photochemsyn• 3 years ago

The solution to this entire class of problems is not a question of which type of sugar or sugar substitute should be in your processed foodstuffs, it's whether you should be consuming any processed food items whatsoever.

Even if you still want some prepared foods, be sure to read the ingredients label, and stick to the more traditional processed foods (bread, soy sauce, etc.) as long as they're free of the dough conditioners, high-fructose corn syrup, sodium benzoate and similar preservatives, etc.

Far and away the best dietary option is to go back to basics and learn to cook at least a little using only fresh ingredients, it's one of the simplest ways to improve nutrition and general health.

throwaway158971• 3 years ago

I've seen an influx of articles providing "look over here" reasons for potential cause of metabolic issues. A quick search shows, in the last week: Fake sugar, marijuana, the flu, keto diet, and lack of sleep. Maybe it's just the media returning to its usual hysterics ... or maybe they're trying to distract from something else.

autoexec6• 3 years ago

Maybe it's just the media returning to its usual hysterics ... or maybe they're trying to distract from something else.

Two things can be true! Maybe there is evidence suggesting problems with all of those things and maybe it's just being heavily pushed in media to distract from something else. Personally, I think most of the food we eat and the environments we live in are poisoned and that's how companies like it because it means you can't blame any one of them for health problems they know they are causing since it's impossible for anyone to say which of the countless poisoned things we're regularly exposed to was the cause of those issues.

Fake sugars sneak into foods and disrupt metabolic health

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