Sugar in Fruit

The other nite I was at a party and I couldn’t help myself- I attacked a bowl of m&m’s. I know I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, as a health coach and lover of good nutrition, but yes, every so often even I go off the wagon. Oh, I did not feel well after. It is this type of moment that I am reminded of how poisonous sugar is.

I often hear that people won’t eat fruit. Sugar in fruit= bad idea. This notion is preposterous. This thought that fruit is somehow a bad thing to eat came into full swing with the low carb diet craze a few years ago. Often someone tells me that they avoid fruit because it’s “all sugar” or “loaded with carbs”. So, I’m here to set the record straight and come to the defense of some of the world’s healthiest foods – fresh, whole fruits.

 

Whether it's in a piece of fruit, your soda or a pastry or a candy bar, sugar is made up of the same two components: fructose and glucose. The ratios of fructose and glucose are pretty much the same in both fruit and table sugar. Neither type of sugar is better or worse for you, but your body processes them differently. Fructose breaks down in your liver and doesn’t provoke an insulin response. Glucose starts to break down in the stomach and requires the release of insulin into the bloodstream to be metabolized completely. Don't get the idea that because the sugar composition is the same in fruit and cake, they're interchangeable. (Seriously, they're not.) For one thing, fruit offers good stuff like vitamins, antioxidants and water, while candy and desserts are nutritionally void. Fruit also tends to have less sugar by volume. Plus, whole fruit has a lot of fiber, which actually slows down your body's digestion of glucose, so you don't get the crazy insulin spike (and subsequent crash) that candy causes. That also means your body has more time to use up glucose as fuel before storing it -- as fat. 

So, the idea that fruit is “loaded with carbs” or is “full of sugar” needs to be put into perspective. It’s true that when you eat fruit, the overwhelming majority of the calories you consume are supplied by carbohydrate – mostly in the form of fructose, which is the natural sugar in fruit. But that’s the nature not just of fruit, but of all plant foods – they’re predominantly carbohydrate (and that means not just natural sugars, but healthy starches as well as structural elements, like cellulose, that provide fiber). When you eat vegetables, the majority of the calories you’re eating come from carbohydrate, too. But you don’t hear people complaining that vegetables are “loaded with carbs”.

So, how much sugar are we talking about, anyway? An average orange has only about 12 grams of natural sugar (about 3 teaspoons) and a cup of strawberries has only about 7 grams – that’s less than two teaspoons. And either way, you’re also getting 3 grams of fiber, about a full day’s worth of vitamin C, healthy antioxidants and some folic acid and potassium to boot – and it’ll only cost you about 50 or 60 calories.

By contrast, a 20-ounce cola will set you back about 225 calories and, needless to say, won’t be supplying any antioxidants, vitamins, minerals or fiber. You’ll just be chugging down some carbonated water, maybe some artificial color and flavor, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 grams of added sugar – about 1/3 of a cup.

On average, Americans don't eat enough fruit, so don't cut it out of your diet in an attempt to limit your sugar intake! Sugar itself isn't toxic. But getting too much of it from soda, cookies, candy and cake is.