Sugar is in the news lately. If you haven't seen the 60 Minutes report on sugar, check it out. It's worth a look, even if they're likely over-exaggerating a bit, as the media tends to do. But anyway, that got my sugar appetite going. Not for eating it. I mean for learning more about it. It didn't take me long to find this blog post on Whole Health Source entitled "Is Sugar Fattening?" Very interesting article. And a great question. You'd probably expect that sugar is fattening, based on the conventional nutrition wisdom, but when you look deeper, you may be surprised. Let's define "fattening". If sugar is inherently fattening, that means that a diet high in sugar should promote fat gain even if we are still in calorie balance. Right? Or if that's not true, it must be true that a diet high in sugar causes overconsumption of calories, and hence fat gain. Yes? Either way... if sugar is fattening, then eating nearly all of your calories from sugar would surely make you fatter. Let's take a look at some studies.
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| Google said it was sugar, but truly it could be cocaine. Nobody really knows. |
Almost-All-Fruit Diet Study
For the sake of time, and because Stephan put this better than I could, I'll simply copy and paste his words here... "a 1971 paper titled 'Physiological Effects of a Mainly Fruit Diet in Man' (29). Subjects ate nothing but fruit (82% of kcal) and nuts (18% of kcal) for six months. The diets were 52-65 percent carbohydrate (mostly from fruit sugar), 37-45 percent fat (nuts and avocado), and 5.6-8 percent protein. These fascinating quotes sum up their findings:
A considerable number of the normal subjects claimed that their physical condition improved while they were on the diet. Some were convinced that their stamina increased and that their ability to undertake strenuous physical tasks and to compete in sport improved.
From these figures it is clear that most subjects lost weight initially... After the initial loss, the weights of the subjects in group B leveled off at figures which corresponded more or less with the calculated theoretical normal weights...
A few of these who were mildly overweight, found this diet an excellent incentive to reduce, and consequently showed a greater decrease in weight than the others. An interesting aspect of the diet was the tendency for the weights to level off more or less at the 'theoretically ideal' weight for the subject. This may partly explain why some lost more weight than others."
Welp, looks like it's pretty clear that the sugar in fruit isn't fattening. These folks ate an insane amount of fruit (not quite 30 bananas a day, but who's counting), and their weights just effortlessly settled into their "theoretical ideals". I know a lot of people in the paleo world who limit their fruit intake for fear of over-consuming sugar and getting fat... maybe we should stop worrying about it. But what about refined sugar?
