I’ve often had people ask me about the differences between sugars. From white sugar, to honey or maple syrup, to artificial sweeteners – what’s the difference? Are some better than others? Does the body respond differently to different sources of sugar? So here goes my breakdown on that – sugar vs sugar, what’s the difference?
Nerd alert! Because I can’t talk about sugar without discussing how it impacts the body, I am going to break into a mini biochem lesson to help add some context in explaining things.
When the body takes in any carbohydrate (= sugar) through our gut, it breaks that down into “simple sugars” and pumps that through the blood stream. This is how our blood sugar gets raised. When it’s raised too quickly (like after you chug your frappuccino!) the body releases insulin to gather up the extra sugar to store for late – as a fat cell.
Now there are lots of different kinds of sugars (glucose, fructose, galactose etc) that the body can use but it’s favourite is glucose. So when we eat other types of sugars, the body has to work harder to convert them over to glucose before it uses that as energy.
Okay, back to the real talk about sugar in our diet….
So in knowing that different sugars all get converted to glucose, than that means sugar = sugar, right? Well, not exactly. How sugar comes in, makes a big difference in how our body processes it. Remember how insulin gets released when we have too much sugar in our blood stream? That means, taking in straight sugar (for example in our coffee) will “spike” our sugar levels compared with sugar that comes in, for example, as a piece of fruit. With fruit, the body has to work to pull out the sugars from the fiber, nutrients, and vitamins that are all in there together. So that sugar “spike” doesn’t happen because the body processes it more slowly.
PLUS – sugar in fruit is fructose, which means the body needs to work to convert that to glucose before it can use it effectively. Even better, is the fact that the fruit sugar comes along with so many other healthy ingredients, like vitamins and minerals.
Now in terms of artificial sweeteners – I have to say I’m not a fan. Although these have “zero calories” they offer no nutritional value. The term artificial in reference to your food is a little bit worrisome, don’t you think? Our body doesn’t know what these artificial sweeteners are, so this is where low-grade inflammation starts to happen. The body breaks things down two ways – self (aka, good) or non-self (aka. bad). And artificial sweeteners = non-self. You know what else the body ID’s as non-self? Parasites. Bacteria. Viruses. Need I say more?
In the big scheme of things, we all need sugar to function. But where we get that sugar, and what else comes with that sugar, can make a big difference in how our body looks and feels. So next time hold the cheesecake and pass me the fruit!
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