Comment by frozenport
9 years ago
Sugar does have some nutritional value, and is a hallmark of primate diet. Tobacco is an addictive insecticide that won't even get you high.
9 years ago
Sugar does have some nutritional value, and is a hallmark of primate diet. Tobacco is an addictive insecticide that won't even get you high.
> Sugar does have some nutritional value, and is a hallmark of primate diet. Tobacco is an addictive insecticide that won't even get you high.
This statement reflects a glaring ignorance of both scale and science. First of all, sugar is a hallmark of a primate diet only in complex not in simple forms, which is not the kind being referred to here. By nutritional value do you mean has calories? So does Vodka. And what at all do the calories have to do with the scale of harm?
Does this not include sugar found in foods? Are those considered complex?
Is eating natural sugar found in fruits as bad as eating refined/processed sugar?
"Natural", in this context, is a weasel word that's whose key uses include making people feel more comfortable about buying junk food, so that junk food manufacturers can sell more junk food.
Chimpanzees, for example do eat a lot of fruit. I believe it's their primary source of calories. But the wild fruits that chimps eat are a very different beast from how humans in wealthier countries consume fruit. The fruits they typically eat haven't had their sugar content dramatically increased through centuries and millennia of selective breeding. They haven't been turned into juice, which removes all the fiber and essentially renders them a nutritional equivalent of Coca-Cola. They haven't been dried, which concentrates the sugar and increases the glycemic load. They haven't had extra sugar added as a ("natural"!) preservative in order to maximize the shelf life. etc. etc.
All that aside, though, no, I'm pretty sure there hasn't been any compelling evidence to indicate that your body can somehow tell whether the sugar in your food was produced in situ or extracted from some other plant and then added to what you're eating. To it, C12H22O11 is C12H22O11. There is some stuff suggesting that processing affects how much sugar is extracted by your digestive system, though. It's not able to break down the food and get at its contents quite as efficiently when the food hasn't been mechanically ground up or macerated first, and your teeth are unlikely to grind it up quite so finely. In a nutshell, sugar that's inside a plant's cells is going to be less available (and, to that extent, "have fewer calories") than sugar that's on the outside of the cells.
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Sugar that occurs naturally in foods are often complex. Complex sugars are larger molecules that can be broken into simple sugars (lactose, fructose, glucose).
There is actually very little sugar in fruit, and they are full of vitamins and minerals which are good for you.
If you cut artificial (added sugar) foods from your diet you will likely find that other foods taste sweeter as your taste becomes more sensitive.
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There are many different kinds of sugars. It's worth understanding. Fructose is what harms you. Glucose is harmless. Sucrose is fructose plus a glucose. Lactose is harmless as long as you can digest it. Maltose is harmless. Etc.
Fruits contain varying amounts of fructose. Wild berries, not so much. An apple or grape, rather a lot. Apple juice, considerably more.
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No difference between fructose in fruit and the fructose which the body splits from sucrose in refined sugar. Fruit sugar is fructose. It's reported that in some people a marked increase in blood pressure is associated with high fructose intake. That is certainly so in my case after eating more fruit than I should.
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It is true that many monkeys are tree dwellers and are heavy fruit eaters. Humans and other primates are neither. They will eat fruit as part of a mixed diet that is more omnivorous than anything. And wild fruit is not as rich in sugar as you imagine. It's mostly fibre. The stuff you buy in the supermarket is not a hallmark of a primate diet. Soft drinks are not a hallmark of a primate diet. Cakes and biscuits, they are not a hallmark of a primate diet. They are fake food.
Genuinely curious as to what you mean by "other primates". What else is there apart from humans and monkeys?
Apes are not monkeys (monkeys have tails). In general primate is a very large group that includes lemurs and tarsiers.
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Apes are also primates, but not monkeys. So for example, the rest of the great apes (orangutans, gorillas, chimps).
Primates are monkeys. A monkeys isn't necessarily primate.
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> Tobacco is an addictive insecticide that won't even get you high.
Nicotine is an addictive substance which suppresses appetite and increases focus; as found in tobacco leaves, it has a pleasant smell and taste.
It's worth mentioning, since most people don't know, that nicotine on it's own is not as addictive as tobacco. AFAIK the MAOIs in tobacco smoke contribute more to its addictiveness than nicotine [1]
I've been chewing nicotine gum semi-regularly for a few months to improve my focus at work, and have not found it addictive so far. (I've never smoked).
(Still, I wouldn't recommend people in general do this without carefully considering the risks.)
[1] https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine
Companies that produce cigarettes also optimize the tobacco blend and chemical treatment to make it as addictive as possible, which is why vaping nicotine doesn't have the same addictive effect as smoking cigarettes.
Loss of focus is a well known symptom of nicotine withdrawal. It goes away after a few days.
I'm confused, what is your point?
Often you get the opposite effect of a drug in withdrawal, e.g. caffeine reduces headache pain, causes headaches in withdrawal.
As a former smoker, you are absolutely wrong. Tobacco will give you a kick, as nicotine is a stimulant.
I'd describe it as being similar to caffeine, it makes you more alert. Of course there are downsides that everyone knows about.
Fructose is a hallmark of primate diet. Refined fructose is not. The only refined fructose in the wild is honey and that is way too rare and too well defended to be the hallmark of anyone's diet (other than honeybees, of course).
Humans are perfectly capable of eating all the fructose they may ever want in its unrefined state as it appears in nature without any adverse effects. I.e. you can eat fruit until you are full, and nothing bad will happen. It is in fact quite healthy. But once you refine it into pure fructose, such as crystal sugar or molasses, then all hell breaks loose.