"A Year Without Sugar" -- HUH?

Community Share Your Stories
1

It never ceases to amaze me how frankly....ill-informed (uninformed? gullible? stupid?) people are. One of my family members liked a page entitled "A Year of No Sugar", which is a recently-published book by the same name, documenting a family's year during which the mother attempted to cut out sugar from her family's diet. It's not an easy task, considering the number of hidden sugar sources in our diets. Intrigued, I clicked on the site, went to the blog (ignoring the advertising for the book) and started to read. OK, so she is trying to make her own chocolate without sugar or the standard no-calorie sweeteners. No problem with that, and no problem with her explorations. At the bottom of the blog post are several lists, one of which is her "Good News List" -- things that "sound suspicious but contain no fructose". On that list includes....maltodextrin, rice syrup, lactose, corn syrup, galactose, and (drum roll, please)...........tah dah! GLUCOSE!! Wait...wait, don't tell me....all of those are forms of sugars, particularly glucose! I'm confused. If she's wanting to get away from forms of sugars for an entire year, shouldn't all of those appear on her "no eat" list, since, hello, they're all forms of sugar (especially the glucose, perhaps the most basic of all the sugars)? If she's trying to get away from processed sugars, wouldn't she be staying away from rice syrup, corn syrup, and maltodextrin -- all of which have to be processed to a greater or lesser extent? She doesn't want to eat fructose (fruit sugars), but another sugar form on her "Good News" list is.....grape sugar...which, according to Wikipedia, is just another term for glucose, but, hey, since it comes from grapes, it must be OK, right? And, gee, since grapes are a fruit, wouldn't it make sense that sugars derived from grapes also have fructose in it?

She also has a recipe page on which she's posted directions on how to make brownies, cakes, cookies, and pancakes -- supposedly "without sugar", but all the recipes include dextrose -- another term for glucose (we all ought to know that from our Dex4 tabs, right?). If I were to eat her oatmeal raisin cookies ("dirt cookies"), I'd have to give myself 3-4 units of insulin, as they have 61g of carbohydrates (i.e. starches AND sugars) in each cookie -- when you divide the recipe into 12ths, as she did in her picture! That doesn't seem very "without sugar" to this diabetic.

Perhaps if there's anything good about being diabetic, it's that I've learned a little about how to look beyond hype and simplistic answers. I've learned that sugars are everywhere, and that they're nearly impossible to avoid completely. And I can deal with that.

2

The woman who wrote that book is an ignorant B____, and I'd like to punch her in her stupid face.

3

I definitely agree that the woman who wrote that book is pretty ignorant, and probably shouldn't be allowed to post things about which she has little understanding. I doubt she realizes that if she were to feed her "sugar free" recipes to diabetics, our blood sugars would go through the roof, especially since she insists on using dextrose, which hits the blood stream very fast -- which is why it's used for lows. My first instinct is to educate her; show her where she's wrong, how her beliefs are not supported by evidence, that she hasn't accomplished her goal of living life "sugar free" for a year. Perhaps she hasn't used store bough white/brown/confectioners sugars, but she surely has used sugars. If she didn't listen and adjust her beliefs, then I'd want to take more....forceful actions ;)

4

A few years ago a 'sugarless' fruitcake was very popular here. You soaked the dried fruit in orange juice over night, then added eggs and flour, and hey presto a sugar free cake. I offended several people by refusing such a sugary treat.

5

It is true that americans use far too much sugar. We don't really know if she is just naive about stuff or there is a reason. After all table sugar is half glucose and half fructose. Maybe there are some reasons that dextrose (glucose) is better for you. In either case, reducing the overwhelming damage caused by sweetened foods is a good thing for the average american.

6

You are right AngelaC. The general public, as a rule do not know what sugars are even if it hit them in the face which she was doing; THE FAMILY WERE FEEDING THEIR FACES WITH SUGARS!!!! A little knowledge in the hands of the uneducated is a dangerous tool. I hope none of her family has diabetes.
The “Sheldon Cooper approach” sort out people like her.
Do you own a computer? Yes.
Do you know how to Google? Yes
Do you know what a Hexose is? Yes
Well you have just discovered the errors of your ways. Good bye!!!!
Do you know what a Hexose is? No
Well I suggest you research the following in order, Hexose, Sucrose, Glucose, α- and β-Glucose, Mutarotation, Metabolism of Sugars, Starch and Glycogen, Cellulose and Sugar Alcohols. When you have finished that we will continue this discussion!!!!
By the way the common Dextrose, bought in shops is most likely to be about 36% α- Glucose and 64% β-Glucose. You require special and different solvents and procedures to produce pure α- or β-Glucose. Although grape sugar is known as Glucose, very sweet grapes will have a higher concentration of fructose (the simple sugar making things taste very sweet), some sucrose along with small quantizes of a few rare sugars and sugar like molecules. On a sliding sweetness scale, Fructose 100, Sucrose 84 and Glucose 66 (approximate values). I have a background in sugar chemistry and I stumble across some interesting facts, at times, when I do my research into diabetes from a sugar chemist point of view.
It is so easy just too only blame table sugar (sucrose) for all our woes and by removing it from the diet will not solve our obesity problem. I agree it would be a start but the majority of our carbohydrate comes from polysaccharides in the form of starchs (Grains & Ground Vegetables). It is THE EASY ACCESS to FAST FOODS and PROCESSED FOODS which is creating the obesity problem due to the excessive consumption of total carbohydrates and lack of exercise required to burn off the excess calories. Go back two generations and there were a few obese people, then 100 years, in a time when obesity was rare.
As a T1, I have not cut sucrose from my diet. I have the choice of three sweeteners to use, Dextrose (Glucose) GI of 100 for Hypos and lower BGL, table sugar (Sucrose, moderate GI) for general use and xylitol (a sugar alcohol, very low GI).