# I know this sounds preachy but sugar=evil, death etc....



## mmr007 (Oct 10, 2020)

So I have the liver of a chronic alcoholic and I don't drink. What I have done my whole life is drink soda. Boy did I enjoy a soda with lunch and dinner, hell even breakfast. I quit soda this past April but only because I was getting sick of getting kidney stones every few years. However, even though I have always been an active and otherwise healthy person (people always mistake me for being 10-12 years younger than I am) there were other significant health issues that were lurking beneath my skin, confirmed by revelations in CT scans.
By necessity I have removed all sugar from my diet as well as most protein (my liver cannot handle me eating chicken or beef) and all carbs as well (ZERO pasta and such....oh the humanity). I do occasionally consume fructose in the form of an apple or pear but no more coffee with cream and sugar. It is roasted dandelion tea and turmeric, no sugar.
Anyway, sugar is in everything, especially here in the US, in massive quantities and it is literally killing us through diabetes, obesity and what I have NAFLD.... (non alcoholic fatty liver disease).
I didn't know how much damage I was doing to myself because for years it didn't manifest itself in something that was tangible...other than that I was prone to kidney stones...until recently when my health started to rapidly decline. It is unbelievable how much our entire body's system relies on a healthy liver.
I was hesitant to initially post this because I always detested people who "found the light" and demanded that others follow suit....but this really is a critical issue that affects tens of millions of people and many don't know it yet, that they are literally killing themselves.
By all means have an occasional soda, but maybe rethink a daily big gulp at 7/11 to start your day. An interesting side note, as I stated I voluntarily quit soda before I knew it would become a life saving necessity and within a week or two I had completely lost my sweet tooth. So when I went grocery shopping I no longer grabbed the rice crispy treats or latest flavor blasted cookie or any pastries. It all looked like it would taste gross. I had no desire to consume those items and my skin has begun to look significantly healthier still. Doctors did have to remove some (thankfully benign) tumors from my stomach and I have since also been able to stop taking omeprazole daily since my GERD has disappeared with the change in diet.
Anyway....(healthy) food for thought


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## Dumple Stilzkin (Oct 10, 2020)

Sorry to hear about your current situation. It sounds like you’re taking the necessary and difficult steps to working with your diagnoses. There’s other things you can do to help the liver function better, look into taking a good quality milk thistle extract supplement. This could help the liver function more optimally. The truth is that sugar is insidious, wether it be white bread, soda, or alcohol. Sugar in all it’s forms causes inflammation, and messes with blood sugar levels. It very well could be the cause of many behavioral issues (adhd/add etc.) It’s best we all take steps to make more informed decisions regarding our health. Prevention and knowledge is key here. I wish you the best.


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## Hollowway (Oct 10, 2020)

Yeah, I keep trying to completely kick sugar, but it's hard. I DO only drink diet sodas, which helps. But soda in general isn't good. 100% agree with you, though. There's a lot of research to suggest that the heart disease we used to think was caused by cholesterol is actually caused by sugar (and the way it interacts with the fat).


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## Lorcan Ward (Oct 10, 2020)

I can’t drink sugary drinks and most sugary foods, they make my skin flare up as if I stepped out of a sauna. Oily foods to the same. For some reason if I’m drinking alcohol it reduces it a lot so I can have a whiskey and coke or McDonald’s are a night out but I’ll still feel uncomfortable. I just had to draw a line years ago to not eat certain foods full stop.


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## High Plains Drifter (Oct 10, 2020)

Interesting to see this posted here today because I'm heading down a bad road in this regard. About a month ago my wife picked up a book called ' Food/ What the Heck Should I Eat' by author Mark Hyman, MD. Although she has always eaten healthier than I have, this book genuinely opened her eyes regarding how bad some foods are... first and foremost, sugar. Since reading this book she's gained so much understanding of how sugars, processing, preservatives, fats, etc affect our long-term health. She's always been a big water drinker and honestly rarely drinks anything else although she now supplements it with tea. I on the other hand have had a hard time moving away from soda. But I'm trying as I reduce the amount of soda as well as other sweets. I'm eating healthier now than I ever have and I can feel it. I've eliminated pasta and bread as well. My sleep cycles are more consistent, my overall energy has increased, and my digestion seems to be improving just over the past 3 weeks. 

Last weekend we went to the local Farmers Market and picked up some locally grown/ sourced eggs, kale, honey, tomatoes, and hard cheese. She's also been making salads with things that she never used to like and she's no longer drenching salads in Ranch dressing... now she'll only use avocado oil and balsamic vinegar. And her sweet tooth is now satiated with oranges, grapes, apples, etc... no more cereal, no milk, no cookies, etc. We haven't been to a fast food place since January this year ( besides getting a Dominoes pizza one night and doing Chick-fil-A on her birthday) and the things that I'm cooking at home are now comprised of simple/ natural ingredients and much healthier than what I used to cook. Just made some lentil soup last night and will be pairing that with grilled chicken for tonight's dinner. Honestly it feels so much better to feel better lol! 

OP, sorry for the long-winded rely but this sincerely struck a chord with me. I truly hope that you're getting healthier and that you will update this thread as you feel you want or need to. Really glad that you "found the light". We have too!


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## broj15 (Oct 10, 2020)

Processed food is literal poison. Honestly eating a raw diet (not "if it's cooked it's dead" raw, but only using whole ingredients) is really the only way to avoid it, but unfortunately processed food is made to be way to convenient and extremely cheap. 
That being said I'm definitely not perfect. I still eat at restaurants and probably have fast food once a week, but my main issue is I still drink about 2 red bulls a day (8.4oz cans so atleast it's not the big boys) . I hate it and am aware/fearful of the long term effects and I'll occasionally have some success in cutting back, but I always find my way back to it. I'm honestly addicted to caffeine to the point where if I wake up at 7-8am and I haven't had any caffeine by 11am then I know I have about another hour before I'm dealing with a persistent headache if I don't ingest some, and for someone like me who is COMPLETELY burnt out on coffee then I usually reach for a red bull. I've tried the sugar free but I can't stand the taste of artificial sweeteners, which are arguably just as bad if not worse than real sugar.

Fr shit sucks. I'm only 28 and I know I don't feel it cuz I'm still "young" but I know that if I don't change the it will eventually catch up with me.


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## odibrom (Oct 10, 2020)

@mmr007 it's sad to know you're not well, but also good you're getting better and flipping your life in order to achieve a healthier lifestyle.

I have always been an active guy, done some sk8boarding in the early 90s and then, by '94 step into martial arts, where I've kept myself since then, with some incursions in yoga at the same time and lately with some seldom BTT. I've always eat everything (fast/shit food included) until I entered the martial arts school I attend to. There, we were suggested to look a little closer to our diet. You see, when someone has a very intense physical activity, the body craves for energy and protein and all those nutrients. It is imperative that one should feed the body with clean food, or as clean as possible. By clean I mean less industrialized, more natural. So I started to cook (was about 17 at that time) a bit more conscious of my ingredients and started to include more vegetables, lots of more vegetables and specially, a bigger variety of vegetables. One thing lead to another and I became vegetarian by late '95. My transition was very peaceful, I dropped red meat first, then poultry and chicken and lastly fish and crabs and all animals. I kept drinking and eating dairy (cheese and yogurts) as well as eggs for quite some time. In the last 25 years that I have been vegie, I've had times of being full vegan (in the food side at least) and others were I do eat an egg or so once in a while and ice creams...

I've concluded my degree and master and am currently battling to finish my PhD. I have 2 healthy kids with 12 and 9 years old all within these last 25 years on vegetarianism.

It works for me, but I understand it may not work as well for others. The biggest lessons I've learnt with this diet was not in terms of what to eat or not to eat, but more of how what to eat and when. I mean, our city life has fucked up completely our understanding of food and how to relate to food. Instead of something to be cherished and religious (as it re-connects us with our most basic selves) it became something which we have no time for or we should fear, it has to be a fast meal or we loose something that society tells us as being "precious" and "indispensable" for our social existence, it has to be _light_ or we're going fat and so on (bring on the list of food disorders). What I learnt was that, if I loose the train, I'll get the next one, if I don't get that job, I'm glad some else did, I've learnt that there is room for everyone under the sun.

This to say that, besides of choosing better ingredients in my meals and trying to have balanced meals for my personal needs (and my kids' and close family), I've learnt to cool down, to stress out and dodge others' stress. People scream at each others too often for no reason. It enters our soul and therefore it reflects in our body with anxiety and other mental illnesses. Our body reacts to our thoughts, so I try my maximum to stress out all those stupid society shit and this includes most TV adds and programs (I rarely watch TV). They stopped working for me. I will not run to get the latest iphone or latest shit that is hyped as fuck when released to public. That corrodes our soul and body and that has manifestations in our liver, kidneys, lungs, hearts, brains... and so on.

Vegetarianism works for me, but an informed vegetarianism about what ingredients have what nutrients, how to combine and cook them so they deliver their maximum, so my body can work easy for the shitty days of work and city life ahead. Yes, I do get sick once in a while, but I generally recover without any meds (and I have several close family members that are neuro surgeons). My point is, if one is to eat red meat, eat less and less often, compensate with more vegetables and run away from animal fried fats (fried butter and cheese and all those venoms)... I do eat carbs, like brown rise or pasta, home made whole grain bread, homemade nuts butter (only a tea spoon of salt for 1kg of nuts, either sesame, almond nuts, peanuts and so on), lots of fruit (mostly bananas and apples). Whole grain cereals are way better than clean white cereals and that have been on my diet since day 1 of vegetarianism.

So, my final say here is, dive deep into your food studies, ditch any ready made shit, start cooking and trying different vegetables, lots of them. If possible, opt for organic food and finally, most important, give yourself time to eat properly and to chew in peace, savoring every little piece of food. Do question everything anyone say about food to its limits.


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## ThomasUV777 (Mar 11, 2021)

Sorry to hear that man. I've been on the keto diet for a couple of years now. It's become my way of life at this point and I love it.
No more fatigue, eat all the meat and fat you want. You don't have to think too long about what you eat etc. Meat & mayo!

And you're right, you can find sugar in the most unexpected foods. I've become one of those people that checks the label for everything now. If there's
more than 5% carbs in there, I ditch it. 

That being said, every couple of months I totally splurge on sugar: I get all the biscuits, chocolate, pizza & chocolatemilk that I can handle. The day after really feels like a hangover.

TL;DR : The Keto diet rocks.


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## possumkiller (Jul 15, 2021)

Man I was raised on candy and soda for lunch or breakfast or snacks on the road. Drinking litres of sun kist and mountain dew while playing commodore 64, NES, SNES, PS1, PS2, and XBOX. My mom was a shit cook that didn't really care about our nutrition. Breakfast was a toaster strudel, lunch was at school, dinner was the cheapest cardboard microwave pizza, or pizza rolls, or boiled hotdogs, or a microwaved piece of bologna that forms a bowl for canned chili or some other horrible shit. I was seriously skinny and underweight growing up. I had to get a waiver to join the army at 127lbs after I came back to try again after getting to 127 from 119. I was 18, 6' tall and 119lbs. As soon as I was able to be aware of my body and self image and that people were making fun of me for being so skinny, I had really low self esteem. For a long time, it seemed like no matter how much I ate and how much PT I was doing in the army, I was still thin. It wasn't until my last deployment when we were in a building in Baghdad and couldn't run three miles every day that I began to put on weight. After that deployment, I got out of the army and the weight packed on until I topped out at around 215 maybe 220. Still a thin dude but with a gut, man tits, and a fat neck/chin. I feel disgusting and ashamed of myself just the same as when I was a teenager. Only now it's because I am overweight. 

I really miss the motivation from the army. Do it or else. I don't have that anymore and my shitty schedule plus weak self discipline means I can go maybe two days without sugar before I freak the fuck out and eat a bunch of candy. I can maybe work out for a week or so before I lose discipline and give up because of bullshit always fucking up my schedule. 

I miss the army food. I came back home and couldn't eat my grandmothers cooking because it was so damn salty. I couldn't stand drinking soda or eating candy because it was so sweet it burned my throat. I want that again but I need to find some way to temper my self discipline again.


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## thraxil (Jul 15, 2021)

High Plains Drifter said:


> About a month ago my wife picked up a book called ' Food/ What the Heck Should I Eat' by author Mark Hyman, MD. Although she has always eaten healthier than I have, this book genuinely opened her eyes regarding how bad some foods are... first and foremost, sugar. Since reading this book she's gained so much understanding of how sugars, processing, preservatives, fats, etc affect our long-term health.



If she likes that, I'd suggest following it up with Dr. Michael Greger's "How Not to Die". Greger is an *extremely* thorough researcher and the book is an entirely evidence based approach. My partner picked up his "How Not to Diet", which I haven't read yet but seems to cover mostly the same material, just with a bit more of a focus on weight loss rather than avoiding or reversing disease. She had a similar "life changing" reaction to learning how harmful so much of the standard western diet is.

I grew up with hippie parents on a farm where we grew most of our own food. I barely ever got processed food as a child and sweets other than fruit were a less common treat. I rebounded a bit from that when I was a teenager and had money from odd jobs and could buy food myself. I drank a *lot* of soda and ate a lot of crap. That continued through college. I was a Physics/Engineering student and I'd drink a 2-liter bottle of Pepsi every night to get through my homework and studying. I think the only reason that period didn't completely destroy my health was that the school cafeteria where I was on a meal plan had really long lines for the regular hot food. I was always in a hurry and I discovered that there was no line for the salad cart, so I got in a habit of bypassing the regular line and just making myself a giant salad with beans and chickpeas and walnuts and every vegetable I could pile on for my lunch and dinner pretty much every day. After about a semester of that, I realized I hadn't eaten meat in months and had no real desire to. I went vegetarian and have been vegetarian or vegan ever since (20+ years).

The soda did completely destroy my teeth though. It wrecked the enamel and I've had to have plenty of expensive dental work as a result. A few years after getting out of school I decided to quit caffeine and that involved quitting soda as well. After two years I went back to caffeine, but only in the form of black coffee or tea.

Once I got out of school, I stayed vegetarian but went back to eating a lot of convenient junk and not really paying attention to my health or diet. In my late twenties I realized that I had put on about 35lbs without really noticing (hadn't stepped on a scale in years). I got serious about health and diet again, took it off over the course of about 6 months and have kept it off for the last decade.

These days I don't explicitly avoid sugar or processed foods, but the bulk of my diet is essentially whole-food plant-based and that gives me a pretty good buffer to deal with occasional indulgences (and nightly beer).

My advice is to focus on *including* "good", whole foods in your diet first rather than *excluding* "bad" foods. Eg, if you are trying to cut out soda, whenever you feel like drinking a soda, first make yourself drink a big glass of water or green tea or something, wait 5 minutes, and then see if you still want the soda. If you do, then drink it. Similarly for food, try to get a few servings of greens, legumes, whole grains, fruit, etc. into your diet every day and then see if you're still hungry for the processed stuff. A restriction mindset takes a lot of willpower to maintain. It's much easier to develop a habit by adding something new rather than forbidding yourself something that you are already used to. (if you're like mmr007 and already at the point of NAFLD or similar, you might have no choice; do what your doctor tells you in that case instead of listening to internet randos).


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## diagrammatiks (Jul 15, 2021)

Is most of this stuff sugar or is it high fructose corn syrup?


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## thraxil (Jul 15, 2021)

diagrammatiks said:


> Is most of this stuff sugar or is it high fructose corn syrup?



There's really very little difference. There is research showing that HFCS is particularly bad compared to sucrose or other sugars (there's like one OH bond that gets broken down in your liver and then it's all the same to your body), but ultimately large amounts of any of them tend towards the same negative outcomes. HCFS just happens to be particularly common in processed food in the US because the government subsiizes corn farmers and make it cheaper than sugar from other sources.


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## Demiurge (Jul 15, 2021)

For a period of time, I thought I was doing myself a favor by switching to "Mexican" Coke made with cane sugar, but then I realized that it's all just sugar-water anyway. Useless calories either way.


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## TedEH (Jul 15, 2021)

Maybe I'm just food-dumb but isn't everything basically sugar? Like, I can understand not drinking soda, not stuffing your face with candy, etc., but "sugar" on it's own seems to be too vague a term to be very helpful in terms of deciding what to eat.

So you start with something like candy - sure, obviously that's _just_ sugar, so don't eat that.
Then you go, ok, but I want a snack. Candy is out. Cake is out. Fruit? How about fruit?
Fruit is also mostly sugar. Sure, it's also fibre and other good stuff, and it's much less densely packed with sugar, but an apple is still sugar. Lots of "healthy looking" options are processed in a way that add sugar to the mix or eliminate all the stuff that isn't sugar.
Ok so veggies. Veggies must be good right? Just go to town on a bag of carrots.
Except no, those also have sugar in them.

My understanding, as flawed as it might be, has always been that food is basically made up of sugar, protein, fat, fibre, etc. If you just cut sugar and cut protein and cut fat, etc., what are you left with? I mean, you need a significant amount of "energy" from your food to function, it has to come from somewhere.

I went down a road of thinking I was being clever with how I was eating years ago and while I got healthier in some ways, I got unhealthier in other ways. And ended up with what could probably be called an eating disorder.


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## High Plains Drifter (Jul 15, 2021)

thraxil said:


> If she likes that, I'd suggest following it up with Dr. Michael Greger's "How Not to Die". Greger is an *extremely* thorough researcher and the book is an entirely evidence based approach. My partner picked up his "How Not to Diet", which I haven't read yet but seems to cover mostly the same material, just with a bit more of a focus on weight loss rather than avoiding or reversing disease. She had a similar "life changing" reaction to learning how harmful so much of the standard western diet is.
> 
> I grew up with hippie parents on a farm where we grew most of our own food. I barely ever got processed food as a child and sweets other than fruit were a less common treat. I rebounded a bit from that when I was a teenager and had money from odd jobs and could buy food myself. I drank a *lot* of soda and ate a lot of crap. That continued through college. I was a Physics/Engineering student and I'd drink a 2-liter bottle of Pepsi every night to get through my homework and studying. I think the only reason that period didn't completely destroy my health was that the school cafeteria where I was on a meal plan had really long lines for the regular hot food. I was always in a hurry and I discovered that there was no line for the salad cart, so I got in a habit of bypassing the regular line and just making myself a giant salad with beans and chickpeas and walnuts and every vegetable I could pile on for my lunch and dinner pretty much every day. After about a semester of that, I realized I hadn't eaten meat in months and had no real desire to. I went vegetarian and have been vegetarian or vegan ever since (20+ years).
> 
> ...



I'll pass this along to my wife as she's always up for educating herself and reading in general. I've also suggested to her before, to never get too hung up on only one person's advice... to remain open to different viewpoints and other people's perspectives. 

My sister and I grew up similarly as you...  without processed foods. Our intake was for the most part fresh fruit, fresh veggies, as well as our family's beef and poultry... everything fresh off the farm. We only recognized processed sugars as occasional "treats" and that only came about around Christmas time. We were seldom allowed anything pre-sweetened nor were we allowed any fast food or soda. We might have the occasional sweetened juice or cookie from time to time but that was about it besides some school lunches at times that we were unable to brown-bag it. 

But my parents divorced when I was 11-12 yrs old and things rapidly changed. I think that my mom felt guilty about the divorce and subsequently started bringing in a lot of sugary snacks, cereals, soda into the house. Also she was working 2 to 3 jobs at any given time so cooking fresh became less of an an option for her. Going forward into high-school and college, my diet only got worse. Of course I was invincible so as I continued with many athletic activities, I also loaded myself up with carbs. I still ate lots of salads and good things but combined with all the carbs and sugars, I developed very unbalanced and unhealthy eating habits... up all night partying or studying with endless pizza, Doritos, and Mt Dew became acceptable and typical. 

And that's where I'm at now. We bought a house almost 3 years ago and since that time, almost every day is filled with projects, repairs, renovation type stuff so I'm working constantly. I drink a ton of Gatorade Zero throughout the day and although that may be somewhat bad as opposed to simply drinking water, it's at least better than soda in the hydrating sense. But my eating habits are just screwed up. I don't or can't bring myself to eat early in the day so late into the afternoon and overnight I wind up sedentary and eating unhealthy stuff. I try to offset that by also making good food every week.. fish, lentils, beans, hummus, fresh fruits, etc. but it's like I'm fighting a losing battle due to my lack of self-control/ discipline. 

Unfortunately, I've walked this road most of my life... eating a sleeve of Oreo's and then trying to cancel it out with a carrot lol. And as my activity level decreased later in life, the pounds just started piling on. I've always remained active but it's just not the right kind of active... not like weight-lifting, cardio, etc. So my weight is up and my muscle mass is down. And I feel like shit most of the time... aches, back pain, allergies, congestion, exhaustion, etc. 

These days my exercise routine is more just pushing myself... many days out in the brutal heat and humidity mowing, weed-eating, pruning, landscaping, cleaning, raking, sweeping, etc, etc until the project is done or until I feel like I'm gonna die... like for real, gonna die. For the life of me, I just can't seem to get into a consistent regime between maintaining a healthy diet, consistent sleep cycle, and positive exercise. Along with all of this, my mental/ emotional health is also suffering due to a life of hardship and loss that's left me with a constant underlying vein of depression and anxiety. So food is unfortunately filling the social and emotional voids also.

It's sad to read what I wrote in this thread just 9 months ago and feel like I'm just not able to actually make the positive changes stick long-term. Sometimes motivation is just so hard to come by... and next to impossible to maintain indefinitely.. at least for me it seems.


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## Dumple Stilzkin (Jul 15, 2021)

All sugar isn’t used in the same way by the body. Fruits and vegetables higher in sugar are perfectly fine as they contain fiber which slows the release of sugar into your blood. Obviously you shouldn’t sit around and eat one banana after another. Or binge on sweet potatoes, I find banana’s too sweet anymore personally. But I think the key is to eat a well rounded diet, veggies (think colors eat green, orange, yellow, red and purple/blue.) fruits (the more active you are the higher your carbohydrate intake via whole grains and fruits needs to be) healthy fats (olive oil, avocado, coconut, fish, nuts and seeds) protein (seeds and nuts, fish, legumes, and ethically raised sustainable meat). The better you eat and more often you exercise you get more wiggle room with foods before I pack on weight, bonus.


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## jaxadam (Jul 15, 2021)

Sugar/candy/soda actually makes me physically sick. Like sweaty, nauseous, etc. The older I get the worse it seems to get.

There are different sugars, and there are differences; there's sucrose (fructose/glucose) which is basically table sugar. There's glucose, fructose, and dextrose (glucose made from corn). They all are slightly different and act differently in the body.

Fructose and glucose are monosaccharides. Sucrose, lactose, etc. are disaccharides.

Both glucose and fructose are absorbed similarly, but glucose has an immediate impact on insulin levels. Fructose actually has to be converted to glucose in order to be used in the body.

Glucose is generally used for energy or replenishing "glycogen reserves". Fructose is either converted into glucose or stored as fat.

So for sports nutrition purposes, you typically want a 2:1 carb:sugar post-workout, and you want the sugar to be glucose/dextrose to initiate an insulin spike.


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## Iron1 (Jul 15, 2021)

ThomasUV777 said:


> Sorry to hear that man. I've been on the keto diet for a couple of years now. It's become my way of life at this point and I love it.
> No more fatigue, eat all the meat and fat you want. You don't have to think too long about what you eat etc. Meat & mayo!
> 
> And you're right, you can find sugar in the most unexpected foods. I've become one of those people that checks the label for everything now. If there's
> ...



Same. We've been eating clean Keto for 3 years now. Feel better than I have in over a decade. 

Check out the movie Magic Pill and the rest tied to it, and prepare to go down the rabbit hole that leads to the realization that the same companies that are poisoning us with sugar in everything processed are owned by the pharmaceutical companies who are selling us drugs to "fix" the sugar induced health issues. 

They're literally selling a cure for an illness they're creating.


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## c7spheres (Jul 15, 2021)

I'd really love to find a soda alternative. Something that actually gives me that brain fix and tastes good too.


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## Iron1 (Jul 15, 2021)

We drink Zevia soda. Sweetened with Stevia. Virgils makes some amazing no-sugar sodas too, but they're not as readily available where we live.


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## bostjan (Jul 15, 2021)

TedEH said:


> Maybe I'm just food-dumb but isn't everything basically sugar? Like, I can understand not drinking soda, not stuffing your face with candy, etc., but "sugar" on it's own seems to be too vague a term to be very helpful in terms of deciding what to eat.
> 
> So you start with something like candy - sure, obviously that's _just_ sugar, so don't eat that.
> Then you go, ok, but I want a snack. Candy is out. Cake is out. Fruit? How about fruit?
> ...



There are basically 4 bulk things that make up foods, along with a myriad of tiny amounts of other nutrients and other non-nutrients...

The 4 things - water, carbohydrate, lipids (fats), and protein. As far as carbohydrates go, there are a lot of different ones, from non-dietary fiber to dietary fiber to starches to sugars. But the problem in western society's diet seems to be the over-reliance on simple sugars, which get digested too quickly and cause an almost explosive reaction of energy released into the body. More complex sugars take longer to metabolize, so they release energy more gradually, which is healthier in most situations.

When fats are metabolized, they release ketones and other carbonyls into the blood stream, which have to be filtered out before they reach toxic levels. When proteins are metabolized, they release ammonia, which has to be chemically bound in the kidneys to make urine. These metabolic processes are generally safe, but fad diets can sometimes overload fats and/or protein to the point where a person's blood can become too toxic too quickly and it can cause all sorts of organ failures.

But, if you eat "real food" (i.e., not something man-made), it should contain at least some portion of each of those four things, since those are all necessary for life.


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## Dumple Stilzkin (Jul 15, 2021)

c7spheres said:


> I'd really love to find a soda alternative. Something that actually gives me that brain fix and tastes good too.


I’ll second that, Zevia is probably the best alternative to soda. Some even have caffeine.


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## jaxadam (Jul 15, 2021)

I mean, besides water and Monster, these are the only two other things people should be drinking.


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## Randy (Jul 15, 2021)

Tbh, the sugar is my least favorite thing about the taste of soda so it was kind of an easy transition to flavored seltzer sans sweetener.


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## TedEH (Jul 15, 2021)

c7spheres said:


> I'd really love to find a soda alternative. Something that actually gives me that brain fix and tastes good too.


Coffee?


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## bostjan (Jul 15, 2021)

Randy said:


> Tbh, the sugar is my least favorite thing about the taste of soda so it was kind of an easy transition to flavored seltzer sans sweetener.


I'm actually in the camp that believes that soda would taste better if it had much less sugar/sweetener in it.

Diet soda, to me, is the worst, since it's several times sweeter than regular soda, which already tastes wayyy too sweet to me.

I've played around with making my own (it was many years ago), and using about half down to a third as much sugar seems to get the maximum enjoy-ability. If an artificial sweetener is 5 times as sweet, they should probably use 1/20th as much, since a) it doesn't need to taste that sweet and b) they should use even less to more effectively mask the artificial-ness of the flavour.

But whatever, I drink seltzer water. It tastes good to me, it's cheaper, and it's at least a little healthier overall.


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## c7spheres (Jul 15, 2021)

TedEH said:


> Coffee?


 Coffee is not for me, but I did start drinking matcha a couple years ago. I cut my soda down a few cans a day because of it. I drink more water now too because of the matcha. Matcha really does seem to help me feel better.


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## Dumple Stilzkin (Jul 15, 2021)

c7spheres said:


> Coffee is not for me, but I did start drinking matcha a couple years ago. I cut my soda down a few cans a day because of it. I drink more water now too because of the matcha. Matcha really does seem to help me feel better.


It’s loaded with antioxidants too! I drink a really nice jasmine green tea, but sometimes I have about 1-2 ounces of drip in the morning with MCT oil and collagen in it.


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## c7spheres (Jul 15, 2021)

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> It’s loaded with antioxidants too! I drink a really nice jasmine green tea, but sometimes I have about 1-2 ounces of drip in the morning with MCT oil and collagen in it.


 I'll have to look into MCT oil and collegen for drinking. Thanks. I really like my bubbly sugar cancer though. It's sooooo good.


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## Dumple Stilzkin (Jul 15, 2021)

c7spheres said:


> I'll have to look into MCT oil and collegen for drinking. Thanks. I really like my bubbly sugar cancer though. It's sooooo good.


Yeah, it’s great for me because you get a boost from the coffee. But you also get the brain fuel from the MCT. Soda is a hard habit to kick, I used to love it. The idea of not having a big cold soda to go with fast food was a tough obstacle. I eat fast food a few times a year now, but I skip the cold shrimp soda now.


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## c7spheres (Jul 15, 2021)

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> Yeah, it’s great for me because you get a boost from the coffee. But you also get the brain fuel from the MCT. Soda is a hard habit to kick, I used to love it. The idea of not having a big cold soda to go with fast food was a tough obstacle. I eat fast food a few times a year now, but I skip the cold shrimp soda now.


 Shrimp Soda? What?  Lemme get this straight. You're talkking about a bunch of ground up shrimp or shrimp juice in carbonated water? Like shrimp flavored soda? I'm getting nauseous just thinking about that.


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## Dumple Stilzkin (Jul 15, 2021)

c7spheres said:


> Shrimp Soda? What?  Lemme get this straight. You're talkking about a bunch of ground up shrimp or shrimp juice in carbonated water? Like shrimp flavored soda? I'm getting nauseous just thinking about that.


It’s a Tom Goes to the mayor reference. Sorry! I drank Coke, Dr. Pecker and Mountain Dew.


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## c7spheres (Jul 15, 2021)

Dumple Stilzkin said:


> It’s a Tom Goes to the mayor reference. Sorry! I drank Coke, Dr. Pecker and Mountain Dew.


Oh, haha! I'm so outta the loop I never even heard ot Tom Goes either. lol. And I think that's literally the first time I ever used "lol". lol. : )


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## Spaced Out Ace (Jul 15, 2021)

I'm convinced sugar (ie, added sugar, "substitutes," etc) are toxic waste, and rather than spending billions to dispose of it properly, they just force it on us poor saps, because hey, it makes a ton of cash for the pharmaceutical companies. 

To clarify, I am not talking about naturally occurring sugars in fruits and vegetables. I am referring to added sugar that in some or a lot of cases serves zero purpose other than to sneak sugar into people diets and make them ill.


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## Randy (Jul 15, 2021)

bostjan said:


> I'm actually in the camp that believes that soda would taste better if it had much less sugar/sweetener in it.
> 
> Diet soda, to me, is the worst, since it's several times sweeter than regular soda, which already tastes wayyy too sweet to me.
> 
> ...



Sugar and salt are really supposed to be used as flavor enhancers. Once you add so much that you're tasting the additive, you're kinda missing the point.

Don't get me wrong, I still "spoil" myself with a Pepsi now and again but the satisfaction is legit from the carbonation zing when you take a sip when it's fresh. After that and after it's settled in (especially if you're not eating something along with it), it legit feels like you've got a layer of sugar water coating the walls of your tongue and mouth. 1000x worse with artificial sweetener. I find myself drinking a soda and then having to wash it down with a glass of water or it just feels like I've got sticky syrup coating everything for hours.

And seltzers are kind of a trial and error thing, I used to judge them based on the calorie number but realized a lot of them are using zero calorie sweeteners and taste AWFUL. Should be nothing other than carbonated water and "natural flavor" and that's it or kinda defeats the purpose.


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## c7spheres (Jul 15, 2021)

I don't know about other places, but here in Arizona it's easy to get Mexican Coke (the soda) which is made of natual sugar. So they say. It tastes a lot better and still comes in glass bottles, but I don't trust Mexico food labeling any more than I do America's. Etiher way, that stuff tastes good. Mmm. yummy.


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## Iron1 (Jul 16, 2021)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> I'm convinced sugar (ie, added sugar, "substitutes," etc) are toxic waste, and rather than spending billions to dispose of it properly, they just force it on us poor saps, because hey, it makes a ton of cash for the pharmaceutical companies.
> 
> To clarify, I am not talking about naturally occurring sugars in fruits and vegetables. I am referring to added sugar that in some or a lot of cases serves zero purpose other than to sneak sugar into people diets and make them ill.



Sugar has been proven to be more addictive than cocaine. So, if they add sugar to your Mac & cheese or dill pickles or salsa, you'll be craving it in more overt forms buying more processed crap and making comments like "I just can't help myself..." as you march into the grave down the road of inflammatory diseases. 

Check out this book: 

Lies My Doctor Told Me


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## thraxil (Jul 16, 2021)

Oh, my other big piece of advice if you are struggling to eat well due to time/convenience constraints,etc. is to invest in an instapot or slow cooker and some cookbooks of simple recipes for them. Chuck a bunch of ingredients in it before you go to work, set the timer, and come home to a healthy meal all ready to go. An hour or two on the weekend, you can make a huge pot of stew or chilli or something full of vegetables, beans, etc. put it in tupperware and be set for a good portion of your meals for the whole week. Tends to be way cheaper than buying pre-made convenience foods as well.


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## TedEH (Jul 16, 2021)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> added sugar


I never understood this distinction. How is "added" any different than other sugars? If we're talking about a particular _type _of sugar (corn syrup etc), then IMO it's better for us to call that out accurately than just say "added", since it makes it sound like any quote-unquote "natural" sugar is fine, but it'll still get you.

Like look at fruit juices -> it would be easy for someone to look at that and say that this is "ok sugar" because it came from fruit, therefor wasn't "added". This would be fine if a glass of apple juice had maybe one apple's worth of sugar, but it doesn't. They're just about as loaded up as sodas are. You're basically getting a mountain of sugar no matter what you drink unless it's just water, or basic coffee/tea/etc. that you didn't add anything to.

It kinda drives me nuts how so many things are just packed with the stuff. As soon as you add any kind of "flavour" to something, the sugar content doubles or triples. The only way to avoid it is to only ever buy only the blandest variations of anything.


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## odibrom (Jul 16, 2021)

... I'll share a bit of my 25+ years of vegetarianism experience... warning, a small testament ahead.

::::::::

One must distrust those who say that Carbohydrates are all the same, or that Protein is protein, not matter where it comes from... or that fat is fat and so on. That probably means they have an agenda and want to sell you something (like get your money out of your pocket) or are simply mis-informed. I don't like men with agendas, I like to think by my own.

Carbohydrates are an important part of our daily nutrition needs, they're what fuels the brain and are burnt by our muscles into movement. That's their function as I've been told at school long ago. Vitamins, Proteins, lipids (fats) and minerals are the rest of nutrients we need every single day. The key to healthy life is to balance them. However, not all carbohydrates are the same, as not all proteins and vitamins or minerals or fats. Some do harm our metabolism, a lot. Carbohydrates are a fundamental part of our daily needs, cutting them out of the diet is building a gap in the long term and that will lead to unbalanced health, one becomes a ping-pong ball in diet plans because they all cut something out. Yeah, at the beginning they feel good, because they're balancing the previous excesses, but once the gap kicks in, one is already unbalanced, a lot and we are then shot to the other side of the diet spectrum.

My advice is to dive a little deeper and learn that one of the most harmful carbohydrates is Sacarose. Sacarose is disruptive of liver functions when in excess and other illnesses like Diabetes which is THE pandemic in the _civilized world_. Cereals (as rice, wheat, oat, and so on) are a different branch of carbohydrates sources as are potatoes. Cereals should be our main source of our daily carbohydrates needs. Cereals can be found in many forms like pasta, bread, cookies and, obviously, in their original grain/seed form. I like my cereals as original as possible, so grain it is and always in their richest form: brown or whole grain... Carbohydrates are generically called "sugars", but what sugar really means is SACAROSE and that's the one to avoid the most. This doesn't mean one can't eat a bit here and there, just not make it every day your main energy income. Sacarose has a fast burn in our system, really fast. It boosts up our energy when it ignites, but then it creates a void (hangover) when burnt. Whole grain cereals have a slow burn in our metabolism, they last and last and last, and won't create voids when burnt, because there's still something there from the previous meal. Whole grain cereals will fulfill us way more for smaller quantities than sacarose loaded foods.

However, mixing cereals and potatoes as carbohydrate sources in the same meal is kind of incompatible, they'll ferment in our stomach (they'll react chemically with the stomach fluids) and become digestion heavy there, calling for more blood stream... then by gravity effect as well, the blood is drained from the brain and we get sleepy as hell and to counter that effect, coffee it is to keep us awake... I try to never mix cereals with potatoes... I never drank coffee, EVER and I'm 44 now... Burger with french fries... potato soup with pizza... yeah cereals and potatoes mix right there, ready for a coffee at the end... and then they say "coffee gives you energy"... well, no it doesn't, it only excites your nerves... cereals and potatoes give you energy / carbohydrates, the sleepy feeling comes from fermentation in ones's digestion. One MUST learn how to mix food in order to get a GOOD MEAL.

Proteins on the other hand are also not all the same. Proteins are the major building blocks of our body, they're needed for repairs from injuries, cell replacements, etc... Proteins are harder to digest and are one of the major time consuming nutrients in our intestines digestion along with fats. For this reason one shouldn't mix different sources of protein in one meal. Beams are magical, they pack lots of proteins per weight unit (more than meat as I've read somewhere) and they also pack lots of good carbohydrates, and minerals, and vitamins... but mixing beams (or different sources of proteins) in the same meal will result in a heavy digestion and thus the sleepy felling one gets that is overcome by coffee... I personally prefer the small beams to the larger ones. Beams are leguminous vegetables and all these are high protein packed. Peas, chick peas and all the beams and lentils are fantastic for our body functions and give us about 99% of our protein needs (a bit of speculation here, but it's a ballpark value). Mixing different sources of proteins, like peas and beans, will delay the intestine digestion, and will increase a lot the potential flatulence these little seeds have.

Generic vegies are then the source of all else. They pack almost every single nutrient in different proportions, if they're sweet, they have more concentration of carbohydrates for example. From vegies we have leafs, roots and some fruits and we should eat them all for vitamins, minerals and a bit of fat in some of them (olives are fruits, right?).

... and then we have the nuts (fruits naturally without pulp). Buts are also high protein, high fat, naturally high carbohydrate and minerals (like calcium) packed. Nuts are oilseeds and can (should) be consumed moderately. Because they are highly packed with natural sugar, fat and protein, we don't need much of them, just a soup spoon per meal and it's ok. They'll complement the gaps that the other seeds like cereals and beams could not fill in our protein and fat daily needs. Within the nuts we can find almonds, peanut, hazelnut, nuts, sesame, sunflower seeds, linseed and so on. These can be eaten raw, cooked or ground up into a creamy butter (add 1 tea spoon of salt per 1kg of oilseeds). These are fantastic appetizers, but don't get the salty ones.

::::::::

So, *to me* a balanced hot meal is made of about:

35% of carbohydrate source like brown rice or whole grain cereal/pasta.
30% of protein source like lentils, chick peas, beans, tofu...
30% of vitamins and minerals source (either cooked and/or raw) like cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, carrot, turnip, horseradish, beetroot, french garlic, onion, pumpkin, fruits and so on...
and the final 5% is left for condiments like peanut/sesame/almond butter, olive oil, etc...
For those with high active lifestyle, these proportions may have to be adjusted (more carbohydrates and protein). For those that live in front of a computer, then maybe more vegies per meal and less carbohydrates. Try not to cut any of the nutrient, but to choose wisely which source to consume.

The general idea is that *WE EAT TO HAVE ENERGY*, right? What does it mean then when we eat and became sleepy or loose all the energy? It simply means that we've eaten wrongly, either too much, or the wrong combinations for our needs, or most likely both. A hot meal should not get us sleepy to the point of needing coffee to be awake. Have that in mind as your meter about how you are eating. Then, are you farting a lot or with intestines troubles, is your poop way too smelly?... yeah, same thing here, wrong choices of food for your needs.

I avoid industrial food as the plague, but that doesn't mean I don't seldom eat those things, I do. Sodas and junk food are simply the worst one can put in our body. When one is young, our metabolism is high and processes it, but in the long term it will only make us ill and we'll brake at weakest organ, although it may not be the one to show symptoms...

This is only a part of the subject, the *what to eat* part of it, then there's the *when* and the *how* (either in the cooking process as well as in the mental / chewing / digestion process)...

::::::::

I hope this clears out some ideas and misconceptions. I'm not a doctor, but have been with this kind of diet for more than 25 years already and I do regular (once a year or so) blood and urine tests (analysed by real doctors) and they all come out great (better than average) within the expected parameters for my age... so I must be doing something right, right...? Active lifestyle is also super important for our metabolism to work properly, outdoor activities as specially.

Feel free to oppose and share some science papers, to me this feels right by a lot of reasons not mentioned here that are also science based...


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## jaxadam (Jul 16, 2021)

odibrom said:


> However, mixing cereals and potatoes as carbohydrate sources in the same meal is kind of incompatible.



I'll come back to the rest of your post later, and I'm in agreement with most of it, but this is an interesting point you bring up because it is one I seldom have ever seen outside of the BJJ world. I was actually talking about this the other day, but some of the guys I used to train with were adamant about not eating rice and potatoes at the same meal, and generally didn't eat 3 hours prior to training.


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## Spaced Out Ace (Jul 16, 2021)

jaxadam said:


> I'll come back to the rest of your post later, and I'm in agreement with most of it, but this is an interesting point you bring up because it is one I seldom have ever seen outside of the BJJ world. I was actually talking about this the other day, but some of the guys I used to train with were adamant about not eating rice and potatoes at the same meal, and generally didn't eat 3 hours prior to training.


Pretty certain both rice and potatoes increase sugars, so doubling up seems redundant and unhealthy.


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## jaxadam (Jul 16, 2021)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Pretty certain both rice and potatoes increase sugars, so doubling up seems redundant and unhealthy.



That wasn’t the philosophy behind it; an equal portion of rice OR potatoes was not equal to the same portion or rice AND potatoes metabolically.


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## odibrom (Jul 16, 2021)

Spaced Out Ace said:


> Pretty certain both rice and potatoes increase sugars, so doubling up seems redundant and unhealthy.



Since they are both Carbohydrate sources, that is true, they will rise the "sugar" levels on one's system. There is "no point" in mixing them, but is a general (wrong) practice among many cultures around the world. Their point is... taste? See, one goes for a burger and it is served with bread (cereals), right? and then, for something a little different in taste, let's order some french fries packed with burnt fat and salt. as we become thirsty, drop some sodas in... bread and potatoes, burnt oils, sodas... yeah stomach acids can process a lot, but not for a long time in a row...

When I was a kid I was taught not to mix Watermelon with Wine, they'd create a potentially deadly indigestion. As this incompatible combo, there are lots of others, however, since they're not as deadly, they're overlooked. Rice/Bread and potatoes in the same meal _can be deadly_ if one is to drive for a long time, but not because the digestion itself, more on the effect they have on one's reflexes, lowering them a lot in some cases...

::::::::

One should also note that what one eats does not enters immediately in our blood system. In fact, it will take more than 4 hours to get there, BUT, it will create the info in our system that those nutrients have been eaten and therefore can be released in our blood in the "same" amount. That's why we feel sharper and awake when we eat something (controlled portions)... That's also why one should in fact eat something (small portions) before a physical activity practice either in the gym or on the outside.

... we ARE what we eat (not only, but mostly), either physically, either mentally... eat good to feel good...


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## Spaced Out Ace (Jul 16, 2021)

I have hamburgers and fries on occasion, but I dropped soda a few years ago -- as well as candy and other sweets -- and I can't really tolerate soda anymore. Candy either, for that matter. Makes me semi queasy. It's also all way too sweet, which didn't used to bother me as I was desensitized. I tried to eat a couple Reese's last year (one of my favorite candies), and couldn't stand the taste, nor the way I felt after. Yuck!


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## thraxil (Jul 16, 2021)

odibrom said:


> When I was a kid I was taught not to mix Watermelon with Wine, they'd create a potentially deadly indigestion.



I'm sorry, but that's an outright urban legend with no science or evidence behind it. The only literature I can find that's at all related are papers like this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5615783/ which actually shows a potential *protective* effect from watermelon against liver and brain damage from alcohol (at least in rats).

The closest thing to that that I'm aware of that is legitimate is that grapefruit can cause severe interactions with certain medications.


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## TedEH (Jul 16, 2021)

odibrom said:


> One should also note that what one eats does not enters immediately in our blood system. In fact, it will take more than 4 hours to get there


I don't know the "real science" of this, but my understanding has been that anything you eat is going to take anywhere from a couple hours to a couple of days to make it through your system, and there are parts of digestion/absorption that happen all throughout that process.


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## odibrom (Jul 16, 2021)

thraxil said:


> I'm sorry, but that's an outright urban legend with no science or evidence behind it. The only literature I can find that's at all related are papers like this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5615783/ which actually shows a potential *protective* effect from watermelon against liver and brain damage from alcohol (at least in rats).
> 
> The closest thing to that that I'm aware of that is legitimate is that grapefruit can cause severe interactions with certain medications.



Well, it can certainly be a urban legend and if is as so, I'm sorry for spreading it. I'm quite sure it is not as such, but I'll leave that for the professionals.

Editing this post with...


TedEH said:


> I don't know the "real science" of this, but my understanding has been that anything you eat is going to take anywhere from a couple hours to a couple of days to make it through your system, and there are parts of digestion/absorption that happen all throughout that process.



A good digestion takes about 1 day since it enters the mouth and exits through the anus. There are several steps and the different organs have different tasks. For example, sacarose has its absorption starting at the throat and esophagus, hence the energy effect it gives us right from the moment we eat it. This doesn't mean, however, that the bulk of it enters the blood stream there. The stomach has the purpose of decomposing the nutrients almost to the molecular level, so they can be absorbed in the (long?) intestine (I´m sorry, I don't know the translation for the first part). This first part of the intestine has the job of absorbing all nutrients and it takes at least 2 hours for the first nutrients to get into the blood since they enter the mouth. A good stomach digestion should not take longer than 1 hour. If it does, one either ate too much, the wrong combination of foods or both (in most cases). Since the stomach processing enters the intestine, it starts a long journey until there is nothing (useful) left to absorb and enters the final process for exiting the body in final part of the (large?) intestine. The large intestine is mainly responsible for absorbing water and is particular sensible to bad quality fats (fries and heavily fat cakes and sweets). If one is constipated, one should probably drink more water for a starting point.

The point is, I'll poop tomorrow what I eat today. As so, I'll use tomorrow the energy that food gave me today....


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## bostjan (Jul 16, 2021)

Yugoslavian immigrants to Michigan have a summer tradition of drilling a hole in a watermelon and filling it with booze to enjoy the following day. I've also seen plenty of restaurants serving watermelon sangria recently. Either it's perfectly fine or else it might explain why the USA is so damned crazy now.

Everything you eat gets absorbed into the blood stream at different rates. It depends on what nutrient it is and also, to a fair extent, what kind of metabolism the person has. Refined sugar gets absorbed very quickly and starches (complex sugars) get absorbed more slowly. Fiber might not get absorbed at all, but, in cases when it does, it does so very slowly. Fats and proteins take longer to absorb than carbohydrates, generally...

Grapefruit is an interesting topic. It doesn't interfere with drugs themselves, but it interferes with your body's mechanism of breaking them down before they hit the bloodstream. So, if you eat a grapefruit and then swallow a medication, your stomach starts using all of its enzymes to break down the grapefruit and then there's none left to break down the medication. When the broken down grapefruit and unbroken down drug get passed on to the intestines, the drug is absorbed into the bloodstream at full strength. That might not be a problem, except for the fact that the pharmacist calculated how much medicine to put in the pill based on the assumption that your stomach would break down a certain percentage of it, and that was now bypassed, so it's almost like you ground up the pill and snorted it rather than swallowed it - it's a very confusing way to overdose.

Now don't get any ideas thinking you can save money by taking half as much or your prescription and just chasing it with grapefruit juice - every drug is digested differently and some people who eat a lot of grapefruit can store larger enzyme reserves, so the effect isn't guaranteed!


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## odibrom (Jul 16, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Yugoslavian immigrants to Michigan have a summer tradition of drilling a hole in a watermelon and filling it with booze to enjoy the following day. I've also seen plenty of restaurants serving watermelon sangria recently. Either it's perfectly fine or else it might explain why the USA is so damned crazy now.
> 
> Everything you eat gets absorbed into the blood stream at different rates. It depends on what nutrient it is and also, to a fair extent, what kind of metabolism the person has. Refined sugar gets absorbed very quickly and starches (complex sugars) get absorbed more slowly. Fiber might not get absorbed at all, but, in cases when it does, it does so very slowly. Fats and proteins take longer to absorb than carbohydrates, generally...
> 
> ...



Booze is not wine... different chemicals... and I'm not sure if it's specifically to red wine... if one care to try it out, please ask first if it's safe to a professional...

I used to hear when I was a child that oranges and milk do not blend well together, but I've seen orange flavored (?) yogurt recently.

Fruit salads are heavy on the digestion, the fruits ferment with each other and that leads to a slower digestion, specially if the meal is already heavy on meat and fat and sugar...

In the end, this all resumes to what the individual is sensible to, some things work for some, but may not work for others, so take all this rambling with your favorite seasoning... again, this has been working for me in the last 25+ years, so there's something right somewhere, but it doesn't mean I own the truth on this subject, because I don't, I really don't...


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## TedEH (Jul 16, 2021)

odibrom said:


> I've seen orange flavored (?) yogurt recently


Flavouring might not come from the actual fruit, or from the parts that don't mix.


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## odibrom (Jul 16, 2021)

TedEH said:


> Flavouring might not come from the actual fruit, or from the parts that don't mix.



Hence one of the reasons I avoid industrial "food"...


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## bostjan (Jul 16, 2021)

odibrom said:


> Booze is not wine... different chemicals... and I'm not sure if it's specifically to red wine... if one care to try it out, please ask first if it's safe to a professional...
> 
> I used to hear when I was a child that oranges and milk do not blend well together, but I've seen orange flavored (?) yogurt recently.
> 
> ...


Well, Sangria is red wine mixed with fruit, so watermelon sangria, I assume, is watermelon mixed with red wine. No?

Orange Sherbet has been a popular dessert in the USA for as long as I've been alive (which is pretty long), and it's made from orange juice, sugar, milk, cream, and orange zest, so I think it's safe to say that there are ways to make it work. But I don't recommend mixing milk with orange juice, merely because the flavours are not mutually palatable without some culinary wisdom involved.


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## odibrom (Jul 16, 2021)

bostjan said:


> Well, Sangria is red wine mixed with fruit, so watermelon sangria, I assume, is watermelon mixed with red wine. No?
> 
> Orange Sherbet has been a popular dessert in the USA for as long as I've been alive (which is pretty long), and it's made from orange juice, sugar, milk, cream, and orange zest, so I think it's safe to say that there are ways to make it work. But I don't recommend mixing milk with orange juice, merely because the flavours are not mutually palatable without some culinary wisdom involved.



Chemical reactions are different if played in different orders, it's not just adding substancies, so don't forget to add to the mix the stomach acids and eventually the order of ingestion (watermelon first, wine after?). Personally, I've never tested this, but I've heard it to be quite dangerous...

As far as making things mix, add enough sugar/sacarose and one will eat anything... even shit.


EDIT:
On the articles on the net about mixing of watermelon and (actually) RED WINE, I found one that delivers a "mixed" feeling on the subject, it's in portuguese, so care to use the translate function add-on on your browser to the translation. Bottom line, don't do large quantities of this mix. As with poisons and contagious diseases (like the CoViD one), the amount is significant for the result... This is a health related portal
https://www.boa-saude.pt/Artigos-e-Dicas/Mito/Melancia-com-vinho-sim-ou-nao


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## TedEH (Jul 16, 2021)

I mean, "large quantities" of anything with alcohol in it probably isn't a good idea.


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## odibrom (Jul 16, 2021)

... so my bad for spreading fear on some food mixes... do whatever suits you best...?


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## thraxil (Jul 17, 2021)

Just think about it for a few minutes and the idea that watermelon and wine is a "deadly" combination is absurd.

I've been to my share of picnics and cookouts and I'd say that watermelon and red wine were both in the spread at probably 90% of them. If it was a deadly combination, there would be piles of bodies every summer. Instead, as far as I can tell, there isn't a single recorded case of death or even medical treatment anywhere in recorded history. Doctors love, *LOVE* writing up case reports on that kind of unusual death or illness. If a patient presented to the ER with serious symptoms due to eating a combination of common foods, they'd be tripping over themselves to be the first one to publish. Reporters would love it even more. "Planning a picnic? You could be putting your family at risk of DEATH! More at 11." If there were even a shred of truth behind it, we'd never hear the end of it.

The Portuguese article basically seems to say that if you stuff yourself full of watermelon and wine, you'll find that it's an unpleasant experience. Yeah... OK. There are plenty of foods that will cause discomfort and indigestion if you fill your stomach with them. Try eating as much rice as you possibly can, and then drinking a bunch of water. Try drinking a cup of olive oil. Eating more than your stomach can handle of basically any food will lead to indigestion, discomfort, and possibly vomiting.


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## Dumple Stilzkin (Jul 17, 2021)

I have a book that mentions eating melons without any accompanying foods, due to the high water content. They are great cleansers and will help dehydration with their unique nutrient profile. But what happens when you add water to an acid? It becomes diluted and less effective. Will it kill you? No. But those who are more sensitive to food choices are better advised to eat them by themselves.


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## Drew (Jul 23, 2021)

TedEH said:


> I don't know the "real science" of this, but my understanding has been that anything you eat is going to take anywhere from a couple hours to a couple of days to make it through your system, and there are parts of digestion/absorption that happen all throughout that process.


I believe it varies based on what exactly it is you're eating - sugars tend to enter your bloodstream pretty quickly, I understand, while more complex carbs have to be broken down first before they can be metabolized. Proteins take even longer I believe. But if you've ever been completely hypoglycemic from going too deep in an endurance workout and running out of fuel, and drinking a coke or something (I keep a couple single serving bottles of root beer in the house for exactly that reason) it's definitely no more than five to fifteen minutes before you can feel yourself no longer feeling light headed.


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