
What happens to your brain when you stop eating sugar - prostoalex
http://qz.com/353138/this-is-what-happens-to-your-brain-when-you-stop-eating-sugar/
======
ssijak
My personal experience is that cravings are gone after about 2-3 weeks after I
cut simple sugars out (that includes all types of "healthy" sugars and even
fruits). After that period I can watch people who gorge on cakes just like I
watched people smoking after I quit and see that with different eyes and
different thought process then when you are hooked too. It is pure addiction.
Also, for me, if I fail and eat one portion of sweets after some time, my
brain goes to the swirling path of explanation why it is ok to eat one more
and tomorrow again and again... One more fix, and another...

Also when I do not eat sweets and junk for a few months your taste changes and
can feel stuff you could not feel before. Once after a few month I ate one bag
of small chips and almost puked from it how it tasted then after my taste
"cleared".

Simple sugar is really more poisonous and addictive than some of the banned
drugs, but the problem is that the most people do not think that way and most
people know next to nothing about foods which is sad. Also when you go in to
the shop there is almost not one thing without sugar in it, food industry is
sick today, excpecially in USA where they are using high fructose corn syrup
in every item they produce.

~~~
tspiteri
_Simple sugar is really more poisonous and addictive than some of the banned
drugs_

Saying that eating large amounts of simple sugar is worse than small amounts
of some of the banned drugs is one thing. But saying that sugar is poisonous,
or simply worse than banned drugs, is a little too much.

~~~
shiggerino
This, I can't imagine anyone reaching toxic levels of glucose in their
bloodstream by oral means, as nausea and vomiting are symptoms of
hyperglycemia, preventing further intake.

Though I might underestimate people's addiction, maybe there are IV glucose
junkies out there now?

~~~
ssijak
Google "glucose toxicity" and you will get many papers describing it under
certain conditions or in excess amounts.

~~~
stingraycharles
Also, there is diabetis, which should be enough evidence in itself that eating
excessive amounts of sugar for a long time is really bad.

Then again, too much of nearly anything is bad. There are lots of known cases
of people dying of drinking too much water, for example, but that doesn't make
water a bad thing in itself.

------
peteretep
Anecdata: I've stopped drinking alcohol (3 years), and I've stopped smoking
(~10 years), but giving up candy, sweet pastry, or anything that's got
significant refined sugar in was too much. I managed it for six months, and
then broke down, then three months, and really I haven't tried again.

Interestingly, when I came at it from a slightly different angle ("mindful
eating") and allowed myself as much of anything I wanted eaten mindfully, my
natural desire tapered off, and I eat a lot less sweet stuff these days.

~~~
chrismealy
Nine months ago I quit sugar to see if that would help my chronic sinus
congestion (it did). I had a killer headache for about two weeks, then I was
fine. After my pants started falling down I noticed I'd lost a ton of weight.
I lost 25 pounds and I still eat a ton of carbs.

~~~
doctorfoo
That's interesting - I have chronic congestion. How much sugar did you eat
before you quit? What did "quitting" mean to you? (Just no
sweets/cakes/biscuits, or did you go more extreme - no chinese food!?)

~~~
chrismealy
I didn't think it was that much ... per day maybe couple of cookies, or a
chocolate croissant, or hot chocolate. But almost always some kind of treat
everyday. When I quit my nose cleared up in about 5 days, but the sinus
headaches lasted another two weeks. That's when I knew something weird was
going on.

If I have almost any dessert now I'll have a sinus headache the next day. I
can get away with a teaspoon of honey in the morning and that's about it.
Berries are ok but I'm still not sure about fruit (bananas are definitely not
ok). But I can eat good bread three times a day and I'm fine.

~~~
doctorfoo
Thanks for the information. I'm definitely going to try this.

------
static_noise
Carbohdyrates like starches are polymeric sugars. They are easily broken down
by enzymes. They don't taste very sweet unless they are very short. Between
white flour and glucose powder there is little difference except for the
taste. Demonizing sugar is of little use when the other carbohydrates are
ignored.

If you have cravings you should limit your intake of total carbohydrates per
hour (starting with sugars and simple carbohydrates). Complex carbohydrates
should also be kept low. Protein and fat are not too bad. The body can use
both sugar and fat for fuel. Everybody has a different body and different
needs depending on genes and activities. Don't demonize food. Sugar as such is
not evil.

Try a fruit - but not more than a handfull at a time.

Drink a glass of soda - but not more than once a week and preferably before
doing exercise.

Eat a bag of chips - on friday with a group of friends.

~~~
Sammi
Fibers (very long/complex carbonhydrates) actually retard the intestines
ability to process simpler carbonhydrates. That's why it's ok to eat a lot of
fruit, cause they have the right mix of simple and complex ones.

~~~
mrfusion
I've always heard that but I've never been able to find an explanation of how
fiber actually does that and to what degree?

could I take fiber supplements before eating dessert to minimize the impact,
lower the calories absorbed?

------
guelo
It's all so confusing since sugar and carbs are in all fruits and vegetables
and grains. What are we supposed to eat? I think all the "sugar is toxic and
always bad" stuff is too simplistic and a better understanding will hopefully
emerge.

~~~
lisper
It's all about the quantities and the delivery mechanism. An apple has about
20g of sugar, about the same as half a can of coke. But two apples come with
fiber and vitamins where a can of coke doesn't. That fiber will help you feel
full. The coke won't. In fact, the pure refined sugar in a coke will make you
feel hungrier.

Also, not all sugars are created equal. Fructose is much worse for you than
glucose, so sucrose (which is half glucose and half fructose) is much worse
for you than starch, which is long chains of glucose molecules. Also, because
your body has to work to decompose starch into glucose, that too will make you
feel full longer.

But by far the best thing you can do is replace sugar with non-saturated fat.
Fat is not the enemy, sugar -- and fructose in particular -- is the enemy.

~~~
kristiandupont
>Fat is not the enemy, sugar -- and fructose in particular -- is the enemy

I tell this to myself and anyone who wants to listen so I believe it but it
bothers me that this is just the current "fact". A while ago, the opposite was
"true", and who knows what we will all be thinking in the future? That, I
think, is the most depressing thing about nutrition advice.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I've seen far too many folks on /r/keto shed tens (or even 100+) of pounds on
a fat and protein macro heavy diet to not believe it.

I myself am doing keto with Ketochow (a Keto-esq Soylent mixture made by a
gentleman out of Utag), and lose 3-5 lbs a week on it (yet it tastes like
delicious pancake batter) while doing minimal exercise.

~~~
vlasev
To lose 3-5 pounds per week is crazy! That's 10800 - 18000 calories less than
used per week. That's 1550 - 2570 calories less per day. A sedentary person
needs somewhere between 2000 and 3000 calories per day. You were either eating
half as much food than you needed or there is a more likely explanation.

It's obviously a combination of eating less and losing water weight. Your body
can maintain about 1 lb of glycogen and 3 lb of water associated with that
glycogen. Not eating carbs will likely lead to a big decrease in this weight.
Also the fat itself is stored in 1:1 ratio with water. So your 3-5 lbs per
week is likely either a 1 or 2 time thing where you progressively lose all
your glycogen. Together with a moderate calorie restriction you end up losing
some fat and an equivalent amount of water.

~~~
burger_moon
I've been at about 2 lbs weight loss a week on a 1350 calorie diet since mid
December. I know 2000 calories seems to be a standard but after a couple weeks
I don't really feel any different consuming <1400 cal a day than I did when I
was consuming 2500. I also sit at a desk all day so I'm pretty sedentary. I
doubt I could maintain this deficit if I was still doing manual labor. (I'm
not doing a keto diet, just an eat less diet)

~~~
getsat
What is your TDEE, if I may ask?

------
richardwigley
The article summaries as 'we eat too much sugar', 'here's some science that
suggests it can be bad in rodents', and finally 'maybe you should swear off
sugar'.

I agree, we eat too much sugar. However, it is a step to go from rodents to
humans and they have not addressed it.

We're apes that lived in Africa. We spent a lot of time in trees eating fruit
all year around.

We have eyes that are adapted to find fruit - so much so that while most of
our furry mammal relatives, like rodents tested in the article, are red-green
color blind (dichromats) [1] we are mainly trichromatic, color vision.
Trichromatic helps you to pick out a red fruit from a green background [2].
So, for some reason, our ancestors that could see fruit, did better than those
that didn't, which was not the case with rodents.

I suggest we evolved on different diet than what rodents evolved on. Before
comparing sugar to an addiction you should reproduce the results on primates -
I'd be happy to be in the control group and snack on a Snickers bar ;-)

[1]
[http://www.ratbehavior.org/RatVision.htm](http://www.ratbehavior.org/RatVision.htm)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_color_vision](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_color_vision)

~~~
thro1237
I can't find a source quickly -- but I remember reading that many years back
(like when we were apes in Africa), the sweetest fruit was probably as sweet
as a carrot. We increased the sweetness of fruits through selective breeding
to current levels.

~~~
rthomas6
This looks like a pretty good article on that subject:
[http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/05/31/wild-and-ancient-
fruit/](http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/05/31/wild-and-ancient-fruit/)

A quick browsing indicates that while our modern fruits are all domesticated,
there are plenty of wild, sweet, and large African fruits. Apparently some
modern wild berries also have similar sweetness profiles as their domesticated
counterparts.

The article points out that one prominent difference that _does_ seem to exist
is that wild fruits are harder to eat, due to big seeds, thick and tough
exteriors, and lower water content. So you might have to do a lot more work to
get the good stuff with wild fruits.

I've eaten wild Muscadine grapes in Georgia that someone found in the woods
(I'm not sure if this counts as a wild fruit or not due to potential Native
American cultivation, but close enough imo), and they were fairly sweet. They
had thick skins and giant seeds in them, so they weren't great actually, but
they were sweet.

------
cheepin
Why are there no referenced human experiments? Low/No carb diets have been
around for ages. Surely it wouldn't be that hard to get good data on something
this basic. The claims made in this article are pretty significant, why do we
only have rat behavior to observe?

~~~
ddebernardy
Best I'm aware, all diets, whether low carb or high carb, cut down on sugar
sources if followed properly.

Also, there is [data for humans]([http://www.uctv.tv/shows/Sugar-The-Bitter-
Truth-16717](http://www.uctv.tv/shows/Sugar-The-Bitter-Truth-16717)) but
nutritionists are only slowly coming to conclusions.

~~~
static_noise
Most of all they are cutting down on total calories. It seems that for most
people total calories are more important than the carbohydrate/fat-ratio.

~~~
ripb
>It seems that for most people total calories are more important than the
carbohydrate/fat-ratio.

It's also relatively easier to track. It's easy to say "Well, I can consume
about 2000 calories per day, this donut has about 300 so I'll have roughly
1700 calories left", but it's quite difficult to know the breakdown of how
much carbs/protein/fat should be consumed within those 2000 calories and more
difficult again to plan and monitor for those values.

~~~
wutbrodo
> [Total calorie intake] is also relatively easier to track [than carb/fat
> ratio].

I'm not sure about that...knowing total calories is not quite that simple
(without fairly-sized error bars), due to differences in basal metabolic rate,
efficiency of absorption of calories, determining calorie counts in general
(particularly for restaurant food), etc etc.

On the flipside, it's much easier to understand the level of fats and carbs in
a given item of food; hell once you start paying attention, you can even get a
good rough guess just by the taste. On top of that, your body gives you some
pretty nuanced signals related to hunger: without having put in any extra
research or effort, I can definitely tell when I'm hungry for protein/fats vs
carbs. I doubt it's just me, but IME at least, the feelings are completely
different (this is also supported to some degree by nutritional science, in
that protein and fats are known to provide satiety in a way that carbs don't).

~~~
dragonwriter
> due to differences in basal metabolic rate

Not relevant to calorie intake (relevant to calorie expenditure, which is a
different issue.)

> efficiency of absorption of calories

differences here are the aggregate of differences in the efficiency of
absorption of particular nutrients, so while this _is_ a real source of
challenges in measuring total calorie intake, its _also_ a challenge in
measuring carb/fat ratio of intake.

> determining calorie counts in general (particularly for restaurant food)

Again, the same problem with calorie counts here applies to carb/fat ratios.

~~~
wutbrodo
>Not relevant to calorie intake (relevant to calorie expenditure, which is a
different issue.)

What? How in gods name would you determine the appropriate amount of calories
without having a sense of expenditure?

> differences here are the aggregate of differences in the efficiency of
> absorption of particular nutrients, so while this is a real source of
> challenges in measuring total calorie intake, its also a challenge in
> measuring carb/fat ratio of intake.

The variance (across time) of the ratio of absorption of fats vs calories is
presumably much lower than that of calories in general (the latter is MUCH
more sensitive to both lifestyle and things like "I happened to walk s lot
this week"). That's partly conjecture though and your point in general is
sound.

> Again, the same problem with calorie counts here applies to carb/fat ratios.

Come on man,the only part of my comment you didn't address is the one that
talks in detail about the differences in difficulty between calorie estimation
and macronutrient makeup estimation. Why pretend to respond if you're going to
ignore the half of my comment that directly addresses your disagreement?

------
Selfcommit
>These are extreme experiments, of course. We humans aren’t depriving
ourselves of food for 12 hours and then allowing ourselves to binge on soda
and doughnuts at the end of the day.

I guess the author is completely unaware of the lifestyle of many Americans?
(Myself included). 12 hours is not a short span at all, when you consider time
between going to bed and first meal. Plenty of sugar to be found in all
American meal options, doubly so if you add soda to any meal / throughout the
day.

~~~
draugadrotten
The author may have been making an attempt at irony.

------
shiggerino
Chocolate capital of the world being in the United States? I take exception to
that.

~~~
johnward
I'm not even sure you can call what hershey makes chocolate.

~~~
vidarh
I'm pretty sure a lot of what they make can't legally be marketed as chocolate
in Europe.

------
paganel
I know I'm anthropomorphizing, but quotes like the one below give me new and
increased empathy for rats and their cause. I know that without us killing
them "for science" lots of drugs and medical treatments wouldn't have been
discovered, is just that seeing us, humans, forcing anxiety-related feelings
on other beings makes me, well, a little anxious.

> Naloxone treatment also appeared to make the rats more anxious, as they
> spent less time on an elevated apparatus that lacked walls on either side.

Monuments dedicated to lab rats like this one
([http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1hhyta/a_monument_to_l...](http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1hhyta/a_monument_to_lab_rats_used_for_dna_research/))
make me just a little bit happier on the inside.

~~~
Lio
Just to be pedantic, that's a monument to lab mice, not lab rats, for their
use in genetic research experiments.

If you know what happen to mice used in these experiments then I'm sure you'll
agree they deserve their monument.

It's a bit worse than anxiety-related feelings but we do need things like
cures to cancers, cystic fibrosis, etc. so IMHO ...it has to be done.

So we try to do it as little as possible and minimise suffering as much as
possible. Again, IMHO, it's also one of the ethical arguments for why all
information from sequencing experiments should be in the public domain.

------
ujjwal_wadhawan
I bet this video will make you think - Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of
Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by
sugary foods

Sugar: The Bitter Truth

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)

~~~
steveplace
Obligatory rebuttal whenever this video is posted

[http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-
ab...](http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-
fructose-alarmism/)

------
blparker
After reading these comments, I'm more confused than entering. Throughout the
years, we've constantly been subjected to advertising from fad diets claiming
low-fat or low-carb or no-grain or no-sugar or low-whatever is the magic
elixir to being healthy and losing weight. It seems that every nutritionist
you talk to has a subjective bias as to the key. I understand that the body is
an incredibly complex machine, and it's probably impossible to distill things
down into a set of manageable steps, but I would just like to know what to
eat, what not to eat, some simple science as to why, and not have bullshit or
biases injected into the conversation.

~~~
zemvpferreira
I think Michael Pollan summed it up best: eat food, not too much, mostly
plants.

~~~
tomjen3
Citation needed. Especially about the mostly plants part. We know humans
couldn't have gotten the brains we have without eating meat.

Also Aspatarme is likely less dangerous than sugar.

~~~
blparker
I'm interested in that last statement regarding aspartame. It seems you find
extremely polarized opinions on artificial sweeteners. I've often read that,
regardless of the health impact (or lack thereof), artificial sweeteners are
more-or-less "tricking" your body into thinking it has calories incoming, when
in fact, it doesn't. Your body, feeling jipped, tries to compensate by craving
more calories. But, again, this is hearsay.

~~~
tomjen3
The Mayo clinic disagree with you: [http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
conditions/diabetes/exper...](http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
conditions/diabetes/expert-answers/artificial-sweeteners/faq-20058038)

The diabetus journal seems to agree with you (I was unable to follow what they
had found completely)
[http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/30/7/e59.long](http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/30/7/e59.long)

Finally (N=1) I drink way more aspartame sweetened soda than any sane person
should and I was relatively easily able to shred roughly 1/3 of body weight
without serious hunger.

------
withdavidli
>Sugar withdrawl is real

So true. It happens to me within 1-2 days of cutting out refined sugar.
Headaches and sluggishness, but goes away within the week. My dad tried it and
got bone/joint aches. He got into a habit of eating a bowl of ice cream every
night, I think it's better now, but when eating ice cream helps your bones not
ache...

Withdrawls to certain foods happen so quickly. Middle of last year I switched
from water to tea, was drinking like 6 bottles a day and didn't think anything
of it. Weekend hit, didn't have tea in the house and got headaches the entire
time. Caffiene withdrawl x_X. I don't even depend on caffiene (no coffee kind
of guy).

~~~
johnward
I don't really notice withdrawal. I do have cravings for about a week then
they go away. What I really notice when I'm on a keto diet is if I have a
cheat meal with carbs I get a kind of high feeling in my brain. Seems like
some kind of dopamine response because I equate the feeling to how I felt
taking Wellbutrin once (which has a dopamine effect). Drinking alcohol has
even a worse effect. Where I could normally drink 4-5 rum and coke before
really feeling drunk. Now two of them will make me drunk enough that I
wouldn't drive.

------
cssmoo
I was fortunate enough to be broken during a tonsilectomy. I woke up and
couldn't stand anything sweet at all and it made me feel instantly sick. It
has baffled many a doctor but they reckon its down to the anaesthetic and/or
oxygen management. Yay to brain damage...

Unfortunately I was hooked on sugar at the same time so cue epic battle of
addiction vs hatred of what I was addicted to.

Took two weeks to get over the cravings. Now the sweetest thing I can eat is a
banana. Lost 35kg in six months though which cured a couple of problems I had.
Dumping sugar albeit forcibly is one of the best things that happened to me.

------
dschiptsov
It will become even more weak and dull, because the consciousness it produces
is to dump to learn how a carbohydrate metabolism works and what are the
sources of glucose and other simple sugars.

The idea is about the balance - proper ratios - not too much, not too little -
just enough. The idea as old as humanity.

The problem is not the sugar, it is wrong eating habits, developed due to some
methods of the food industry which, of course, tries to maximize its profits,
including aggressive marketing of products with to high salt and/or sugar or
fat concentration. This is what is wrong - amounts, concentrations and ratios.

The more correct answer is - avoid packaged, processed foods in favor of
simple cooked raw foods, mostly veg. It is what some Nepalese and Tibetan
tribes (actually everywhere around the world) do.

Also consumption of carbohydrates or any other substances cannot be considered
seriously or studied without taking into account the behavioral patterns. If a
typical couch potato is eating high calorie, high fat meals, intended for a
docker or a peasant after full day of intense work, well, no matter sugar, he
or she will end up in a well-chair. Same would happen to a vegan docker (there
is zero of vegan Sherpas in a whole Himalaya).

Balance is the key word. It is ancient word. It is a cornerstone of the Yoga
(which, surprise! is not about wearing cute yoga pants and forming fingers
into mudras). The modern word is homeostasis has the same meaning.

~~~
prostoalex
Obesity is most prevalent in countries without overdeveloped food supply
chains and food marketing apparatus.

According to [http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/01/23/obesity-in-
world-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/01/23/obesity-in-world-
countries-map_n_6530896.html) "the top ten most obese nations were
overwhelmingly pacific islands, with American Samoa taking the top spot with
almost 75% of the population reported as obese and Nauru and the Cook Islands
coming in at second and third places with 71.1% and 63.4% obesity
respectively."

As far as couch potatoes, the closest research that's available is this -
[http://www.economist.com/node/9527126](http://www.economist.com/node/9527126)
and if you look at the list of top "couch potato" countries, some have high
obesity rates, and some dates, so the correlation is inconclusive at best.

~~~
b3n
I don't think you should read too much into the obesity rates of the pacific
islands, their small populations means you're mathematically more likely to
get extreme results. It wouldn't surprise me if the nations with the _least_
obesity rates were also the pacific islands.

~~~
dschiptsov
Don't you think that applying mathematical models without understanding of all
the causes and their relative weights would yield a meaningless results (not
even approximate ones)?

There are innumerable cases of misapplication of statistics (without even
having a third control group) and probability distributions to incomplete or
simply irrelevant data in history of so called data-driven sciences?

Math is a tool, and application of it to a poorly understood context will lead
to false conclusions or mistaking a correlation for causation. Correlations,
by the way, could be found everywhere, especially when there is a prize hunt
for them.

Back to the subject - tribal eating habits are driven by availability of food
sources in a particular location, and the traditional dishes usually were
evolved to give the best ratios possible. The case of Tibetan nutrition, which
is based on barley flour and yak butter is the good example. Traditional
Nepalese food, which varies according to altitude, is another one.

------
spain
In my experience I cut out a lot of candy, sugars, and sweets from my diet at
a very young age and haven't looked back, so I don't have that much experience
with the "cravings" or withdrawal symptoms people describe (I don't drink
coffee either). I like to believe the reason for this is that my tongue was a
little more sensitive than normal and so I often got "overwhelmed" by sugary
foods and simply started avoiding them (I still do). Grownups used to tease me
about this whenever candy came up, they were flabbergasted that a child would
reject candy as a reward or present for doing something. What? A kid that
wouldn't do anything for a candy bar? Impossible.

I also avoid soft drinks like Coca-Cola because they produce an almost
allergic reaction with my tongue (it aches for the rest of the day) though
that might just be the preservatives. As a result I mostly stick to "vanilla"
foods and drinks as I like to call them, like plain water and milk.

I might be wrong and still be getting too much unhealthy sugars and stuff from
other food, but I'd like to think that it's not so severe since I live in
Finland and not the US. I'm also slightly underweight so there's that, though
I suspect that might be due to my genes. I guess what I'm trying to say is
that I'm sort of glad they way things turned out in my case.

~~~
rthomas6
There's been some research that suggests that children, unlike adults, have no
limit to the amount of sweetness they will tolerate/enjoy in a food. Maybe
your sweetness limit just kicked in earlier than your peers.

------
oAlbe
I stopped drinking any kind of fizzy drinks for more than a year now and I
don't miss them. Before stopping I used to drink three to six glasses of coke
(around 200ml per glass) every day and making two plus two I realized this
habit was going to do me harm sooner or later. I wasn't fat nor I had health
problems. I just wanted to do something healthy for myself.

I remember that it wasn't hard at all for me to stop. For the first week I
kind of craved it, but not even that much. Every time it happened I just
started thinking "This is going to make you feel bad and guilty" and the
craving went away. It must be said that at the time I was on a diet plan and I
was practicing running, counting every single calorie I ate and every single
calorie I burnt. Thinking that it took me twenty minutes of running to burn
250Kcals and that a single glass could have given me back almost half of them
(105Kcal for a glass of Coca-Cola) was a very powerful motivation.

------
signa11
my personal experience in this regard has been that after i took up running (3
times a week, approx 3-4 miles each), my sugar intake has dropped to very
close to zero (with an occasional once-month-type deal of a single candy).
even those colas with 'zero-sugar' appear too sweet, and the regular ones are
just bleh...

overall, a good thing i hope :)

~~~
sfjailbird
Same experience. When I run regularly (one to two times a week) I have no
desire for sugary or fatty foods. Instead I crave fresh fruit and vegetables.

I am sure this is a type of hibernation reflex, where, with inactivity, the
body wants stuff that packs a lot of energy for storage (dense with fat and/or
sugar).

Consequently, I focus only on getting exercise and let my diet take care of
itself - it always does.

------
finnjohnsen2
I gave up sugar products 3 years. (30 march 2012).

I've had no physical cravings or reactions what so ever. Not the first hours,
days or weeks, nothing, ever.

I don't care about the marginal stuff though. Sugar is added to a lot of non-
intuitive products. My rule of thumb is - if it is highly probable that the
product wouldn't be around if it weren't for its sugar, I don't eat it.

Not everyone has the 'physical addicted' genes I guess. I suspect my "secret"
is that I don't allow considering sweets to stay in my brain for even the
smallest amount of time. I look away and think about something else. Start a
dummy conversation with someone, look at the magazines, pick up my smart
phone.

------
ekianjo
> Most of us prefer sweets over sour and bitter foods because, evolutionarily,
> our mesolimbic pathway reinforces that sweet things provide a healthy source
> of carbohydrates for our bodies. When our ancestors went scavenging for
> berries, for example, sour meant “not yet ripe,” while bitter meant
> “alert—poison!”

There is absolutely no basis/source for this. There are in nature a number of
foods that are palatable and even taste good and which are extremely
toxic/lethal to humans. I rather think the association between taste and
proper food is largely coincidental more than anything else.

~~~
GeneralMayhem
Pitcher plants are also brightly colored and, I'm sure, look delicious to the
insects they eat. Evolved heuristics aren't perfect.

~~~
adrianN
Toxic berries are not toxic because they want to be eaten (by the species for
whom they're toxic), whereas pitcher plants look tasty because they want
insects to land on them.

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andy_ppp
I've decided to give up sugar after reading this. I get the feeling a lot of
the interest in eating food is down to sugar rewards. I guess I feel that
response of boredom after eating a no carb or sugar meal rather than a small
feeling of pleasure is something I should get used to - I don't have to have a
reward after every item of food I eat and I hope giving up sugar will make the
other rewards I get from doing a good piece of work or say accomplishing
giving up sugar for 30 days that much more rewarding.

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acd
The fast food knows this that's why you get free soda refills so you will back
to their restaurant and spend more money. I think there is also a similar
addiction to fat which would also make evolutionary sense if you were
starving. Personally I get addicted to potato chips as long as the bag lasts I
wont stop eating.

~~~
cma
In Brazil you don't get free refills. Is the industry conspiracy just passing
on free money there?

~~~
LBarret
it is all about value perception. Brazil is less educated/brain-washed in
terms of fast food.

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gabemart
My sugar cravings don't feel like cravings, they feel more like hunger. I can
eat a delicious meal of whole foods and be full to the point that it's
physically uncomfortable, but I still feel ravenously hungry for sugar. It's
like I have two separate appetites.

I am currently in the process of trying to quit sugar.

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iriche
"These are extreme experiments, of course. We humans aren’t depriving
ourselves of food for 12 hours and then allowing ourselves to binge on soda
and doughnuts at the end of the day."

Have they talked to anyone working with IT? ;)

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roel_v
Does anyone know if artificial sweeteners (aspartame etc) have the same
effects? Why can't I find any recipes for cooking with aspartame instead of
sugar? (I tried but couldn't find any)

~~~
maxerickson
Aspartame is much, much sweeter than sugar (it actually has the same
calories/unit mass as sugar) and sugar does more than provide sweetness in
recipes (especially chewier things like cookies). Aspartame also degrades at
baking temperatures. So it just isn't a good substitute.

Maybe try sucralose, which you can just swap in for the same amount of sugar
(Splenda is a famous brand).

~~~
taternuts
Splenda does have a version of the product specifically for cooking - it seems
to have a lot of 'filler' to get it to the similar consistency and volume of
regular sugar (1 cup of sugar being as sweet as 1 cup of the cooking Splenda).
That being said, it's best to just avoid the stuff when you can. I've found
eating things with tons of Splenda in it can be pretty gross - I experimented
with it a bit years ago when I first started going low carb and had bad sugar
cravings, but wouldn't touch that stuff nowadays.

~~~
maxerickson
Yes, I just eat things with normal sugar if I want something sweet.

But apparently the commenter I replied to had not considered the potential
differences between the substitutes, so I pointed out a way forward.

I was confused about sucralose though, I hadn't realized that it required
fillers to use as a 1:1 substitute. The fillers also apparently are not very
hydroscopic (which is a major role that sugar plays in baking, in addition to
being sweet).

------
205guy
Anyone with a kid knows that the body's first addiction is sugar.

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ilija139
So what happens?

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scaraffe
If sugar is bad, why are we wired to eat it more and remember it's taste?
Isn't evolution supposed make us live longer?

~~~
capisce
We are adaptation executors, not fitness maximizers:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/l0/adaptationexecuters_not_fitnessma...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/l0/adaptationexecuters_not_fitnessmaximizers/)

Also, evolution doesn't care about life span, beyond what is necessary to
ensure the survival of genes across multiple generations.

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shamney
why the obsession with cutting out a harmless and tasty part of a normal diet?

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pjbrunet
I thought the article was going to show brain scans ;-) I gave up sugar in
high school because nothing else was working on my acne. It was difficult but
you can replace sugar with maple syrup, honey and fruit. After a while the
craving goes away and the effect for me was pretty much permanent.

~~~
superdude
How does sugar affect acne? And how are those sugary substances any better
than other sugary substances?

~~~
iopq
It doesn't, and they're not. But it's possible he lowered his intake of things
like soybean oil by not eating sugar.

~~~
fredsted
My acne also disappeared when I cut all carbs for a diet.

~~~
iopq
Not the same as cutting out just sugar. If you cut out sugar and pig out on
bagels, what did you really gain?

