[quote=poorgradstudent][quote=kev374]How many people have you seen drink an entire glass of Orange juice for breakfast and they are thinking this is actually HEALTHY! while infact they are pouring sugar down their throats and destroying their body.
The public health crisis is also caused due to lack of education. When most people think of sugar they think of sucrose – white table sugar.
They do not know that sugars include all starches rice, wheat, corn etc. (complex carbs). A starch is nothing but a chain of sugar (glucose) molecules. That means white rice, white bread etc. is JUST AS damaging as a can of soda – why not ban those as well?[/quote]
This is a fairly simplistic way of thinking about nutrition. If your point is the fact that ultimately all carbohydrates are broken down into glucose (which in turn is broken down into ATP at the cellular level), then sure, all starches are identical. But complex carbs require more energy to break down to get the glucose out of them, which actually can mean less net gain relative to grams consumed. There’s even debate if fructose and sucrose are processed in different ways by the body. Many of the foods that contain complex carbs also have more other nutrients present as well. I don’t think anyone would claim the carbs from a slice of whole wheat bread and equal carbs from a can of soda are identical for your body.
I think the big difference between juice and soda is how they are consumed. Most people don’t drink 32 or 64 ounces of juice in a day. But drinking that much soda isn’t unusual. Generally you can consume anything in moderation, and *most* people drink juice in moderation. If you drink one can of sugar soda a day, there’s a bigger risk to your teeth than your waistline.[/quote]
I don’t think kev374 made a simplistic point. I think it is actually a very good point.
The bottom line here is in the processing.
the processing of the original product significantly magnifies the power of that product. corn processed to the end point of high fructose corn syrup, which is then added to cola products. vs oranges processed to the end point of orange juice. vs coca leaf processed to the end point of crack cocaine.
the end product following the processing in each of the above example significantly more potent chemically for us compared to the original product.
