GlucoseDespite its absolute necessity for life (see chapter 10), dietary glucose isn’t perfect. When it exists in nature without fructose, it’s called “starch,” and it truly does supply “empty calories,” energy for either storage or burning.
FructoseFructose is never found alone in nature. Rather, it is always partnered with its more benign sister molecule, glucose.
Robert Lustig, Fat Chancep.154, 156
Well, I got my paws on Lustig's new book. In addition to it being virtually unreadable, it is so chock full of the sort of distortions, hyperbole and flat out errors I don't think I could make it through a full read or review.
So I'll probably give you a few tidbits here and there when I can summon up the motivation to read.
I included the glucose quote to "set up" the fructose quote. If one reads later in the fructose paragraph, he discusses a glass of OJ and the sucrose it contains. While the above quote could be interpreted as fructose never being present in a food without glucose, in context, and using the word "partnered", Lustig is saying that fructose is not found in nature in "free form". This also implies that the "natural" ratio of fructose:glucose is 1:1.
Below are a number of screen shots of various foods from nutritiondata.com. Clearly, from these screenshots below, free fructose is present (as is free glucose and sucrose) in different quantities and proportions in various foods. I wonder if Lustig likes tomatoes! I hesitate to post these lest I contribute to any greater fructophobia in the IHC.
31 comments:
Oh my Lord, nearly the entire lunch I packed for today is made of EVIL. Please don't post the breakdown for snap peas.
Reminds me of the video where he said "There are no food stuffs on this planet that have both fat and carbohydrates at the same time". I guess he forgot about milk, durian, cashews, soybeans, and a number of other "food stuffs".
Also, don't watermelons and apples have significantly more fructose than glucose?
Lustig is such a perplexing guy.
What is his definition of "empty calories"? I always assumed it's refined foods with little to no nutrition. Things like refined white bread and extracted fats. Not starch in general, which can come in many nutritous forms.
If his point on fructose is that it doesn't come in nature without glucose also present in the same food, so what? That's like saying saturated fat isn't present alone in nature. Even coconut is parted with mono/poly unsaturated fats.
He could have figured out that nature has many foods with excess fructose by talking to anyone with fructose malabsorption. We have to avoid a lot of natural foods! For those with FM, excess fructose does matter because glucose enhances the absorption of fructose, but that doesn't make those foods inherently bad. Naturalistic fallacy, anyone?
Wrong interpretation. He does not say 1 to 1, and the ratio from your screenshot looks to support his thesis anyway.
Sorry I did not mean "ratio" but the "co-occurence" of glucose and fructose.
Vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, the body doesn't need these things. I mean, that's why GNCs grow on every corner, right? Humans evolved to be bipedal just so they can see over the counter.
I've never got the point of such analysis. Why break down a food that contains a plethora of other things and look at it as one thing?
Hi Evelyn, I am not following you here. Your quote,
"Fructose is NEVER found alone in nature. Rather, it is ALWAYS partnered with its more benign sister molecule, glucose."
Are you saying that this statement is not correct? all of your examples have both fructose and glucose.
Secondly, where exactly does Lustig state "that the "natural" ratio of fructose:glucose is 1:1".
A calorie is a unit of energy so it is impossible for a calorie to be empty.
A person may choose to expend the energy supplied by the calorie, in which case it serves a purpose, or a person may choose not to expend the energy (to a certain extent obviously energy must be expended to keep you alive) in which case it is stockpiled and arguably serves no useful purpose.
But it is impossible for the calorie to be empty.
Some other quotes for context:
"To illustrate how this works, consider the following exercise involving the metabolism of three
different carbohydrates of equal caloric value (120 calories): glucose, ethanol (grain alcohol), and fructose. "
This preceeds the discussion of glucose, ethanol and fructose. First, ethanol is not a carbohydrate!!
After the fructose line that begins the paragraph, he uses an 8oz glass of OJ and says:
"Let’s now consume 120 calories of sucrose (60 of glucose, 60 of fructose)—for example, an 8-ounce glass of orange juice."
I'll give him a small pass on inflating the carb content of OJ (it's more like 80 cals of "sugars") but although the ratios are close to 1:1, only about half the "sugar" in oranges is sucrose.
So as I said in my post, this statement is intended to say fructose doesn't occur in free form in nature. It's a relatively minor point but the tomato is pretty fascinating. It is sometimes demonized as a nightshade but it has the fructose:glucose ratio of HFCS ;-)
See response above. It's probably a minor point but read in the context of having listened to Lustig and other statements in that section, he is saying that in nature fructose is found in nature as part of sucrose.
Quite true. Empty calories was a term intended to be used for foods that provided energy but not much else. In this regard, none of these constituents of foods qualify, or basically they all do (as adl implies above) . All fatty acids with the exception of EFA's (including the evil O6) would qualify as well. S.T.U.P.I.D.
We had this discussion a while back. Here in the US, and probably elsewhere, even Twinkies are not empty calories. The flour used to make them is usually fortified and there's eggs and oil and fats and etc.etc. They are calorie dense and nutrient sparse, but ...
I wonder if he puts soy sauce on his Chinese food that he has for lunch. Also, gah the O6 assault from that!!
Evelyn,
"Hobbs: Is it possible that fructose is a major source of body fat, being that it bypasses a control point in the lipogenic process?
Flatt: No. Fructose is slightly more likely to be converted to fat than other carbohydrates, but still is not a major source of body fat.
Hobbs: Is it possible that high-fructose corn syrup—which not only contains fructose, but also raises insulin levels considerably more than fructose alone—is a major source of body fat?
Flatt: No. Carbohydrates of any kind do have the effect of reducing the amount of fat that is burned, and elevated insulin levels increase the amount of dietary fat that is stored. But high-fructose corn syrup is not a major source of body fat either."
http://fatnews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/492
On the other hand, Flatt does to my mind say things about carbs and prevention of fat oxidation that are puzzling. But I hope you'll deal with that in due course.
"Clearly, from these screenshots below, free fructose is present (as is free glucose and sucrose)..."
Sucrose is found in a free form??? Now maybe I am forgetting my 6th grade science, but isn't sucrose formed by fructose and glucose?
Free glucose and sucrose. Two separate things. Pressing fairly hard to suggest she's implying that, friendo.
I am killing myself a bit daily with those fructosy red bombs that I slice up and sprinkle with EVOO? OMG, I'm doomed. Doomed. Cause I ain't giving up my love apples.... (though I and my sis are both a bit sensitive to too much of them, so unfair) ; )
Hi Evelyn, why do you state that ethanol is not a carbohydrate? Are you sure that it can never be considered a carbohydrate/
Free fructose. Free glucose. And sucrose which is fructose "partnered" with glucose. WTF is your problem Rob?
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http://healthylongevity.blogspot.com/2012/12/plant-positive-strikes-back-nutrition.html
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLv3QDzdxan_JkGX47Rpboyh2oYyAFZDBA
@Mir, Back when I was a kid I loved the summer b/c that meant vine ripe maters. Nowadays you can get them year round, but still not the same. I ate them like apples and I was a thin kid. Interesting the things you learn when you look. Most folks allow tomatoes unless they are anti-night shade except they have more carbs than other veggies so the LC'ers can be a bit paranoid of them.
Simon, in every nutritional context, ethanol is the "fourth macronutrient". It is metabolized entirely differently. One could make a case that fructose and glucose make up two distinct macros -- so we have five -- but fructose feeds into the met pathways of glucose contrary to Lustig's contentions.
BTW, even Richard Feinman is on Lustig's case over this fiasco!
Lustig tends to dumb down his explanations of the science. I am surprised carbsane would take his statements to literally and miss his point. Find me a food item with only fructose and i will agree lustig is wrong on that statement.
No Dave, his science is not dumbed down. It is incorrect. There are far worse examples, perhaps I should have led with the ethanol = carbohydrate and fructose and ethanol are metabolized alike. This man would flunk basic biochem.
Like Taubes, Lustig tries to have it both ways. when there's nothing putting the brakes on him he gets EXTREME.
His famous youtube thingie was all about fructose is poisonous.
When challenged by competent folks he always retreats back to the dose makes the poison ... kind of. He still tries to inject it though.
He was ALL ABOUT the extreme-dose fructose studies, ALL ABOUT the observational studies, until Alan Aragon's[0] takedown.
It was SO FUNNY reading forums pointing to Lustig's video with "watch this and you'll never eat HFCS again, it's poison ..." while Lustig himself came on Aragon's forum saying the dose makes the poison ... and a couple of comments down, Lustig cites MORE extreme-dose studies.
in other words "yes, the dose makes the ... BUT LOOK at these studies where fructose is 40% of the rats' calories, and obviously humans can't eat 5% calories as fructose.' ...
... trying to have it both ways.
Then he repeated his performance as much as he could at that symposium (where Bray and John White and some guy from USDA spoke). If those others had not been there IMHO he would have gone whole hog AGAIN, but Sievenpiper et al restrained him a little bit.
[0] more accurately, "Alan Aragon's storied, legendary, epic takedown "
The funniest part of that take down was when Lustig cited YouTube hits as proof of his expertise!
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