The argument that always seemed more convincing to me is that refined carbohydrates are really easy to digest. (This is not controversial: look at the chemical structure for sucrose or fructose, and now look at glucose. It takes hardly any chemical work to change food sugar into blood sugar.) This is why you’re traditionally supposed to drink ginger ale or Sprite when you have a stomach bug: most people can keep sugar water down even when they’re too sick for other food that takes more work to digest.
Ease and speed of digestion explains a lot of the subjective experiences that people have with carbs: you crave them all the time, and you’re hungry again soon after eating. A piece of pumpkin pie sounds delicious even when the thought of another slice of turkey seems daunting and too-filling. If you were trying to lose weight, would you want to rely on precisely the foods that make you want to eat more?
Well, you write some things I would subjectively agree, but for me based on at best anecdotal evidence. But most people think “full” not “sugar crave” when they eat some rice or potatoes, so anecdotal is just that… Here dies the “experiences that people have”: Only people who expect the carb crave suddenly just experience it.
BTW, The “really easy to digest” did not seem convincing to me, as usually the quoted calories for some food already includes the different efficiencies with which the body can digest it. Wanting to eat more sweets is one thing, but the article is about general food, not cake (sweets have a much faster feedback loop), and the “carbohydrate crave” is exactly what has been denied as “pseudo-science” (at least implicitly: you would not encourage >50% high-GI carbs otherwise).
true… and the “digestibility” thing is really only unambiguously true for simple sugar. I still believe the narrow statement that pure sugar is not filling.
The argument that always seemed more convincing to me is that refined carbohydrates are really easy to digest. (This is not controversial: look at the chemical structure for sucrose or fructose, and now look at glucose. It takes hardly any chemical work to change food sugar into blood sugar.) This is why you’re traditionally supposed to drink ginger ale or Sprite when you have a stomach bug: most people can keep sugar water down even when they’re too sick for other food that takes more work to digest.
Ease and speed of digestion explains a lot of the subjective experiences that people have with carbs: you crave them all the time, and you’re hungry again soon after eating. A piece of pumpkin pie sounds delicious even when the thought of another slice of turkey seems daunting and too-filling. If you were trying to lose weight, would you want to rely on precisely the foods that make you want to eat more?
Well, you write some things I would subjectively agree, but for me based on at best anecdotal evidence. But most people think “full” not “sugar crave” when they eat some rice or potatoes, so anecdotal is just that… Here dies the “experiences that people have”: Only people who expect the carb crave suddenly just experience it.
BTW, The “really easy to digest” did not seem convincing to me, as usually the quoted calories for some food already includes the different efficiencies with which the body can digest it. Wanting to eat more sweets is one thing, but the article is about general food, not cake (sweets have a much faster feedback loop), and the “carbohydrate crave” is exactly what has been denied as “pseudo-science” (at least implicitly: you would not encourage >50% high-GI carbs otherwise).
So, back at square one.
true… and the “digestibility” thing is really only unambiguously true for simple sugar. I still believe the narrow statement that pure sugar is not filling.