The other day I posted a picture of a fruit smoothy on my Facebook fan page and one follower commented it was too much sugar for her to drink. And, it got me thinking. There’s a lot of confusion when it comes to sugars, especially fruit sugars.

People hear the word “sugar” and automatically assume fruit sugar is bad for them.

We know that refined sugars are bad for us. The sugars found in mass manufactured foods, cakes, cookies, drinks, ice creams, candies…the list goes on. And yet, we consume these products over fresh fruit day in and day out.

I’ve even overheard some people say they’d rather eat a slice of cake then drink a protein packed fruit smoothy because they are getting less sugars in the cake than the smoothy. Wow! 

Let’s take for instance an apple. One apple on average has 25 grams of carbohydrates of which 19 grams is sugar. Now let’s compare that apple to a slice of white bread. The slice has 15 grams of carbs and only 1 gram of sugar. Looking at the numbers the white bread looks more appealing with it’s 1 gram of sugar. But we are missing an important element…fiber!

Fiber is very important in the absorption speed of sugars into the blood stream. The more fiber, the slower the sugar will impact your insulin levels. So lets go back to the apple and bread. The apple has about 4.5 grams of fiber and the bread has about half a gram…so, now which one looks more appealing? Fruit tends to be fiber rich making the sugar content a non issue.

But don’t take my word for it…look at the Glycemic index. You’ll see for yourself how sugar is measured and the impact it has on your blood sugars. That slice of white bread has a Glycemic value of 70 and the apple is valued at 38.

Now, you might be asking how does that fiber effect you?

If you’re one of my many 9000 gastric sleeve patients you’ve probably heard me talk about how fiber effects you, but if you’ve never experienced having the sleeve procedure, then let me bring you up to speed.

Consumption of healthy high fiber foods is essential in assisting your body with bowel movements and preventing constipation. When your body tries to process too much refined sugar you’ll experience what we call in the industry as “dumping syndrome”. It’s the sudden and sometimes painful feeling you get when your food rapidly “dumps out” or bypasses your stomach into your intestines which forces you to find a bathroom fast. Dumping syndrome can also occur when consuming fried or greasy foods and diary. The use of fiber in your diet slows down the absorption of those sugars and fatty foods helping to prevent dumping syndrome from occuring.

So even though there are sugars in fruit and you might be concerned about that, you should look at the fiber content first and you’ll discover that fruit that you’ve been avoiding might actually be beneficial to your body.

To learn more the gastric sleeve procedure, “dumping syndrome”, weight loss or how certain foods, medications, and exercise can effect you watch “The #AskDrA Show” on our YouTube channel or visit our website at www.Endobariatric.com today.

“Changing lives…one sleeve at a time”