People have spoken a lot about how digestible the sugars are, but in terms of overall healthiness, the fibre is an important component even beyond its impact on sugar absorption. Many people do not get enough fibre in their diets.
this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2025
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fiber
Pretty much this. Although the antioxidants and other phytonutrients might also play a role, and a lot of those are bound up in the fiber.
Sugar: THE BITTER TRUTH
Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin. Recorded on 05/26/2009.
He is so well spoken, and his work is very impactful!
Are they? Depends how many you eat.
You think this obese monkey was eating raspberries? They probably got into a human garbage. Get real.
Do you think being fat didn't happen to any humans or animals before the invention of processed food?
That's a good question. What evidence do we have for the existence and prevalence of obesity in prehistoric humans?
Because sugar isn't unhealthy in the first place, you'll die without any sugar.
While there are essential fats and proteins, there are no essential sugars. Your body can work perfectly fine indefinitely without any sugars of any kind.
They're probably thinking about glucose, which is the sugar in "blood sugar". You'll die without it, but it's created endogenously in the liver and kidneys.
You won't die if you don't eat sugar
Most obtuse comment thus far.
RN here, it's because your body has a more difficult time accessing the sugars in fruit form. They are wrapped up in multiple types of fiber which add bulk to your digestive system and serve as kind of a shield for your body to less easily access the sugar. The juice is essentially just the sugar with all the fiber strained out, has others have said this causes a situation where you can drink the calories from like 18 oranges in 45 seconds, and your body can access it immediately and easily. This is also why whole fruit is actually a good thing for diabetics because the glycemic index is actually pretty low.
Flavonoids and polyphenols. Cleveland Health has articles on both.
Some years ago some medication I was on put me at risk for diabetes (not an issue now), and my Dr. at the time mentioned the benefit of fruit, however I never really asked them to elaborate.
Thanks for that explanation, it makes a lot of sense the way you've described the function. You learn something new everyday!
There is sugar, absolutely. And that's probably where most of the calories come from. But there is also water, cellulose (fiber), and vitamins/minerals - doesn't have much non-sugar caloric value to change that balance, but it's still important. And nobody serious is suggesting you eat only fruit, so you can get non-sugar calories from other sources and it can be balanced in the big picture.
It's kind of like an appropriate amount of dressing on a salad, the good outweighs the bad and makes you more likely to actually eat that nutrition-positive food.
Source: I'm some guy on the Internet. You can trust me.
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There was some guy on telly did a test. Half the group had to eat oranges. The other half had to drink orange juice. Then swapped them over the next day. I can't remember the exact setup but i think it was like 'eat/drink as much as you want, stop when you feel full'.
Everyone was able to consume far, far more calories in juice form and probably far more sugar than they needed.
I think like even eating enough oranges for 1x300ml glass was hard for many people to do in fruit form. Basically, the rest of the orange filled them up and that's what we're better evolved for: slower digestion of a more varied mush and lots of fibre and stuff like that.
The juice is far too easy for us to eat way more than needed.
Juice being bad doesn’t necessarily make the whole fruit good. The glycemic index still has to be considered in the context of the person and their diet.
You're just another shill for big juice, Pulptastic.
/s in case it's not obvious
Sorry, to clear it up I’m team juice very bad fruit occasionally.
There’s also quantity. Eating an orange is healthy. Drinking a glass of orange juice is like eating six oranges after removing the fiber: not heslthy
All that sugar is bound up in fiber, making it slower to release and keeping it from spiking your blood sugar into pre-diabeetus. Grind that same fruit down (juice), destroy its fibers, and now you got diabetes in a can.
They are like 11g of augars in 100g lf berries. They are not mostly sugar
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Because it takes quite a lot of effort to eat a huge amount of sugar in the form on fruits and berries. They also have some vitamins, fibers and other stuff in them too.
Fiber. Fiber helps you feel full, so it is harder to over-eat fruit in comparison with chocolate bars, gummy bears, or even fruit juice.
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