Oh Wizard of Oz too.
Christ apples may be more dangerous than I thought 
3 Likes
@FrankTuna Titin, one of the largest proteins in the body, has a molecular weight of 3.9 million grams, or 8598 lbs, per mol. It’s structure is in the pic below. C is an expanded image from B, which is an expanded image from A. Each tiny dot in C is a whole molecule, like a base pair, sugar ring, etc.
They are so large that their structures include different foldings, and spatial relations to other regions within the same molecule.
Because of their complexity, proteins are powerful; they perform all sorts of functions; enzymes, body functions, muscle contractions, etc. Our genes are a form of protein; our cells are run by proteins.
Glucose is a six carbon sugar with a structure so simple anyone could learn to draw it on a cocktail napkin. It’s molecular mass is 180 g/mol. Titin is 21,667 times larger.
It’s easy to see why it’s entirely possible to have unnatural proteins that we can synthesize, and why their function could then be unpredictable, and need deep, long study to determine.
The same applies to small and mid sized synthetic chemicals; drugs, toxins, adhesives, plastics, fats, etc. There are many that are unnatural. And there can be unnatural copies of natural chemicals that act extremely differently. This was the case with cis and trans fats.
We found out the hard way, when animal fats were decided to be deadly, so they hydrogenated vegetable fats indiscriminately in both cis & trans configurations to make ‘margarine’, only to later discover that trans fats massively increase risks of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, etc.
There can be natural and unnatural forms of many larger chemicals.
There is no such thing as ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ glucose [or other sugars].
It’s the same molecule.
From an energy standpoint, eating an apple is chemically no different than sipping a can of coke over 20 – 45 mins. The fiber in the apple just slows the absorption down a bit.
A large apple has about 23 g of sugar. That’s almost six times the amount in all of the blood in your body!! 
Fruit was never healthy. We were just “100% sure” it was.
[Vitamins, etc: Eat veggies with low / no sugar.]
1 Like
That was a lot of words that didn’t demonstrate apples were unhealthy.
Edited to add - To be clear I’ve had steak twice this week and I had fried chicken for lunch so I’m not opposed to eating meat, specifically red meat or any other kind. Just didn’t want to give the impression that I was the dreaded vegan that was mentioned earlier.
2 Likes
Yea I’ve always got some on hand. I should probably be better about using it more often.
1 Like
So basically apples have sugars, and sugar is bad? Is that the gist of it? Ok 
2 Likes
@jiffylush a lot of extra info added for interest, background, etc! Hope it’s interesting to some.
Pardon me? What does “verbose” mean?!?! 
Key point [easily lost in the sea of words! 
] is an apple has almost six times the total qty of sugar in all the blood in your body. Which has to be removed immediately.
I highly doubt anyone would say that ingesting six times the total amount of anything else in your total blood volume is healthy.* Very unsure why glucose gets a logical pass.
[*Regarding things that go directly / extremely quickly into your bloodstream. Water, sugar, etc. Not talking about steak, fats, etc, that all get digested / processed before they or their byproducts get into the bloodstream, slowly. Actually, sugar is the only metabolite I’m aware of that goes directly into the bloodstream. Some drugs, caffeine, etc, do.]
1 Like
@FrankTuna Bingo!
What can I say, I’m a simple minded dude!
Coke = sugar = bad.
Apples = sugar = good.
Only difference I can see here is one is ‘bad’ , one is ‘good’ !!!
1 Like
You’re making a lot of random claims, without any actual reasoning behind it. Other than…seemingly, our blood only has so much sugar in it before the body processes and distributes it.
Why should we care? Why is any of this bad?
The fact remains that there is an order (multiple…) of magnitude more evidence suggesting fruit is healthy, and red fatty meats are not, than vice versa. No amount of personal conjecture is going to convince a reasonable person otherwise.
3 Likes
Heh, same here. Well actually I dont think I’ve had any red meat in a few weeks. I dont refuse to eat it…I just dont particularly enjoy it. And between red meat tending to be particularly unhealthy from a macronutrient standpoint (poor protein to calorie ratio), and other health concerns, it’s just not something I ever actively choose. Put a steak in front of me and I’ll probably eat it…
I prefer to get my unhealthy calories from whiskey and good cheese. Not that cheese is particularly bad…but you get the point haha.
2 Likes
I have to thank my parents for good genes, otherwise I would have never survived past 30 years of eating 2-4 apples/day (after each meal). Shows how resilient our bodies are, weaker person probably wouldn’t have survived such fruity abuse 
2 Likes
Jameson Black Barrel seems to be my whiskey of choice lately and I actually enjoy it on the rocks with a splash of water whereas with regular Jameson it was always a bit of an effort.
@Abe_Froman I’m just sharing info, I don’t want to debate or even try to persuade anyone. Too old, don’t have the energy! If it ain’t helpful or interesting to someone, they can pass. But I really wish I had learned about this years ago, and am hoping to share w those who are interested to learn.
It’s not a secret, or new idea that needs backing up, that sugar is terrible for you. I’m not going to dig anything up, and if someone doesn’t jive w that, that’s their call. I’d say bad call, but that’s me!
But there is this pervasive idea that ‘natural sugars’, like in apples, are healthy, and ‘unnatural sugars’, like in coke, are bad. But they don’t even exist, never mind can have a status as healthy or unhealthy. Apple sugar is identical to coke sugar. I think the huge majority of people don’t know that.
I also think a lot of people don’t realize the quantities we’re talking about in modern fruits. Modern, bred fruits are way larger, and sweeter. I think most people have no clue an apple has 23 g sugar, a can of coke 35. 66% !!!
It’s recent & current research. [Real, scientific research, not reading FB & YT vids! 
] So many haven’t heard about it yet, and it will be a few years before it filters into public policy in nutrition guidelines, etc.
But it really is super important to keep in mind that those same people who published those orders of magnitude more studies that show that fruit is healthy are the exact same people [throw me a bone…era of researchers, same nutrition bodies, same zeitgeist of “known facts”, biases, etc] as the people who:
1 – Told us not to eat animal fat, and to eat their manufactured margarine instead. Only to later tell us it was full of trans fat and was killing us.
2 – Told us cholesterol was in arterial plaque, so don’t eat it, only to just recently tell us that how much we eat has nothing to do with the amount in our blood vessels.
3 – Told us if we DID have high cholesterol, the only thing that could save us was being pumped full of tons of wacky pharmaceutical chemicals, and not possibly a change in natural & healthy diet.
4 – Told us there was nothing wrong with sugar, and drinking processed fruit juices, sodas, and gouging on things like sugary breakfast cereals was fine, as long as we ate LOW FAT foods.
These aren’t tinfoil-hat wearing conspiracy theories. This all happened.
They haven’t yet publicly stated that the sugar in fruit [which is molecularly identical to that in coke, candy, etc] is unhealthy. They also haven’t publicly stated just how bad sugar is, and the mechanism by which it directly causes arterial plaque formation, and CVD.
But a lot of real research has already been completed pointing strongly to this. There’s tooooons of it. I’m not going to link it, you all have fingers! “sugar consumption, vascular disease, arterial plaque”
My honest guess is that in 1 – 5 years the idea that sugar, all sugar, is terrible for you and the leading dietary cause of CVD will be as common as knowing cigarettes probably aren’t the best thing for your health.
[If I never post again on this forum, send a search out for my body! I’m happy and healthy!!! ]
2 Likes
You seem to be unable to differentiate between marketing from for profit companies, and science based independent recommendations. Further…you’re also making a couple awfully big logical leaps on your own here.
I’ll leave it at that…
1 Like
@Abe_Froman I totally understand what you’re getting at!
But while 1, 3, and 4 above were certainly touted by for-profit companies to sell products, they were also believed so strongly to be true at the time that they were in the official nutritional guidelines for US & Canada, and I think UK, as well as other countries.
They were in there because they were based on the leading scientific research at the time. [We hope they at least faked some studies before they included them in public policy, right?!? ]
And all 4 were then reversed / removed, and / or in the process of doing so.
I’d say I’m making the same logical leaps that a man who sees a train approaching and gets off the tracks makes!!! But yes, for sure, you’re right… I am leaping a distance… and with gusto! LOL
We’re all a walking experiment, and tons of the data won’t be in until long after we’re dead. Just have to take in what we have, consider what makes sense, and make our best guess. I’m no more “sure” than anyone else can be!
For me, eating what we naturally ate for millions of years makes sense. Overloading the body with sugar, that we already know has massively negative metabolic impacts, doesn’t.
My grandkids will either think I was an idiot or a genius. Only time will tell!
1 Like
I mean I certainly don’t disagree that nutrition ideas are difficult to understand, unclear, and constantly evolving. But one would be very, very hard pressed to find anything suggesting sugars in fruit, one of the things humans have sought out and eaten to survive on, along with man many other species, is anything but a healthy option.
Humm apples or cola?
I would choose the Apple. I don’t think they add minerals, vitamins, fiber (well maybe in Dr Pepper) or any antioxidants to sodas. The sugar is what’s my modern body has grown to crave and that’s prob not good. But being in my 70’s it’s a bit late to change years of cravings. I try not to consume too much sugar even though my taste buds love it. Thankfully on the bike I can use it up.
1 Like
Fruits are bad for our teeth, that’s not up for discussion but pretty well established science. Do you believe that something that is bad for our oral health is actually good for the rest of our body?
i do wish we could stop painting things as good or bad. context is everything, and we as athletes are examples of that. how did i get to 52 years in this general excellent health, despite eating so much good and bad. our bodies are fantastic tools at keeping us alive.
cycling in the moment, increases heart rate, blood pressure, decreases blood sugar and messes with acidity and salt levels. hydration levels can get out of whack, and makes our muscles sore. it sounds like a really unhealthy thing to do. meanwhile here we are, chasing a 5wkg ftp 
its easy to overconsume coke, but are you going to eat 6 apples in one go, or binge on bananas or steak? probably not.
the body has a liver to soak up that fructose from fruit, which is absorbed slowly because of the fibre. the coke has no such fibre so the insulin response is larger and when consumed in excess in sedentary folk, the liver struggles.
are you aware that the liver turns fructose into:
glycogen then glucose
fat for storage
lactate for fuel (this one surprised me, and i have done the test to confirm blood lactate figures)
excess is everything, context is king
7 Likes
@Abe_Froman just wanted to first say I really enjoy talking with you. Thanks for being cool.
From what I understand it comes down to dosage and frequency. We’re descended from a long long line of animals that were primarily carnivores. My understanding is ya, of course, fruit tastes great so we sought it out, but came across it extremely rarely. Possibly only once a year.
We can’t digest cellulose like cows and deer, so that leaves meat. That’s what we ate. And not just chimps but like waaaaaayyyyy before then. All meat.
Could be dead wrong but I think fruit is so hard to come by, you’re either able to digest leafs or eating meat. No animals are 100% fruit.
So our metabolism evolved to use protein, but there’s tons more cals per gram in fat. So our metabolisms love it. We then store all the energy we eat, and moderate our blood sugar ourselves. Aka produce glucose to fuel our cells.
If a few times a year we gouge on sugar, no biggie. No impact.
But it’s all around us now. We’re using sugar doses through the day to control our own blood sugar, dumping it in by orders of magnitude what our entire blood volume holds. Every day.
I do want to re-stress that the sugars in fruit are identical to those in candy, etc. It’s just sugar.
Again, could be dead wrong! 
Next week we discover we have NOT only been agricultural for about 10,000 years, chimps have been farming fruit for 2 mil years and that made up 90% of their diet. (Silly example….carnivore teeth….but you know what I mean!)
@cagiva_wmx125 loved your point about cycling! It’s super funny!
Just want to remind, as I siad above, that one apple has about 23 g sugar, can of coke 35 = 66%. So 2 apples is 46 grams, almost 1.5 cans of coke.
For sure the fibre in an apple slows absorption. But, as I said above, baked potato’s glycemic index is 85. Pure glucose is 100. 15% lower insulin response (right?). That ain’t good.
I think it’s important to paint things good or bad. It’s how I (we?) make decisions. Cigarettes bad. Veggies w vitamins good. Cycling good. Not cycling bad.
Aware of the fructose stuff. Coke uses mostly high fructose corn syrup, I believe. Doesn’t really matter. All injected as sugar, dumped into our metabolism. Not the body generating it’s own glucose, as we are designed to do.
Still laughing at the cycling thing. Legit, great joke and insight, not making fun! It sounds terrible. Maybe we should all quit?!?!