Welcome to episode six of the Energy Balance Podcast. I'm Jay Feldman of jfeldmanwellness.com and joining me today is my good friend Mike Fave of sapiensystems.com. Today we're going to be wrapping up our series on blood sugar regulation. This is gonna be part three and if you haven't listened to episode one or two, make sure you listen to those because those are gonna really help to set the foundation for what we're going to be talking about today.

And today we're going to be focusing mostly on the different types of sugars. This includes the different types of fruits and table sugar and honey, corn syrup. Basically, we'll be going through all the differences between these types of sugars, how they affect our blood sugar, and then a lot of the common misconceptions regarding these foods and which ones are ideal and how we should be eating them for energy balance. And then we'll also be going through how many carbohydrates we should be eating in a day, how we should structure our meals in terms of carbohydrates.

And basically what this looks like in terms of optimizing energy balance. To check out the show notes for today's episode, head over to jfeldmanwilderness.com slash podcast, where I'll be linking to any of the studies or articles or anything else that we referenced throughout the episode. And if you're dealing with any low energy symptoms, whether that's fatigue or brain fog or blood sugar dysregulation, or you're dealing with any chronic health conditions like diabetes and insulin resistance or heart disease or autoimmune issues, aead over to JFeldmanwellness.com/energy and sign up for a free mini course on energy balance, where I'll walk you through the things that you can do to optimize your cellular energy production and the things to avoid that will inhibit that process so that you can get your energy back and resolve those symptoms or conditions that you're dealing with. And with that, let's get started.

So let's start by talking about the sugar containing foods. And these are really the more ideal carbohydrate sources. Part of that is because they include fructose and or galactose, which are really important because they fuel our livers. And this is also important for kind of keeping a steady blood sugar throughout the day. And so the majority of foods that contain sugars are fruits, honey, and then white table sugar and anything that contains it. And I guess also corn syrup, which we'll talk about that too.

Jay
So I guess the best place to start would be fruit. Well, let's just, why don't we categorize like the ideal sources of sugar to start would be fruit and fruit and fruit juice, basically. then after that, and honey's pretty good too. Yeah. Assuming and for honey specifically, as with fruits too, you got to test it out and see which one's working and which ones don't. But some honeys can cause issues just as much as some fruits can cause issues. So you really got to test them out. And then after that, I would say white sugar could be used. this one, at least for me, I noticed an issue with white sugar. And I think that there are some legitimate concerns with pure white sugar itself. Not necessarily the sucrose, but the interactions that it has with bacteria and digestion which we covered briefly in another Another podcast but yeah the main ones that you'd want to probably stick with our fruit and fruit sugar Then you have honey and then you have white table sugar and then I wouldn't stick with corn syrup But yeah, well, so we'll talk about each of these individually. We'll talk, know in more detail about which fruits are typically best digested and People have the least issues with and we'll kind of go through it.

And then we'll talk about table sugar too and maybe why it's not ideal. So why don't we start with fruits? couple of fruits can be difficult depending on where you're living. But especially in the U S it can be really tough to get ripe fruit. And part of the reason is because especially if it's not the summer and you're not, you don't live somewhere warm where there's local fruit, the fruit is coming in from all sorts, you all over the world. And that often means that they have to pick it when it's very unripe.

And then they have to ship it here and it ripens kind of over time either with the use of chemicals or without it, depending on... Is it ethylene gas? Is that what it is? Yeah. Yeah. And I think there might be a couple others. I do know that Whole Foods doesn't allow fruits that are ripened with those chemicals, but... And I don't think any organic fruit can be. So that's one reason why we should be buying organic fruit. And I guess just while we're talking about organic versus non-organic, this really for fruit, it matters more for the fruits that you're going to be eating any of the outside parts, which would be the parts that would be exposed to the pesticides. So if you're going to be eating those fruits, like let's just say an apple, then it's definitely important to get it organic. If you're eating something like a watermelon where you're just eating the inner parts, it's less important. But another consideration is that oftentimes the organic fruit is grown in better conditions and has therefore has more vitamins and minerals and also less stressful.

They use the even besides the stress aspect, all the plants and everything that we're going to eat is completely dependent on the soil quality. So if you're going to use a lot of, cause organic still uses pesticide. just doesn't use synthetic pesticides. There's like specific approved pesticides. but the part, certain pesticides and herbicides and whatnot can wipe out like the soil quality, the ecosystem of the soil.

And that can definitely cause issues too. And then massive use of like the different fertilizers and whatnot. And that reduces the nutrient quality in addition to causing stress on the plants. And then the plants also, when they're stressed or injured, release certain compounds, can become more allergenic. You can have different issues. A good example, an easy one is like sweet potatoes or potatoes in general, although they're not fruits, if they're attacked by mold, they tend to produce toxins.

If you ever go to the grocery store and you see like white potatoes that are very green or anything like that, or like have like bruised areas and discoloration and stuff like that, they tend to produce different toxins. like, even if you feed them the cattle, they make them very sick. So any type of stress in a plant just, or even as like with stress with the human causes a reaction in the plant and that reaction can definitely affect you. Yeah. How the chemicals produce. Absolutely. And so that was.

kind of the next point I was going to mention is that we just like with animals or us, like we want to be in low stress environments and the same is true for fruits where the less stress, the more nutrients they can put in their fruit essentially. And also when they are under stress, what's that? And less allergens. Yeah. So when they are under stress, they produce more allergens or irritating compounds. And another example is bananas where people with latex allergies, sometimes they also have

Jay
kind of allergies to irritating compounds or allergens that are produced by bananas when they're in stressful environments, which oftentimes bananas are just with the way that they're grown. So all of that is a reason, one reason or a few reasons why to get organic instead of not organic as far as fruit goes. You have better quality of the soil, which leads to more nutrients. They're also under less stress, so you have less allergens and irritating compounds.

And then beyond that, there's also just a wide array of different fruits, and they have various qualities to them. And oftentimes, the more tropical fruits have less of the irritating compounds and more of the ideal nutrients for producing energy and easier sugar to extract, less starch, things like that. So the fruits that I would generally consider the safest would be melons like watermelon and honeydew and cantaloupe and other top. Go ahead. Some of other tropical fruits. I was gonna say things like grapes are good too. The other point that I want to make that I think is pretty important is, as you were talking before about removing the skin or like eating the skins in certain fruits, in general, I would tend to remove the skin just because the previous podcast we talked about that any type of like pesticide, herbicide or any type of compound that the plant is going to produce itself the so-called antioxidants are concentrated in any of the skins or any of the seeds So like even with an apple and if you go when I was over in Europe People tend to peel the fruits before they eat them they like if you're eating a plum or an apple or something They would take the skin off. it was just common there And I noticed for myself like I tend to eat grapes a decent amount if I eat too much grape skins It definitely has like a irritating effect on my intestine. It's pretty noticeable.

Not necessarily right away a few hours later, but it's been a common effect. Yeah, so I think that's something to keep in mind with the fruits. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And so just to kind of list some more good fruits, again, assuming that they're ripened and part, I know we mentioned this earlier, so part of the issue with not getting them when they're tree ripened is they have more of these irritating compounds.

Jay
And that's really a common quality with most of the fruit we're going to get. if you can get local fruit, that's always going to be best. And then we'll talk about this. These are some of the reasons why fruit juice is a really good option, too. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But as far as the fruits that we do have available most often, tropical fruits, we mentioned the melons. Also, if you can find some of the more obscure fruits that are really tropical, there's like cherimoya's and leachies and longans and things like that that can all be good. Guavas, they can all be tougher to find though and they're often pretty expensive in the States. And they're often unripe. And they're often unripe, yeah. But then you also have oranges, which are a decent option, and grapes. And then you have, I guess, some more of the stone fruits, which is... What's that? Cherries, ripe peaches, nectarines, those are all pretty good. Yeah. Assuming they're ripe, like...

Pea and non-ripe peaches or nectarine can really mess you up. Right. And yeah, and the same can be true for bananas too, assuming that they're very ripe and maybe even cooked, which we'll talk about in a second. And again, just disclaimer with all this is we should really make sure you're experimenting with these different foods and making sure that you're doing okay with them. But yeah, so then there's a handful of fruits that are often better cooked rather than eaten raw because of the amount of starch that they have. And so starch can be, which we'll get to, can be

Is more easily digested by our bacteria which can make it an issue but raw starch is especially so because we don't digest raw starch very well The other thing before you get there is that the generally the riper the fruit is the less starch it has yeah, so the ripeness is literally the ripeness is characterized partly by the conversion of the starches in the fruit into sugars and Like an easy example just to see this happen is if you buy a banana or a plantain Just the difference is when you start with a banana and it's very green, you know, it's very starchy. Some people like it less. Yeah. Less sweet. And as it gets to like fully brown, it's extremely sweet. That happens with pretty much all fruits. Um, it's obviously better to happen on the tree and some fruits don't ripen very well off the tree. So yeah, go ahead. Sorry. No, no, no. That was, that was good. And with that too, sweetness is really the best indicator of good quality fruit, sweetness. And then just how you feel outside of that.

Jay
That's going to mean that it's ripest and best quality. that's another thing to look for. then for the fruit, so some fruits like apples or bananas, peaches, pears, maybe not peaches, it depends, but those fruits, because of the starch they contain can cause irritation for some people. And so you can cook those fruits, like stew them or saute them, maybe throw in some butter. Butter and honey is a great combination. Yeah.

All for apples, pears, and bananas. Maybe a little cinnamon too. Right, yeah. And white sugar if you do okay with it, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But so one of the important qualities about these fruits is the polyphenols that they do have, which when we talk about the sugar... Well, I'll just leave that for when we talk about the sugar and talk about those differences. The other thing I want to bring up about fruits is a lot of people have issues with the fruits.

So there's two, like digesting the fruits. There's two main issues. Number one is FODMAPs, which are just fermentable components of the fruits. They're like polysaturides. So they're chains of things like either fructose or like different sugar molecules that we can't break down. And those, since we can't break them down, they can cause fermentation in the gut. And it's really hit or miss. Like some fruits can cause like a ton of issues.

Other fruits won't cause any issues at all. For example, cherries are pretty high in FODMAPs, yet for me, I have no problem eating the cherries at all. And then the next point is certain fruits have more fructose than they have glucose. And humans aren't very good at digesting fructose or absorbing fructose without glucose. I think some people can only absorb five grams. Some people can absorb up to 50 grams of fructose.

In absence of glucose, but for the most part one-to-one fruit toasted glucose seems to be like the ideal cutoff point for absorbing the sugars so certain fruits Are better than others in that sense. So like it could be FODMAPS. could be excess fruit toast and you can deal with that by like mixing different carb sources together mixing different fruits together and then just avoiding the ones that bother you.

Jay
Do you want to mention some of the more specific fruits where that ratio might be an issue? Where the fructose to glucose ratio might be an issue or who are that are high in FODMAPs? Some of the high FODMAPs ones are something like watermelon, cherries, some of the apples and pears. also like apples have a very high fructose to glucose ratio, so that could be an issue for some people.

And then for things like plantains you have raw starch in there which could definitely be an issue those definitely have to be cooked bananas For a lot of people if they're green have to be cooked if the yellow depends. Off the top of my head. I'm trying to think of a few other ones. I I don't know. Do you have any? think you've covered most of the ones that the main ones my mind I mean pairs to you. It's at Apple's so throw pairs in there cherry peaches do as well peaches do have some thog maps or they could be possibly irritating as well. They definitely have raw starch if they're not ripe. Then some fruits that are good and want grapes have an excess of fructose, but not too much so. Like it's, you can have eight ounces and you're still like within an acceptable range, I'm pretty sure. But then like safe fruits or juices that are closer to one to one. Pineapple juice is pretty good. Depends on how you feel with it.

Raw pineapple can be a little harsh in the system because it has an enzyme in it called bromelain. Different story. Some people react to it, some people don't. And then, as I say, so orange juice, pineapple juice, grape juice can work. If you're okay with apple juice, that could work. So yeah, there's really a bunch of, you really have to try it out. It's pretty individual, but those are some of the reasons why they wouldn't go well. And then obviously if you're eating a lot of fruit skins or the fruit is really unbright that could cause an issue or like an excess of seeds as well. Sure. Yeah. And so why don't we, I mean, it seems like a good point to transition to fruit juices. So a lot of the problems with fruits, as far as the fibers and starchy components goes and the availability goes and the ripeness goes, you don't have those issues with fruit juice because oftentimes the good quality fruit juice is from ripe fruits.

Jay
You can get organic pretty easily even when it's not in season. You don't have the fiber or starch. So fruit juices can therefore be a much better or can be a better option and especially around. very easy digestible. Yeah. Assuming it doesn't like assuming it doesn't have a lot of FODMAP or a ratio or whatnot. Like for example, apple juice high has something called sorbitol, which is like a sugar alcohol not really digested by us.

If you drink a lot of apple juice, depending on the person and what's going on with your gut, you can get runs from it. I know I've had that experience in trying out different juices, or I know you recently tried cherry juice and sometimes you can get some issues with that. The other thing keep in mind is anytime you introduce a new food, you're going to have some type of effect from it. And it may dissipate after a few days, but like if it's going on for more than a week or two weeks or something like that.

It's not necessarily a healing crisis. It could actually be a reaction to the food. But I would give anything you try any sort of experiment with a new food. I would give it a period of a few days, see how you go with it. And then if you're still having really negative effects, then remove it. And then things could also be like a quantity issue. You you could drink four ounces of apple juice and be okay. But when you try and drink like eight ounces or 12 ounces or something like that in the sitting, you start getting an issue. So it really depends. Yeah, I think it's  important to mention that as far as experimentation goes, and that's going to be the same for all foods that we mentioned in this episode and future episodes. So we don't have to keep repeating it. It was important to point out. But yeah, yeah. So we can kind of assume that that assumption is there. And I think for most average people, they aren't going to notice minor differences that you may notice if, you know, from just adding a new type of juice or a new fruit, unless, you know, you're someone who already has a very minimal

diet or you could say restricted. I just mean a minimal number of foods or types of foods or where you're more in tune with that, which those are things to key in on. And that's kind of a separate practice in itself is trying to recognize really what's going on. And I know some people, for many average people, their diets are very varied. So it's kind of hard to pinpoint, but that's just something to consider. So yeah, so as far as fruit juices go, there's orange juice is one of the more

Jay (19:38.204)
obtainable good quality juices that you can get. cheaper. And cheaper, yeah. And most again, after trying many, many different types of juices, the organic juices are almost always better tasting and better quality. There's some other issues with orange juices where some companies will use flavor packs because they use basically poor quality oranges that don't taste good and so they have to... Well, they store the oranges for long periods of time.

They get them from Brazil, Mexico, the United States, all these different areas. And then they just put them in big tanks. And so they don't lose quality. They remove all the oxygen from the tank. And then it basically gets rid of the flavor. So then you have to add the flavor back in. And then that can cause an issue for a lot of people. And it doesn't typically taste the same. If you ever have Minute Maid and then you have Simply Orange, it's like...

Are these the same juice? Yeah, well, and even Simply Orange compared to some of the others. Because I do think Simply Orange, they might use flavor packs. I don't remember. There's actually a resource that I will link to that has information on all the different orange juice brands. Well, even amongst flavor packs, that's what I'm saying. Like you can have two orange juices that both use flavor packs, but they're just like completely different. Right. Absolutely. And then there's also another aspect, which is pulp dissolving enzymes.

And I guess we can talk about pulp. But basically, as far as talking about avoiding the fibers components and things like that that could be irritating from whole fruit, that would mean that if you have fruit juice with pulp, you're still kind of including those potentially irritating components. So it would be typically better, or at least worth trying, the no pulp type. And then some companies will use pulp dissolving enzymes so that they can, so they don't have to throw away the pulp and they can basically use it as
component of the juice. But that's again another potential irritating issue, another sign of low quality juice. again, that's it's in that resource that I'll link to. Some juices can be can really some oranges can be unripe sometimes so the juice isn't going to taste good. then other thing to keep in mind is if you're having an issue with commercial orange juice.

Jay
You may not actually have an issue with oranges. You could actually have an issue with just the juice. Because from what I understand, when they juice the orange, they actually like juice the peel and all in some circumstances. like, you could be having like a reaction to like having such a concentrated amount of different components from the orange in the juice. Because I know for me, like if I can drink, I can have an orange and I'm okay but I have an issue with drinking too much orange juice. And I think that could be related to having the peel, like the whole peel juiced with the orange altogether. That's interesting. Yeah, that's a possibility. And then also, again, some people, if you're just not used to a food, I do know people who talk about if they have too much orange juice, it'll cause like digestive distress. But again, it can just take some getting used to also. moving forward from orange juice, there's a ton of other fruit juices that you can have that are worth trying. Grape juice, or Mike said pineapple juice, cherry juice, all sorts of berries and things like that that you can try. We didn't talk about berries when we talked about fruit. Do you want to talk about berries real quick? Just throw in a quick mention.

I mean, as goes with anything, sometimes some people do okay with them. I know for me, like in the past, I've eaten the blueberries with no problem, specifically blueberries. But I know recently that I haven't had them in a while. Now that I try them, like I can definitely get like a noticeable mental effect from them, sort of like a brain fog. It's not, doesn't happen right away. It happens a little bit later. A lot of the berries are, I mean, you see all the different blogs and whatnot, super high antioxidants and things like that. That generally means that they're very high in protective compounds, pesticide-based compounds, herbicide, fungicide, whatever the plant's producing, not necessarily what they're being sprayed with. And a lot of those compounds can be irritating. I know Ray talks about it in the sense of like, the seeds and whatnot, which are also high, but I think the berries themselves just in general.

Jay
can have a pretty high amount of irritating compounds in them. And it really depends on the person. Some berries are OK, others aren't. I know for me, blueberries bother me. Things like raspberries aren't such a big deal. Sure. And I do want to, again, mention, Mike, you're probably a little more sensitive than the average person. again, depends on what your circumstances are. But a lot of people do fine with berries. Those things are not really that, like, they're not very high.

in any sugar, like they have sugar, but you'd have to eat a large amount. And they're expensive. And that was what I was going to mention is, was that? And yes, and they're expensive. Yeah, the part of the reason why berries always talked about as beneficial is because they're low in fructose and low in sugar as far as fruits go. And that's really a reason for them not to be as beneficial because that sugar is really what we're looking for as far as producing energy goes. So berries can still be fine.

Definitely organic with those because the pesticide use is pretty high. But yeah, as Mike's and as we mentioned, they're expensive and it can be tough to get any, like a real decent amount of sugar from them. But yeah. And nutrients in general, like you'd have to eat a lot of them to really make a significant dent in any of the nutrients. You're mostly getting fiber, especially something like raspberries. It's mostly seeds. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and so, but you know, kind of circling back to juices, there are a lot of, I don't know you find berry juice very often. They have it. It's super expensive. I've never tried it. I tend to stick with grape and pineapple juice just because those are the ones that work for me. Sure. And another thing you can do with juices, aside from just drinking them on their own, is you could make jello, which is a good option. It just requires a little bit of gelatin protein and maybe a little bit of white sugar. although it depends how sweet you want it.

Then you can use mostly fruit juice and then a tiny bit of water. It's really easy to find recipes for it online. Maybe I'll include one, we'll see. But that's just another way to get some fruit juice in. Is there anything else you want to mention as far as fruit juice goes? Do you want to move on to dried fruit? Yeah, I guess we can move on to dried fruit. OK, so as far as dried fruit goes, there are some benefits here.

Jay
where you have convenience as a factor and also convenience in the sense that you can get fruit, decent quality fruit that you wouldn't necessarily get year round, know, fresh that you can get in dried form. There are a few things to consider as far as dried fruit goes. One is a lot of times there are preservatives used and those preservatives can be potentially irritating. So sulfur dioxide is used and that one's actually for preserving the color of the fruits.

So you'll see that in dried fruits without sulfur, they don't have the same color that they originally started with, which is a normal effect of drying them. And then also citric acid, which is used as a preservative and is often produced using black mold. And so therefore, it can also have irritating contaminants in it. Aside from that, dried fruit can also be somewhat more difficult to digest because it's not real diet.

Really diluted with the liquid that would naturally be in the fruit or fruit juice. And so that can cause issues for people. And you are getting all the same fiber and starch. Is there anything else you want to add to that, Mike? I think dried fruit is a little bit rough on the teeth for people. Especially if you're going to eat it pretty often. Because it often gets stuck to the teeth and sugar, the sugar in general sitting on your teeth and the acids from the fruit.

At least for me, I experienced that when I was trying a lot of dried fruit can give you some, some like erosion sometimes or some sensitivity in the teeth. So I would try and limit the not eating too much dried fruit in one sitting or consistently or things like that. Just because of the effect that it can have, especially stuck on a teeth. So just something to be conscious of. mean, some people may be right.

Just another thing to consider. Is there anything else? Or I guess we can move forward. know if there's too much more to talk about with dried fruit. Most of the same principles apply. Yeah, it's about the same. The fiber and whatnot. All right. And so next up would be honey, there's, honey's got quite an interesting history as something that may have been an important part in our evolutionary history.

Jay
being able to use fire to essentially harvest honey and that essentially or potentially leading to increased intelligence and improved brain function and things like that. Just as it being a really solid sugar source that we use to fuel our brains. And there's also tribal cultures in Africa that are known to still get a decent amount of their diet from honey.

Do you to talk about honey as a food on his own, Mike? Yeah. So I think I sent you the study a little while back, which is pretty interesting. And this was specifically with bees comparing the effects of honey versus invert syrup, which is basically just, it's similar to honey, just doesn't have some of the other floral components and white sugar on the digestion of bees. And they basically just looked at sort of scans of the bees intestines on slides.

And basically the honey produced like, the honey didn't have any negative effects. Whereas the white sugar and the invert syrup had not, the invert syrup was close to the honey. You saw some small, slightly negative effects and then the sugar had like a noticeable effect. Although the bees were okay. They were doing this because they were checking to see, you know, when you add honey or corn syrup or invert syrup to the hive, when it doesn't produce enough honey or you're taking honey from it for the winter and whatnot.

but, basically I've noticed the same thing for me. I can, I do well with certain honeys, whereas I can get issues with the white sugar. I think as with the fruit, the honey has some protective compounds in it that can inhibit bacterial, digestion of the sugars and make it more usable for the body. people say there's minerals and vitamins and stuff in the honey. There is, but it's like pretty small.

The things I would watch out with for honey specifically are some of the darker varieties can have concentrate different polyphenols and flavonoids and plant compounds from the flowers that they get it from. And some of those can be irritating, can be a little bit allergenic. Really depends on how you feel with it. And then for some honeys, I think it's important to get raw honey overall.

Jay (31:30.349)
I think the processing basically makes it into just the same thing as like an invert syrup or a concentrated fructose honey. Some honeys have more fructose than others, so that's another factor to take into consideration. But yeah, I would try and get raw honey. And then I would try and get raw honey from areas that aren't heavily sprayed with pesticide. I think it could be an issue if you're eating a lot of honey.

And it's coming from an area that's high in pesticide because it can concentrate in the honey. That can definitely be a problem. If you get organic honey, then that's not really a concern. Yeah. Well, yeah, that should be it should be better. yeah, those are just some things to keep in mind. I'd say that overall, like for a general statement, lighter colored honeys should probably do better, have a little bit less, a little bit less irritating compounds.

And organic honey would be good and organic raw honey. Yeah. I like to use here is the clover blossom honey. It's pretty good. It's white, very white honey. Okay. Um, and yeah, so let's, let's compare honey. I think it would be a good idea to compare honey, corn syrup and white sugar, just kind of what their components are, the potential downfalls, but some benefits of others. So just kind of looking at all of them as sugar additives. So white.

Table sugar is just pure sucrose, is combined glucose and fructose molecules. And so that same sucrose is found in fruit juice, or sorry, that same sucrose is found in fruits, and it's also found in honey. And then honey also contains a decent portion of free fructose and free glucose. And it also has these plant compounds.

from the plants that the bees harvest the pollen from that leads to creating the honey, which you don't have in the sugar, the white table sugar. And then you have corn syrup, which is like a syrupy component that's extracted from corn and it contains a similar ratio as sucrose of 50 % glucose and 50 % fructose. There's also a few potential issues with corn syrup though.

Jay
where it's been shown that it can be potentially contaminated with heavy metals and things like that, which I think is a result of the processing. And then... also has different compounds in it too from the processing. Almost like damaged carbohydrates. I think it's like browning compounds, things like that. Sure, yeah. From heating, whereas... Dark heat intermediates. Yeah. Were not necessarily the pure sugars. It's from the processing.

Yeah, so let's talk, that's a good point to bring up is so when you heat sugar and it caramelizes or becomes browned, that browning part is irritating. Those compounds can be irritating. It's like damaged sugar. And when we consider white table sugar versus like a brown sugar or raw sugar, those brown and raw sugars have some of that caramelized component on them from when the white sugar is extracted, it has to go through a heating process.

And so the raw sugars or slightly browner sugars are really popular now as if they're better for whatever reason. But they just contain this caramelized sugar portion, which is potentially irritating and not really beneficial in any way. So white sugar would be better than what Mike is mentioning is that corn syrup also has those same irritating caramelized compounds. And then it also potentially has

some sort of kind of waxy, starchy component that's not often accounted for. And I've seen a study or a couple of studies on that, and there's similar starchy compounds in other syrups, like tapioca syrup or rice syrup. So it wouldn't be surprising for that to be in corn syrup. And I think that it could account for part of the reason why it's not at why it causes problems. But so if we were to kind of rank these,

Honey would probably be the best and least potential for feeding the gut bacteria because it has the protective compounds from the plants. This is assuming you don't have an issue with that honey though. Right. And then next would be white table sugar, which again, have to keep in mind that if our digestion is okay and we're able to digest the white sugar quickly and absorb it quickly, it's probably not going to cause an issue. And also if we potentially eat it with other fruit juices or other, you know, other

Jay
foods that have those protective polyphenols, that's going to protect it from being consumed as well. But if we're just going to consider white table sugar on its own, it does have a decent potential for getting consumed by the gut bacteria. And then corn syrup would probably be the worst, where you have more irritating compounds. You have these potential starchy, waxy compounds that would feed the gut bacteria, or basically like raw starch. And then you'd an then the rest is essentially the same. The other thing with corn syrup, they have the high fructose corn syrup. And although the pers- the, I think it's 55 to 45, so 55 % fructose to 45 % glucose. So it's not such a dramatic shift off, but just depending on how much you're eating for some people, that could really cause an issue. Cause you can have an excess percentage of glucose, of fructose over the glucose, which can definitely lead to fermentation in the small intestine. It could.

I'm It could, but in order to have five grams more fructose than glucose, you would have to have at least 50 grams of sugar from corn syrup. So we're talking pretty decent amounts to the, at the point that that ratio would come in. like a 11, big gulp. Right. Exactly. So that wouldn't be a primary concern of mine, but definitely worth mentioning. Yeah. Is there anything else you want to mention about honey, white sugar and

Maybe we should just a quick summary in case they missed the people missed other podcasts. Sure. What actually like what the issue is with sugar. Because we sort of like glossed over it and mentioning it. But we didn't say what the so basically any type of pure sugar because it's such a great substrate for energy and whatnot. There's basically like a competition of it in our bodies with bacteria for the utilization of the sugar. So when you have pure white sugar and you're putting it into the intestine.

If you have any type of overgrowth or something going on in the small intestine, or even if you don't have an overgrowth, if you're eating a lot of white sugar, there is a chance that bacteria in the small intestine, which generally are low, especially compared to the colon, they can ferment that sugar. They can use that sugar. And then you can get some type of overgrowth. Or in studies, they show if they feed animals high amounts of pure sugar particularly in rats and monkeys, you can get some endotoxemia, some slight endotoxemia if you eat that with a high fat meal in the portal vein. But when they feed them fruit juice or they feed them vegetables or something with it, they tend to see a decrease in endotoxemia. And then even with high fat diets and they give them fruit juice, they don't really often see the endotoxemia or the fruit juice is protective against the endotoxemia.

so basically what we're saying is you want to prioritize fruit and fruit juice because there's a protection from the endotoxemia in the diet, as opposed to using white sugar. But depending on your circumstance or context, you know, if you're stuck in the airport and you know, the only thing that you have available to you is like, I don't know, some cane sugar soda or something like that. And you haven't eaten for awhile and you're pretty stressed out.

that could definitely be something to utilize just to help mitigate the stress. Yeah, absolutely. It's not a black and white scenario at all. And you have to consider that kind of context. And there are definitely times where just having something that has pure cane sugar is not the worst option. I would definitely try and avoid corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup though, if at all possible. And I would try and avoid the different

If you're going to have some of the sodas, I would try and get one. I know in the airport it's hard. And I know that's the scenario I gave, but I would try and stick with just the carbonated water and cane sugar and whatever flavoring they're going to use. Because if they start adding citric acid or anything like that, those things tend to be irritating. And I know just for an example, I was drinking soda for period of time. It was just cane sugar, water, and citric acid.

The formula chain or the company that was making the soda changed over and they were still the formula was still the same, but the taste was a little bit different. And then I started getting like a rashes from it. So it's, it's a, you know, there can be, there can be very minor changes that can cause changes for you. Um, so just things to keep in mind. Yeah. Well, and a convenient way, if you are in a, in a situation like the airport setting, um, or just in general, a convenient way to get

Jay
Some of that sugar in would be through tea or coffee and you can add sugar or honey to it. And those also have both coffee and tea have compounds that would, you those plant compounds that would be potentially protecting the sugar from being consumed by the gut bacteria and producing endotoxins. So that's something else. There's actually studies that show that too, that taking coffee with sugar prevents some of the negative effects. They look particularly on the liver and like different

Cytokines and stuff like that are inflammatory mediators, but there's studies showing coffee preventing the issue of sugar The last thing I'd want to say we didn't I don't think we mentioned this but Any type of sugar with fruit comes with some B vitamins and some minerals that can assist with the utilization of the sugar So that's also a benefit of having you with the fruit whereas with the white sugar or honey People say there's minerals and vitamins and honey. I'm sure there is a little bit, but it's not the same as fruit. Um, so that's sort of a major downside of the white sugar compared to the fruit. Yeah. And again, as you mentioned, I think is important to emphasize, there's a difference between talking about what is ideal and kind of what you're going to do in real life based on practicality. And I do think that options with cane sugar in them can be good options depending on convenience. you're going to be out of the house for a while and you need to have something with you for whatever reason or If you're at the airport or whatever it is, those are definitely decent options, but it's just, yeah, just not ideal. Yeah. Is there anything else you want to add as far as sugars go? Oh, I would maybe like an amount amount to have. Yeah. Yeah. So first from what we are going to, we are going to have a separate episode talking about amounts for kind of all of it and putting it all together, but we can talk about that too right now a little bit. So

From what I've read, from what I've seen, you want to have, because a lot of the keto people, there's a lot of this going around that you don't need to have sugar. You don't need to have any sugar. You don't need to eat any sugar. From what I can see, just for central nervous system functioning, just for thyroid functioning, just for maintaining a mucus layer. And one of the main sources that I'm pulling this from.

Jay
which is in the paleosphere is some of the work from the Geminids. And they discuss having a minimum, I think of 130 or 150 grams of sugar a day. And that's just for basic functions. And then they talk about adding an extra, I don't know, 50 to 100 grams. They don't say sugar, they say carbohydrate, but an extra 50 to 100 grams for activity. I think for a lot of people getting a minimum of 150, like at the bare minimum,

is a good place to start, but I generally tend to lean on the side of having more. There's studies basically showing that the sugar directly shuts off the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis. So basically it can turn off the cortisol production and stress hormones. if you ever are stressed out and you just have like a little bit of juice or a little bit of soda, I think you'll see the relaxing effect that it actually has on the body.

Cane soda. Huh? Cane sugar soda. Yeah, cane sugar soda. So I would say, yeah, I think that probably a minimum bar set at 150 grams and then you sort of increase from there. You can say you can leave it as carbs in general. I prefer sugar over starch, but it really depends. And then as percentage of calories, if you really want to get into that.

You probably look between 30 and 40 % of your calories, at least for me, that's what I found works. Maybe even a little more. It depends on, again, so many factors, but I do agree that 150 grams is a good place to start. depending on where you are, could be anywhere up to several hundred to 800 grams. mean, depending on your activity level and if you're in kind of a refeeding place. But another thing to consider is if you're coming from no carb to some carbs, you want to do it slowly and monitor these changes monitor your experiments. I know you mentioned kind of the low carb keto crowd and there's a few reasons why we do need those carbohydrates. And basically if we don't provide them from our diet, we're going to provide them from somewhere because they need to be used. it requires... amino acids, which is a breakdown of muscle tissue or whatever excess protein you have coming in. Right. So basically if we're not eating enough carbohydrates, stress hormones are released and these break down protein like our muscle tissue in order to produce sugar that our brains can use. And so this is also part of the reason as far as blood sugar regulation goes that we want to be eating some form of carbohydrates every couple hours to every several hours depending on how well your liver is functioning. If your liver is functioning very well then you can go longer. fat you also have in your diet too. That too and also your activity levels and what exactly you're doing. So there's a lot of factors here but

Essentially the idea is that as we're using fuel, as we're using our blood sugar, the blood sugar levels drop. And if they drop too low, in order to, basically because sugar is so important, stress hormones will be released and this increases the blood sugar levels. And it's much better if instead of that process, we just consume sugar containing foods. You don't have to rely on backup processes. You basically are using the exogenous sources. So you don't have to dip into any type of reserves.

So the other thing I would want to say is a lot of people do notice that when they are on a low carb diet, they don't get the so-called blood sugar swings. And I've definitely noticed that. I'm sure you've noticed that when we both did low carb. And I think that's because you basically have the adaptive hormones, stress hormones, maintaining blood sugar at a steady level all the time.

So you're not taking it in and then the stress hormones are lowering and then you have enough sugar and then when you run out you sort of feel the switch back into the adaptive hormones. Because the blood sugar swing is essentially you have your blood sugar, it's nice and this depends on what form of carbohydrate you're eating but your blood sugar is doing all right, you're doing all right. You start to deplete the amount that you've just taken in and then now you start having to dip into your reserves or the glycogen and then at first it's glycogen that you have. Which is stored sugar, stored carbohydrates. Yeah, so you basically have to rely on those to start. And that requires the release of adaptive hormones. So that blood, the feeling that you get at the bottom of that blood sugar is the kicking in of those adaptive hormones to basically release sugar from your glycogen stores. Yeah, and that's the idea of feeling hangry, where when you're hungry and you get angry.

Jay
or even just feeling hungry at all, a lot of times that coincides with these elevated stress hormones due to low blood sugar. And there's a lot more ins and outs to that, but I think that was helpful at least for like a really, really basic overview. And then also people on these low carb diets, a lot of their thyroid panels do not look good at all. You basically remove carbs from the diet and your thyroid hormone shuts down. And it's pretty like consistent in the literature that that happens. Yeah. And that's a marker of the shutting down of the metabolism.

increases in stress hormones. Yeah, and in a reliance on fat oxidation over oxidative phosphorylation of sugars. So you have beta oxidation instead. Yeah. Yeah. sugars are a more efficient and ideal fuel as why they're used by our brain, whereas the rest of our bodies can use fat. Our brain can't use fat and it can use ketones. But again, that's

kind of a whole separate topic. if you are basically, if you get to a point where you're producing ketones, your body's already under a decent amount of stress. And so sugar is definitely the ideal fuel compared to fat, which is basically the largest issue with the low carb diets. The other thing I wanted to say is, because the thing is, is we talk a lot about the importance of sugar. And I think some people may take that to see is that a low fat diet

and a high sugar diet may be like the ideal way to go. So yes, sugar is like an ideal source overall. But I think what a lot of people will find if they go into really high sugar diets or really high carb diets, even if you're eating potatoes and rice and things like that, that you may find that you'll have to eat like pretty often or pretty consistently, assuming you don't have any issues with the starch, because you're going to constantly be hungry. You're going to constantly be feeling like these blood sugar swings.

And I think we mentioned this before, but the fat helps to stabilize the digestion and release of the sugar with the protein too. And I think you can see this and just not necessarily to make a comparison, but just draw a point. Some of the people who do like the fruitarian diets or the vegan diets, some of the complaints you can see on the forum sometimes is, I have to eat every hour. I'm always hungry. I'm always hungry. And that's because I think the sugars from the fruits and the sugars in general,

Jay
Get used very rapidly. So without other foods going in and the baseline of fat and protein and things like that, if you're trying to rely on mostly sugar, you'll find that your blood sugar is gonna go, you're gonna constantly be hungry because you're gonna burn through that sugar pretty fast. Sure. Yeah. And we'll talk through all that in more detail in the future when we're talking about putting the whole diet together, the amounts of the different macronutrients.

and other kind of stipulations and points to get to at that point. All right. That's going to wrap up part three of our three part series on blood sugar. I hope you guys enjoyed that episode. And if you did, please leave a review or like us wherever you're listening to check out more of my work, head over to J Feldman wellness dot com. And if you want to check out the show notes for today's episode, head over to J Feldman wellness dot com slash podcast.

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and the things to avoid that will inhibit that process. And with that, thank you guys for listening and I will talk to you in the next episode.