Today, we’re diving into a sweet yet controversial topic: Why sugar is more harmful than starch
Now, we all know that excessive consumption of both can wreak havoc on our health, so let’s explore why sugar takes the crown for being far more dangerous a substance.
What’s the difference between Sugar and Starch?
When we consume something sugary (made with sucrose, which is what’s in those 1kg bags of sugar in the baking aisle) or something that is high in starch with no fibre wrapped around it, both quickly enter our bloodstream, causing a rapid spike in blood glucose levels.
This sudden surge triggers a corresponding insulin response to remove this excess of glucose from our blood.
When we eat to a standard pattern of “high-carb, low-fat, every couple of hours”, this leads to a roller coaster ride of energy highs and crashes.
However, the big difference between sugar and starch is how they are made up. Starch is long chains of glucose molecule where as sucrose is a 50:50 mix of glucose and fructose molecules holding hands.
Fructose is the molecule in sugar that makes it sweet to the taste and it has a unique metabolic pathway
But isn’t fructose a more natural sugar than white sugar/sucrose?
Not really, both occur in nature. Sucrose is primarily made by sugar beet and sugar cane plants, where as fructose occurs widely in all fruit & veggies
Either way, both are naturally accompanied by lots of fibre and water. And of course, the amount of sugars in most veggies is minimal.
As omnivores, we do not produce the enzyme cellulase in our guts. This means that we cannot break down plant cell walls and so protects us from the fructose.
We squeeze beet and cane of its juice, discard the fibre and boil the juice down to make bags of sugar.
However, when we eat whole fruit or veg raw most of the sugars in fruit and veg stay locked up. We break some of the sugars out by chewing. This is why fruit tastes sweet as we bite into it.
And if we cook it, all the cell walls are popped open by the heat. This is why cooked fruit and veg taste sweeter than their raw counterparts
Ok then, what’s the problem with fructose?
Glucose is readily metabolised by every cell in the body. It’s vital for life.
Fructose is only metabolized in the liver, where it is converted into triglycerides for use and storage in our cells.
Why? The body sees fructose as a toxin, so then liver creates triglycerides as the fastest path to neutralising the toxin. Uses the same JNK-1 metabolic pathway as alcohol.
When we eat lots of sugary food and/or fruit juices, the processes create more and more triglycerides that can’t go anywhere. The triglycerides build in the liver, as well as the blood, the pancreas and all around our other organs.
This contributes to the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
This build up of triglycerides contributes to creating insulin resistance. (A condition in which the body’s cells become less responsive to the effects of insulin.)
As the body has to produce more and more insulin to have the same “opening” effect on our cells, insulin resistance leads to high blood triglyceride levels and high blood glucose levels.
If we constantly have high blood glucose and high blood triglycerides for the body to deal with, this eventually leads to type 2 diabetes as the body’s systems begin to not cope any more.
The JNK-1 pathway also creates uric acid, best known for causing gout. It also raises blood pressure and interferes with insulin doing its job.
All these factors collectively raise the risk of our developing diseases such as heart attacks and strokes.
Add to this that high levels of triglycerides in the blood supress the levels of leptin. (AKA the “satisfaction hormone” – it helps regulate appetite and promote satiety.)
The absence of leptin creates fake hunger in the brain as the “stop eating” signal are not being sent.
In plain terms, fructose makes us fatter, sicker and hungrier that we have ever been in human history.
(If you want to go even further down the rabbit hole, I encourage you to watch Dr Robert Lustig’s lecture “Sugar: The Bitter truth“
The big problem, sugar is everywhere!
Starch and sucrose are the backbone of UK processed food production. Using starch and sucrose creates low-fat, low nutrition and high profit food-like substances that we as consumers are encouraged to eat through various means.
Bread, biscuits, cakes, cereal, yoghurts, desserts, sweets, ready-meals, frozen pizzas, crisps, crackers, snacks, sauces and salad dressings.
Even those that are the most starchy or are supposed to be savoury often also have added sugar. It’s a cheap preservative that improves taste and mouthfeel in the absence of fibre and fats.
As well as being cheap, tasty and preservative, sucrose also a mild euphoric that has addictive properties. This can make it incredibly difficult to moderate intake for some, and moderately difficult for most people.
The sweet taste triggers a chemical chain reaction that results in the release of dopamine into the brain. For some people this simply makes them feel relaxed and happy.
Yet for others, especially those that were given “sweet treats” as children, or who are emotional eaters and/or food addicts, this dopamine cascade sets up cycles of cravings and reward-seeking behaviour.
Combine this euphoric addictive effect with fructose’s actions to create fake hunger and we have a recipe for disaster!
Note that starch doesn’t have the same addictive properties. It does not directly create that same chain reaction as the molecules are too large to directly interact with the sweet taste receptors on the tongue.
Does that mean that I can’t ever eat fruit?
Note that moderate consumption of low sugar fruit can still be part of a low carb way of life. Whilst I will strongly suggest that we only eat whole fruit when it is in season, (and that’s a whole ‘nother article!) the main concern lies in society’s encouragement of excessive intake of high sugar fruit, fruit juices and the added sugars in low-fat, high profit processed foods.
Rapid absorption, lack of nutritional value, presence in processed foods, and insidious effects on metabolism make them both highly non optimal choices.
Yet, if you were to make that non optimal choice, I would always encourage you pause for a moment and consider the impact it may have on your overall health, and then if you still wish to make that choice, go for something starchy over something sweet.
I trust that you can now see why sugar is more harmful than starch!
And remember, while sugar might satisfy your taste buds (and your emotions) momentarily, opting for something far more optimal is a sweeter choice in the long run.
How do these facts and factors support you in making that optimal choice? Leave a comment below!
