I have been watching the sugar discussions from a distance. A bit of scientific news, a few decent articles, close friends going ‘processed sugar clean’. I have been feeling it closing its distance, but I seemed to be trying to quicken my pace to keep it at arms length. I do not eat too much sugar, not really in a habit of having a desert, I actually can stop after one piece of chocolate, however… I have always loved my tea and coffee with a spoon of the white, sweet stuff. And maybe this is why I was a bit reluctant to stop, turn away, and face the topic.

Well, that day has happened and here is my first thought I wanted to share.

Do you like fruit?

What about oranges?

Here are 3 for you:

 

Big fan of oranges or not, how much would you be able to eat before your tummy would have sent a signal to your brain you have had enough and you are full?

I think one is usually enough for me (I would not count that time when 4 months pregnant and eating oranges cut into quarters, still in my coat just back from work, leaning over the kitchen sink, juice running down my face 😉 ).

And here is how those 3 end up, after squeezing the juice out of them:

 

Could you handle that glass? (a legitimate Ikea glass holding 300 ml)

And how long would it take you to empty it?

This one was particularly good, because the oranges were really ripe and sweet. I was in a rush and had it in one go, I would say it took me between 5 to 7 seconds to gulp it down.

While there should be some vitamin C and some other healthy bits floating in that glass, the main content is… sugar worth of 3 big oranges. The difference is that I have stripped the original fruit of its fiber and solid content and what I was left with was a very tasty sugar suspension. Yes, coming from a natural source, freshly squeezed and drunk on the spot, but still it took me max 7 seconds to take that in. If I had made an attempt to eat all 3 probably I would have stopped after 1 and it would definitely have taken me much longer to eat it in the first place. What is the difference? Well, two main points:

• A. I would have eaten less sugar if I had eaten the fruit instead of drinking its juice

• B. My body would have had a better chance to prepare for the coming sugar packed with fiber instead of being flooded with a high volume of sweet liquid suspension

Is it that bad to have a glass of orange juice you’d say?

Well, I don’t thinks so, but it has made me analyse how we have gained certain habits and taken for granted that certain products are healthy, while they might be not as good for us as we have always thought. We see all the labels with content in grams etc. but sometimes maybe we do not need to go even that deep. Maybe a step back and a quick glance at where products are originally coming from and what we are left with after processing the raw material is enough.

Tomorrow an orange for breakfast? 🙂

(this experiment had 2 legitimate witnesses: a 5 year old and a 1 year old, however the 5 year old was down with a flu so her testimony might be a bit dubious)