Should we ban sucrose?

[Moreno]

It is claimed that sucrose is the main reason of dental caries and obesity. If it is so harmful, why it is still not prohibited and not replaced with less harmful substitutes, perhaps with fructose, glucose, sucralose and some others completely?

[EdEarl]

Would you also ban the plants from which sucrose is extracted, for example sugar beets, sugar cane, corn and dozens of others. Should sweet potato be a controlled substance. The war on drugs is a spectacular failure, having wasted several trillion dollars, failed to affect drug use, and you want to expand it to sucrose. Would you also ban water because we can drown in it and it is used to grow controlled plants?

[Moreno]

2 hours ago, EdEarl said:

Would you also ban the plants from which sucrose is extracted, for example sugar beets, sugar cane, corn and dozens of others. Should sweet potato be a controlled substance. The war on drugs is a spectacular failure, having wasted several trillion dollars, failed to affect drug use, and you want to expand it to sucrose. Would you also ban water because we can drown in it and it is used to grow controlled plants?

What is sense to prohibit plants? It is mostly refined white sugar which is regarded harmful. I didn't hear the same thing even about sugar cane if it is eaten in raw form. All plants either eaten in raw form or cooked can be regarded as harmless. Well, I think total harm caused by refined sugar is not smaller than caused by smoking. Think of caries and obesity.

[Carrock]

2 hours ago, EdEarl said:

Would you also ban the plants from which sucrose is extracted, for example sugar beets, sugar cane, corn and dozens of others. Should sweet potato be a controlled substance. The war on drugs is a spectacular failure, having wasted several trillion dollars, failed to affect drug use, and you want to expand it to sucrose. Would you also ban water because we can drown in it and it is used to grow controlled plants?

The problem with added sugars is that they are consumed from a very young age and, like a (therapeutic) addictive drug, people, if unrestrained, get used to them and tend to take enough to damage health.

A simpler answer might be to have a government health warning on products with added sugar. I'm not aware of any benefit from added sugar, except for morbidly underweight people or people exercising very hard.

I stopped taking sugar in tea and coffee some years ago, and until I adjusted, was surprised at how many products I'd thought to be unsweetened tasted sweet due to added sugar.

 

(xposted with Moreno)

 

I stopped taking sugar

[John Cuthber]

12 hours ago, Moreno said:

It is claimed that sucrose is the main reason of dental caries and obesity. If it is so harmful, why it is still not prohibited and not replaced with less harmful substitutes, perhaps with fructose, glucose, sucralose and some others completely?

Do you have any idea how widespread sucrose is? Banning it would ban many fruit like apples and bananas.

Also, if you somehow replaced all the sucrose by glucose or fructose then the major cause  of dental caries and obesity would be glucose or fructose.

[EdEarl]

1 hour ago, Moreno said:

What is sense to prohibit plants? It is mostly refined white sugar which is regarded harmful. I didn't hear the same thing even about sugar cane if it is eaten in raw form. All plants either eaten in raw form or cooked can be regarded as harmless. Well, I think total harm caused by refined sugar is not smaller than caused by smoking. Think of caries and obesity.

It is easy for anyone to extract sucrose from some plants.

[John Cuthber]

1 hour ago, Moreno said:

All plants either eaten in raw form or cooked can be regarded as harmless.

On what basis do you say that?

How does the body know that the sucrose has been removed from a plant and added to some food, rather than it's just naturally part of that food?

 

Is the plan to upset people who grow things like rhubarb and gooseberries which are not very sweet and so most people won't eat them without added sugar?

[Moreno]

3 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

Do you have any idea how widespread sucrose is? Banning it would ban many fruit like apples and bananas.

Also, if you somehow replaced all the sucrose by glucose or fructose then the major cause  of dental caries and obesity would be glucose or fructose.

Some sources claim that sucrose is more dangerous than fructose or glucose:

Quote

The impact such sugars have on the progress of dental caries is called cariogenicity. Sucrose, although a bound glucose and fructose unit, is in fact more cariogenic than a mixture of equal parts of glucose and fructose. This is due to the bacteria utilising the energy in the saccharide bond between the glucose and fructose subunits. S.mutans adheres to the biofilm on the tooth by converting sucrose into an extremely adhesive substance called dextran polysaccharide by the enzyme dextransucranase.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooth_decay#Dietary_sugars

Quote

All 6-carbon sugars and disaccharides based on 6-carbon sugars can be converted by dental plaque bacteria into acid that demineralizes teeth, but sucrose may be uniquely useful to Streptococcus sanguinis (formerly Streptococcus sanguis) and Streptococcus mutans.^[54][55] Sucrose is the only dietary sugar that can be converted to sticky glucans (dextran-like polysaccharides) by extracellular enzymes. These glucans allow the bacteria to adhere to the tooth surface and to build up thick layers of plaque. The anaerobic conditions deep in the plaque encourage the formation of acids, which leads to carious lesions. Thus, sucrose could enable S. mutans, S. sanguinis and many other species of bacteria to adhere strongly and resist removal, e.g. by flow of saliva (although they are easily removed by brushing).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose#Tooth_decay

Also, in order to get tooth decay caused by eating fruits you need to consume a really excessive amount of fruits.
 

Quote

 

If you follow the food pyramid’s suggestion of 3-4 servings of fresh fruit per day, you shouldn’t worry about the impact on your oral health.

Past studies have shown that consuming 17 servings of fruit every day can increase your risk for dental caries (tooth decay).

 

https://www.ccsmiles.com/does-eating-fruit-damage-your-teeth/

Do you know someone who consumes 17 servings of fruit every day?!

[John Cuthber]

OK, if you replaced the sucrose with fructose or glucose what would be the major causes of  caries and obesity?

 

Also, how do you plan to ban something so common?

Do you plan to cut down the apple tree in my garden?