How to Manage Daily Sugar Consumption | Alan Aragon & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | I've had people on this podcast sit where you're sitting and basically paint a picture of sugar

00:00:08.380 | that it is not quite as bad as crack cocaine and meth, but not too far from that. Kind of

00:00:15.900 | exaggerating. And I've had people who land in the more kind of tempered response to sugar.

00:00:22.640 | But let's define sugar. When I say sugar, I'm not talking about fructose.

00:00:29.860 | In fruit, because in fruit, you've got fructose, but you've got fiber and there's a high water content.

00:00:37.400 | And some, sure, some fruits have higher fructose content than others. Mangos versus apples,

00:00:43.320 | for instance, or something of that sort. But when I'm talking about sugar, I'm talking about

00:00:46.880 | if one looks at a package or a label and sees added sugars, how bad are added sugars? Because those

00:00:56.380 | are really the ones that tend to fall into this bin of quote-unquote bad sugar in a lot of people's

00:01:02.500 | minds. Okay. So they dilute the nutritive value of the diet and they contribute to hyperpalatability.

00:01:13.960 | If you're talking about extrinsic sugars added to the diet, you know, they're really only two sources

00:01:21.220 | of intrinsic sugars are in fruit and in milk. Everything else, you're pretty much adding it.

00:01:29.140 | With the exception of like maybe agave, but that's kind of a rare esoteric thing. But added sugars to the diet

00:01:38.920 | should be consumed judiciously. The working recommendation is to try to limit added sugars to the diet

00:01:49.900 | to 10% of total calories. So if you're somebody who likes to put maple syrup on whatever you might do or somebody

00:01:57.200 | who likes to put honey on whatever you might do, then you may want to limit that to typical, let's say,

00:02:03.020 | 2,000 calorie diet. You might want to limit it to like a maximum of 40, 50 grams a day.

00:02:09.020 | That still seems high.

00:02:10.680 | It does.

00:02:11.280 | 40, 50 grams. Who's eating that much sugar?

00:02:14.820 | If that me.

00:02:15.580 | Oh, really? You have a sweet tooth?

00:02:17.580 | No, no. I love honey and I, and I love maple syrup.

00:02:20.080 | Oh, see, I have a savory tooth. Like if I, I have to try and not eat the entire block of Parmesan cheese.

00:02:26.660 | I have both, man. I've, I've, I've, I always joke that I have an inner fat boy within me, but I actually have been technically obese by BMI standards, like, uh, 10 years ish back.

00:02:39.120 | You're, uh, how old now?

00:02:40.880 | 53.

00:02:41.880 | Great. Well, you seem to be in great shape. No hormone augmentation. We clarified that earlier. I asked, this is what guys ask each other nowadays. You on, are you doing any hormone augmentation? No. So, um, Alan says no. And I believe him completely, but yeah, you're in great shape at 53.

00:02:55.980 | Thank you.

00:02:56.480 | Um, and you have a sweet tooth and a savory tooth.

00:02:59.680 | I do, man.

00:03:00.480 | So how do you contend with it?

00:03:01.340 | I do. Oh, okay. So that's a great question. Cause I can dish out something practical here. Protein powder.

00:03:07.920 | Protein powder satisfies the heck out of my sweet tooth. And, um, I, I actually don't have the full 50 grams of, uh, added sugar. I might add like a tablespoon of, um, maple syrup to my coffee.

00:03:20.800 | To your coffee?

00:03:21.680 | In, in, in the day. Yeah. Yeah, dude, dude. Okay. So, you know, those mocha, mocha pot thingies?

00:03:27.440 | Oh yeah. Uh, mocha pots? Sorry.

00:03:29.120 | It's called mocha pot. Um, it's like some, it's a piece of hardware?

00:03:33.440 | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the thing where you, it's this odd, like, oh, right. It's like an hourglass, uh, shaped, uh, coffee.

00:03:41.840 | Yes. Yeah. Yes. Okay.

00:03:43.200 | So I, I have that. And, um, what I'm trying to do, I'm trying to duplicate the, uh, the, the, the Thai coffee. Is it Thai?

00:03:52.640 | Mm-hmm. What is it? It's Thai iced tea.

00:03:55.200 | Really fricking good coffee that either Vietnamese coffee. Vietnamese coffee. Vietnamese coffee. Yeah.

00:03:59.760 | I love Vietnamese food. I don't drink the Vietnamese coffee. It's too sweet for me.

00:04:02.960 | Dude, I'm trying to do a version of that with the mocha pot. And if I put maple syrup in that tablespoon,

00:04:10.160 | it's fricking awesome. And I have that with, uh, with half and half. It's really good.

00:04:14.320 | So you got a, you got a fat sugar combination plus caffeine. You do this in the morning before you train?

00:04:20.240 | I've been doing it. I go through these phases, but I, I have that. And so the extent of added

00:04:25.920 | sugar in my diet is that tablespoon of, of maple syrup. So I, you know, I do agree with you. 50

00:04:30.800 | grams could, could be a little bit up there. Uh, listen, I'm, I'm not here to judge. I, like I said,

00:04:35.600 | if I had a sweet tooth, I, it's interesting. I used to have one. I lost it over the course of about a

00:04:42.160 | decade. I used to love like sour patch gummies and gummies. And I love gummy. I love fruity tastes

00:04:48.640 | and that kind of thing. I lost it by doing something that probably has no scientific basis.

00:04:54.400 | But, uh, I heard years ago that if I took a teaspoon of L-glutamine and put it in high fat

00:05:01.600 | in half and half in cream, basically, and took a shot of that twice a day, that it would kill my

00:05:07.440 | sugar cravings. And I did that and it weaned me off sugar. And then I increased my protein intake.

00:05:15.280 | So it could have been any combination of things or it could be total placebo. I mean, so I, I want

00:05:19.840 | to acknowledge that. Um, although I've recommended this to some self-professed sugar addicts. Okay. And

00:05:27.360 | they're like, yeah, it kills the sugar craving, but then they always add the, but I still miss my,

00:05:32.640 | you know, whatever. They long for the, the sugary thing. I don't any longer.

00:05:36.880 | This is where I headed off the, the, the sweet stuff. I make protein smoothies and they're just,

00:05:45.200 | they're artificially sweetened. So it satisfies, um, that, you know, that dessert craving if you will.

00:05:52.080 | Well, along the lines of artificial sweeteners, um, why, if you want something sweet, wouldn't you

00:06:00.160 | just replace the, the honey with like stevia? Cause it doesn't create the same, um, satiety that,

00:06:06.560 | that the maple syrup does for you. Oh man. Okay. So maple syrup aside, um, the,

00:06:15.200 | you get caloric savings, you know, if, if, if your protein powder is artificially sweetened,

00:06:20.800 | let's say with, with stevia or sucralose or monk fruit or whatever is being used in the product.

00:06:27.840 | Um, you get caloric savings and you just kind of get the, the macro savings if you will as well.

00:06:34.800 | And so protein powders are like, I mean, in my opinion, they're just such a breakthrough because

00:06:42.320 | they satisfy the protein requirements or they significantly augment the protein requirements

00:06:47.840 | and they take care of like essentially having something that, that is the experience of a dessert.

00:06:53.200 | To me anyway, I, I make some really good fruit smoothies. I use frozen fruit, protein powder.

00:06:59.280 | Um, sometimes I do like a mocha type of smoothie. Sometimes I do like a tropical fruit type of smoothie.

00:07:03.920 | It's like a milkshake. Yeah, it, it is like a milkshake, right?

00:07:06.720 | So, let's see.

How to Manage Daily Sugar Consumption | Alan Aragon & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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