Speaker 1: All right. We do know that sugar turns into fat when you eat it if you don’t proc … don’t work it off.
Dr. David Soria: Right.
Speaker 1: Right, okay. So, often we substitute the sweets craving for something with natural sugar like fruit. All right. Could that be bad for you too if you have too much? Dr. David Soria, our medical expert, chairman at Wellington Regional Medical Center, joins us. You can tell I’m skeptical. I don’t like this.
Speaker 1: Hi, Dr. Soria.
Dr. David Soria: You must like to your fruit.
Speaker 1: I do like fruit … Well, yes, because you hear that … reach for fruit. So I have grapes in the refrigerator I reach for when I want something sweet. Is that bad for me?
Dr. David Soria: Well, there’s a yes and a no to that answer. And like anything that we talk about, everything is always okay in moderation. So a lot of us have this sweet tooth, and we think we can supplant fruit for cookies and cake, and think we can do that with impunity. And the reality is you can’t really. However, fruit definitely is better for you than cake or cookie or table sugar.
Fructose is what’s in fruit. That’s a monosaccharide. Sucrose is what we use with everything else, most commonly put in foods, and that’s a disaccharide. And what that means is that it’s just a lot … The monosaccharide is just a lot easier to digest. However, if you eat too much it’s still gonna be stored as glycogen and turned into fat, or stored as fats. So you need to be careful there.
But the nutrients in fruits definitely outweigh the detriment of the sugar in them. And we all know, and certain studies in the past, have shown that fruits are definitely beneficial in decreased coronary disease and strokes. Whereas table sugar or high amounts of sucrose actually can cause coronary disease.
So fruits, no question, overall, is beneficial.
Speaker 1: Do you burn it off faster? The sugar that’s in fruit, does it process faster in everything? Or no? Is it the same?
Dr. David Soria: Correct. No, there’s nothing that really says that it burns off faster. They are considered carbohydrates, and it’s stored in the same way. And every gram is about nine calories per gram of sugar. Not all fruits are created equal too. We were just talking about this before. That is a three-ounce serving of strawberries three grams of sugar. The same amount of grapes, four times that at 13 grams. So, again, you’re gonna get more depending on what type of fruit you like.
Speaker 1: But, just to revisit something you talked about really quickly … So a parent reaching for something for a child, it’s better to give the little kid grapes or an orange or an apple or strawberries over a cookie. Regardless of the type of fruit, it’s still better because of the butter, the preservatives, things like that.
Dr. David Soria: You bet.
Speaker 1: So that’s why I just want [crosstalk 00:02:32] The takeaway is …
Dr. David Soria: You bet. I think across the board, folks, that if you reach for fruit over any baked goods whether it be cake, cookies, anything like that. Anything that has sucrose in it. Across the board, you’re gonna have more benefit from a nutritional standpoint than you ever will from a cookie. No question.
Speaker 1: All right. That’s sweet news.
Dr. David Soria: You bet.
Speaker 1: Thanks, Dr. Soria. Good to see you.
Dr. David Soria: You’re welcome. You too.
Speaker 1: Let’s go back over to John.