I don't see any pedantry. OP said they dropped all sugar which would imply natural sugars as well.

> I dropped all forms of sugar and corn syrup a few months ago. [...]

> I eat bananas, apples, peanut butter and chicken. Learned to cook a few things.

It's not clear to me why sugar from an apple is better than sugar from soda. Can you explain or link to a source?

>It's not clear to me why sugar from an apple is better than sugar from soda. Can you explain or link to a source?

The obvious difference is that I can only eat so many apples; I've gotta eat three apples to get as much sugar as a soda pop (or a cup of apple juice, for that matter... apple juice has more sugar than soda pop.)

There is also a claim that the effort to digest an apple makes it a lot better for you than drinking the same amount of apple juice.

I'm not sure why this is being downvoted. Fruits generally have much lower glycemic load than refined carbs, the need to chew drastically lowers the rate at which you can consume it, and the fiber makes you feel full.

Dr Robert Lustig has also written and spoken extensively on the metabolic issues with refined carbs, but he's fine with fruit: https://www.amazon.com/Fat-Chance-Beating-Against-Processed/...

I often wonder about this.

The whole "modern" food are optimized/stripped to only throw sugar at you. I had the same conclusion, most natural food I can't eat more than 3 of them: apples, oranges, even strawberries they're not just sugar, they have bits of sour, acid that balance the pleasing parts and makes you want to stop after a little.

When I was sick, apples were the only fruit I could eat that left me untouched, at that time even a minute amount of sugar would make me faint.

Carbohydrates are metabolized very differently when consumed along with fiber. This is why the glycemic load of apple juice is about twice as high as an apple and white rice is about twice as high as brown rice:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/glyce...

My understanding is that it's not about total amount of sugar, but rather the glycemic index of consuming something. The whole apple contains fiber which would give it a lower glycemic index than a soda. The glycemic index of foods affects your insulin response, which affects fat storage behavior of your cells.

I don't have a link to paste at the moment, but look into books by Gary Taubes for research and sources on this topic.