This I can confirm. Apples for example taste as sweet as candybars taste to "normal" people. And candybars are un-eatable. They are so sweet that the sweetness starts to turn into bitterness. (I'm from Europe though so we don't have much high fructose sirup in our food - so I can't imagine how sweet US food is).

It's really interesting how much sugar and sweeteners our foods contain nowadays. And because people get used to sweetness the manufacturers have to add even more sugar to make things taste sweet again.

> I understand that the article casts doubts on sugar being evil. I still think that reducing sugar and / or sweeteners as much as possible at the very least will not hurt you, and most likely will be a bit of a benefit

Yeah, I don't really know how 'evil' sugar is - but I know that I feel much better when I eat less of it (less bloated, not so sleepy after eating). And that's enough for me. I think interested people should try a sugar-less diet for some weeks and then decide if it's for them. If not for health reasons it could make you just feel better.

These days most things people consider normal are too sweet for me.

As for sugar being evil. It is, for varying definitions of evil. Its biggest problem is that it's just a lot of calories packed into a small volume, so you don't realise how much you've eaten. Surprisingly, once you abolish sugar, it becomes difficult to fulfill your daily calorie needs. When strenuous exercise is involved it becomes downright impossible.

If you don't care about calories, then surely you care about energy fluctuations. Foods high in sugar will give you an instant rush of energy that abates quickly. This leaves you hungry and sleepy, leading to a cycle of being hungry all the time even though you've eaten enough calories.

For instance, I read a study (that I can't find a link to right now) showing that eating oatmeal for breakfast leaves you feeling full hours longer than eating regular cereal even when controlled for calorie intake.

PS: especially for the reasons of those energy spikes, I aim for a low glycemic index diet rather than just a no sugar diet. It tends to describe the desired result better.

I'm still a little sensitive to sweet things. As a child I liked it but after keto it's not as appealing anymore.

Also, eating sugar makes my teeth feel really nasty.

Having gotten off of physically addictive drugs before I recognized the feelings and realized how much I had to slowly ween myself off of that stuff.

I tried this a few years ago. It took about a month to acclimate.

Sadly, the adjustment goes more quickly in the other direction; eat the usual sweetened stuff every day for a week, and it's all over.