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the sugar manifesto

In the past few decades, the establishment and its foot soldiers have waged war on sugar. It has been demonized beyond imagination. As a result, most of the drinks in stores nowadays are sugar-free. Sugar has been replaced with Sucralose, Aspartame, Stevia, Monk Fruit, and an ever-growing list of substances designed to make something taste sweet without actually being sugar. And we’re not convinced anything of value was gained...

Sugar is not the enemy. And it never was. Glucose is one of the body’s fundamental sources of energy. Your muscles use it. Your brain uses it. Your liver and muscles store it as glycogen so it can be used later. And when you’re exercising, those carbohydrate stores become particularly useful.

This matters even more in a sports drink because sugar isn’t there simply to make the drink taste good. It has a function.

SUGAR IS FUEL

Cane sugar is primarily sucrose. Sucrose sounds complicated, but it isn’t. It’s simply a molecule made from two familiar sugars: glucose and fructose.

When you eat cane sugar, an enzyme in your small intestine breaks sucrose apart:

SUCROSE → GLUCOSE + FRUCTOSE

The glucose and fructose are then absorbed and metabolized. Glucose can be used immediately for energy or stored as glycogen in the liver and muscles. Fructose is metabolized differently, primarily by the liver and intestine, and can also contribute to carbohydrate metabolism and glycogen replenishment.

This is one of the reasons sugar makes sense in a drink designed for physical activity. During prolonged exercise, your body uses circulating glucose and stored glycogen. Consuming carbohydrate can provide additional fuel and help preserve carbohydrate availability as exercise continues.

Sugar isn’t an unnecessary sweetener we haven’t figured out how to remove from Sport Drink. It’s part of what Sport Drink is supposed to do.

SUGAR AND HYDRATION

There’s another reason sugar belongs in an electrolyte drink that has almost nothing to do with sweetness.

The small intestine contains a transporter called SGLT1. It transports sodium and glucose together from the intestine into the body. Water follows the absorption of these nutrients.

This sodium-glucose relationship is one of the basic physiological principles behind oral rehydration solutions. It doesn’t mean that dumping unlimited sugar into water makes it more hydrating. Too much carbohydrate can actually work against rapid fluid absorption. Formulation and concentration matter.

But it does mean glucose can serve a real function alongside sodium in a hydration formula.

Stevia cannot do this. Monk fruit cannot do this.

They can make water taste sweet, but they don’t provide glucose, carbohydrate energy, or glycogen. They replace the sweetness of sugar without replacing the physiological functions of carbohydrate.

That’s a pretty important distinction for something calling itself a sports drink.

SUGAR AND THE METABOLIC STATE

One of the people who influenced our thinking about sugar was physiologist Dr. Ray Peat. Peat spent decades arguing that sugar and carbohydrate had been unfairly demonized and emphasized glucose availability, liver glycogen, thyroid function, and the relationship between adequate energy and the body’s stress response.

Not every claim Peat made represents scientific consensus, and we’re not interested in pretending otherwise. But one of the broader ideas behind his work is straightforward: the metabolic state of a well-fed organism is different from the metabolic state of an organism responding to fuel scarcity.

When carbohydrate availability falls, the body adapts. Liver glycogen declines, glucose production increases, fat oxidation rises, and under sufficiently low carbohydrate availability the body increasingly produces and uses ketones. These are normal survival mechanisms.

The fact that the human body can manufacture glucose when necessary doesn’t mean glucose is unnecessary. It means glucose is important enough that the body has mechanisms for maintaining it when you aren’t eating it.

We would rather put readily available carbohydrate in a sports drink than remove it simply so we can write ZERO SUGAR on the label.

SUGAR BY ANY OTHER NAME

There’s also been a funny development since everyone decided cane sugar was bad.

Food companies started replacing it with things that sound healthier.

Coconut sugar. Maple sugar. Date sugar. Date syrup.

These are increasingly presented as sophisticated alternatives to ordinary sugar. The names sound natural and exotic, and they certainly look better on the front of a package than CANE SUGAR.

There can be real differences between them. They aren’t literally identical substances. Their proportions of individual sugars vary, as do their flavors, processing, moisture, trace minerals, and, in less-refined products, other compounds.

But your digestive system can’t read the front of the package.

Cane sugar is predominantly sucrose. Coconut sugar is also predominantly sucrose, with varying amounts of glucose and fructose. Maple sugar is predominantly sucrose. Dates and date-derived sweeteners contain primarily familiar sugars such as glucose and fructose, with varying amounts of sucrose depending on the product.

And remember what happens to sucrose when you digest it:

SUCROSE → GLUCOSE + FRUCTOSE

Different tree. Different fruit. Different package. Different marketing. But, basically the same when broken down.

Your metabolism is still dealing primarily with the same familiar sugars: sucrose, glucose, and fructose.

A whole date obviously isn’t nutritionally identical to refined cane sugar. It contains fiber and other compounds that refined sugar doesn’t. But turning dates into a sweetener doesn’t create a new category of carbohydrate.

It’s sugar.

And that’s fine.

SUGAR VS. SWEETNESS

Stevia and monk fruit aren’t sugar alternatives in the sense that they replace everything sugar does. They’re high-intensity sweeteners.

That’s an important distinction.

They are extremely effective at producing sweetness in tiny quantities while contributing little or no carbohydrate. If your goal is simply to make something taste sweet without calories, that’s useful.

But that’s not what we’re trying to do.

Sugar provides sweetness and energy. Its glucose component participates in sodium-glucose transport in the intestine. Its carbohydrate can be used during prolonged physical activity and can contribute to replenishing glycogen afterward.

Stevia and monk fruit provide sweetness.

They aren’t doing the same job.

For most of human history, sweetness was generally a pretty reliable indication that food contained carbohydrate energy. Fruit was sweet because it contained sugar. Honey was sweet because it contained sugar. Today we can engineer an intense sensation of sweetness without providing meaningful carbohydrate at all.

We prefer the simpler arrangement.

If Sport Drink tastes like it contains energy, it actually contains energy.

Sugar is a normal carbohydrate the human body knows how to metabolize, and carbohydrate has legitimate functions in sports nutrition.

Sport Drink contains sodium because sodium has a job. It contains potassium because potassium has a job. It contains magnesium because magnesium has a job. It contains calcium because calcium has a job.

And it contains sugar because sugar has a job too.