Re 1035

[garble]

So a Cadbury Egg has 20g of sugar, or at 17kJ/g 340kJ of energy. Would it be fair to say a typical male's basal requirements are around 7500kJ? If so that means each egg is 1/22 of this. Why is our comic freaking out so much then? (I realise I'm ignoring the fat and protein amounts in this calculation, still.)

[gmalivuk]

Unfortunately the comic also ignores fat content, which I suspect is the bulk of why eating several Cadbury eggs in a row might feel gross to some people, rather than just sugar content. But in addition to that, just counting calories is a terrible way to judge the overall nutritiousness of a food. 7500kJ as a mix of simple and complex carbohydrates, fats, and proteins is far better overall than 7500kJ from simple sugar alone, to take an extreme example.

[garble]

I wasn't implying it was, I was implying that the conclusion "I can eat Cadbury's eggs by the handful" is not wholly inaccurate, as even four or five wouldn't drastically imbalance one's energy budget... Yes obviously you need to eat a varied diet with lots of fresh animal and plant matter to get optimum levels of protein, vitamins, minerals etc.

[Gigano]

I wasn't implying it was, I was implying that the conclusion "I can eat Cadbury's eggs by the handful" is not wholly inaccurate, as even four or five wouldn't drastically imbalance one's energy budget... Yes obviously you need to eat a varied diet with lots of fresh animal and plant matter to get optimum levels of protein, vitamins, minerals etc.

The the comic was about the fact that people drink coke more in general than they eat Cadbury's egg, even though the former contains a lot more sugar per portion than the latter. The joke implies that eating a single Cadbury's egg is okay, since it's only half a coke and therefore "not as bad" as drinking coke.

[gmalivuk]

even four or five wouldn't drastically imbalance one's energy budget

But the comic wasn't about energy budget, it was about sugar. Five American Cadbury eggs is 100g of sugar, outside the US they'd apparently get you 125g. The USDA's recommended intake of *all* digestible carbohydrates is 130g per day. I suspect pretty much every nutritionist ever would say it's a pretty terrible idea to get more than 3/4 of your daily carb intake in the form of added sugars (i.e. simple rather than complex carbohydrates, and not from nice otherwise healthy things like fruits and vegetables).

[++$_]

An imbalance of one Cadbury egg's sugar's worth of energy is enough to cause you to put on about 9 grams of mass. That's fine on a one-time basis, but if you do it every day you gain >3 kg per year.

[Gigano]

An imbalance of one Cadbury egg's sugar's worth of energy is enough to cause you to put on about 9 grams of mass. That's fine on a one-time basis, but if you do it every day you gain >3 kg per year.

I've heard a similar effect of coke during a lecture on food and metabolism: consuming one glass (200 mL) of non-diet coke per day in addition to a normal healthy diet and lifestyle will result in a weight gain of ~3 kg per year.

[Technical Ben]

I've heard that insulin is a two fold mechanism. It signals sugar to be used and fat to be stored when active. So if you drink sugary drinks while eating fat, you will put on more "weight" than drinking water and eating the same fatty foods. Oh, that brings me to a question. Do sugar free replacements trigger insulin? They would be very dangerous if they did, as they would be responding to sweetener not sugar. Effectively starving the body and causing it to put on weight at the same time!
[edit]
Oh, and I thought the whole point of the comment was that you can down a can of coke easy. Try eating 5 cream eggs in 5 seconds and see how well you do.

[Angua]

No, artificial sweetners don't trigger insulin.

Insulin is extremely complex is what it does - it keeps the body in an anabolic state, but you're right in that it increases storage of sugar and fat (it does lots of other stuff as well, which is why diabetics have to be extra careful with their insulin when they get ill).