Fruit vs. HFCS

Thanks to all of the bad news about high-fructose corn syrup, fructose, the sugar in fruit, has gotten a bad rep too. According to the December ’10 Bottom Line Health, a typical fruit contains only eight grams of fructose, compared to 20 grams in a regular soda—diet sodas are all chemicals, but that’s another story. Fruit also contains fiber to slow the absorption of the fructose as well as antioxidants and other healthful nutrients. A soda is empty calories and overloads your system with sugar, causing a fat-storing insulin surge. So soda is bad, but including some fruit in your diet is a good thing, even when you’re targeting fat loss.

—Becky Holman