I take it you haven’t tried a nice ripe mango from subtropical regions, or a pineapple, white grapes (or grape juice), watermelon, navel oranges? They can be sweeter than Dr. Pepper.

Sugarcane also exists and you can chew it.

They just tended to 1) come with fiber, 2) not be as easy to acquire or eat in large quantities 3) not available all year, or all at once

The fiber is afaik a big factor for slowing rate and amount of sugar absorbed (amount because apparently some of it makes it far enough to feed gut bacteria in the large intestine).

This is nonsense:

100g of mango has 14g of sugar

100g of watermelon has 6.2g of sugar

100g of navel orange has 12g of sugar

100g of sugar has 100g of sugar, 1 can of Dr Pepper has 40g of sugar

It's both pure sugar AND more sugar. You have to eat more than half a pound of mango to get to the same sugar as a Dr Pepper.

Why you switched from grams to cans when compared to Dr Pepper? A can of Dr Pepper is 350 ml, so about 350 g. Therefore:

100 g of Dr. Pepper has 11g of sugar

Because no one eats 1 pound of mango.

People drink 10 cans of Dr. Pepper.

I know lots of people that eat 1 pound of dried mango, usually sugared but often not.

As mentioned in the sibling comment, your numbers are not comparable, and anything >10% is already an absolutely unhealthy amount of sugar.

Point being that sugary drinks/foods didn’t suddenly come to existence.

There are sugary products everywhere because we want them - or you might say we were made to want them. We made it central to our culture in many ways, and accepted terrible dietary habits as the norm. The wide availability of something like Dr Pepper is as much a cause as a reflection of that.

Yes, but when you eat fruit, you also eat the fibers. That slows down your uptake, and will prevent a sugar spike.

You don't want your blood sugar level to spike, because then your body will create insulin. The insulin's job is to move the sugar out of the blood. It does this by sending the sugar, which is fuel, to the muscles that need it. If there are no muscles needing fuel, it goes to fat cells for storage.

Then after that, sugar levels drop below normal levels. And then you get cravings for a quick snack or sugary drink, and the cycle starts over again.

If you eat your sugar with fibers, like in fruit, you don't get a sugar spike, and you don't get an insuline spike, and a sugar drop.

Also fruit contains a lot more healthy things aside from the sugar. Vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants.

So yeah, it really is a world of difference whether you drink a cola or eat an apple.

Well still different, as I could never possibly drink 300ml of honey, without choking or something worse.

On the other hand, grape juice, while not 100% natural, I’m not sure how it fares against cola (just considering sugar, not the rest of the junk)

Once I drunk some not-still-done wine, basically grape juice where the fermentation started, and so some bubbles were present. That was the most natural and delicious soda I’ve ever tasted… I do bot even hope it can be healthy to the body… but my soul ;)

When in human history could you drink 1L+ of fruit juice for $2 every single day regardless of the season?

No question. Until VERY recently (in terms of evolution anyway).

If you allow fermentation first, then perhaps Greece? They diluted it, but it still may well have added up to 1L+.

Most of our animal relatives obtain the vast majority of their calories from fruit, that is, sugar. The tarsier is the closest one that doesn't.

Good point. Natural fruit is different from sugar drinks in a few ways: takes effort to collect and consume, contains fiber that increases satiety, and is much less sweet (even when compared to the extra sweet varieties humans have bred).