Sugar: Everything You Should Know
Today, sugar is added to almost everything we eat.
Unfortunately, it’s slowly killing most of us.
At last count, 74% of the items we purchase at the grocery store contain added sugar and as a society, we’re eating nearly three times as much per capita as we did at the beginning of the century.
You’re probably wondering, what’s the big deal with a little extra sugar?
Well, it turns out, a little extra sugar can have a huge negative impact on your health.
Keep reading and this article will walk you through how to spot sugar hidden in everyday foods you eat (including some you won’t expect), why sugar is bad for you based on the latest scientific studies and what to eat instead.
How Much Sugar Should You Eat?
If you’re the average American, you are consuming 82 grams or over 20 teaspoons of sugar per day. And, if you’re in the top 10%, you could be consuming in excess of 125 grams or 32 teaspoons per day.
Now that you have a general idea of how much sugar you’re eating. The natural question is, how much should you be eating on a daily basis?
According to the American Heart Association:
Men: Less than 37.5 grams per day
Women: Less than 25 grams per day
Even if you’re below the average or half the average you probably still consume far more sugar per day than you should. If you don’t eat ten chocolate bars a day, you may be wondering, where is all that extra sugar coming from?
What Kind of Foods Contain Sugar?
There are thousands and thousands of products in a grocery store and many of them contain sugar. Some are obvious, some aren’t, skim the list below and see if you can find some of your favorite foods or if you can find sugar in a place you wouldn’t expect it to be:
Soda (33 grams per can)
Chobani Greek Yogurt (13 grams per single serving container)
Orange Juice (21 grams per cup)
Ice Cream (14 grams per half cup)
Creamed Corn (11 grams per can)
Gatorade (35 grams per bottle)
Snapple (27 grams per bottle)
Graham Crackers (9 grams for 2 rectangles)
Monster Energy Drinks (54 grams per can)
Red Bull Energy Drink (37 grams per can)
Raisin Bran Cereal (18 grams per cup)
Lucky Charms (13 grams per cup)
Ketchup (3.7 grams per tablespoon)
Barbeque Sauce (6 grams per tablespoon)
Pasta Sauce (10 grams per cup)
Salad Dressing (40 grams per cup)
Big Mac (9 grams)
Dried Fruit (58 grams per 100 grams)
Starbucks Chai Latte (52 grams per 20 oz cup)
Jamba Juice Smoothie (55–70 grams per small smoothie)
Busch’s Baked Beans (24 grams per cup)
Protein Bar (23 grams per bar)
Strawberry Pop-Tarts (16 grams per pastry)
Instant Flavored Oatmeal (16 grams per packet)
Arizona Iced Tea (48 grams per can)
SoBe Green Tea (50 grams per can)
Instant Hot Chocolate (16 grams per packet)
Maple Syrup (14 grams per tablespoon)
Weight Watchers Fudge Bar (16 grams)
Doughnut (11 grams per doughnut)
Milk (13 grams per cup)
Jam (1o grams per tablespoon)
Chocolate Covered Almonds (30 grams for 11 pieces)
Remember, this is far from a complete list. Curious about a product? Google the product plus the phrase “nutritional information.” Then, follow the directions in the next section to identify just how much sugar you’re eating!
Identifying Sugar (and its many forms)
Since sugar is in almost everything we eat, companies go to great lengths to disguise it. Here’s how to find if your food contains sugar.
Start by finding the nutrition label on the back of your food packaging. Manufacturers are required to include these labels on anything they produce and they look like this:
A nutrition label contains all sorts of information but to understand how much sugar you are consuming, you want to pay attention to three key areas:
Serving Size: Top red box in the image above.
Sugar Line: Lower red box in the image above
Ingredients: Usually listed immediately below the nutrition label.
The sugar line shows us the amount of added sugar (sugar added during the manufacturing process) in grams per serving.
In order to calculate total sugar consumed, we also want to check the # of servings per container.
Here is the math:
Quantity consumed/serving size = total servings consumed
10 crackers/5 crackers per serving = 2 servings
Sugar per serving * # of servings = total sugar consumed
1 gram per serving * 2 servings of crackers = 2 grams of sugar consumed
You can apply this method to calculate the amount of added sugar in anything you eat.
You can also identify sugar under one of the names listed below:
Now that you know how much sugar you should be eating and know how to find it in your food, let’s take a look at why you should work on eliminating it from your diet.
Why Excess Sugar is Bad For You
It Ruins Your Teeth
You’ve probably heard growing up that sugar is bad for your teeth. Well surprise, it is!
Your mouth is full of thousands of types of bacteria and although many are good, some are bad.
The “bad” bacteria secrete acids which literally break down your teeth over time. If you have too many bad bacteria in your mouth the acid will eventually create a hole in the tooth that we call a cavity. If untreated, these cavities will cause you to lose the tooth.
So how does sugar play into this?
Well, these harmful bacteria feed off sugar and excess consumption leads to an explosion of harmful bacteria in your mouth. Keeping your sugar consumption at a reasonable level prevents excessive bacteria growth and allows the natural remineralization process (Your saliva contains minerals that repair enamel
Keeping your sugar consumption at a reasonable level prevents excessive bacteria growth and allows the natural remineralization process (Your saliva contains minerals that repair enamel worn down by the acids from the bad bacteria) and other preventive measures like brushing your teeth to prevent the formation of cavities.
Increases Your Risk of a Heart Attack
Studies have shown that excessive sugar consumption dramatically increases your risk of dying from cardiovascular disease which includes heart attacks, strokes and more. These diseases are the number one cause of death worldwide and are responsible for more than 610,000 deaths per year in the United States alone.
Scientists think this occurs because excessive sugar causes the liver to dump harmful fats in the bloodstream, increases blood pressure, causes weight gain and causes inflammation in your artery walls, contributing to the formation of plaque that eventually blocks them.
Take a look at the image on the right to see how the formation of these plaques over time block your arteries, preventing your heart and brain from getting the blood flow it needs.
If you’re the average American, you consume 82 grams of sugar per day. According to this study, as a result, you have a 38% higher chance of dying from heart disease.
If you’ve had an unhealthy diet for a while or are over 40 years old, you should have your cardiovascular system checked by your doctor.
These tests may very well save your life.
Insulin Resistance/Type 2 Diabetes
Type 2 diabetes has exploded in the past few decades and although more research is needed, many scientists think it is strongly correlated with increased sugar in the average diet.
In fact, some studies have shown that increased consumption of sugary drinks can increase the risk of developing diabetes by up to 26%.
Diabetes leads to a number of minor inconveniences and serious health issues on its own which you can read about by following this link and scrolling down to the complications section.
Food Addiction/Weight Gain
Sugar is addictive. Very addictive.
Because sugar used to be so scarce in the world and it is such a quick source of energy, our bodies are designed to crave it in any form we can find.
In fact, we crave it so much that recent studies have shown sugar can lead to behavior in test animals that is remarkably similar to other addictive substances like drugs.
In fact, a Princeton study found that rats provided with sugar increased their intake over time and showed symptoms of withdrawal when sugar was taken away, 2/3 of the characteristics of an addictive substance.
As a result, craving that sugary drink may be a form of addiction making the cycle tough to break.
This is a problem because sugar is incredibly energy dense.
Only 100 grams, roughly the amount in two to three sugary drinks, contains over 387 calories which is roughly 20% of your daily needs.
To give you an idea of how much this is, adding 387 calories to your daily diet will cause you to gain nearly 40lbs of weight over the course of one year.
Furthermore, sugar enters the bloodstream rapidly which causes a spike in insulin levels. This leads to a series of reactions that cause your body to attempt to store fat, making you even more likely to gain weight.
Reduces Your Immune System
Consumption of sugar can weaken your immune system by reducing the ability of white blood cells to engulf bacteria or viruses that could cause an illness. This effect can last for 4–6 hours after consumption of sugar.
Accelerates Aging
If you don’t care about your health, you still probably care about how you look.
Unfortunately, sugar isn’t helping in this department either. In addition to causing weight gain, sugar can actually accelerate the aging process by attaching to proteins and forming molecules that surrounding proteins, especially the proteins collagen and elastin.
These proteins are responsible for supporting your skin and as they are broken down, the skin begins to sag forming wrinkles.
The more sugar you eat, the more skin damaging compounds or AGEs are formed.
Hurts Your Brain
Although more studies need to be conducted, scientists are finding that excess sugar can have short and long-term negative effects on the brain.
A recent UCLA study showed that a diet high in fructose (a type of added sugar) can impair learning and memory. Another study showed that high consumption of sugar leads to mood swings and inflammation in the brain which could contribute to depression or other mental illnesses over time.
Finally, researchers are beginning to find that increased sugar consumption can increase the risk of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease later in life.
Artificial Sweeteners, They’re Better Right?
No, not really.
As more and more people try to quit sugar and switch to healthier alternatives, companies have responded with a number of artificial sweeteners that offer fewer calories and no sugar while maintaining that same sweet taste we’ve become so accustomed to.
Unfortunately, many of these artificial sweeteners are still bad because the body’s response is the same as its response to sugar. In addition, artificial sweeteners also contain some unusual compounds and chemicals that can cause side effects making them a less than ideal replacement for sugar.
How about honey? Stevia? or Molasses?
Despite popular myth, these substances are identical to sugar as far as your body is concerned and you should work to limit them. If you are going to eat sugar, honey contains anti-oxidants, vitamins and minerals that high fructose corn syrup and other forms of sugar do not. However, these small benefits do not make it a healthy alternative and the same is true for stevia or molasses.
Unfortunately, these small benefits do not make it a healthy alternative and the same is true for stevia or molasses.
How Should I Go About Removing It From My Diet?
The key is to start small.
Although it is tempting to throw everything out of your cupboard and declare you’re never going to eat sugar again that is unrealistic and likely won’t lead to lasting change.
Start by identifying a few items you eat regularly that contain a lot of sugar. Find better alternatives (even if the alternatives still have some sugar) and work on replacing them in your diet.
Stay on top of it and don’t let yourself slip. As time passes you can remove more and more unhealthy items from your diet and make long-lasting change by replacing these small habits.
Even if it doesn’t feel like your doing much at first, remember, even slight reductions in sugar make a huge impact over time and ensuring that the habit sticks is better than eating no sugar for a week and slipping back into old habits.
Conclusion/Other Resources
Sugar is bad for you and reducing how much you consume in your diet will help ensure you live a healthy and full life. Read more at The Healthy Living Diet website.
