Added sugar is one of the biggest and most problematic nutrition-related issues we are faced with today. It one of the main drivers and causes of the top chronic illnesses our population faces: Diabetes, Heart Disease, Cancer, Obesity, and more. Let me be very clear about something: sugar is not innately bad. In fact, sugar – otherwise known as glucose once it’s inside our body – is our body’s primary and preferred source of fuel. All grains and fruits and even some proteins, too, are broken down into glucose for our body to use. Glucose is impossible to avoid, and we certainly wouldn’t want to!
These types of glucose is not the sugar I’m referring to. I’m talking about the ADDED sugar that is added to a food product during food production to either enhance its flavor or to help with food preservation.
So, what’s changed with our intake of added sugar? Why is this a problem now?
Let me tell you about a little historical fact on added sugar and why it’s become such a problem:
During the 1940s and 1950s, animal meat consumption made up a huge portion of the American diet. In the 1960s, an unprecedented number of people were dying of heart attacks. After some research, they discovered a link between fat consumption and coronary heart disease. Instead of trying to better understand more about the nuances of the types of fat that could be causing these issues, our society revolted by attacking ALL fats as “bad.” And a war on fat began, and the Fat-Free food boom took off.
Food producers all over the nation scrambled in response to this new health trend and began removing fat from their products in order to meet the rising need for fat-free foods.
OK, so back in the 1960s and 1970s, we basically collectively stopped eating fat.
Why is this bad?
Well, it’s bad for two really big reasons. The first is that a certain amount of fat is needed for many vital physical processes. Without it, we risk certain vitamin and mineral deficiencies, AND (surprise!) we risk more heart issues. The research, as it turns out, did not mention that it was actually saturated and trans fats that were causing the heart attacks. But there is a whole different subsect of fat called mono- and poly-unsaturated fats that are necessary to prevent heart-related issues. These unsaturated fats are also hugely important for weight loss and weight management, balancing hormones, improving brain cognition and more.
The second problem is that fat is what makes certain foods taste good. Fat adds flavor to our food. (No wonder we all love bacon and butter!) So what are food producers to do if they remove all of the tasty fat from their products? Their food isn’t going to taste good, and it’s not going to sell, which could risk millions of dollars in product sales. *IDEA* (says the product research and development teams): “Let’s add sugar”.
And so, the added sugar tornado began. Everyone began swapping sugar for fat so that they could maintain the flavor of their products while eliminating the fat that everyone so quickly demonized.
What’s wrong with added sugar?
If our body turns most food into glucose, what’s the problem?
The problem is that added sugar has net-negative nutritional value. This means you are basically only eating calories and receiving no additional nutritional benefits whatsoever: no vitamins or minerals or macronutrients. Just added calories.
So we are eating an exponentially increasing amount of added calories from the foods we buy, and aren’t getting any healthier. You might have noticed by now that, in conjunction with the war on fat, also came the rise in obesity, diabetes, heart disease, chronic health issues and so much more. We are larger and less nourished than ever before.
So where are we at today?
Today, we are still in the middle of a major added sugar crisis that is to blame for the many of nutrition-related issues we are seeing nationwide today. And yet, food manufacturers are still adding sugar to our foods, even though the detrimental effects of it are widely documented. So instead of changing their food formulas, food manufacturers have opted to become incredibly creative when it comes to labelling sugar on food labels. They know that if they simply labeled everything as just “sugar,” consumers would be far less inclined to purchase a particular food. We aren’t dummies, after all. So instead, they have renamed or used scientific names for their sugar on labels in the hopes of confusing and tricking consumers - YOU - into thinking their product is “healthy.”
Where can you find the ADDED sugar on a nutrition facts label?
Before we get into the many names of sugars, as they are listed in the “Ingredients” of a Nutrition Facts Label, let’s take a quick peak at the Nutrition Facts Label itself. Where can you even find the “added sugar”?
The good news is that the new and updated Nutrition Facts labels are now required to have a separate line item specifically for listed “added sugar,” separate from the total sugars. Because remember, grains and fruits are both going to have sugar, but neither in their whole forms are going to have “added sugar.” So separating them out will help give us, as the consumer, a much better understanding of how nourishing this food will be for us.
Reference the Nutrition Facts Label below. This is a label for a traditional soda. You’ll see that under Carbohydrates, there are two line items. The first is for the Total Sugars in this product. Right below that, you’ll see a number listing how much of the total sugars were ADDED to the product.
For this product, of the 25g of Total sugars in this drink, 23g of it was ADDED to it to enhance the flavor.
HOLY SMOKES.
How much added sugar is recommended to have in a day for optimal health?
Great question. According to the American Heart Association, men should not exceed 9 tsp of added sugar in a day (that equals about 36g or 150 calories). Women and children over two should not exceed 6 tsp of added sugar in a day (that equals 25g or 100 calories). And children under two not have ANY added sugar at all!
If you got the urge go sweep out your pantry and fridge… me too.
So if you considered the Nutrition Facts Label above, if you had just one of these drinks, a women or child would basically have met their allotment for added sugar for the whole day. This doesn’t include any other food that you eat in that given day. And believe me when I say, added sugar is riddled all over our processed food. Just start investigating for yourself!
What are the many names of sugar, then?
So you want to become an even smarter consumer? Start getting used to the following terms. Right underneath the Nutrition Facts Label, food products are required to list all of the ingredients they use in that product. And PRO TIP: These ingredients are listed BY WEIGHT. So the more of an ingredient in the product, it’ll be listed closer to the top of the list.
So if any of the following versions of sugar are listed within the top 3-5 ingredients. Put that product away and try, try again.
Here are some of the many names sugar goes by. Memorize them, cut it out and paste it in your pantry, snap a pic to access easily on your phone. But get used to these guys. Memorize their faces. They are NOT good and should be avoided as much as possible.
Evaporated cane juice
High fructose corn syrup
Fruit juice concentrate
Corn syrup
Mollasses
Words ending in “-ose”
- Sucrose, glucose, fructose, maltose, dextrose, lactose, galactose, etc.
Malted barley or Barley malt
Rice syrup
Honey + Maple Syrup
Maltodextrin
Sorghum or sorghum syrup
Agave nectar
Confectioner sugar
In health ‘n Mellness,
xo