Can you guess? As you mentally scroll through the day all the sweet foods come to mind: cookies, candy, desserts and soft drinks. But the answer lies much deeper. Sugar is in almost every manufactured food product. If you were to look in your cupboard or fridge right now you would be surprised by the places sugar in one form or another would show up. Here are just a few examples: mayo, relish, soy sauce and even canned vegetable soup! It is found in nearly all we eat.
It is believed that the average North American eats/drinks an average of 5 pounds of sugar a month which works out to 60 lbs of sugar a year!n nThe recommended amount of sugar we consume should be limited to 6 to 12 tsp a day. This limited amount of sugar seems impossible to adhere to given the amount of sugar in all the foods available to us. Here are several examples of food and beverages which show just how fast the sugar adds up in a day.
Fruit flavoured yogurt ¾ cup has 5 teaspoons of sugar.nPopular children’s cereals: 1 cup contains 2 to 5 teaspoons of sugar.nTwo sandwich cookies (2 biscuits with a filling) are 3 to 5 teaspoons. The low fat version of the same cookies has the same amount of sugar.nSoft drinks such as colas have 10 teaspoons of sugar – basically your whole day’s allotment of sugar! Fruit flavored sweetened carbonated beverages that look so healthy contain anywhere from 7 to 11 tsp. of sugar depending how large they are.
To fully realize the effect of the amount of sugar you eat in a day try this experiment. You will need a colored plate or napkin, a teaspoon and sugar. Let’s say that for lunch you had a deli sandwich: 2 whole grain pieces of bread, 2 pieces of deli meat, mayonnaise and mustard, tomatoes, cucumber and lettuce. Also included in your lunch bag is a ¾ cup container of strawberry yogurt and to top it off there are 2 sandwich style cookies (like Oreo’s, Maple Creams etc). To drink you have a glass of Mango Madness Juice Drink. It sounds pretty healthy especially compared to grabbing fast food fare. Let’s tally up the sugar amount. We know that one teaspoon equals 4 grams of sugar. A piece of whole grain bread is 4 grams of sugar so two pieces is 8 grams of sugar. Spoon 2 teaspoons onto your plate (or napkin). If we had decided to put relish and ketchup on your sandwich it would have been an extra 1 ½ teaspoons but we chose veggies instead. The yogurt has 5 teaspoons of sugar so go ahead and spoon out 5 teaspoons of sugar onto your plate. The 2 cookies are 3 to 5 teaspoons of sugar so spoon out 4 teaspoons of sugar onto your plate. The Mango Madness Juice drink has 27 grams of sugar for 8 oz. which is 6 ¾ teaspoons of sugar. Some of it will be natural sugars from the fruit so to compensate just add 4 teaspoons of sugar to your pile. Just look at the pile of sugar you consumed in just one lunch! Can you imagine sitting down to that plate of sugar and eating it? Can you imagine how much this pile increases on special occasions like Thanksgiving or Christmas?
Sugar comes in many forms on package food labels. Here are just a few of the more common names you will come across: white sugar (often known as table sugar or sucrose), cane sugar, brown sugar, high fructose corn syrup, honey and maple syrup. The least processed sugars are the best for you. Honey and Maple Syrup are the most natural. But since they are still sugar, it is important to limit them in your daily diet.
Sugar can have quite an effect on your body. It causes rapid spikes in blood sugar levels which in turn causes higher energy and subsequent valleys or crashes when the sugar is absorbed leaving us tired. Our bodies then want to bring the energy level back up so it starts to crave sugar again and so goes the cycle. This can affect our immune system. There is believed to be a link between high sugar intake with an increased risk of diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease and of course weight gain.
Being aware of the amount of sugar in your food is the first step in improving your health. Another step is by choosing less processed foods. This gives you control of what you eat. In the earlier lunch example, the amount of sugar could have been cut down significantly by having plain yogurt and adding fruit. If you need a little sweetener a bit of liquid honey could be added. Real juice rather than juice drinks would have again brought the sugar level down. Single biscuits without the icing filling reduce the sugar even more. Cookies like gingersnaps or oatmeal with raisins have some nutritional value as well as taste good.n nPreparing more food at home always has its benefits. Look for recipes and ideas in magazines and cookbooks. In most recipes the amount of sugar can be reduced by about one-third. To begin with, try reducing the sugar by one-quarter. The next time reduce it by one-third. By reducing it by increments you can determine when it has really made a change in the recipe. Often flavors that were overpowered by the sugar will begin to arise. Don’t be afraid to experiment.
Money that would have normally been spent on desserts and other sugary items can now be put towards the natural sweetness more extravagant fruits that would have been passed by.n nAs you make sugar reduction part of your lifestyle, you will see positive changes.