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Sugar...oh honey, honey!

9/20/2016

3 Comments

 
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​​Last week, The New York Times wrote an alarming article about the sugar industry. The article reveals that the sugar industry paid off three Harvard scientists back in the late 60s to play down the link between sugar and heart disease and frame saturated fat as the culprit instead. Americans took this advice, shaped by the sugar industry, and our health has been impacted ever since.

​How did this misleading information from the 60s come to affect so many Americans? In 1982, The American Heart Association, the American Medical Association, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture urged Americans to reduce our intake of fats. And we did. Since that time our consumption of fats has decreased and our country’s obesity levels have increased in spades. We are an overweight, yet malnourished society. There are many problems with our Standard American Diet (S.A.D. – how fitting is this acronym?) today. We are eating more processed foods that are full of oxidized vegetable oils, additives, and preservatives. However, the biggest issue with our SAD diet is that it is full of sugar. We consume low-fat, high-sugar foods that some experts blame for fueling the obesity crisis.
Processed foods today contain more sugar and fewer nutrients that ever before. Excess sugar consumption increases blood triglycerides and inhibits immune function. Sugar is added to virtually every processed food, limiting consumer choice. How can we avoid it? Approximately 80% of the 600,000 plus packaged food products in the United States have added caloric sweeteners. We expect to find sugar in the usual suspects like cake, candy, and cookies. So when we want to have a special treat, this is something we may chose to consume. However, it is strategically placed in canned vegetables, baby foods, cereals, breads, peanut butter, crackers, and condiments – and the list goes on. Added sugar has become so pervasive within the food environment that we can hardly avoid it even if we wanted to. 
​So how much sugar are we actually consuming? The average American consumes about 150 pounds of sugar per year (which is about 23 teaspoons per day) and the greatest intake of sugar is in liquid form from soda and sweetened beverages. You may be thinking to yourself, wow, that sounds like a lot of sugar, but compared to what? 
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​How much sugar should we have per day? The American Heart Association has set recommended guidelines for Americans – women should have no more than 6 teaspoons a day and men no more than 9 teaspoons per day.  One can of soda has 10 teaspoons of sugar. Let me emphasize that…Americans would have reached the maximum amount of sugar allowed for the day indulging in this one drink. To learn ways to get the sugar out, take a look at a previous blog I wrote about this topic. 
 
Join me next week for a discussion on the truth about fats.
Sources:
​Hyman, M.  (2016). Eat fat, get thin. Little, Brown, & Company.
Lustig, R. (2013). Fat chance. Hudson Street Press.
​New York Times. (2016). How the sugar industry shifted blame to fat. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html.
3 Comments
Chay
9/20/2016 08:04:20 pm

This makes me SAD! :(
Thanks for keeping me on the right path Kristin! I was having heart palpitations and unexplained anxiety. Doctors recommendrrd anti-anxiety meds and a therapist. Neither of which eased the dis-eases I was feeling. After one of your enlightening visits I stopped eating sugar (my morning brownie and after dinner ice cream and cookies). In less than a week the anxiety and heart palps subsided and have not returned. I am back to giving in to some of my sugar habits, but not nearly consuming the amount I was in the past and still feel good.
Thank you!!

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Roy
9/20/2016 09:07:00 pm

Does aspertane (sp?) count as sugar in your calculations?
I know everyone says aspertane is bad for you But if you need to sweeten something without a sour taste like trivia

What are the true odds ... benefits vs risk. Sugar vs aspertane ?

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6/18/2019 03:14:24 am

Sugar remains to be one of the deadliest nowadays. If you had a lot of intake of it, it's going to be very dangerous for your life. That's why health experts are advice to take it in moderation if we don't want to regret at the end of the day. Actually, my sister died because of diabetes because she took a lot of sweets when she was still alive. It's the sad truth, but sugar industry is still needed in this world and we cannot lose it even if it's dangerous for our health. But still I am looking forward for a better and healthier society!

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