Americans consume an average of 150 pounds of sugars and sweeteners per year for each man, woman and child. That’s almost three-fourths of a cup, or some 40 teaspoons of sugar, per person per day.
Not me!
Most of the sugar we consume is hidden sugar. Here are some of the ways sugar slips into our diets:
• Soft drinks. Americans average 54 gallons of soft drinks per person per year. This works out to about two sodas per day. One 12-ounce soda may contain 12 teaspoons of sugar.
• Desserts. A piece of chocolate cake, for instance, contains 15 teaspoons of sugar; a cup of frozen yogurt has 12 teaspoons.
• Ready-to-eat cereals. Some, such as Shredded Wheat and Cheerios, are excellent. But look at cereals like Fruit Loops and Sugar Smacks, in which almost half of their calories come from sugar. This isn’t cereal; it’s candy!
And sugar is everywhere. You’ll find hidden sugar in foods, such as canned soups, potpies, TV dinners, and ketchup.
Checking labels
Yes, but realize that sugar may also be hidden by giving it a different name. Sucrose, dextrose, lactose, fructose, and maltose, for instance, are all sugars. So are corn syrup, honey, and molasses. Actually, there are more than 100 substances with different names. But they are all sugars.
Sugar for quick energy, or?
Yes, refined, concentrated sugars enter the bloodstream quickly. Up goes the blood sugar, resulting in a quick energy boost—a sugar high.
But the high is only temporary, because it triggers a surge of insulin. This insulin, in turn, brings down the blood sugar into the normal range. But in the absence of the modulating effects of fiber, it sometimes pulls it down too fast and too far.
This falling blood sugar often mimics symptoms of hypoglycemia, producing feelings of weakness, hunger, fatigue, and letdown—the sugar blues. The usual reaction is to reach for another sugary snack, and then another, leading to a sort of grazing all day long.
Here is a better way to handle this: reach out to an apple, a banana, or a bowl of brown rice. The fiber in these foods slows down the absorption of sugar into the bloodstream.
The sugar levels won’t jump around so much, your energy will stabilize, and you’ll feel satisfied longer.
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