Monday 21 April 2014

Sugar, it's hiding in everything you eat.

Today I learned that 4.2g of sugar is the same as 1 teaspoon of sugar. 
The yogurt I love, Olympic, french vanilla has 24g of sugar for 175ml,  or sometimes I buy the blueberry 23g of sugar.
So 175ml is equal to 3/4 cup,
24g of sugar is equal to 5.7 teaspoons!  Isn't that crazy!

I always thought I was picking a healthy yogurt, I don't like the taste of plain yogurt, seems sour to me, but I can't imagine having to add 5-6 teaspoons to a small bowl of yogurt to make it taste better.
I also hate the taste of aspartame or any artificial sweetener, and many yogurts have wheat added so that really limits my choices as well.

In our house we don't add sugar to tea or coffee, we only bring out the sugar bowl when we have visitors.  We do not drink pop, or fruit juice because of the excessive calories.  I know we eat healthier than we did 5 years ago, but I was still surprised to learn how much sugar is hidden in things we eat.   Maybe surprised is not the right word, I do know how to read a nutrition label, I just did not know what 24g of sugar actually amounted to.

Did you know there are 12g or 3 teaspoons of sugar in a cup of Campbells Tomato soup?

So that's the sugar I didn't really know about, I do know, I am addicted to chocolate, but I expect that to have sugar.  The little chocolate Easter Bunny I had yesterday, (OK I had 2) each had 5.2g of sugar, that's 2.5 teaspoons of sugar, seems reasonable for a treat......the soup is not a treat, it should not have sugar, neither should bread, or spaghetti sauce or sports drinks, ......the list is huge!

Here is a link to the show I saw on the Fifth Estate, lots more information here.
http://www.cbc.ca/player/Shows/Shows/the+fifth+estate/Season+39/ID/2410472474/

Did you know you should limit your daily calories from sugar to 5-10% of your daily consumption of food.  That is approximately 25-50g per day.  (2 bowls of yogurt, or 4 bowls of Campbells soup)
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/added-sugar-in-the-diet/ 

Then there is the bigger, scarier issue, what is all this excessive sugar doing to our bodies over the years, besides making us fat, and diabetic, could it be linked to the rise in rates of Autism or Alzheimer's Disease?  More research has to be done, but guess who refuses to sponsor this type of research.......the food producers who insist on adding the sugar to all our products.