Sugar: The James Bond of Food

Sugar is the James Bond of food: It has code names, appears where you least expect it and leaves a trail of destruction in its wake. Oh, and we kind of have a thing for it. "It tastes good, and the more that's produced, the more we eat," says George Bray, M.D., chief of the clinical obesity and metabolism division at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

                                                                

Since 1970, the amount of sugar in processed foods has nearly doubled, largely because sugar is cheap and readily available. Today it's pumped into pretty much everything to make food products more enticing—even ones that are already sweet, such as fruit juice. As a result, the average American gobbles up 43,800 more calories from added sugar (meaning sweeteners, like high fructose corn syrup and honey, that are added to packaged foods) per year than we did in 1977. We have consumed an average of 150 to 300 more calories per day than we used to, 50 percent of which come from beverages. And our physical activity levels remain unchanged, so those extra calories don't get burned off.

Our body isn't equipped to handle this amount sugar. People who have unhealthy sugar intake levels also consume lower levels of vital nutrients, such as zinc, iron, calcium, and vitamin A. Research has also linked increased sugar consumption to higher rates of diabetes, heart disease and metabolic syndrome. One study has suggested that too much sugar could raise blood pressure levels, as well.

 The average American consumes around 22.2 teaspoons of added sugar every day. According to the new guidelines, we should really be eating a fraction of that amount. The recommended sugar intake for adult women is 5 teaspoons (20 grams) of sugar per day, for adult men, it’s 9 teaspoons (36 grams) daily, and for children, it's 3 teaspoons (12 grams) a day.  Knowing how much sugar you should be eating is completely different from calculating what you're actually eating. Daily intakes of added sugar aren't easy to estimate as the Food and Drug Administration doesn't require that nutrition labels list the amount of naturally occurring sugars separate from the amounts of added sugars. The American Society of Nutrition's new Smart Choices Program can help you to a certain extent. Products that qualify must get fewer than 25 percent of their calories from added sugar, but some products that qualify have as many as 17 grams per serving (nearly a full day's worth for women), and the nutrition labels still don't note whether those are naturally occurring or added.

The best way to cut added sugars out of your diet is to limit processed foods as much as possible, and satisfy your sweet tooth with fruit. Indulge wisely, by curbing cravings and eliminating hidden sources. Make a practice of this, and you won't need to spend so much time staring at food labels and counting sugar grams.