Sugar 101

Sugar. Our bodies crave it more often than not and yet we try so hard to avoid it. When you look at why our bodies crave sugar from an evolutionary standpoint, in the “caveman days” sugar was a very rare food. As a result when humans would come across sugary things like fruit or sugar cane our bodies were and are wired to eat large quantities of it. The problem is that now we live in a world where there is an over abundance of sugar and our bodies haven’t changed since the caveman days.

There are two kinds of sugar: fructose and glucose. Glucose is what we use as energy. Glucose is what complex carbs, like whole grains, turn into once they are digested by the body. Fructose, however, is not used as energy so we tend to eat more of it. Fructose also does not turn off our appetite hormone like glucose does. As a result we are able to eat large quantities of sugar, such as a whole box of cookies or an entire pint of ice cream (we’ve all done it), and still feel hungry for more.

So aside from getting fat why is sugar so bad for you? 

Well, sugar disrupts our hormone production creating hormone imbalances in the body. Sugar also causes inflammation in the body, which leads to cancer and other life threatening diseases. This is why focusing on an anti-inflammatory diet is so beneficial for those with cancer (everyone can benefit from an anti-inflammatory diet). Sugar also destroys your natural gut flora. Your gut flora is all the helpful bacteria in your gut/digestive system that makes your immune system strong enough to fight off illnesses.

Believe it or not, sugar is actually more addicting that heroine and cocaine. You would think for it being so addictive that our country would have better regulations on what companies put sugar in, but we don’t. It is perfectly legal to hide sugar is foods that we may think are healthy and quietly get consumers addicted. Sugar is added to about 75% of processed foods. This would never be legal is we were dealing with drugs or alcohol. So it is very important that when you are purchasing foods or snacks you may think are healthy that you read the ingredients label. Many “healthy” snacks contain large amounts of sugar, which then make you crave more sugary things. Here is a short list of foods you may not realize that contain high amounts of sugar:

  • Low fat yogurt (full fat yogurt won’t contain added sugar)

  • Low fat dairy products (you are much better off buying whole milk dairy products, whole milk products also provide your body with beneficial probiotics)

  • Dried fruit

  • Fruit juice

  • BBQ sauce

  • Granola

  • Ketchup

What is a normal amount of sugar intake?

You should aim to consume no more than 6 teaspoons (1 teaspoon is 4 grams of sugar) of sugar a day. The average person consumes about 23 teaspoons a day, which is 4 times more than we should be having.

A great way to reduce your intake of added sugars is to crowd out refined sugars with naturally sweet fruits and vegetables. Cooked carrots, beets, and sweet potatoes can be a great fix for a sweet craving. Also, increasing your fruit intake will help to curb cravings for processed sugar. The fruit in sugar is not the same as refined sugar so don’t worry about eating too much fruit. Fruit is an incredible source for energy, containing living microbes, antioxidants, antitumor properties, vitamins, minerals, fiber, and pectin. All these things that make up fruit are so important for proper bodily functions and protection against disease. Not all sugar is the same, fruit sugar is a safe natural sugar.

When reading a nutrition label companies will often give sugar different names in order to hide the fact that the product contains sugar. Here are some different names of sugar you may find on a nutrition label:

  • Barley malt

  • Buttered syrup

  • Cane juice

  • Caramel

  • Carob syrup

  • Confectioner’s sugar

  • Corn sweetener

  • Corn syrup

  • Dehydrated cane juice

  • Dextrin

  • Dextrose

  • Evaporated cane juice

  • Fructose

  • Fruit juice

  • Glucose

  • High –fructose corn syrup

  • Maltodextrin

  • Muscovado

  • Palm sugar

  • Rice syrup

  • Saccharose

  • Sorghum syrup

  • Sucrose

  • Sugar

  • Sweet sorghum

  • Treacle

  • Turbinado sugar

It is very easy to feel like a bottomless pit when it comes to yummy desserts that are at our finger tips. Just remember that maybe you should eat just one cookie instead of 10. After all, they will all taste the exact same.



Nutrition TipsTaylor DeBoersugar, glucose, fructose, inflammation, health, nutrition