Sugar tastes good, right? We put it in coffee, tea, all kinds of things to make them taste good. But actually, too much sugar is really, really bad for us.
In fact, Canadian and international health organizations say we should only have about 24 grams of added sugar per day and one beverage with added sugar a week. Whoa. That’s not much.
That is six teaspoons of sugar a day and one pop a week. Downer, aye? Additionally, the health journal BMJ reviewed 8,601 studies on sugar and say there are at least 45 good reasons to cut back on added sugar.
The study says that drinking and eating a lot of added sugar makes it much more likely that that we will have bad health, including diabetes, gout, obesity, high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, cancer, asthma, tooth decay, depression and early death.
So, what is added sugar? Well, sugar is added to all kinds of things so they taste better, like food, pop, iced tea, coffee, tea, juice, cookies, pies, chocolate bars, candies, and so on. Whew, everything I like has sugar!
It’s also called free sugars and they are added when food is being processed to be packaged for sale.
It includes naturally occurring foods in which the cellular structure has been broken down, including syrups, honey, fruit juice, vegetable juice, purees, pastes and similar products.
It’s important to note that it’s okay to eat naturally occurring sugar in dairy or whole fruits and vegetables that have not been changed in any way. These foods do not cause sugar spikes.
Sugar and disease
The link between free sugar and cancer needs more research. But consuming lots of sugar causes obesity, which is a strong risk factor for various cancers. The word “obese” is a polite way of saying getting too fat.
Obesity also increases the risk of heart disease, including heart attacks. Meanwhile, added sugar causes inflammation in the body and is a risk factor for depression.
To boot inflammation causes stress on the heart and blood vessels, which can lead to increased blood pressure.
When we eat simple sugars, our body has a huge spike in blood sugar, and these spikes trigger insulin spikes. This can destabilize our blood glucose and cause sugar diabetes and other health problems.
Reducing our intake
So, we know we should not consume more than about 25 grams or 6 teaspoons of sugar per day. What? You’re saying you use more than that just in your coffee and you also have cookies and pop every day? Eschia (take it easy, eh)!
Seriously, if you eat that much added sugar, you’re asking for trouble.
Let’s look at some foods and drinks. Remember, 1 teaspoon = 4 grams of sugar.
2.5 chocolate chip cookies = 6 teaspoons of sugar
16 ounces of fruit punch = 6 teaspoons of sugar
1.5 tablespoons of honey = 6 teaspoons of sugar
1 donut = 4 to 7.5 teaspoons of sugar
So, if you have one of these, you’ve already had your recommended daily amount of sugar.
And don’t forget, the authors recommend only drinking about 200 to 355 ml, milliliters of sugary beverages a week. That’s equal to a 12-ounce can of pop a week.
That means people who drink pop like it’s water, you need to slow down. Pssst, want to lose weight in no time? Cut down on pop.
And, of course, we should know what we’re putting in our body. We can do that by checking nutrition labels on the package of food we are buying to see how much sugar is in it.
Read the labels on foods you might not think are sweet too. For instance, things like bread, breakfast cereals, yogurts or condiments usually have lots of added sugar, and it all adds up. Well yaaaaa!
Instead of sugary drinks, have water sweetened with fruit slices; and fresh or frozen fruit for dessert instead of cake, cookies or ice cream. Cooking and baking at home more often is a good way to reduce sugar intake.
We can also cut back on sugar gradually to train ourselves to crave less sugar. And, it’s important to regularly get seven to eight hours of good-quality sleep, as we tend to eat foods higher in sugar when we’re tired.
I’ll leave you with my personal experience. A nutritionist told me that eating protein with sugar stops the sugar spike that leads to diabetes. So now, if I’m going to eat a candy or something sweet, I try do it after I eat meat or I have peanuts with the sweets.
Good news: ice cream, yogurt and peanut butter already contain protein.
I often stop myself from having a candy when I don’t have any nuts to eat. It’s okay to have sweets without protein once in a while, which definitely does not mean every day; maybe once a week and better yet, once every two weeks.
I’m going to carry some nuts or seeds around with me. I’m going to only eat and drink up to 6 teaspoons of sugar a day. Thank goodness I don’t drink pop anymore. So, take it easy on your sweets, eh?