How does your sugar consumption look these days? Do you know how much of the sweet stuff you eat every day? Have you ever tried tracking it? If you were to guess how many teaspoons of it you eat each day, what would you guess? Four? Five?
Your Sugar Consumption is Likely Higher Than You Think
Everyone is different and we all eat our own diets. However, if you eat anywhere close to the average American diet, then you’re likely getting about 41 teaspoons per day. That’s right, the average American daily sugar consumption is 41 teaspoons.
If you think you couldn’t possibly have a sugar consumption that high, you may be surprised to discover where the sweet stuff is slipping into our daily snacks, meals and drinks.
The added sugar in our products – that is, the sugars added to the foods we eat – is strikingly higher than most of us would think. Moreover, it’s there in products we don’t think of as being sweet. Have you ever looked at the ingredients and nutrition table for your favorite pasta sauce? Your eyebrows are about to raise. Salad dressings, sauces, breakfast cereals, granola bars, flavored yogurt and even many breads contain a surprisingly large amount of sugar to enhance the flavor and even the mouthfeel.
How Much Should You Be Eating?
The American Heart Association recommends that men shouldn’t eat more than 150 calories of sugar per day, which equates to about 9 teaspoons. Women, on the other hand, shouldn’t have more than 100 calories of sugar per day, which is about 6 teaspoons per day.
Why Should We Avoid Eating Too Much Sugar?
It may taste great, but sugar consumption that is too high on a regular basis can be damaging to our health. The liver is the only organ in the body that can process sugar. When we eat more than the maximum recommended amount, it places strain on that organ. That said, once sugars are processed, the pancreas produces insulin to convert excess the glucose into stored fat. Eating far too much of it, means that we have far more glucose than we need, forcing the pancreas to produce high amounts of insulin.
This converts all that sweet stuff into body fat, which is often stored in the liver, among other areas of the body. This places us at an increased risk of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Current estimates are that 1 in every 5 Americans are living with NAFLD, a condition that is frequently undiagnosed. Since it’s usually asymptomatic, diagnosis doesn’t frequently occur until the condition has progressed into something more serious, such as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).
Too much sugar consumption is also linked with obesity and cardiometabolic diseases. Eating too much of it on a regular basis can lead to immediate health concerns in children and can place them at a higher risk of chronic health issues.
Where Are We Getting All This Sugar?
Sugar is tucked into ingredients lists in many of the products we eat. It’s notorious for being hidden in processed foods of all kinds. It’s even worse in products marketed as being low-fat or fat-free. The reason is that the flavor needs to be replaced when the fat is removed. Therefore, food manufacturers will often add a series of other ingredients – including sugar – to replace the flavor and texture of the fat.
While many people point to fruits and vegetables as examples of healthy foods that contain high amounts of sugar, these are not the same as eating processed foods with added sugars. The reason is that you’d need to eat extreme amounts of fruits and veggies to consume the same amount of empty sugar calories that you’d find in processed foods. Other than when fruits are juiced, their fiber and nutrient content easily balances out the amount of naturally occurring sugar they hold.
How to Reduce Your Daily Sugar Consumption
Depending on the foods you’re eating, there may be some very easy swaps that you can make, or you might find it more challenging if you’re getting your sugar consumption from sneakier places.
For instance, if you’re drinking sports drinks, sodas, vitamin waters, specialty coffees and teas, alcohol, or fruit or vegetable juices, dramatically reducing or simply eliminating them is a fast track to slashing sugars from your diet. Drinks are considered to be the easiest way to reduce the amount of the sweet stuff you’re consuming because replacing them with water or black tea or coffee won’t leave you feeling any hungrier.
Next, start looking at the ingredients lists on your foods as well as the nutrition tables. Watch for foods that have sugars in their ingredients lists, particularly high up on the lists. That said, you can also look for ingredients such as honey, cane sugar, syrup, maple syrup, turbinado sugar, corn syrup, glucose, brown sugar, maltose, agave, high fructose corn syrup, and others.
While you don’t need to go cold turkey, if you start gradually and reduce your sugar consumption, you’ll only do yourself a favor in terms of your weight and your overall health.
How does your sugar consumption look these days? Do you know how much of the sweet stuff you eat every day? Have you ever tried tracking it? If you were to guess how many teaspoons of it you eat each day, what would you guess? Four? Five?
Your Sugar Consumption is Likely Higher Than You Think
Everyone is different and we all eat our own diets. However, if you eat anywhere close to the average American diet, then you’re likely getting about 41 teaspoons per day. That’s right, the average American daily sugar consumption is 41 teaspoons.
If you think you couldn’t possibly have a sugar consumption that high, you may be surprised to discover where the sweet stuff is slipping into our daily snacks, meals and drinks.
The added sugar in our products – that is, the sugars added to the foods we eat – is strikingly higher than most of us would think. Moreover, it’s there in products we don’t think of as being sweet. Have you ever looked at the ingredients and nutrition table for your favorite pasta sauce? Your eyebrows are about to raise. Salad dressings, sauces, breakfast cereals, granola bars, flavored yogurt and even many breads contain a surprisingly large amount of sugar to enhance the flavor and even the mouthfeel.
How Much Should You Be Eating?
The American Heart Association recommends that men shouldn’t eat more than 150 calories of sugar per day, which equates to about 9 teaspoons. Women, on the other hand, shouldn’t have more than 100 calories of sugar per day, which is about 6 teaspoons per day.
Why Should We Avoid Eating Too Much Sugar?
It may taste great, but sugar consumption that is too high on a regular basis can be damaging to our health. The liver is the only organ in the body that can process sugar. When we eat more than the maximum recommended amount, it places strain on that organ. That said, once sugars are processed, the pancreas produces insulin to convert excess the glucose into stored fat. Eating far too much of it, means that we have far more glucose than we need, forcing the pancreas to produce high amounts of insulin.
This converts all that sweet stuff into body fat, which is often stored in the liver, among other areas of the body. This places us at an increased risk of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Current estimates are that 1 in every 5 Americans are living with NAFLD, a condition that is frequently undiagnosed. Since it’s usually asymptomatic, diagnosis doesn’t frequently occur until the condition has progressed into something more serious, such as non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).
Too much sugar consumption is also linked with obesity and cardiometabolic diseases. Eating too much of it on a regular basis can lead to immediate health concerns in children and can place them at a higher risk of chronic health issues.
Where Are We Getting All This Sugar?
Sugar is tucked into ingredients lists in many of the products we eat. It’s notorious for being hidden in processed foods of all kinds. It’s even worse in products marketed as being low-fat or fat-free. The reason is that the flavor needs to be replaced when the fat is removed. Therefore, food manufacturers will often add a series of other ingredients – including sugar – to replace the flavor and texture of the fat.
While many people point to fruits and vegetables as examples of healthy foods that contain high amounts of sugar, these are not the same as eating processed foods with added sugars. The reason is that you’d need to eat extreme amounts of fruits and veggies to consume the same amount of empty sugar calories that you’d find in processed foods. Other than when fruits are juiced, their fiber and nutrient content easily balances out the amount of naturally occurring sugar they hold.
How to Reduce Your Daily Sugar Consumption
Depending on the foods you’re eating, there may be some very easy swaps that you can make, or you might find it more challenging if you’re getting your sugar consumption from sneakier places.
For instance, if you’re drinking sports drinks, sodas, vitamin waters, specialty coffees and teas, alcohol, or fruit or vegetable juices, dramatically reducing or simply eliminating them is a fast track to slashing sugars from your diet. Drinks are considered to be the easiest way to reduce the amount of the sweet stuff you’re consuming because replacing them with water or black tea or coffee won’t leave you feeling any hungrier.
Next, start looking at the ingredients lists on your foods as well as the nutrition tables. Watch for foods that have sugars in their ingredients lists, particularly high up on the lists. That said, you can also look for ingredients such as honey, cane sugar, syrup, maple syrup, turbinado sugar, corn syrup, glucose, brown sugar, maltose, agave, high fructose corn syrup, and others.
While you don’t need to go cold turkey, if you start gradually and reduce your sugar consumption, you’ll only do yourself a favor in terms of your weight and your overall health.
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Why All the Headlines About High-Fructose Corn Syrup?
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