Sugar Shock- What's Really In Your Food?
Someone recently asked me about the content of food and if sugar was really hidden within the ingredients section of food labels. For the most part, processed foods are bad for you because they have chemicals and other toxins within them. Moreover, yes, most processed foods are hiding sugar content within the ingredients section of the food labels. But it isn’t only processed foods that you have worry about. In fact, you may be sugar shocked to realize milk has a lot of sugar in an eight
ounce glass.
Most of my clients come to see me after they have been prescribed pills for diabetes or other health issues related to sugar. Like any stimulant drug, sugar addiction has repercussions on the body. At the root of my clients’ health issues is usually sugar. Our culture doesn’t realize how prevalent of a presence sugar has within our food- processed or not! And we certainly don’t understand, as a culture, the damage sugar does to our body, soul, and mind.
Consider this- one teaspoon of granulated sugar equals 4 grams of sugar. 16 grams of sugar in a product is equal to about 4 teaspoons of granulated sugar. Now, think about this. 16 grams of sugar is 4 teaspoons of sugar. Stop reading right now and go look at a couple foods in your fridge or cupboard. Take a look at the label and note the sugar content per serving. Shocked?
Take notice of fat-free chocolate milk. Most people drink this after a workout because it has protein in it. And while this is true, a Nesquick Fat Free Chocolate Milk has 44 grams of sugar per bottle.
That’s over 11 teaspoons of sugar in a single drink. Why bother with the workout? Plain milk has about 12 grams of naturally occurring lactose sugar, which is OK in some cases but there is not a real blanket rule on this since everyone is different.
Many people see yogurt displayed on television as delicious and healthy and they truly believe it to be a good-for- you food. Well, flavored yogurt isn’t that much better than a chocolate bar.
For example, Yoplait Original 99% fat free, Lemon Burst yogurt has 31 grams sugar, over six teaspoons of sugar per serving. Plain yogurt has about 12 grams of naturally occurring lactose sugar.
Feeling ill? One can of Gingerale has 32 grams of sugar per cup and Schweppes doesn’t even have any ginger in it! What really is in the can of pop?! Not ginger- but mostly sugar.
Do you know what the World Health Organization says about the amount of sugar we should be having? The upper limit per person per day is 26 grams. That’s 6.5 teaspoons per day, that’s it! And even that amount is bad for you. We’re all going to slip up on sugar, we’re human. But 6.5 teaspoons of sugar per day can harm your skin, your teeth, your mood, your arteries… the list goes on and on.
We wonder why we feel terrible. We wonder why the rate of diabetes is going up on a global scale. What we don’t often wonder is how much sugar really is laced within our food. We fail to read labels and therefore don’t think to make smarter, healthier choices. I can help you identify poor eating habits and come up with a corrective, fun plan that contains more sweet elements than sugary ones.