But how bad is sugar for you? Is it because of your eating habits with too much sugar in your diet can be the primary cause of diseases or a terrible portent to a lifetime of illness and diseases?
Breaking down the facts to show how bad is sugar for you.
Can transparency on sugar content on packaged foods through their labels be able to help the public ease up their sugar consumption? It depends and it has a lot to deal with attitude, awareness and mental fortitude.
The reason behind revising food labels
Food labels by 2018 would contain total sugar content on packaged foods instead of just added sugar.
The rising of the incidence of obesity and lifestyle disease over the last two decades prompted many nutrition experts to clamour for campaigns to make more people aware of the fact that the overconsumption of sugar has become one of the leading causes of deaths in America.
One of the leading culprits, according to many, were because of added sugars on packaged foods that are added to food during the manufacturing or packaging process either to help stabilize or improve the flavour of many, if not most of these packaged foods.
The initial move to include the amount of added sugars in food labels met opposition from food industry players, claiming that it is an unscientific move and pointed out that the focus should be on calories rather than just sugar amounts, citing the example of fruits and vegetables that contain natural sugars and could add to the amount of sugars that are summed up in the sugar equation.
Scientists however, say that it is not that simple, as sugar content can have huge variances on any and every food type, as well as the different ratios in its combination of molecules found in foods.
While glucose is metabolized by any cell in the body, fructose is exclusively processed by the liver, which makes it more difficult to differentiate in labeling and could prove to be a very tedious, if not daunting process of data analysis, just to point out a factor.
“Once you get to that point, the liver doesn’t know whether it came from fruit or not,” said Kimber Stanhope, a researcher at the University of California, Davison a study to determine the effects of sugar on health.
The Food and Drug Administration also realized the complexity of the labeling process and what levels of measurements should be subject for full disclosure.
“It would be difficult, if not impossible, for a manufacturer to determine the volume contribution that each ingredient provides toward the added sugars declaration,” the agency said. “For example, a cookie made with white chocolate chips and dried fruit would have added sugars in the form of sugar in the batter as well as in the white chocolate chips and the dried fruit.” The F.D.A. also said that requiring both grams and teaspoons would “cause clutter and make the labels more difficult to read.”
Sugar has recently been recognized as a leading cause of disease and should ideally be consumed in moderation or within prescribed tolerable levels.
Consuming too much sugar could results in the following conditions;
- Headaches
- Weight gain
- Lack of concentration
- Short term energy and getting too tired very easily
- Increase in blood sugar levels that will then cause a sudden drop, which over time could end up to insulin resistance.
- Feeling hungry too often, especially when you start to crave despite of having a meal not too long ago.
- Mood swings, feeling down
But despite the warning, most families in the United States keep their pantries and cupboards stocked with cereals since it is very convenient and have ignored the common findings about the effects and dangers of having too much sugar in the body.
Nutrition experts agree that you need to know and understand how bad is sugar for you.
The post Do You Know How Bad Is Sugar For You? appeared first on NUTRITION CLUB CANADA.
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