Has there ever been something so satisfying and confounding as sugar? It makes everything taste better but when taken in abundance, it can wreck our diet plans and overall wellbeing. There are many folks who swear off sugar and profess the profound impacts it had on their lives. That is a very noble objective but one that is hard to accomplish. Why? Because sugar is everywhere. To get your sugar issues under control, it will help to understand just what is happening.
A Real Sugar Problem
Most of us enjoy a nice dessert or occasional piece of chocolate. Does that make us sugar addicts? Of course not but that doesn’t mean you’re not taking in more sugar than you should. According to nutritionists, we should only be taking in 10% of sugar from the total amount of daily calories. If you’re on a 2,000-calorie a day diet, than that recommendation would rough out to about 12 teaspoons of sugar. That might not seem like a lot but most of use consume twice that amount and that’s without candy!
Hidden Sugars
We know that the majority of sodas and sweets are pumped up with sugar. Skip those and you skip the sugar, right? Not exactly. There are hidden sugars lurking in a lot of packaged foods and many of those packages a stamped “healthy.” Into this category are things like yogurt, cereal, sauces and energy bars. Even an unsuspecting cup of flavored applesauce can be packing some serious sugar grams.
When in doubt, read the labels. Ingredients are listed by content. That mean whatever appears first is in abundance. When you see things like high fructose corn syrup or corn sweetener what you’re really looking at is sugar, just with a different name.
Stick With Unprocessed Food
The best way to cut back or eliminate sugar is to stick with unprocessed foods. If you cook from fresh ingredients, then you get to be in charge of just how much sugar you get to take in. That is the best approach to keeping sugar out.
