Sugar, the Sweetest Killer
I’ve known many people who chuckle as they admit to me that they have a Sweet Tooth. This declaration is often followed by the admittance of a personal affinity towards feeding their hungry, sweet-toothed monster—as if it was a separate entity apart from themselves, one which they simply had no choice but to give into its sugary demands!
Sugar consumption in the US is off the charts—if there actually were any charts for us to measure ourselves against! Allow me to explain. While the FDA has determined recommended daily allowances (RDAs) for carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals, an RDA for sugar has never been formally established. Don’t believe me? Go check the food label on a box of cereal. While it’ll tell you exactly how many grams of carbohydrates, protein, and fat it contains in comparison to their respective RDA, your food label will only list the number of grams of sugar your cereal contains—against nothing, no standard. You are left to decide for yourself just how much added sugar your diet should contain.
On average, Americans consume 17 teaspoons of added sugar per day! “Added sugar” means any sugar which does not naturally exist in food. This would include the sugar a food manufacturer has added to something processed, or the sugar you’ve sprinkled (or poured) into a cup of coffee or dinner recipe.
Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco say if they were to create the standard for the FDA, they would set the RDA of added sugar at 6 teaspoons/day for women and 9 teaspoons/day for men.
Now, go back to your cereal box, or yogurt cup. How many grams of sugar is listed? Simply divide that number by 4 to discover how many level teaspoons of added sugar is in that product.
For example: A yogurt with 16 grams of sugar = 4 teaspoon’s worth.
Now, if you’re a woman, you can only have 2 more teaspoons of added sugar for the rest of the day. That might just be enough to cover two sweetened cups of coffee. No room for BBQ sauce on your chicken dinner, jam on your PBJ sandwich, or a cookie. You get the picture.
So, why all the fuss about added sugar? Added sugar, eaten in excessive amounts, acts like gasoline thrown on the fire of inflammation. This includes, but is not limited to, inflammatory diseases such as irritable bowel, arthritis, lupus, and cardiovascular disease as well as certain cancers, such as breast, colon, and endometrial cancer.
My question to you today is this: Why would you continue feeding those beasts?