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Sugar Overload
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Sugar has come out as a baddie in the world of nutrition. It’s true that a diet high in sugar contributes to obesity, (as does high fat intake), and is a risk for diabetes, but you don’t need to eliminate it from your diet - in fact it would be impossible to do so!
Some sugar in our diets is fine - it’s just how much to have which can be confusing. Here’s some more about sugar and what to look out for.
Why is too much sugar bad?
 Highly refined carbohydrates (this includes sugar and white flour) are rapidly absorbed, which lets a whole lot of sugar into the bloodstream at one time. In the body, insulin will be released to deal with the rise in blood sugar which will rapidly remove sugar from the blood, causing a “low”. This is why you feel tired and lethargic soon after eating high sugar snacks. A diet high in sugar is a risk for diabetes as, over time, the pancreas, which produces insulin, might not be able to keep up with the demand and be less efficient at removing blood sugar. A high sugar diet also contributes to obesity and dental cavities - i.e. trips to the dentist for fillings!
Types of Sugar
Sugar has many different names. Your common table sugar is called sucrose and is made up of two different types of sugar - fructose and glucose. Reading an ingredients list is one way to gauge how high in sugar a product is, as the higher up on the list of ingredients it is, the higher the sugar content is. However, sugar comes under many disguises. Here are other ingredients that are sugar, but with a different name, as you can see there is quite a list!
Corn syrup Corn SweetenerDextroseFructoseGlucoseHoneyGolden SyrupInvert SugarLactoseMaltoseMolassesHigh fructose corn syrup
How much is too much?
The word “moderation” is often referred to in the consumption of sugar. But what exactly constitutes moderation is likely to vary from person to person. The Ministry of Health recommends that sucrose and other free sugars should be restricted to no more than 15 percent of total energy. The last Ministry of Health survey showed total sugar intake of New Zealand women was 99g per day - this is 25 teaspoons!
 Where sugar is lurking.
This isn’t really a hidden sugar, but you probably don’t think how quickly it adds up - for example, adding sugar to your coffee or tea. Say you have 2 drinks a day and add a teaspoon to each; over a week that’s 14 teaspoons of sugar. In a year, it adds up to 728 teaspoons of sugar or 2.9kgs and approximately 10920 calories! Since sugar is a contributor to obesity, cutting back on sugar in drinks is a good way to start. Start cutting back now, over time your taste buds will adapt.
Another alternative is to use artificial sweeteners, or you could try a natural sweetener called Stevia - made from a very sweet plant. Those softdrinks need to go too, these are basically fizzy water, sugar and flavour and contribute to energy intake without providing much satiety. Keep them to a treat. Even though many fruit juices do not contain added sugar, they are still naturally high in sugar. Choose water as your main choice and fruit juice occasionally.
Other places to watch for sugar are:
Products labeled as “reduced fat” or “fat free”. With some food products, when fat is removed, sugar is added to help keep the product tasting good. Check the nutritional information to compare sugar content.
Breakfast cereals. You generally think breakfast cereals are pretty healthy, but some are high in sugar. For example, Nutri-Grain has 9.6g sugar per 30g. Compare this to Weet-Bix which only has 0.8g.
Fruit bars. These sound healthy because they have fruit, but these little bars are very high in sugar. In fact for most brands, the first ingredient is sugar. Same goes for other snack bars. Check the ingredients - is sugar one of the first few? If the muesli bars have dried fruit in them, you can afford a bit more sugar as it adds fibre and vitamins.
Nicola
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