6 Foods with Hidden Sugar

Here’s a post from Joe Wilkes on some of the everyday sweeteners we eat and why the big companies keep cranking them out for us to consume.

Interesting read and should make you aware of just how much sugar you are really eating.

6 Foods with Hidden Sugar

By Joe Wilkes

The average American eats approximately 1,500 pounds of food
every year. Of that, 160 pounds are primarily sugar. Of course, sugar
is delicious, and I know I’m happier for its existence, but of all the
things we consume, it has the least nutritive value. In fact, except
for the energy in its calories, there’s not much to recommend about
sugar. It’s a prime source of empty calories, and for those of us who
are trying to lose weight, sugar’s the first thing we should start
trimming from our diets. But here’s the problem—despite our best
intentions to remove excess sugar from our diet, the food industry has
found more and more devious ways of slipping us the sweet stuff.
Whether the food industry calls sugar by another name or adds it to
foods we never thought would have needed it, our sweet tooth is
constantly being bombarded. Fortunately, with stricter labeling laws,
we have a fighting chance at cutting back on sugar.

Why does the food industry want to fill us so full of sugar?

It’s basically the same as any other industry. For the oil
industry to make more money, it needs us to use more of its product by
driving more miles. The food industry needs us to use more of its
product by eating more calories. The problem is that the American food
industry is already producing around 3,900 calories per person per day,
which is way more than we need. One solution to this surplus is to sell
the food cheaply overseas, which the industry does. The other solution
is for Americans to eat more calories. And sugar and its corn-sweetener
brethren are great calorie delivery systems, as they pack a huge
caloric punch without causing much satiety or feeling of fullness. Most
people would probably stop eating steak after they reached 1,000
calories, because they’d be stuffed, but after you drank 1,000 calories
from your Big Gulp^®
cup, there’d still be room for dinner. The other reason the industry
pushes sugar so hard is that it’s cheap to produce, and the cheaper the
calorie, the larger the profit margin.

Sugar in labels—hiding in plain sight.

One
of the best ways to disguise the amount of sugar in a product is
something the government already requires—printing the information in
grams. Most Americans only have the foggiest idea of how much a gram
is, because we’re unaccustomed to the metric system. So when we pick up
a can of soda that contains 40 grams of sugar, we pretty much shrug our
shoulders and pop the top. And that attitude is all right with the soda
industry! But what if the label said that it contained over 10
teaspoons of sugar? If you saw someone ladling 10 teaspoons of sugar
into their morning coffee, you’d think they were crazy, but that’s how
much people consume in a typical 12-ounce can. A 64-ounce fountain
drink you’d get at a movie theater or a convenience store contains more
than 53 teaspoons of sugar—almost two cups! Naturally, people would
probably think twice if the nutritional information on products was
given in measurements that were meaningful to them. But until our
heavily food industry–subsidized government decides to change its
policy, it’s a metric world, we just live in it. But we can take note
that four grams equals one teaspoon. So when you check out the label,
divide the grams of sugar by four, and that’s how many teaspoons you’re
consuming.

Sugar, by any other name, would taste just as sweet.

Another
strategy the sugar pushers use to get us to consume more calories is to
rename the offending ingredient. We know to stay away from sugar, but
how about molasses, honey, sorghum, corn syrup, high fructose corn
syrup (HCFS), glucose, fructose, lactose, dextrose, sucrose, galactose,
maltose, or concentrated juices like grape or apple? Another path to
profit that the food industry has discovered is that instead of
harvesting relatively more expensive sugar cane and beets, they can
produce sweeteners in a laboratory more cheaply and with just as many
calories as beet and cane sugar. And with some sweeteners, especially
the popular HCFS, it is believed that your body will be less likely to
reach satiety than with sugar, so you can consume more. Mo’ calories,
mo’ money. Another advantage to these doses of -oses is that, aside
from the fact that many people won’t guess they’re just different forms
of sugar, they can be spread out in the ingredient list required by
law, so it won’t be as obvious that what you’re consuming is pretty
much all sugar. When you look at a list of ingredients on a product,
the manufacturer is required to list them in order of amount, from
highest to lowest. So they can bury a quarter cup of fructose, a
quarter cup of sucrose, a quarter cup of dextrose, and a quarter cup of
corn syrup in the middle of the list, so you won’t be as likely to
notice that when you add them all up, the main ingredient in the
product is sugar.

Hide and seek. You’re it.

So, if you’re like me, you may have sworn off soda except for
special occasions, and turned the candy bowl into an unsalted-almond
bowl. No more sugar, no more problems. Except for this problem—the food
industry has cleverly snuck its sugars into products where we never
would have thought to look for sugar. It’s good for the manufacturer.
It jacks up the calorie load, can enhance the product’s appearance
(high fructose corn syrup gives hamburger buns their golden glow), and
can keep our sugar jones simmering at a low boil, in case we ever
decide to go back to the real thing. Here are some types of products
whose labels could bear more scrutiny.

1. Spaghetti sauce. A half cup of store-bought sauce can
   contain as many as three teaspoons of corn syrup or sugar. While some
   of the naturally occurring sugar in tomatoes and other vegetables will
   show up on the nutrition label, most of the sugar is added. Look for
   brands that don’t include sugar or its aliases or make your own from
   fresh or canned tomatoes.
2. Ketchup. Ketchup can be 20 percent sugar or more.
   Not to mention that you’ll get 7 percent of your daily sodium allowance
   in one tablespoon. Look for low-salt, no-sugar brands, or make your
   own, using pureed carrots to add flavor and texture to the tomatoes.
3. Reduced-fat cookies. Most brands of cookies now offer a
   reduced-fat version of their product. Nabisco^®
   even offers its own line of low-fat treats, Snackwell’s^®.
   But while you’re patting yourself on the back for choosing the low-fat
   option, check the label. The sneaky food manufacturers did take out the
   fat, but they replaced it with, you guessed it, sugar. Many times, the
   reduced-fat cookie is only slightly less caloric than the one you want
   to eat. And because there’s no fat to make you feel full, you’ll be
   tempted to eat more “guilt-free” cookies. And just because there’s less
   fat, it doesn’t mean you’ll be less fat. Fat doesn’t make you fat.
   Calories make you fat.
4. Low-fat salad dressing. As with low-fat cookies, manufacturers
   have taken the fat out of the dressing, but they’ve added extra salt
   and sugar to make up for it. Check the label to make sure you’re not
   replacing heart-healthy olive oil with diabetes-causing sugar—because
   that’s not really a “healthy choice.” Your best bet? Make your own
   vinaigrettes using a small amount of olive oil, a tasty gourmet vinegar
   or fresh lemon juice, and some fresh herbs.
5. Bread. Most processed breads can contain a good
   bit of sugar or corn syrup. As always, check the ingredient label, and
   consider getting your bread at a real bakery or a farmers’ market—it’s
   the best idea since, well, you know.
6. Fast food. Needless to say, fast food is generally
   not good for you. But even if you’re staying away from the sodas and
   the shakes, everything from the burgers to the fries to the salads is a
   potential place to hide sugar. Check out the ingredients carefully at
   your favorite restaurant. You may be getting more than you bargained
   for.

Thanks to Joe for this article and insight.

So in conclusion “READ THE LABEL” that’s the best advise of the day.

Live lean, train hard,

-Darrin Walton

Warrior Fit Body Solution

Filed under: Fitness