But the truth must be told: Sugary foods are no longer just an obvious treat, taking center stage. It’s likely that you are eating far more sugar than you realize and getting it from places you would never suspect. Ever-increasing amounts of sugar have invaded the American diet in the past 40 years, and it’s not because we’re eating more oranges and apples. The average American consumes 130 pounds of added sugar per year—that is, sugar that’s an ingredient in food rather than sugar that’s naturally occurring in food. Since sweetened beverages get most of the bad press, you might think that the majority of our added sugar intake comes from soda, juice, and specialty coffee drinks. Nope. Sweetened drinks account for only one-third of that amount. You might also think that most of that added sugar gets consumed away from home. The cheesecake chaser after a nice dinner, fast-food pit stops, convenience store snatch-and-grabs—nope again. We consume two-thirds of that 130 pounds at home. Which means, the sugar is coming from inside your house. Indeed, one study that analyzed almost 86,000 packaged foods over a 4-year period found that 75% contained added sweeteners. The vast majority of it is in the form of white table sugar and the syrupy goo called high-fructose corn syrup. On top of all that sugar, we are also drowning in other refined carbohydrates. The average daily calorie intake in the United States has risen nearly 25% since the 1970s. More than half of that increase has come from grains and sugar. We eat 11 servings of grains and grain products on average per day—about twice as many as we should be eating—and we aren’t talking quinoa and wheat berries. Most of those servings come in the form of refined grains. This category doesn’t just include white flour, bagels, muffins, and white bread. Pretzels, crackers, pita chips, white rice, pasta, and pizza crust are also part of that group. So are highly processed whole grain products—such as brown rice cakes, whole wheat bread, breakfast cereals (like whole grain flakes, cream of wheat, and instant oatmeal), and whole wheat crackers. These foods may have fiber and labels touting the grams of whole grains they contain, but because of the way they’re processed, they behave like sugar in your body. On top of that, grain products are often sweetened with sugar! Not you, you say. You don’t eat that much sugar. Maybe you don’t. But maybe, just maybe, you do and you don’t even know it. After all, research has found that we think we consume fewer calories than we do. It isn’t a stretch to say that you may be seriously underestimating your intake of sugar, especially when it goes by so many different names and masquerades as healthy foods. How did we arrive at this sugar-drenched state of affairs? The truth is that the food industry has hijacked our natural attraction to sugar and easy-to-digest carbs—a desire that’s both physical and emotional—and radically altered our expectations of “sweet.” But we’ve got sweeter news: You can shrink your sugar belly without swearing off sugar forever. Here’s how to get started.
Discover 10 Hidden Sugar Bombs you’re eating every day.Find out if you’re addicted to sugar with this Sugar Quiz.Learn 22 Smart Sugar Swaps to get a handle on your sugar intake.Cook smarter with these 10 Low-Sugar Desserts and 10 Sugar-Smart Recipes.
Excerpt from The Sugar Smart Diet by Anne Alexander with Julia VanTine (published by Rodale, which publishes Prevention). Learn more about the book here!
