BOO!!! This Halloween, the scariest thing you will see is the amount of sugar in that Halloween candy! But beware, sugar can be found hiding in many other foods, along with the candy that will be handed out today.
Check your protein bars, yogurts (hello, Noosa), pasta sauces, crackers and salad dressings for sugars secretly lurking.
With apologies to Nestle and Brach’s…consuming sugar not only causes weight gain, stresses your heart, and it contributes to diabetes AND wrinkles. (Do you really want to feed your wrinkles?)
Sugar is also highly addictive. (In fact, as addictive as heroin.) And guess what…eating sugar makes you crave more sugar. Why do we like it? Because fruits were the food our ancient paleo relatives found most readily and ate for quick energy…when they couldn’t find a source of protein. BUT, huge quantities of sugar were not available then as it is for humans today. So…we have to temper this craving, look for the hidden sources of sugar, and limit our intake.
The American Heart Association gives us intake guidelines* of 6 teaspoons per day for women and 9 teaspoons per day for men, (but I think 0 teaspoons of added sugar is the appropriate amount). To put those guidelines in perspective: one can of Coke has 11 teaspoons of sugar.
The high fructose corn syrup in those candy corns isn’t the only sugar out there that might scare you. So, here is your handy reference guide to all the sugars lurking out there in your foods. Check your food labels for these:
61 Names for Sugar
Agave nectar
Barbados sugar
Barley malt
Barley malt syrup
Beet sugar
Brown sugar
Buttered syrup
Cane juice
Cane juice crystals
Cane sugar
Caramel
Carob syrup
Castor sugar
Coconut palm sugar
Coconut sugar
Confectioner's sugar
Corn sweetener
Corn syrup
Corn syrup solids
Date sugar
Dehydrated cane juice
Demerara sugar
Dextrin
Dextrose
Evaporated cane juice
Free-flowing brown sugars
Fructose (fruit sugars removed from their fruit)
Fruit juice
Fruit juice concentrate
Glucose
Glucose solids
Golden sugar
Golden syrup
Grape sugar
HFCS (High-Fructose Corn Syrup)
Honey
Icing sugar
Invert sugar
Malt syrup
Maltodextrin
Maltitol (a manufactured sugar alcohol)
Maltose
Mannose
Maple syrup
Molasses
Muscovado
Palm sugar
Panocha
Powdered sugar
Raw sugar
Refiner's syrup
Rice syrup
Saccharose
Sorghum Syrup
Sucrose
Sugar (granulated)
Sweet Sorghum
Syrup
Treacle
Turbinado sugar
Xylitol
Yellow sugar
Need help giving up sugar? Check out this article from the NYT:
http://sugarscience.ucsf.edu/how-to-stop-eating-sugar.html
Source of this great info on sugar is:
*http://sugarscience.ucsf.edu/hidden-in-plain-sight/#.W9jE1n5rx0t
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