Back in the late 70s and early 80s, we started seeing the beginnings of the low-fat and no- fat products. The problem with this though is that when the food manufacturers took out the fat, all they did was replace it with sugar and other additives. So a food that had fat in it that added up to 200 calories was replaced with a food that didn’t have fat in it but had more sugar (or High Fructose Corn Syrup) that added up to…200 calories.
The whole concept of taking out the fat from products (we were told) is because we wanted to fight heart disease and dietary fat (saturated fat to be specific) was the main culprit.
But now a new problem.
A new study has come out saying that too much sugar can increase a person’s risk of heart disease.
"Just like eating a high-fat diet can increase your levels of triglycerides and high cholesterol, eating sugar can also affect those same lipids," Dr. Miriam Vos of Emory School of Medicine, who worked on the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, said in a statement.
The researchers reviewed what 6,000 adults ate and then grouped them by sugar intake and cholesterol levels.
What they found was:
On average, nearly 16 percent of people's daily calories came from added sugar.
The highest-consuming group ate an average of 46 teaspoons of added sugar per day, while the lowest-consuming group ate an average of only about 3 teaspoons daily.
If someone was getting in 2000 calories a day (which honestly, I think the plurality of people are probably consuming way beyond that), 16 percent of that would be about 80 grams of processed sugar a day. That seems like quite a bit to me and that’s on just a 2000-calorie diet.
The conclusion was
...people who ate more added sugar were more likely to have higher risk factors for heart disease, such as higher triglycerides and lower levels of protective high-density lipoprotein or HDL cholesterol.
The article goes on to say that
The association warned last August that Americans need to cut back dramatically on sugar consumption, recommending that women eat no more than 100 calories per day of added processed sugar a day, or six teaspoons (25 grams), while men should keep it to just 150 calories of added processed sugar per said or nine teaspoons (37.5 grams).
Now remember, they are talking about ADDED sugar to any food you are eating. And when I say “added” I’m talking about pretty much any food that is processed and contains the words “sugar” or “high fructose corn syrup” in the ingredient. Don’t think that it only means what sugar YOU might add to a food (like sprinkling sugar on your morning cereal), it’s any added sugar that is not naturally in the food (like fruit).
That’s why I like just keeping it simple when it comes what to eat to the basics of meat, fruits, veggies, some nuts and oils and leave it at that. No processing of foods, no added salt/sodium, no added sugar. It takes the guesswork out trying to figure out whether the other food in the store is actually healthy or not.
When you essentially throw out the processed food with all that sugar in it and focus on getting sugar from fruit, you still have a craving for sugar but, it’s a different kind of craving. The craving is specifically for the sugar in fruit. Might sound strange but, a candy bar just doesn’t satisfy that craving.
Don’t let those cravings for added sugar get a hold of you and your heart will be better off in the long run.
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