What’s in your cup?
What’s in the food we eat?
What’s in the groceries we purchase?
In today’s world, unless you pay attention to labels, you don’t know what you consume, even if you think it’s good for you. In an earlier post, I shared about high fructose corn syrup, a form of sugar eight times more addictive than cocaine, but in today’s society, sugar is passed off in many different ways and names in our foods. This is how we are tricked. Sugar is like a drug. It releases dopamine in your body, so we enjoy eating it. I still enjoy and like to eat my Peppermint Pattie’s lol! Dopamine is a chemical that makes a person feel good. This is why we must pay attention and remember the word moderation because sugar affects not just our weight loss goals but our overall health. It has scientifically been proven to be linked to many diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, dementia, and obesity. Just to name a few. Therefore, you don’t want to go crazy with the labels, but we should pay attention for our overall health. Many times it’s just a matter of a different choice of a product or item we enjoy eating.
Again, what are we eating? What are we drinking? My choice of drink is water. We won’t even discuss juice and soda, because we already know the high content of sugar that both of these have. Let’s, however, look at this drink. Are you familiar with Naked Drinks? Perhaps the “Green Machine?” I can raise both hands because it is presented to us as “All natural“ & “No sugar added.” I used to drink & purchase these frequently. Well, two servings are in one bottle, and almost 60 grams of sugar is consumed when you consume that one bottle! The average recommended daily amount of sugar is 24-36 grams a day. It varies for men and women, respectively. To break it down a little more, imagine eating 6-9 teaspoons of sugar daily, that's the recommended amount.
So here’s how they trick us in the labels. They change the name of the sugar. You’re not just going to see sugar, high fructose corn syrup, or even just corn syrup. There’s a whole list that I’m about to share. By changing the name, manufacturers can add more sugars we may miss. So you may see sugar at the top of the list of ingredients, but as you look further, you may see one or two more other sugars. By changing the name and using less of the other sugars, they can move it down on the list of ingredients! Interesting, right?
Here‘s the list to save and pay attention to. I’m sharing this because to be proactive towards our health, to prepare for our future years, paying attention now is very important.
• Cane crystals
• Cane sugar
• Corn syrup
• Crystalline fructose
• Corn sweetener
• Dextrose
• Evaporated cane juice
• Organic evaporated cane juice
• Fructose (fruit sugars)
• Concentrates of Fruit Juices
• Glucose
• HFCS
• Honey
• Invert sugar
• Lactose
• Maltose
• Malt syrup
• Molasses
• Raw sugar
• Sucrose
• Sugar
• Syrup
• Agave nectar
• Brown sugar
I‘m not saying to live a life without sugar, because I can promise you that in moderation, I am going to eat the things that I enjoy. Paying attention will help you eat less and eliminate some of the unnecessary sugars that will ultimately lead to better health.
Save & share this with someone that you care about.
~Pam McCray