Sunday, January 15, 2012

La Vita e Dolce, Part Five: Sugarwise Ways and Resources

V.  Sugarwise Ways
  • Steady your blood sugar levels with complex carbs, or a blend of carbs and protein, which time-release sugar as they breakdown: kidney/black/pinto beans, peas, chick peas, lentils, nuts, nut butters, oats, whole wheat berries, brown rice, barley, bulgar, high-fiber fruits and non-starchy vegetables such as dark green lettuce, kale, Swiss chard, bok choy, zucchini, cauliflower, tomatoes, celery, cucumber, cabbage, broccoli and other green veggies.
  • Don’t fall for the Whole Grain Hoax. Whole grains should be whole to your naked eye (like oatmeal from oats, or crackers and breads with whole flax seeds). According to the Whole Grains Council, foods may be labeled “whole grain” as long as the food product delivers “approximately the same rich balance of nutrients that are found in the original grain seed. If the grain has been processed (e.g., cracked, crushed, rolled, extruded, and/or cooked)” it can still be called “whole grain.” While “whole grain” cereals, flours and breads parade as healthy foods, remember that because they are refined, they can be rapidly digested and cause blood sugar to spike. Forego these in favor of the list above.
  • Become leptin-sensitive again! Check out Neurosurgeon Dr. Jack Kruse’s “Leptin Rx."
  • Sugar craves sugar. If you are craving sugar or refined grains, ask yourself when you last ate and what you last ate. Your brain responds to low blood sugar by signaling you to get a quick sugar fix, which perpetuates the sugar roller coaster. Get off that ride, by eating a complex carbohydrate with some protein and water.
  • Make your own meals! Use Food.com, which calculates sugar content and other Nutritional Facts for its recipes using the USDA nutritional information database.
  • Read the ingredients list, looking for added sugar in all its guises to determine the source of the total sugar - is it from a whole food (good for your body) or added sugar? The Nutrition Facts label lists grams of sugar without distinguishing between naturally occurring sugars and added sugar.
  • Know how many servings you are eating. Cereals often say one serving is 3/4 cup, but our bowls hold at least double that amount. The old-fashioned 8 oz. Coca Cola bottle was considered one serving in the 1950‘s, with 27g of sugar. Today vending machines dispense 20 oz. bottles as one serving, with 65g of sugar. For a sedentary woman, or a child, that is more than 5 days’ worth of sugar. 
  • Check out what’s coming out (of you). Yes, I wrote that. Stool should be firm and floating (that means you are eating enough fiber and not too much sugar).
“One can keep tabs on a child’s diet by keeping an eye on their feces. If a young child’s stools have become loose, it is often a sign that they have been eating too much sugar and sweets...First there is a lapse in dietary wisdom and control, then there are loose stools, and then the child gets sick. If one catches this progression when the stools have become loose but before increased phlegm and dampness have been generated, and if one can get the diet back on track, then one can reverse this disease process, saving the child from becoming ill.” -- Bob Flaws, Keeping Your Child Healthy with Chinese Medicine
  • Use alternatives to sweet rewards. Whether for good behavior or for eating their veggies, children who are conditioned to think that sugar is a reward may become adults who see dessert as the “forbidden fruit” (they think they shouldn’t have it, but still strongly desire it). This encourages dis-inhibition: the only way to fully enjoy dessert is to eat unlimited amounts of it. Parents can reward good behavior with parent private time, game nights, books, etc. For great advice about raising healthy eaters, check out Child of Mine by Ellyn Satter.
  • Drink water or tea to quench thirst (especially after exercising and while you are digesting sugar). For a splash of flavor add lemon or orange slices, fresh mint from the garden, or ice cubes with berries frozen inside. Brew tea at home or make homemade lemonade to control the amount of sweetener used. Stay away from beverages containing the words “drink” “cocktail” “punch” “beverage” “-ade” or “soda.” (They are glorified sugar water.)
  • Exercise to feel strong and be well, not to justify a high sugar diet. Your body  (your teeth, your liver, your pancreas) still has to process all that sugar, whether or not your metabolism is fast.
  • Go ahead, have dessert. Just keep portions small, savor each bite, and don’t insist on dessert as a daily ritual. French Women Don’t Get Fat author Mireille Guiliano says ”Scientifically, it has been proven that after three bites, your palate has been satisfied. It doesn't matter what you eat. So if you eat one boule (scoop) of ice cream, that's all you need. You don't have to eat pint after pint after pint.”
  • Lowfat products often compensate by doubling the sugar content - check your labels!
  • Buy unsweetened cereals and yogurts and add unsweetened dried cranberries or raisins, fresh berries or other fruits, chopped walnuts or almonds.
  • Opt for the sugars shaded in green in the Sugar Derivations Chart in part two of this series. They still count as added sugar, but at least these less refined sweeteners give you some minerals and antioxidants.
  • Use herbs and spices to make dishes tasty. Cinnamon is a sweet spice, two teaspoons of which can let you reduce the amount of sugar needed (try half what the recipe calls for). Try it in homemade hot cereals too. Others to try: mint, cloves, nutmeg, anise, ginger, lemon/orange zest, vanilla extract.
  • Favor unsweetened canned or frozen fruit packed in water or its own juices rather than those to which syrups have been added.
  • If you substitute honey, molasses, or fruit concentrate for sugar in a recipe, use half or less of the recommended amount for sugar. If the recipe calls for a cup of sugar, try using a quarter- to a half-cup of honey.
  • If you’ve had a lot of sugar to drink, brush your teeth soon after.
Now sing!
 "We like sweets a lot,
But they make your insides rot,
So remember it's your body
And the only one you've got"

"Be Careful What You Eat" Animaniacs, 1997 (alternate ending)

Revisit IV. How Does a High Sugar Diet Affect the Body? to see which ailments could be prevented or cured with diet change
Revisit III. Does HOW You Eat Your Sugar Make a Difference? to explore the science behind sugar overdoses
Revisit II. Is Sugar by Any Other Name (like “HFCS”) The Same Thing? to identify sugar in all its forms
Revisit I. How Much Sugar is Too Much? to quantify a moderate amount of added sugar


Resources
“Carbohydrates: Good Carbs Guide the Way.” The Nutrition Source, Web. Harvard School of Public Health. <http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/carbohydrates-full-story/#when-sugar-management>

“CSPI’s Petition to the FDA to Require Better Sugar Labeling on Foods.” Center for Science in the Public Interest, August 3, 1999. <www.cspinet.org/reports/sugar/sugarpet1.pdf>

“Dietary Sugars Intake and Cardiovascular Health.” AHA Scientific Statement. Circulation, 2009. < http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/120/11/1011/TBL5192627>

“How Does Fruit Juice Compare to Whole Fruit?” The George Mateljan Foundation for the World's Healthiest Foods. The World’s Healthiest Foods, Web. <http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=24>

“How Sweet It Is: A Glossary Of Types Of Sugar & Syrup Types.” The Nibble, Web. <http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/honey/sugar-syrup-glossary.asp>

“Intake of Fruit, Vegetables, and Fruit Juices and Risk of Diabetes in Women.” The Nurses’ Health Study. American Diabetes Association. Diabetes Care, 2008. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2453647>

“Recipe Finder” (with Nutritional Facts). Food.com. <http://www.food.com/recipe-finder>

“There’s More to the Story: A Leptin Primer.” Whole9, Web, October 26, 2011. <http://whole9life.com/2011/10/theres-more-to-the-story-a-leptin-primer/>

Guyenet, Stephen. “Superstimuli.” Whole Health Source, Web, March 7, 2008. <http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/03/superstimuli.html>

Kingsolver, Barbara, Stephen L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. HarperCollins, 2007.

Lustig, Robert H., “Sugar: The Bitter Truth.” University of California Television (UCTV), July 27, 2009. <http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.aspx?showID=16717>

Macrae, Fiona and Pat Hagan. “Just One Glass of Orange Juice a Day Could Increase Risk of Diabetes.” Daily Mail, August 14, 2008. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1038079/Just-ONE-glass-orange-juice-day-make-obese-AND-increase-risk-diabetes-says-research.html#ixzz1bpGY3VAA>

Rosedale, Ron. “Insulin, Leptin, Diabetes, and Aging: Not So Strange Bedfellows.” Diabetes Health, Jan 13, 2008. <http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2008/01/13/5617/insulin-leptin-diabetes-and-aging-not-so-strange-bedfellows/>

Russell, Lisa. “Connection between Leptin & Insulin.” eHow Health, Web. < http://www.ehow.com/about_6395134_connection-between-leptin-insulin.html#ixzz1eR72uZb8>

Satter, Ellyn. Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense. Bull Publishing Company March 1, 2000. <www.ellynsatter.com>

Sears, William. “Sweet Facts You Should Know About Sugar.” Ask Dr. Sears, Web. <http://www.askdrsears.com/html/4/t045000.asp>

Taubes, Gary. “Is Sugar Toxic?” The New York Times, April 13, 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=all>

Thornton, Jim. “The House that Snacks Built.” Best Life Magazine, June 2007. <http://books.google.com/books?id=F8cDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA111&dq=sugar&as_pt=MAGAZINES&cd=1#v=onepage&q=sugar&f=false>
KVZZ2A3XUNRZ

La Vita e Dolce, Part Four: Preventing Illness

IV. How Does the Body React to a High Sugar Diet?

Do you experience any of the following? Infertility, pre-diabetes, mood swings, PCOS (ovarian cysts), heart disease, insulin resistance, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, gallstones, Type II diabetes, cavities, weight gain/obesity? Then you might be suffering from SOS (Sugar Overdose Syndrome aka The Bleep-on-a-Shingle Diet). Ask your doctor to prescribe eatcomplexcarbsanddrinkwater today! Get your sample by visiting localharvest.org and heading to the nearest farmers market or shopping the perimeter of the grocery store. Act now!


Will changing the way you eat and drink prevent and cure some of the following ailments? With the processed food, sweetened beverage, sugar and pharmaceutical industries exponentially outspending whole food marketing and political lobbying in our country, it can be difficult for an American to believe that simply making different dietary choices will fully restore good health. Also, because of genetic variables, we have a hard time seeing the cause-and-effect relationship of sugar addiction to our health problems. Why?
  1. Overeating sugar displays different symptoms throughout our population. For example, some leptin-resistant and insulin-resistant individuals are very thin rather than overweight. Naturopath Peter J. D'Adamo, N.D., author of “Eat Right 4 Your Type” says blood type is a factor. "There had to be a reason why there were so many paradoxes in dietary studies and disease survival, why some people lose weight and others do not on the same diet, or why some people keep their vitality as they age, and others do not.” In 1940, Dr. William Sheldon categorized three body types, called “somatotypes,” each of which metabolizes food differently. You may be one or a combination of these.
  2. Symptoms can take over 30 years to develop into a crisis. If there’s something in this list that you or someone you love struggles with, why not try the Sugarwise Ways and see if it helps? It did me.
Four weeks after cutting out refined grains, dairy and sweets, I had lost 15 pounds of post-partum weight that I thought I’d never lose. This was with minimal exercise, once a week. When I reintroduced these foods, much less frequently (once a day) and in small portions, also not eating after dinner most nights, the weight stayed off. I had finally stopped overloading my digestive system and my body was grateful.

What other health problems could a diet change prevent?

Lowered Immunity
“Excess sugar depresses immunity. Studies have shown that downing 75 to 100 grams of a sugar solution (about 20 teaspoons of sugar, or the amount that is contained in two average 12-ounce sodas) can suppress the body's immune responses. Simple sugars, including glucose, table sugar, fructose, and honey caused a fifty- percent drop in the ability of white blood cells to engulf bacteria. In contrast, ingesting a complex carbohydrate solution (starch) did not lower the ability of these white blood cells to engulf bacteria. The immune suppression was most noticeable two hours post-ingestion, but the effect was still evident five hours after ingestion. This research has practical implications, especially for teens and college students who tend to overdose on sodas containing caffeine and sugar while studying for exams or during periods of stress. Stress also suppresses immunity, so these sugar-users are setting themselves up to get sick at a time when they need to be well.

The immune-suppressing effect of sugar starts less than thirty minutes after ingestion and may last for five hours. In contrast, the ingestion of complex carbohydrates, or starches, has no effect on the immune system.” -- Dr. Sears, “Harmful Effects of Excess Sugar”

“Large quantities of sugar weaken the enzymes of essential fatty acid metabolism.” --Leo Galland, MD, Supperimmunity for Kids
Fungus/Yeast/Candida and Bacterial Infections
“Because the average American consumes 150 pounds of sugar per year, many people have learned the hard way that these dietary habits create a perfect environment for Candida albicans (the organism causing yeast overgrowth) to proliferate and grow out of control.” -- eCandida.com

“Conventional medicine considers bacteria to be the root of the problem, and therefore directs the treatment to kill the bacteria with antibiotics...But, anyone who knows a little bit about microbiology is perfectly aware that in order for the bacteria to grow, a very strict set of conditions must be met. Each bacteria requires a certain temperature, moisture, and sugar content for it to survive and multiply...In other words, children get ear infections because their bodies provide a 'nourishing' environment for the bacteria...At this point, the real question is, "How do our children become 'bacteria-friendly' media?"...Bacteria feed on sugar and if you remove it from a microbiological media, bacteria simply won't be able grow. By the same logic: reduce the sugar load on the human body, and bacteria will have harder time infecting it.” -- Eugene Bubis, ND, Naturopathic Medicine Network, “Why do our children get chronic ear infections?”
Leptin-Resistance
“Look in the mirror. If you’re overweight you definitely are leptin-resistant. If you still have a large appetite and crave carbohydrates, especially at night, these are also signs that you are likely leptin-resistant. If you are fit or in decent shape and not sure based upon the above symptoms, I would tell you to go get a blood test and check your reverse T3. It will be elevated. I also recommend simultaneously checking a salivary cortisol level. With leptin-resistance, you will always see higher cortisol levels later in the day.”

“Once Leptin resistance occurs centrally in the brain, the liver soon follows and then the peripheral tissues become resistant too. This affects fecundity [fertility], bone metabolism, cardiac metabolism, the thyroid, and the immune system in that order. Here is a technical explanation of what Dr. Kruse calls the “Hormone Cascade.”
Female Reproductive Health (PCOS/Infertility)
“Leptin also controls the ability of women to get pregnant. That is called “fecundity.” If a women is leptin-resistant she will have a lot of difficulty getting pregnant. We see this in PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome), in anorexia, or over training.” -- Dr. Jack Kruse
Metabolic Syndrome aka “Fatty Liver” (hypertension, insulin resistance, obesity, high blood pressure, cholesterol)
Earlier when you saw sugar intake guidelines from the American Heart Association, did it give you pause? “Heart association? Too much sugar doesn’t give you a heart attack, it gives you diabetes, right?”
“Not everyone with insulin resistance becomes diabetic; some continue to secrete enough insulin to overcome their cells’ resistance to the hormone. But having chronically elevated insulin levels has harmful effects of its own — heart disease, for one. A result is higher triglyceride levels and blood pressure, lower levels of HDL cholesterol [“good cholesterol”], further worsening the insulin resistance — this is metabolic syndrome.” -- Gary Taubes, “Is Sugar Toxic?” The New York Times
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimate that some 75 million Americans have metabolic syndrome. For those who have heart attacks, metabolic syndrome will very likely be the reason.” -- Gary Taubes

“When we are leptin-resistant the end result is to package calories to fat in some form of LDL’s [cholesterol]. That delivery has to leave the liver because there is a physical limit to how much fat can stay in the liver. If this process of LDL construction is chronic and overwhelms the liver, fat builds up inside the liver cell and causes... inflammatory chemicals that insidiously kill cells and are at the heart of all chronic diseases you know of. This process is called development of fatty liver or metabolic syndrome. If the liver continues to be clogged with fat it physically grows and your waist size grows with it...but the growth of your waist size is a very late development in your disease process. If your waist is large, you have been asking your liver work like mad to store this excess fuel for a long time. The end result for the patient is a sign of feeling of chronic fatigue.” - Dr. Jack Kruse
Thyroid
“So the [leptin-resistant] brain is blind to energy status. So it shuts off the thyroid to survive until it does know what is up. Shutting off the thyroid stops conversion of T4 to T3 and the remainder shunts to rT3. This keeps the thyroid and muscles on lock down from burning any fat no matter what. It does this as a protective mechanism. This is actually why leptin evolved. It really was protective. Today we see the other end most commonly in obesity. Where high levels of leptin shut signaling down.” - Dr. Jack Kruse
Obesity
In 2010, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services published "Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” which reported that 72% of men, 64% of women, and 39% of children are overweight or obese in our country. Compare that to 1975, when the obesity rate in America had reached 15%. It has more than doubled.

Remember: extra glucose and all fructose are stored, and then -- when our stores are full -- they become fat. As Dr. Lustig says, “a high sugar diet is a high fat diet.”

Insulin Resistance, Pre-Diabetes, Type II Diabetes
Researchers estimate that 90 percent of type 2 diabetes cases could be prevented through a combination of a healthy diet and an active lifestyle.
“Type 2 diabetes and the conditions that precede it, including obesity and prediabetes, represent the greatest epidemic we are facing in the 21st century,” says David M. Nathan, MD, professor of medicine at Harvard and director of the Diabetes Center at Masachusetts General Hospital. Unlike a generation ago, Type 2 diabetes isn’t just stalking overweight thirty-somethings. Type 2 diabetes used to be called “adult onset diabetes,” and nearly all of its victims were older than 30. Now, type 2 affects children as young as 4, and the American Diabetes Association says it is approaching catastrophic proportions in teens.” -- Jim Thornton, “The House That Snacks Built” Best Life Magazine
In 2007, diabetes cost the United States $174 billion. Indirect costs, including disability payments, time lost from work, and reduced productivity, totaled $58 billion. Direct medical costs for diabetes care, including hospitalizations, medical care, and treatment supplies, totaled $116 billion. -- National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse (NDIC)

35% of adults have pre-diabetes (aka “impaired fasting glucose (IFG)” or “impaired glucose tolerance (IGT)”, meaning blood glucose levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be called diabetes. Pre-diabetes is becoming more common in the United States. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that at least 57 million U.S. adults ages 20 or older had pre-diabetes in 2007. Those with pre-diabetes are likely to develop type 2 diabetes within 10 years, unless they take steps to prevent or delay diabetes. -- NDIC
“The good news is that people with prediabetes can do a lot to prevent or delay diabetes. Studies have clearly shown that people can lower their risk of developing diabetes by losing 5 to 7 percent of their body weight through diet and increased physical activity. A major study of more than 3,000 people with IGT found that diet and exercise resulting in a 5 to 7 percent weight loss—about 10 to 14 pounds in a person who weighs 200 pounds— lowered the incidence of type 2 diabetes by nearly 60 percent. Study participants lost weight by cutting fat and calories in their diet and by exercising—most chose walking—at least 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week.” -- NDIC
Insulin-resistance describes the gradual deafening of your cells to insulin’s increasingly loud message, as your pancreas pumps out higher and higher amounts of insulin in response to high glucose levels. When the pancreas can no longer keep up with the demand, it gives in to what diabetologists call “pancreatic exhaustion.” Without insulin to tell your body to use and store glucose, blood sugar builds up to dangerous levels in the body. The symptoms of type 2 diabetes develop gradually. Their onset is not as sudden as in type 1 diabetes. Symptoms may include fatigue, frequent urination, increased thirst and hunger, weight loss, blurred vision, and slow healing of wounds or sores. Some people have no symptoms. -- NDIC

Pre-disposing Our Babies to Sugar Addiction
Dr. Lustig asserts that the more sugar a pregnant woman drinks, the more that developmentally programs the unborn child for adiposity (becoming fat). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predict that at least one in three American children born in the year 2000 will develop diabetes at some point in his/her lifetime.

Even if the mother is not part of the 5-10% of U.S. women that develop gestational diabetes -- which is when the pancreas produces insulin but pregnancy hormones somehow block insulin from lowering the mother’s blood sugar levels -- she may still have high glucose levels in the blood if she is somewhere on the road to pre-diabetes because of excessive sugar intake.

The mother’s high blood glucose gives the baby high blood glucose levels, requiring the baby’s developing pancreas to make extra insulin to process the glucose. Since the baby is getting more energy than it needs to grow and develop, just like an adult, the extra glucose is stored as fat. This can lead to macrosomia (a “fat” baby), who may face health problems such as damage to the shoulders during birth and higher risk for breathing problems.

Because of extra insulin made by the baby’s pancreas, newborns may have very low blood glucose levels at birth. Now consider that 25% of newborns are never breastfed (whereby Dr. Kruse says they would get their first dose of leptin), and that most American infants eat a diet high in refined grains (cereal, bread, snacks) and sugary drinks. And the vicious cycle  (low blood sugar, sugar cravings, sugar overdose...) has begun.
“Babies with excess insulin become children who are at risk for obesity and, later, adults who are at risk for Pre- and Type 2 Diabetes.” -- Insulite Laboratories, “Excess Weight, Obesity, and Gestational Diabetes”
Dehydration
“Eating too much sugar dehydrates your body in two ways:
  1. Dilution: When you eat too much sugar, your body has to dilute that sugar to keep it from harming your body. This means that water is being pulled from all parts of your body to balance the large amount of sugar in your blood stream.
  2. Urination: One of the ways that your body has of getting rid of excess sugar is to dump it in your urine. This is especially true of diabetics, who have to go to the bathroom a lot.” -- Dr. Scott Olson, ND (olsonnd.com)
Osteoporosis
“Elevated insulin plays an important role in osteoporosis. Insulin promotes the excretion of calcium in the urine. Much more importantly, if insulin is elevated and leptin resistance is telling your brain that you mustn’t burn fat, then you have no choice but to burn sugar or foods that turn to sugar for fuel. Since we store very little sugar, you will crave it, and if you do not constantly eat it (such as when you are sleeping), then your body must break down lean mass, including muscle and bone, to supply its fuel needs.” - Dr. Ron Rosedale
Tooth Decay
According to the Animated Teeth website, sucrose causes tooth decay by forming a sticky plaque that feeds Streptococcus mutans bacteria, which then produce lactic acid that eats away at the calcium in teeth.

Gallstones
“A recent article in the British Medical Journal, entitled The Sweet Road to Gallstones, reported that refined sugar may be one of the major dietary risk factors in gallstone disease. Gallstones are composed of fats and calcium. Sugar can upset all of the minerals, and one of the minerals, calcium, can become toxic or nonfunctioning, depositing itself anywhere in the body, including the gallbladder.” -- Macrobiotic Guide

Colon Cancer
“In particular, individuals with high sucrose or sugar intakes (proportional to energy intake) tend to have lower intakes of  a number of foods or dietary constituents which have probable or possible protective roles in colorectal cancer.  These include vegetables, fruits, cereals, fibre, folate, carotenoids and other antioxidants. Associations observed between sucrose intake and colorectal cancer could therefore, at least partly, be accounted for by low intake of such protective dietary constituents. . . . On balance, the panel judged the evidence to show a possible causal relationship between refined sugars and colorectal cancer.” -- World Cancer Research Fund, “Food, Nutrition and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective”
Read V. Sugarwise Ways for ideas on good eating without sugar overdoses, and for the series' list of resources

Revisit III. Does HOW You Eat Your Sugar Make a Difference? to explore the science behind sugar overdoses
Revisit II. Is Sugar by Any Other Name (like “HFCS”) The Same Thing? to identify sugar in all its forms
Revisit I. How Much Sugar is Too Much? to quantify a moderate amount of added sugar


La Vita e Dolce, Part Three: How to Eat Your Sugar

III. Does HOW You Eat Sugar Make a Difference to Your Body?

Orange juice or an orange? Soda or chocolate-covered raisins? Cream of wheat or oatmeal? To make smart sugar choices, it helps to understand what happens inside the body after that sweet, creamy or starchy bite passes over our taste buds. No interest in the science behind it? Scroll down to “Our Friend Fiber: Delivering Sugar in Moderation.”

Blood Sugar Becomes Stored Sugar Becomes Fat

The body’s goal is to break down all digestible carbohydrates into simple sugar (glucose) molecules, which are the only ones small enough to cross into the bloodstream. Glucose (aka “blood sugar”) is called the “energy of life” because it is the basic fuel for living organisms, from bacteria to humans. Glucose gives our cells energy to move, grow and repair, and is also the primary energy source for the brain.

When we eat carbohydrates (aka sugars and starches), whether:
  •  Simple (i.e., fructose, glucose, galactose) or
  •  Complex (i.e., starchy vegetables, grains, legumes - think “FIBER”),
enzymes in the saliva, pancreatic juice and lining of the small intestine break down food to derive glucose (fructose is an exception, read on). As glucose entering the bloodstream elevates blood sugar levels, the pancreas releases the hormone insulin into the blood, which tells cells to absorb blood sugar either for use or for storage.

In the liver, surplus glucose is converted into glycogen to store energy for use in between meals, while the rest is sent to muscles and peripheral tissues for an immediate energy boost. Glycogen is the body’s short-term energy storage package, easily converted back to glucose when we need it. If the body is already storing enough glycogen, surplus glucose is changed into fat.

Conversely, when we need energy, like while exercising, our body extracts glucose circulating in the bloodstream and breaks down stored muscle glycogen into glucose, burning it; next signals the liver to start breaking down its glycogen stores, releasing more glucose into the bloodstream to be burned; and finally, oxidizes its fat reserves as glycogen stores become depleted. So if we regularly overdose on sugar, the body never need burn its fat.

In addition to keeping the body fatty, a high sugar diet induces the pancreas to pump out high levels of insulin. This stresses the pancreas and bombards body cells with insulin to the point that they may become insulin resistant:  unresponsive to insulin and thereby unable to get glucose out of the bloodstream. As an example, whereas normally 1 unit of insulin might be needed to help 10 mg of glucose go into the cell, in a hyperinsulinemic person, 10 units of insulin might be needed to get the same 10 mg of glucose into the cell.  The result is glycation: glucose molecules, unable to enter the body’s cells, glom on to proteins in everything from red blood cells to blood vessel walls to nerves. If glycation becomes severe, "it can damage cell membranes and corrode virtually every major system in the body." Jim Thornton, "The House That Snacks Built" Best Life Magazine

Meanwhile, glucose is the only fuel normally used by brain cells, which cannot store it, relying on the bloodstream to deliver a constant supply of fuel (glucose) to the brain. As your body tries to compensate for a high sugar diet, insulin levels are higher when you eat and between meals (aka "fasting insulin level"). Until the liver filters the insulin out of the bloodstream, circulating insulin keeps pulling glucose out of the bloodstream and “locks” your fat cells, preventing your body to burn fat for fuel. Your brain may experience an energy crisis, feeling spaced-out, weak, confused, nervous, unable to focus. Called “hypoglycemia,” these dips in blood sugar bring on the sugar cravings, as the brain calls for more glucose, stat!

See a cycle forming? If this cycle is so destructive to our bodies, why do we keep putting more and more sugar into our mouths? To pinpoint one culprit would be oversimplifying the complex workings of the body, but here are some possibilities:

Leptin-Resistance, Fructose, and Food Rewards

“Are You Leptin’?” (Uncle Tommy’s coined phrase for eating that causes your leptin to surge)
We understand part of the story of insulin gone awry, but let’s back up a step to examine how a person becomes a chronic sugar overeater. Neurosurgeon Dr. Jack Kruse asserts,
“Chronic leptin elevation leads to eventual leptin resistance and usually occurs 5-7 years before someone becomes insulin resistant.”
Leptin is what a Whole9 article dubs the “kingpin hormone” because it controls all of the body’s energy metabolism.  Your stored fat cells (adipocytes) make leptin and secrete it into the bloodstream to inform your brain about your status of energy reserves (how much fat you have). When this system is working, your brain uses this information to decide that you need to gather more energy (you feel hungry), that your energy needs are met for now (you feel full) and that you do or do not have enough energy to undertake some activity (you feel drained, tired or energized). Accordingly, leptin controls your appetite, fat placement and usage.

Many Americans have however become leptin-resistant, which much like insulin resistance, occurs when high levels of leptin are repeatedly secreted into the bloodstream, until our cells become deaf to its message. Given that the more body fat you have, the more leptin is secreted, what causes chronic leptin elevation in the blood?
  • Overeating. From infancy, many Americans overconsume sugar, increasing inflammation and body fat. As sugar gets metabolized in fat cells, they release surges of leptin.
  • Chronic Inflammation. When SOCS (suppressors of cytokine signaling) go to work to calm inflammation in the body (an overfed or fat body is an inflamed body), they block the brain’s leptin receptors, so the message to stop eating doesn’t get through to the brain. What to do? Eat more!
  • Snacking and Drinking Sugar. Processed snacks and sugary drinks cause insulin levels to spike repeatedly throughout the day, causing frequent leptin secretion.
  • Exercising without Recovery Time. Similar to overeating, overtraining without proper recovery time keeps the body perpetually inflamed. (See Chronic Inflammation above).
  • Stress. When cortisol levels go up, fat cells release more leptin.
  • Breastfed? This process could kickoff on the day you’re born:  “You first get leptin from your mother when she first breastfeeds you. So if you were not breastfed you may have started life off on the wrong foot from an energy metabolism stand point. In fact the latest research is showing that not getting leptin from your mother’s colostrum has huge implications right away for your DNA...This is one way we know obesity can be transmitted across generations. There are others.” -- Dr. Jack Kruse, jackkruse.com [For more about the wonders of breastfeeding, see this previous post.]
Have you become a “Sugar Burner”?
Are you craving sugar in some form (drink, dessert, carbs, dairy) all day every day? Can you work out many days a week and seem to hardly lose a pound? Are you tired or ravenous after a workout? Do you have an eternal “beer belly” or “paunch” (fat below where your six-pack would be -- called “visceral fat”)?

Many of my friends and family would answer yes (I did). These are signs that you are leptin-resistant, and as such, have become a “sugar burner.” Your broken energy controls think you are in a famine, overlooking your fat when you need energy, and instead burning what sugar you have circulating in your blood stream or have stored in your muscles. This is why when you workout, you experience extreme fatigue and hunger, and minimal fat loss. It’s also why your body tells you to eat more often, especially at night, even though you have plenty energy stored in your belly, or hips or thighs, etc. After all, the brain needs blood sugar to operate, and if the body isn’t tapping its sugar reserves (fat), the alternative is to keep putting sugar in your mouth.
“Also lost is the knowledge of where to put that fat, so a preponderance of it is stored in the viscera [lower belly]...Some of that fat permeates the liver, impeding the liver's ability to listen to insulin and further hastening diabetes.” -- Dr. Ron Rosedale
Meanwhile body-wide inflammation from overeating blocks your satiety signal from registering in your brain. The vicious cycle forms:

The Fructose Loophole
Fructose, unlike other simple carbs, is metabolized in the liver where the body stores it as more glycogen. Also, because fructose does not stimulate insulin production, insulin doesn’t go up and therefore leptin doesn’t surge to signal the brain that you ate. Because it doesn’t spike insulin, fructose is sometimes recommended by health professionals as a better source of sugar, but several doctors running obesity clinics disagree.

Overdosing on fructose taxes the liver, which forms toxins in the body, stores more visceral (belly) fat and tricks you into overeating. Consider: a can of Coke with 40g of sugar sourced from HFCS (55% fructose, 45% glucose), gives you 22g fructose -- 3 times as much as one apple (about 7.5g fructose). Drinking sugar (regardless of the source because white/brown sugar, HFCS, fruit juice and evaporated cane juice all contain high levels of fructose) is one of the pillars of what Dr. Robert H. Lustig, MD, Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at UCSF, calls the “fructosification of America.”
“Before food processing we got fructose from fruits and vegetables, and consumed about 15g of fructose a day. In 1994, American adults were consuming 54g of fructose daily.” -- Dr. Lustig
“Fructose is a special carb that makes more sdLDL [Small, dense LDL - heavy, “bad” cholesterol] than any other sugar we have because of how the liver has to handle it biochemically. The large amounts of these particles causes the liver to make a ton of triglyceride particles to store all the sdLDL’s for storage in the bad places like are arteries, viscera, heart or liver.” -- Dr. Jack Kruse
Sugar is not evil, but concentrated liquified doses of fructose may be. Check out this parody of the HFCS ads.

Misled by Our Survival Instincts -- Food Reward
In its 2009 statement, the AHA described how the quick hit of glucose and the palatability of processed/sugary food and drinks alter the pleasure center (aka limbic system) of the brain such that: you eat more regardless of whether or not you need to, hard-wired pathways are established to crave the sugary food, and you feel pleasure even as you overeat. They called it “The Hedonic Pathway of Food Reward.”

The limbic system is meant to help us survive by influencing our emotions and motivations related to many things, including eating. When something pleasurable or rewarding happens (like getting a surge of glucose from a soda while watching a great movie in the theater), the reward system is engaged to make sure the brain remembers to repeat that action.
“The brain uses input from smell, taste, touch, social cues, and numerous signals from the digestive tract to assign a reward value to foods. Generally, we are born liking the following:  fat, starch, sugar, salt, meatiness (glutamate), the absence of bitterness, certain textures, certain aromas, calorie density (rich foods). Over time, aromas and flavors associated with these qualities also become rewarding. For example, beer tastes terrible the first time you drink it because it's bitter, but after you drink it a few times and your brain catches wind that there are calories and a drug in there, it often begins tasting good.”

“Your brain is pretty simple in some ways. It has these very basic hard-wired associations, like ‘sweet is good’ [remember the brain needs a stable level of blood sugar to operate]. If your brain likes a little bit of sweet, then it really likes a lot of sweet. ..Our brains are wired to respond to the stimuli with which they evolved. For example, our natural taste preferences tell us that fruit is good. But what happens when we concentrate that sugar tenfold [i.e., juice]? We get a superstimulus. Our brains are not designed to process that amount of stimulation constructively, and it often leads to a loss of control over the will, or addiction.

Our bodies are finely honed to seek out healthy food, but only in the context of what we knew when our tastes developed during evolution. If all that's available is grass-fed meat, pastured eggs, vegetables, fruit, and nuts, your appetite will naturally guide you to a healthy diet. If you surround yourself with superstimuli such as sugars, refined grains and MSG, your body will not guide you to a healthy diet. It will take you straight into a nutritional rut because it's not adapted to dealing with unnatural foods.

It's a very similar process to drug addiction. Addictive drugs are able to plug directly into the brain's pleasure centers, stimulating them beyond their usual bounds. Food superstimuli do this less directly, by working through the body's taste reward pathways.

Why would your body deliberately encourage you to damage your health? In our hunter-gatherer state, it didn't. In this age of processed food, our technology has outstripped our ability to adapt. Any taste that's extraordinarily concentrated by some industrial process, relative to what we could have foraged, should be seen with suspicion in my opinion.”- Biochemist and Neurobiologist Stephan Guyenet (wholehealthsource.blogspot.com)
Thank you, Mr. Guyenet, for explaining food rewards so well. I discovered his blog serendipitously just as I was in week 3 of a candida diet (no dairy, refined grains, alcohol or sweets), and it made me understand why I felt SO ANGRY! At the heart of my anger was a feeling of deprivation. I tried to cut deals with myself (“Maybe just a taste of the mac-n-cheese at Thanksgiving?” “If I could only have ONE of these foods, it wouldn’t be so hard to stick to the diet”). I complained to my husband about how I never get to do anything for myself. I ranted to my friends about how I was starving, until finally one of them commented, “you sound like an addict.” And so I was.

Now, just what is a hypoglycemic, leptin-resistant, pre-diabetic sugar addict to do?

Our Friend Fiber: Delivering Sugar in Moderation 
“The best carbs are those that not only provide a steady supply of energy, but also bring other nutrients the body needs.” - Dr. Sears

“Complex carbohydrates are like time-release capsules of sugar because their fiber resists digestion, slowing the breakdown and subsequent release of sugars into the bloodstream. Simple carbohydrates contain glucose that is absorbed directly through the stomach wall and rapidly released into the bloodstream, almost as quickly as if delivered by syringe.” -- The Franklin Institute Online, The Human Brain

“When God made the poison, he packaged it with the antidote.” - Dr. Lustig
Nature limits our sugar intake by encapsulating glucose and fructose in fibrous and nutritious grains, fruits and vegetables, aka Complex Carbs. Dr. Lustig asks you to imagine chewing a sugar cane. Without processing, you’d never be able to extract the amounts of sugar we consume everyday. Think about how many oranges you would eat for breakfast - three or four? That’s how many goes into an 8 fl.oz. glass of OJ.

Because our bodies cannot digest fiber, fiber-rich complex carbohydrates (legumes, unrefined grains, vegetables, etc.) move through the digestive tract slowly, regulating absorption of the food’s sugar content, reducing insulin response and giving your brain time to receive the signal that you are full. Equally valuable are the nutrients contained in the fiber (i.e., pulp, peel, seed coat, etc.) that enhance the absorption of the nutrients we want (i.e., Vitamin C).
“While it is true that the sucrose in an orange is chemically the same as the sucrose in the much-maligned table sugar, the fact that the sucrose in the orange is packaged along with other nutrients [like flavonoids found in pulp] makes it behave biochemically more friendly in the body. When you eat sucrose as naturally part of fruits or vegetables, you get not only vitamins and minerals in the package, but you get fiber and other complex carbohydrates that steady the absorption of the sugar. Yet, take the sugar away from the rest of the fruit and vegetable and refine it into a powder [or a juice or fruit juice concentrate], and it's this processing that downgrades sucrose from the healthy to the junk food category. So, it's the company the sugar keeps with other foods that affects its absorption from the intestines and its consequent behavior in the body.” - Dr. Sears
In 2008, The Nurses’ Health Study which followed a group of more than 70,000 women over 18 years concluded that fruit juice consumption increases the risk for diabetes:
“The positive association between fruit juice consumption and diabetes risk may relate to the relative lack of fiber and other phytochemicals, the liquid state, and the high sugar load. The rapid delivery of a large sugar load, without many other components that are a part of whole fruits, may be an important mechanism by which fruit juices could contribute to the development of diabetes. Fructose consumption has also been implicated in the development of many manifestations of the insulin resistance syndrome.”
Revisiting this section’s opener (“Orange juice or an orange? Soda or chocolate-covered raisins? Cream of wheat or oatmeal?”), it’s the latter!

Read IV. How Does the Body React to a High Sugar Diet? to see which ailments could be prevented or cured with diet change

Revisit II. Is Sugar by Any Other Name (like “HFCS”) The Same Thing? to identify sugar in all its forms
Revisit I. How Much Sugar is Too Much? to quantify a moderate amount of added sugar

La Vita e Dolce, Part Two: Sugar by Any Other Name

II. Is Sugar by Any Other Name (like “HFCS”) The Same Thing?

The short answer is no, not in how it’s processed, or in how sweet it is. True, HFCS and Corn Sugar have about the same glucose:fructose ratio as white sugar (aka “sucrose,” which is 50% fructose, 50% glucose)). The corn refiners’ industry spins this fact into, “HFCS is as natural as sugar, it acts no differently inside your body.” A truthful description goes more like this:
“HFCS is as bad as sugar is for the body, and worse, it’s made from genetically modified corn that has been grown and processed with synthetic chemicals.”
HFCS may be on your radar, but “sugar” has many aliases these days, and if you want to reduce your sugar consumption, you have to be able to identify it in all its forms in the ingredients list. As I researched sugar types, I also investigated from whence they come. (This was a very long process, as the manufacturers of highly processed sugars don’t very much want to talk about the sulfuric acid, genetically modified enzymes and bleach they use. )

Because I most trust foods that are as close to their natural state as possible, I thought that honey and maple sugar were the best added sugar choices. (Honey does contain micronutrients, but I learned needs to be used sparingly because a little honey contains a lot of sugar). I would still choose it and other “minimally” processed sweeteners (highlighted in green in the chart below). Avoid the others and send a message to the sugar industry that we are not interested in eating genetically modified, bleached, chemically-bathed substances (and ultimately to our government representatives that we do not support our tax dollars subsidizing this industry.

Points of Interest:
  • “Pretending that soda made with high fructose corn syrup is ‘all natural,’ is just plain old deception,” said Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) executive director Michael F. Jacobson. “High fructose corn syrup isn’t something you could cook up from a bushel of corn in your kitchen, unless you happen to be equipped with centrifuges, hydroclones, ion-exchange columns, and buckets of enzymes.” 
  • “Brown Sugar” (dark, light) and Natural Brown Sugar (aka Evaporated Cane Juice, Barbados, Cane Sugar, Demerara, Muscovado, Panela, Raw Sugar, Sugar in the Raw, Turbinado) may look the same, but are different. The former has gone through the entire chemical process to become white sugar, after which molasses is added back in; while the latter is only processed through the first crystallization stage. Try Sucanat as the least processed option when a recipe calls for brown sugar.
  • While their molecular structures differ, HFCS, sugar and honey similarly contain about 50% glucose, 50% fructose. What differentiates them is their processing and sweetness.  Unlike highly processed HFCS and sugar, unpasteurized honey contains trace amounts of vitamins, minerals, local pollen and anti-fungal propolis; but honey is sweeter than sugar (1 tsp. honey = 17 g sugar; 1 tsp white sugar = 4g sugar). Using small amounts of honey respects body and planet.
  • Not all agave is created equal (or has the same amount of fructose). As you’ll read later, agave nectar with 90% fructose can be toxic to your liver. Look for organic or white agave nectars, which claim to be less processed and lower in fructose.
  • Though the AHA doesn’t count milk as a source of added sugar, possibly because it is naturally occurring as lactose, I included it in this chart because I think it should be viewed as such. As is the case with fruit juice, consuming sugar in liquid form causes insulin to spike. When considering whether or not to minimize your dairy intake, consider that our country has a powerful marketing machine (“Got Milk?” posters hang in our public school cafeterias) whose goal is to convince us that cow’s milk is integral to a healthy diet. Others, like Barbara Kingsolver, author of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, understand that after we wean off our mothers’ milk, our bodies are not designed to continue breastfeeding throughout our adult life, let alone from a cow. “We’re all hailed with a steady song and dance about how we ought to be drinking tall glasses of it every day. And we believe it, we want those strong bones and teeth. Oh, how we try to behave like baby cows. Physicians will tell you, the great majority of lactose-intolerant Americans don’t even know it. They just keep drinking milk, and having stomachaches.”


Revisit I. How Much is Too Much? to quantify how much sugar is too much, and compare that to the sugar content of common foods/drinks.

La Vita e Dolce, Part One: How Much Is Too Much?

“Anything in Moderation is Fine”
Nicely timed with Sugarfest Trifecta (Halloween-Christmas-Valentine’s Day), my kids are listening to the soundtrack from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Stella the Baby requests the Oompa Loompas' songs every time we turn on the radio (“doo-pa-dee-doo!”). And Michael (3yo) tries to learn the lyrics, which, though super blunt, point out a legitimate concern:

Is Wonka's Chocolate Room a fantasyland?
"What do you get when you guzzle down, SWEETS,
Eating as much as an elephant, EATS?
What are you at, getting terribly, FAT?
What do you think will come, of, THAT?
I don't like the look of it."

Sugar Confusion
For some time I've wondered if "sugar" by any other name is really the same thing in the body. I want to understand sugar choices both for myself and to make sure I am giving my kids good advice.

What finally motivated me to research sugars -- excepting artificial sweeteners, which due to their very name, are instantly outside the purview of this blog -- was the launch of the Corn Refiners Association's $25 million marketing campaign. Its ads depicted high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) objectors as tactless, arrogant and uninformed.

The commercials built a fire under me, but it was lit by an individual: the day I asked if the syrup used to sweeten their iced tea was HFCS, and the lady at the Dunkin' Donuts drive-up window quoted these ads, "I'm not sure what kind of syrup, sweetheart, but even high fructose corn syrup is fine in moderation."

That was IT! That one of Grandma Reina's favorite adages should defend an ingredient that didn't even exist when she was teaching her own children, "everything in moderation" is preposterous. And demands investigation - subito!

I set out to discover:
  1. How much IS a moderate amount of sugar for an adult, and for a child?
  2. Is HFCS as “natural” as white sugar? Isn’t honey better than refined sugars?
  3. To the body, is there any real difference between eating a whole fruit versus a glass of juice, a sweet tea, a soda, etc..?
To Clarify: 1. Because our bodies can derive all the blood sugar they need from whole foods alone, there is no such thing as a “normal” or “required” amount of added sugar. All added sugar is superfluous to a healthy diet.
2. “Overeating sugar” or "sugar overdose" refers to consuming any food or drink that causes blood sugar to spike quickly, and/or the liver to be overloaded with fructose (i.e., sweetened foods, sugary drinks and refined grains - aka things made of flour).

After two years of research, here’s what I’ve learned and will share in this series:
  1. Sugar is not evil! The human body needs about one teaspoon of glucose circulating in the blood, to support brain function among other things. But too much blood sugar can result in coma or death. So the body aims to regulate blood sugar when we eat by breaking down carbohydrates into glucose and storing any excess for later. (Blood sugar aka glucose should not be confused with white/table sugar aka sucrose, which is 50% glucose, 50% fructose).
  2. Americans drink and eat too much sugar every day, largely because we have no idea how much is too much, and how often we are consuming it in a day.
  3. A high sugar diet is an addiction, which doesn’t just create diabetes, it also creates heart disease, infertility, newborns predisposed to sugar addiction and...
  4. ...Maintaining a sugar surplus in your body keeps you fat (specifically in your belly).
  5. Drinking juice, soda and other sweetened beverages forces the liver to digest unnaturally high, toxic amounts of fructose (whether from HFCS, white sugar, or fruit concentrate).
  6. Minimally processed, organically grown sugars contain trace amounts of beneficial nutrients and vote against genetically-modified, synthetically grown and chemically-processed ingredients (better for planet and body).
My cousins Crystal and Alex pointed out it’s hard to accept that something so commonly consumed can possibly be a killer (like smoking in the Baby Boomer generation). That’s exactly the kind of paradigm shift we need again.

Towards the end goal of making smart sugar choices, this series will:

I. How Much is Too Much Sugar?

Take a gander at the average American man’s, woman’s, teen’s or child’s sugar consumption any day of the week, and there’s how much is too much sugar.

This table compares Americans’ average daily sugar intake to the recommended allowance published by the American Heart Association (AHA) in the 2009 journal Circulation. Find it strange that a heart association would set sugar intake guidelines? Read onwards to see why.


Using the AHA’s guidelines as a reference point, we see that Americans are nowhere near consuming sugar “in moderation.” American adults consume more than 2 days’ worth of sugar in one day, while our children consume more than 4 days’ worth of sugar in one day. If the AHA’s sugar allowance seems small, remember we are discussing added sugars, which we can literally live without altogether, because we are designed to get all the sugar we need from whole foods (more about this in Part Three).

How much sugar do you consume daily?
How many sugars do you take in your coffee or tea? How much sugar is in your creamer?

As is ever more often discussed in our media, added sugar is ubiquitous in our country. Of course you expect to eat sugar when you have dessert, candy or soda; but are you checking labels and calculating your sugar intake from your juices, sports drinks, bread, pasta sauce, cereal, salad dressing, prepared meals, yogurt, flavored milks, frozen dinners, canned vegetables, or any other “food” that comes from a factory?

Do you consume any of these products regularly? Here’s a sampling of the sugar content in some common foods and drinks, with the percentage of the AHA’s recommended daily added sugar intake each represents.


Sweetened drinks certainly defy the AHA’s concept of moderate added sugar intake. To follow the Dunkin’ Donut lady’s advice, I’d need to drink less than half the 16 oz. cup of sweet tea -- which alone delivers more than 2 days’ worth sugar -- and have no other sugar that day. Are you shocked too, to see how many of these items are highlighted in red, indicating that one serving contains more than a day’s worth of sugar? Like the flavored milk our kids drink every day at lunch? Check out this article on HealthyChild.org to see how you can get involved with campaigns to change this.

Why doesn’t the Nutrition Facts Label tell you what percentage of your added sugar “daily value” one serving contains?
“Sugars: No daily reference value has been established for sugars because no recommendations have been made for the total amount to eat in a day.” - FDA Website “How to Understand and Use the Nutrition Facts Label"
Uh oh! Sounds like the people at the American Heart Association need introducing to the FDA. Or that the FDA has overlooked this petition submitted to them by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) in 1999: “Petition for Proposed Rulemaking to Establish a Daily Reference Value for 'Added Sugars,' to Require Nutrition Labeling of 'Added Sugars,' and to Make Corresponding Changes to Nutrient Content and Health Claim Regulations.”

Would you keep buying these products and feeding them to your children if you could see on the label that 3 days’ worth of sugar is in one serving? Will you now?

Read II. Is Sugar by Any Other Name (like “HFCS”) The Same Thing? to identify sugar in all its forms