Sugar - What is wrong with it?

Diabetes, heart attacks, Coronary Artery Disease, tooth decay, obesity, energy spikes. What do these all have in common? They are all caused by the intake of too much sugar.

Sugar is the main reason why over 60% of Australian adults are overweight or obese. It addiction and wastes our money. I shall state some more reasons why in the following paragraphs.

Sugar makes us fat. Sugar’s scientific name is sucrose. When sucrose is in our body, it gets broken down into two sugars: Glucose and Fructose. Glucose goes to our brain as energy and the liver processes the fructose. There it gets turned into fat, which is then carried away in the blood to the fat collecting areas like the lower abdomen and is turned into visceral fat. This is unattractive and a health risk. Too much build-up of visceral fat can cause obesity as well as blockage in the arteries, which lead to diseases in the heart like heart attacks, high blood pressure and Coronary Artery Disease. Visceral fat can also cause type 2 diabetes and some cancers, which include breast cancer and colon cancer.

But what can we do to be aware of how much sugar we intake per day?

There are hidden sugars that people should also should be aware of. Say ketchup or baked beans, they are savoury so we think they wouldn’t have any sugar in them. Baked beans have a whopping 24g in a 250g can! Ketchup has 150g in a 500ml bottle! That means that ketchup is nearly ¼ sugar! Many products that are low fat or zero fat contain lots of hidden sugars in order to achieve the calorie dense texture and taste. A 225g container of low fat yogurt would typically contain around 31g of sugar, which is 7g over the recommended dietary intake per day! That for breakfast with a bowl of low fat cereal and a glass of sweetened orange juice would take you way above the RDI (24g per day), which is how we achieve such an average of 160g of sugar per day.

There are also many different names for sucrose, or fructose. These may include high fructose corn syrup, agave syrup, honey and many more. Here is a diagram of all the different names for sugar:

Fructose gives spikes of energy, unlike glucose, which produces a steady stream of energy. When you eat sugar, your body produces insulin, which helps to maintain the sugar level. This rush of insulin sustains a high level of energy. Once the sugar runs out, there is all this insulin left over and no more energy. This causes the feeling of tiredness and anxiety. This also causes the addictive feeling of wanting more. This is why when you eat a square of chocolate, you get a rush of energy, then a sugar low and then you eventually take another square of chocolate to eat. That last example is also why companies put sugar in their products.

Sugar has no nutritional value whatsoever! It may be sweet but if you were to look up the nutritional value of sugar, you would get nothing except for 100% carbohydrate and 387 calories per 100g of sugar. This concludes that sugar is nothing except for sweetness and empty calories.

Also, sugar causes tooth decay. This happens when you drink a can of soft drink. The sugar sticks in your mouth, enabling the bacteria to turn it into acids, which in long term, dissolves your teeth. First of all, this hurts and looks horrible. Then it breaks your bank with the paying of the replacement teeth/dentures. Finally, the new teeth require lots of care and cleaning. This is one of the reasons why we should lower our intake.

All these reasons are why we should lower our sugar intake. There is no nutritional value and it results in obesity. It may be sweet but it causes tooth decay and wastes our money. There are so many reasons for this argument so why don’t we do it? Next week, I will be reviewing That Sugar Film, so keep reading.