HERSHEY, Penn., June 17, 2007
Is America Too Sweet On Sugar?
Sugar Has Been In The American Diet Since Columbus, But It Might Be Time To Cut Down
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Hershey's candy bars are beloved American originals. But some experts say we need to lose these from our diets. (AP)
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It's a sugar lover's paradise. Who could have a problem with that?
Well, a lot of people, because the goodies of Hershey Park are meant to be a treat, not a major food group. What worries health care professionals is that when it comes to eating sugar, Hershey could be Anytown, USA.
Dr. David Ludwig treats childhood obesity at Boston Children's Hospital and he is stunned by America's consumption of empty calories. In fact, he says that the average convenience store is a nutritional disaster area.
"All sugar-containing foods aren't bad," he told CBS News correspondent Susan Spencer. "For example, an apple has its main calories come from sugar. But it's surrounded by fiber, so it digests slowly and keeps blood sugar under control."
Including refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup and artificial sweeteners, the average American wolfs down 142 pounds a year, or roughly 2 ½ pound a week. That is up 23 percent in the last 25 years, and is a major factor in soaring rates of obesity and diabetes.
"The problem is when we take sugars and concentrate and refine them, and serve them in massive amounts throughout the food supply," Ludwig said. "That's causing hormonal changes that in many people drive hunger, cause overeating, and increase the risk of diabetes and heart disease."
And it isn't just sugar driving those highs and lows — so do the carbohydrates found in highly-processed food, like white bread and white rice, which turn to glucose when eaten.
"A bagel and a bowl of sugar may taste different, but to the body they're virtually the same thing," he said. "A bagel would do the same thing to blood sugar hormones and hunger several hours after eating it."
Eating half a cup of sugar might well send anyone into sugar shock, says author Connie Bennett. The author of "Susar Shock!" claims sugar just about ruined her life.
"I was socked in by brain fog," she said. "I would have these horrible migraine headaches."
All seemed lost until her doctor diagnosed low blood sugar — hypoglycemia — and told her to lay off the sweets.
"I remember all of a sudden, after three days, I was like, 'Wow! I feel so good,'" she said. "It was as if the fog lifted, and then, after a few weeks, all my ailments disappeared."
Anti-sugar messages may be sinking in. This week Kellogg's said it will no longer advertise a product to kids unless it meets certain nutritional guidelines. Froot Loops for example, have too much sugar to qualify, but Frosted Flakes make Kellogg's cut.
And on another front, Alameda County, Calif., last week declared a "soda-free summer initiative."
"We hope to enlist 60,000 Alameda County children to forswear sugar for the summer," Bennett said.
But sodas and Froot Loops aren't the whole problem. Sugar — usually as high fructose corn syrup — lies in wait on every grocery shelf. Spaghetti sauce, salad dressing, peanut butter, mayonnaise and ketchup all have it.
Nutrition labels can be deceiving. Sugar content always is listed in grams, but few people know there are 4 grams in a teaspoon and, unlike the listings for salt and fats, there's not a clue as to how many grams of sugar is too many. The Agriculture Department recommends no more than 12 teaspoons a day; that is roughly one 12-ounce soda and a slice of bread.
But spokesperson Melanie Miller of the American Sugar Association points out there is no scientific consensus on how much sugar is too much. Besides, she says, overeating and not exercising is America's real problem, not sugar, which can be an essential ingredient.
"Sometimes we need sugar to make it rise, or make it crisp, or to give it texture," she said. "Another part of that is that the American palate likes sweet things, and manufacturers have recognized that in Europe, they don't use as much sugar."
© MMVII, CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
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See all 24 Commentswww.biblelife.org/myths.htm
19th JUNE 2007 UK.
ASDA-WALMART & MARKS&SPENCER, major UK food retailers have today announced they will no longer sell products containing ASPARTAME, they have BANNED IT !!! It follows a report from the UK Food Standards Agency and ADD in Children. No doubt the Italian research which states that this junk causes brain tumours had something to do with it. So Come On FDA, your corrupt decision to approve it as been shot to pieces, time to put your hands up and go to jail.
I recently bought some Mexico-bottled Coke at the Costco. It uses real sugar and you really can tell the difference. HFCS is either intensely sweet or hollow with a vaguely addictive feeling. Everyone who can't quit smoking because of the calm they get from another hit knows what I am talking about.
The sad fact is that HFCS is a product of our own corn subsidies. It is hypocritical that our government preaches free markets most of the time but then hands out subsidies to many industries who don't need it.
Ironically, the insanity of fuel Ethanol may fix this problem for us. Food prices in the US, Mexico, and China are all ratcheting upwards because of Ethanol production taking farmland away from other staple foods.
Americans are about to be crushed in a vice of rising prices and stagnating wages, that has been slowly building for a long time. Rampant deficit spending and easy credit is finally coming home to roost in the form of price inflation, and Bush's appointments of corrupt government officials ensures that corporations won't be punished for putting profits over the public interest.
Fast foods are not fast and they are not cheep. They are just easy. People are lazy and if you look around you can tell by all the fat babies, children teens, adults and older people.
Unregulated capitalism is to blame? Get real. You still control what you put in your mouth. Nobody decides that for you. There's good food out there if you choose to purchase and, yes, actually get off your a$$ and PREPARE it. I have found I can eat very cheaply if I'm willing to prepare my own food. Last time I checked, water is much cheaper than soda, and better for you. Oh, and if you invest in a small water filtration system, you'll make your $$ back in no time over buying bottled water (just one example).
I thought I had been trying to be good to myself by not drinking soda, and sticking to teas, but the Splenda I use is still bad for us!
It seems that not only is it a struggle to pay rent with rising energy costs, soaring gas prices and insurance rates make it difficult to keep our cars legal, health insurance is a by-gone luxury in my home, where my significant other is a NURSE, for crying out loud. Then I attempt to be frugal and make home-cooked meals, yet I still can barely afford to feed us without resorting to cheap frozen pizzas, hot-dogs, mac&cheese, or other such high-carb, high-fat, low fiber things.
How on earth can one afford to eat as we are supposed to, while keeping a roof over our heads?
Posted by tmonta1 at 05:24 PM : Jun 17, 2007
I have to agree with you, when I moved from Europe to the US I had a really hard time adapting to the way food tastes here, mostly because everything is so sweet, including stuff that isn't supposed to be. Like bread for example: when I tasted sliced bread, I thought I had bought some kind of dessert bread by mistake, that's how sweet it tasted. When the Atkins hype started, I would by their low-carb bread only because it container less sugar. I am sure there are several causes to obesity, but wolfing down all that sugar every day surely doesn't help.
Posted by tmonta1 at 04:54 AM
200 years ago they did not have grocery stores right down the road, they did not have (junk) fast food resturants on every street corner. They did not have televisions, entertainment was much different. And for that matter no one had cars to drive around. The bottom line is eat right and excersise
Fewer than 200 years ago, people worked farmland to survive, rising before dawn, putting in a long day's worth of physical labor, and eating basically what they grew or hunted. The winters were brutal. No washing machines for laundry and meat ad to be cured and stored.
People died earlier from disease and perhaps fatigue, but they weren't walking around with morbid obesity and rampant diabetes.
The main factor here is not stressful lifestyle, but poor response to it partly due to convenient but just plain CRAPPY processed foods and fast-food restaurants. They're fast, they taste good, and are sometimes cheaper to prepare than a 'fresh' meal. Americans are addicted, and they're paying the price in both health and weight issues.
Yes, we can look at how other societies are not obese, and say it is because it is how they eat, but you also need to look at their lifestyle. Do they have to commute to work over an hour? Do they work 10-16 hour days?
Are they living pay check to pay check, or do they have to have million dollar homes, requiring them to work their life away?
I am so sick and tired of people blaming everyone else for his/her problems. It is time to accountability for your own actions. Stop blaming "Sugar" for societies obesity problem. Look into what the real problem is in your own life. Learn to say NO!
All of these problems can be classed as the unhealthy side effects of unregulated capitalism, making most people work their whole lives just one paycheck above poverty creates stress, which leads to unhealthy eating habits, no recreation, a search for "magic" pills and substitutes, in order to try to dodge the consequences of our lifestyles, and reliance on TV as the only affordable entertainment available, in which advertising reinforces all of the above, by encouraging wasteful consumption.
When do we start to pay more attention to the root cause of disease, rather than just the symptoms?
But one thing I can say is that now, every time I go back home, everything tastes sweet to me: bread, mayonnaise (the regular kind, not Miracle Whip)sauces...and the normal 'sweet' stuff is sickeningly sweet to me. I used to love Hershey bars, now all I taste is sugar, not chocolate.
We have been made sugar addicts due to all the processed foods that have dumped sugar in everything. Tell me, why does SANDWICH BREAD need to be SWEET??
Additionally to the extra sugar were eating are the larger portions in the restaurants. I remember when a bunch of us 60's teenage fast-food workers, introduced to the prototype, didn't believe a quarter pound hamburger would sell much - who would be gluttonous enough to consistently buy it? Now even the small fries are bigger than the large fries then.
Now pass me a Hershey bar and shut up!
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