This week\'s discussion board requires a bit of a \"lab\" on your part...but thi

Question

This week's discussion board requires a bit of a "lab" on your part...but this is very enlightening. This week we are exploring hidden sugars in your "everyday" foods. Here's what you do (on Monday, Tuesday, or Wed)

1. for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks and drinks too, record how many sugar grams (the label will have it as required by law) there are in your foods. Don't forget to look at the back of the milk, your OJ, gatorade, energy drinks, coffee creamer, even milk! Look up everything you eat: fruit, bread (just record sugar grams, not the total carb grams), granola bars, spaghetti sauce, catsup, etc. Write down everything..even if you have 4 sodas...get those grams of sugar down! For the first post we aren't making a distinction between natural sugars and processed sugars (though feel free to comment about that in your follow posts)

**also, watch your serving size, if you drink the entire bottle of something make sure you factor in each serving (example, a bottle of gatorade is usually 2-3 servings) or if you eat 6 cookies instead of the 2 that is the serving, factor that in.

2. THEN, add up the total grams of sugar for the day (and remember, this doesn't include the entire amount of carbs, just the simple sugars).

3. NOW...get out your bag of sugar...for every 4 grams of sugar you have recorded from your food measure out a teaspoon of sugar on a plate or in a bowl. (example: 128 grams of sugar divided by 4 = 32 teaspoons of sugar ...of course you may have much more!). Then, when you are done..take a look...and pour the sugar into a measuring cup to really get that visual. I URGE you to do this visual because I want you to SEE what you are eating, often unknowingly (I also do this with my patients..it's a very telling moment). Just seeing the grams on paper isn't as effective.

4. For your original posting: write up your day's sugar intake and be specific (see my example), discuss what you textbook and other quality sources have to say about sugar intake (what are recommendations, and what are dangers of excess?) found, discuss what foods surprised you in terms of the sugar content, portion sizes (did you eat or drink more than the portion?) . How much sugar were you taking in compared to the very, very limited recommendations from the food pyramid (you read about last week). How did this experiment make you "rethink" the sugar in your foods? What were your "worst" foods (soda, sweets, drinks etc.)

5. For your responsive postings, have a discussion with others about relating to their "worst" foods (soda or candy addicts), making suggestions for reducing sugar and adding in complex carbs etc. Anything that is helpful.

Explanation / Answer

4. According to national health and nutrition examination survey Americans eat about 20 teaspoon of sugar out of which men consume 335 calories, women consume 230 calories, boys 362 and girls 282 calories whereas according to AHA Maximum amount of added sugar that can be taken in day is 150 calories per day for men which comes around 9 teaspoon and 100 calories for women which amounts to 6 teaspoon of sugar.

Sources of sugar are fruits, vegetables, milk products, honey, cereals and malt products. Natural sweetener are unrefined or minimally refined and that do contain some nutritive value but refined white sugar or corn syrup has no nutritive value at all but adding into empty calories.

Foods that surprised me in terms of sugar content is pasta sauce and spaghetti sauce 2tbs of BBQ sauce can give up to 14 kcal which is too much considering the recommendation for each day requirement. Besides foods such as pre-made soup, cereal bar, granola which is considered to be healthy and easy to make all consist of high amount of refined sugar which gives no nutritive value. Low fat diet food are also high in sugar content to make them palatable which is surprising.

Sugar was used without realising the maximum amount recommended which is way far higher than the recommendation. 9 teaspoon of sugar is consumed during breakfast itself in the form of free sugar, cereals, milk and soups.

Definitely this experiment was an eye-opener as it made me realize the emergency of avoiding free sugar in the diet which is an upcoming trend in the world.

The worst food as sauces, premade soup, protein bars, artificial sweeteners, colas and soft drinks.

5.through discussion I've found that for others worst food high in sugar consist of cakes and chocolate which are tasty and hard to resist. Another worst food is table sugar with tea, coffee or milk which seem to be little but too much of non nutritive sugar. Protein and energy, vitamin water, bottled smoothie all are claimed to be healthy but are highly sugar coated and worst food.

Suggestions for reducing sugar included using organic sugar and natural sugar in the form of dates, honey, banana, apples. Making soups naturally and fresh, celebrate important days with healthy food and artificial sugar free agent, avoiding table sugar in tea, coffee and milk

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