Sugar and sugar substitutes

Most people know that sugar is not good for you.  But many people don’t realize how bad for you it is, how many products it is found in and how safe the sugar substitutes are according to numerous studies conducted to date.

The Nutrition Action Health letter website states: “Sugar is a waste of calories, promotes obesity, causes tooth decay, and dilutes the nutritional quality of your diet.”  Use of sugar can also lead diabetes. Because Americans consume so much sugar, type II diabetes is on the rise.  Once you have diabetes, there is no cure. 23.5 million or 10.7 percent of adults have type 2 diabetes, per http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/statistics/#allages.  Diabetes can result in severe complications, including limb amputation, blindness, kidney failure, heart disease, stroke and premature death.

The US Department of Agriculture did many studies to result in their well know “food guide pyramid.”  It states that sweets should be used sparingly.

Whole books have been written on the relationship between sugar and obesity, probably the most famous is Sugar Busters!: Cut Sugar to Trim Fat (ISBN: 0345425588).  The author’s abstract: “Low-fat diets don’t work. The reason: because they are high in sugar. Sugar produces insulin that, in large amounts, keeps weight from coming off — in spite of strict dieting and exercise.”

Some products that you might not realize contain sugar are ketchup, every brand of breakfast cereal except Fiber One and the entire Slimfast line of so called “diet” products, which all have sugar as their primary ingredient—diet products they are not.  You can verify this for yourself by reading the FDA label on the products.  The FDA requires that ingredients be listed in the order of their abundance in all edible products.

Here are the facts about the four major “diet” sweeteners:

	Aspartame (Equal® Sweetener)	Sucralose (Splenda®)	Saccharin (Sweet’N Low®)	Acesulfame Potassium (Ace-K)
How sweet is it?	Aspartame is about 200 times sweeter than table sugar.	Sucralose is about 600 times sweeter than table sugar.	Saccharin is about 300 times sweeter than table sugar.	Acesulfame potassium is approximately 200 times sweeter than sugar.
How is it made?	Aspartame is made by joining together two amino acids with a methyl ester group. All of these components are also found in foods eaten everyday.	Sucralose is made through a multi-step process, which results in chlorine atoms being substituted for hydrogen-oxygen atom groups on the sugar molecule.	Saccharin is made through a multi-step process combining two chemical groups, including a sulfur molecule.	Ace-K is made from a process involving acetoacetic acid in combination with potassium.
Is it safe?	Yes. Aspartame is safe and FDA approved.	Yes. Sucralose is safe and FDA approved.	Yes. Saccharin is safe and FDA approved.	Yes. The FDA granted Ace-K approval in 1988.
How is it handled by the body?	Aspartame is broken down into components that are digested by the body.	Most sucralose passes through the body unchanged; a small percentage of sucralose is absorbed and metabolized.	Saccharin passes through the body unchanged.	Ace-K is not metabolized by the body and passes through unchanged.
How many studies have been conducted?	More than 200 scientific studies done over 35 years have demonstrated the safety of aspartame.	More than 100 scientific studies of sucralose done over 20 years have demonstrated the safety of sucralose.	More than 30 human studies done over 20 years have demonstrated the safety of saccharin.	More than 90 studies have demonstrated the safety of Ace-K.
Can you use it in recipes?	Yes. Equal’s Spoonful product is ideal for use in recipes, and adds great taste without all the calories to many of your favorite recipes. Equal Spoonful measures cup-for-cup just like sugar.	Yes. Splenda (sucralose) comes in a bulk package that measures cup-for-cup, just like sugar.	Yes. A conversion chart is available on the back of Sweet’N Low packages.	Yes. The sweet taste of Ace-K remains unchanged at high temperatures.
What products contain it?	Aspartame is found in more than 6,000 products, including Eli’s cheesecake and Diet Coke®.	Sucralose is found in products including Diet Rite® and Blue Bunny® yogurt.	Saccharin is found in products including Sweet’N Low® Brand cookies and candy.	Ace-K is found in more than 4000 products. It can be found under the brand names Sweet One® and Sunett® and in Equal® Sugar Lite.

Better than any of the above is Stevia – a natural sweetener that uniquely lacks excitotoxins that stimulate your appetite.  You can get it bulk or in packets at Walmart or Publix.

Sugar sneaks its way into foods you might not know contain sugar, such as: almost all breakfast cereals, canned beans, canned fruit, canned soups, catsup, flavored milk, luncheon meats, muffins, pancake mixes, spaghetti sauce, bread, TV dinners, and even some prescription and non-prescription medicines.  For a good article on this subject, see this web page: http://bit.ly/nhUUGG.

Slimfast products are packed with sugar.

Don’t be fooled by the product name or the advertising this company puts out.  Instead, read the label on the packages; and you will find out that the main ingredient in most Slimfast products is sugar.  Product ingredients are required to be listed on all foods in the order of which ingredient is the most by volume.   Sugar is full of calories, promotes obesity, and can cause tooth decay and diabetes.  The less sugar you consume, the healthier you will be.   People who have claimed to have lost weight on this plan ate small quantities of anything else and small quantities of Slimfast.  The same result could be produced by a candy bar diet, if you ate small quantities of candy bars and everything else.  It is a rare person who could stick to such a plan for very long.  This line of sugar-packed products simply does not do what it claims to do.

Guide for healthy eating.

 

Calorie, sugar and carbohydrate ranking of healthiest vegetables and fruits.

Note: Green is good, yellow is medium, red is least good; all items on the chart are otherwise relatively healthy because the items are drawn from a book of healthy foods.

 

Sources for data: Book—100 Health Boosting Foods, by Hamlyn; Sugar Busters book, by Steward/Bethea/Andrews/Balart; independent Internet searches for a few items; chart by Roger Kuder.

 

Green is good Red is bad	Calories	Sugar	Carbohydrates- grams
Apples	47	40	12
Avocados	190	low	2
Bananas	95	60	23
Blueberries	57	high	15
Broccoli	33	low	2
Cabbage	26	low	4
Carrots	35	high	8
Cauliflower	34	low	3
Chick Peas	115	*	16
Corn	12	high	12
Grapefruit	105	25	25
Grapes	60	50	15
Lentils	105	low	17
Lettuce	16	low	2
Oranges	34	40	9
Pears	80	*	20
Peas	83	45	11
Pineapples	41	65	10
Potatoes	136	*	32
Spinach	25	low	2
Strawberries	27	medium	6
Tomatoes	17	15	3
Watermelons	31	70	7

 

*Unable to determine.

A list of 110 foods and their sugar content

–taken from Trivia-Library.com

American Dental Association findings show that sucrose, another name for common table sugar, is the primary cause of tooth decay. In addition, many researchers agree that it is associated with two other major health problems–obesity and diabetes; other researchers link it with heart disease as well. They do not recommend eliminating it from the diet; rather, they suggest restricting the intake of foods high in sucrose to mealtime and, more important, reducing the frequency of intake.

The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture estimates for 1973 set the average sugar ingestion rate at 125 lb. per person annually in the more affluent countries of the world, including the U.S. and Great Britain. In 1821, sugar consumption was about 10 lb. per person annually in the U.S.; in 1830, people in England consumed about 6 lb. per person annually.

Food manufacturers are not required to state the percent of sugar content in packaged foods on labels. This glaring lack of available information, considering the great amount of sugar in our diets along with its possible health effects, caused concerned researchers at the University of Texas Dental Branch to undertake a massive three-year study to determine the sucrose levels in more than 1,000 common foods and beverages. Their findings have been published in Brand Name Guide to Sugar by Ira L. Shannon, D.M.D., M.S.D. (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1977). The following list is a selection from this book (ranked in descending order by percentage of sugar content):

Food Sucrose (%)
1. Certs Spearmint Breath Mints 95.4
2. Chiclets Peppermint Chewing Gum (conventional) 86.3
3. Cloret’s Clear Breath Mints 86.2
4. Ferrara Red Hots Candy 85.6
5. Warner-Lambert Listerine Regular Flavor Throat Lozenges 68.9
6. Dentyne Regular Flavor Chewing Gum (conventional) 68.3
7. Vicks Medicating Throat Lozenges 66.2
8. Wrigley’s Spearmint Chewing Gum (conventional) 62.8
9. Barricini Jelly Beans 61.3
10. Kellogg’s Sugar Smacks Breakfast Cereal 61.3
11. Sucrets Sore Throat Lozenges for Children 58.9
12. Miles Laboratories Chewable Chocks Vitamins 55.9
13. Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Peanut 52.5
14. M & Ms Plain Chocolate Candies 52.2
15. Rugby Laboratories Poly-Vitamin Tablets 49.1
16. Rugby Laboratories Chewable Vitamin E Tablets 48.8
17. Pillsbury Vanilla Instant Breakfast Powder 47.5
18. Kellogg’s Froot Loops Breakfast Cereal 47.4
19. General Mills Trix Breakfast Cereal 46.6
20. Nabisco Chocolate Chip Snap Cookies 45.0
21. Mother’s Circus Animal Cookies 44.7
22. Upjohn Orthoxicol Cough Syrup 44.1
23. Nestle’s Crunch Chocolate Bar 43.5
24. Pillsbury Chocolate Instant Breakfast Powder 41.8
25. St. Joseph Cough Syrup 40.6
26. General Mills Vanilla Breakfast Squares (artificially flavored) 40.4
27. M & M Mars 3 Musketeers Chocolate Bar 36.1
28. M. J. Holloway Milk Duds Candy 36.0
29. Nabisco Oreo Creme Sandwich Cookie 35.3
30. Hershey’s Mr. Goodbar 34.2
31. Pepperidge Farm Cinnamon Sugar Cookies 32.1
32. Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate 32.1
33. Hostess Twinkie (cream-filled) 32.0
34. Carnation Chocolate Chip Breakfast Bars 31.8
35. General Mills Butter Pecan Breakfast Squares (artificially flavored) 31.6
36. Ward Candies Oh Henry! 31.2
37. Curtiss Candies Butterfinger 29.5
38. Food Club Sweet Pickles 29.2
39. Good & Plenty Licorice Candy 28.2
40. M & M Mars Snickers Candy Bar 28.0
41. Bristol Myers Congespirin Cough Syrup for Children 26.9
42. M & M Mars Milky Way Candy Bar 26.8
43. Pepperidge Farm Gingerman Cookies 26.0
44. Depree Baby Cough Syrup 25.9
45. Hostess Ding Dongs 25.9
46. Curtiss Candies Baby Ruth Candy Bar 23.7
47. Nabisco Fig Newton Cakes 23.3
48. Nabisco Confections Sugar Daddy Candy 22.0
49. Heinz Sweet Gherkins 21.9
50. Tootsie Roll Candy 21.1
51. Eskimo Pie Ice Cream Bar 20.7
52. Peter Paul Almond Joy 20.0
53. Peter Paul Mounds 19.9
54. Carnation Granola Breakfast Bar with Cinnamon 19.8
55. Nabisco Graham Crackers 15.8
56. Hunt’s Butterscotch Snack Pudding 15.4
57. Borden Cracker Jack Caramel Corn and Nuts 14.7
58. Del Monte Vanilla Snack Pudding 14.7
59. Gerber Plums with Tapioca Baby Food Dessert 13.5
60. Betty Crocker Chocolate Snack Pudding 13.3
61. Popsicle 11.8
62. Gerber Orange Pudding Baby Food Dessert 11.1
63. Hunt’s Fruit Cup 10.2
64. General Mills Total Breakfast Cereal 8.1
65. General Foods Koolaid Punch Soft Drink 8.0
66. Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Breakfast Cereal 7.8
67. Hawaiian Punch Soft Drink 6.9
68. Carrots (fresh) 5.4
69. Coca-Cola Hi C Cherry Soft Drink 5.2
70. Prunes (fresh) 4.8
71. Loma Linda i-Soyalac Commercial Infant Formula 4.8
72. General Mills Wheaties Breakfast Cereal 4.7
73. Apples (red Delicious, fresh) 4.6
74. Potatoes (sweet, fresh) 4.5
75. Pineapples (fresh) 4.5
76. Coca-Cola Soft Drink (conventional) 4.2
77. Syntex Laboratories Bremil Commercial Infant Formula 4.0
78. Mead Johnson Prosobee Commercial Infant Formula 3.8
79. Dr. Pepper Soft Drink (conventional) 3.4
80. Nabisco Ritz Crackers 3.2
81. Oranges (fresh) 2.5
82. General Mills Cheerios Breakfast Cereal 2.2
83. Nabisco Shredded Wheat Breakfast Cereal (large biscuit) 1.0
84. Strawberries (fresh) 0.9
85. Grapes (green, fresh) 0.8
86. Frito Lay Fritos Corn Chips 0.8
87. Manischewitz Unsalted Matzos 0.7
88. Potatoes (Irish, fresh) 0.5
89. Onions (white, fresh) 0.5
90. Flavor Tree Sesame Sticks 0.4
91. Armour Bologna 0.2
92. Lettuce 0.2
93. Oroweat Northridge Stone Ground 100% Whole Wheat Bread 0.1
94. Tomatoes (fresh) 0.0
95. Avocados 0.0
96. Oscar Mayer Fully Cooked Wieners 0.0
97. Keebler Zesta Saltine Crackers 0.0
98. Diet Pepsi Cola 0.0
99. Coca-Cola Tab 0.0
100. Weight Watchers Cola 0.0
In addition, the March, 1978, issue of Consumer Reports listed 24 brand-name foods and their sucrose contents. Ten of these 24 are as follows:
101. Jello-O Cherry (artificial flavor) 82.6
102. Shake ‘n Bake Barbecue Style 50.9
103. Sara Lee Chocolate Cake 35.9
104. Wish Bone Russian Salad Dressing 30.2
105. Heinz Tomato Ketchup 28.9
106. Quaker 100% Natural Cereal 23.9
107. Hamburger Helper 23.0
108. Birdseye Cool Whip Nondairy Dessert Topping 21.0
109. Dannon Blueberry Lowfat Yogurt 13.7
110. Skippy Creamy Style Peanut Butter 9.2