How much sugar is too much???Healthy Living
The Mediterranean diet is LOW in sugar compared to the traditional American diet which may explain why people who follow the Mediterranean Diet have less heart disease and fewer heart attacks.
Most of the sugar found within the Mediterranean diet is natural and comes from fruits and milk. There are many other sugars found in the American diet that are not as healthy. I will be the first to say that I enjoy eating sugar and definitely do not recommend giving it up completely. What I do recommend is following the rules of the American Heart Association which is no more than 9 teaspoons per day for males and
6 teaspoons a day for females. To put things into perspective, one can of soda or pop contains about 8 teaspoons of sugar….so choose your sugar wisely!
Sugar is hidden in many of our foods today such as candy, cake, cookies, pies, drinks, and more. Eating these extra sugars in our diet is definitely not good for our bodies because we do not need extra sugar for our body to function. This extra sugar provides absolutely ZERO nutrients to our bodies and only adds to extra pounds or obesity which may lead to heart disease.By looking at an ingredient list, you can determine if sugar was added to the food. Sugars end in the word “ose” such as maltose or sucrose, fructose…..there are other names such as high fructose corn syrup, cane sugar, corn sweetener, raw sugar, syrup, fruit juice concentrates.
So….are you eating ”unnatural” sugar???
If you are consuming more than the recommended amounts of sugar, look below for some tips that may help you decrease the amount of sugar you consume.
• Say NO to sugar: remove sugar (white and brown), syrup, molasses out of your diet
• Reduce the amount of sugar you add to your foods such as your coffee or tea
• Avoid canned fruit or fruit in a heavy syrup
• Do you bake? Reduce the amount of sugar you add to your recipes by about 1/2 to 1/3. You probably won’t notice the difference
• Enhance foods with unsweetened applesauce, ginger, allspice, fresh fruit, cinnamon or nutmeg