5 Truly Horrifying Facts About Sugar
by Marissa Pomerance
We keep hearing that “added sugar” is the devil. We’ve tried to stop adding it to our morning coffee or cut down on those post-dinner sweets.
But most of us don’t know why sugar is so bad for us. So we wrote a comprehensive explanation on why sugar is poison, if you want to sit down a hot mug of sugar-less coffee and take a deep dive on the science of nutrition.
But if you’re currently in the grocery store, reading this on your iPhone, pushing your cart aimlessly through aisles, trying to get out of there as quickly as possible, and still trying to figure out what to cook for dinner tonight while also attempting to remember why you’re passing all of the packaged pasta sauces and dressings and granola bars and choosing not to put them in your cart, here’s a handy little refresher for you.
1. Sugar causes weight gain. Full stop.
Sugar is made up of empty calories, which the body just can’t burn at the same rate they’re consumed. Anything the body can’t convert to energy is converted to and stored as fat. And no matter how many empty calories you consume, they won’t fill you up, leading to overeating.
Sugar also disrupts leptin, which regulates hunger; leptin inhibits appetite, stimulates burning fatty acids, decreases glucose, and reduces overall body weight.
Leptin resistance can result from eating sugar, which also causes overeating; this phenomenon is thought to be one of the main contributors to obesity.
2. The average American consumes 2-3x the recommended amount of sugar per day. Eek!
Experts recommend that adults should consume no more than 25-36 grams of sugar per day. But in reality, the average American consumes 77 grams of sugar a day, which is more than 3x the recommended amount for women.
One 12 oz soda contains 32 grams of sugar, which is an entire day’s allotment in one small refreshment.
But there’s good news! According to the American Heart Association, “food manufacturers are required to list the amount of added sugars on the Nutrition Facts label by mid 2021 or earlier depending on the size of the company. A recent analysis found that this labeling could potentially prevent nearly 1 million cases of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes over the next two decades.”
3. Added sugar is in literally everything.
Sugar goes by many sneaky aliases, including Dextrose, Sucrose, Fructose, Lactose, and Maltose.
Yes, “fructose,” as in the high-fructose corn syrup that we all know to be one of most ubiquitous added sugars in processed foods. Like any other added sugar, high fructose corn syrup is terrible for you.
Sugar comes in other forms as well, even “natural” sounding ones, like cane juice, corn sweetener, brown sugar, corn syrup, fruit juice concentrate, and malt sugar. Ingredients like honey, molasses, and maple syrup are still considered added sugar, because we add them to food to enhance the flavor.
And these added sugars are lurking in your soda, juice cocktails, punches, energy drinks, coffee drinks, sports drinks like Gatorade, and sweetened teas like Snapple.
Frustratingly, even fruit juice is extremely high in sugar. Eating the whole fruit itself is fine as the fiber mitigates the effects of natural sugar. But without said fiber, you’re basically drinking a sugar bomb. Sorry.
Processed foods are also notorious for hiding sugar in baked goods, frozen foods, desserts, cereals, condiments, and even salad dressings. And anything that is not a whole food-- like meat, dairy, eggs, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and grains-- is processed.
4. Even seemingly “healthy” choices are riddled with added sugar.
Often, foods labeled “low-fat,” “non-fat,” or “lower calorie” are actually very high in added sugar, to help make up for the fat or calorie deficit. This amounts to a lifetime of extra sugar.
So yes, even your supposedly healthy foods, like granola bars, yogurt, almond milk, and packaged deli foods, are packed with sugar.
All those amazing, seemingly healthy Trader Joe’s foods in the cute, natural-looking package are— we hate to tell you-- total sugar bombs. The first ingredient in “organic peanut butter cups” from TJ’s: sugar. And guess what’s lurking in their frustratingly misnamed “Just Grilled Chicken Strips?” Sugar!
5. Sugar is linked to a bunch of other health problems.
A 2014 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found a correlation between a high-sugar diet and a greater risk of heart disease-related death. The study took place over 15 years, and discovered that people who got 17-21% of their calories from added sugar had a 38% higher risk of dying from heart disease than the participants who consumed just 8% of their calories as added sugar.
In case those fun statistics weren’t scary enough, sugar has also been linked to acne, cancer, cellular aging, depression, energy loss, fatty liver, and wrinkles.
We warned you. We told you these facts would be “horrifying.”
So now that you’ll want to remove sugar from your diet entirely, here are a few helpful tips on how to do that.
Marissa Pomerance is the Managing Editor of The Candidly. She’s a Los Angeles native and lover of all things food, style, beauty, and wellness. You can find more of her articles here.
