Be careful of too much sugar in your diet. Image via Pixabay
Sugar gives us energy and keeps us sweet — at least that what we’ve always thought.
Be careful of too much sugar in your diet. Image via Pixabay
The truth is that too much sugar is harmful to your health and some experts believe that sugar is the major contributing factor towards the obesity epidemic that is gripping the country.
There are two types of sugar – simple sugars, which are naturally occurring sugars like lactose in milk, fruit, and vegetables, and “free” sugar (added sugar), which includes table sugar (sucrose) as well as concentrated sources like fruit juice.
Free sugars are so named as they are added to food either in the manufacturing stage (fizzy soft drinks, sweets, chocolates, and biscuits) or when the food is being prepared or cooked (cakes, pastries, puddings). These sugars are also added to many kinds of breakfast cereal, cereal bars and even tins of spaghetti and baked beans.
The most obvious free sugar is called sucrose – the refined sugar from sugar cane that we use every day in our tea or on our cereal first thing in the morning.
Free sugars need to be restricted because they add “empty” kilojoules, increasing the overall energy density of your diet without any valuable vitamins, minerals, or fibre and this excess energy can potentially result in weight gain. Studies have shown that high sugar intake may lead to obesity as fast as consuming fatty food.
Based on the average diet of 8,400 kilojoules per day, you shouldn’t be using more than 12 teaspoons of sugar a day.
Discover how much sugar is in your food by doing these simple checks:
A few adjustments to your daily diet will help reduce unnecessary sugar consumption: