Added Sugars 2

“A wise woman puts a grain of sugar into everything she says to a man, and takes a grain of salt with everything he says to her.”- Helen Rowland

The Wall Street Journal reports that the American Heart Association is taking aim at the nation's sweet tooth. In a scientific statement issued Monday, the organization says most women should limit their added sugar intake to 100 calories, or about six teaspoons, a day; for men, the recommendation is 150 calories, or nine teaspoons. The national average is 22 teaspoons a day. Just one 12-ounce can of cola has about 130 calories, or eight teaspoons of added sugar.

These values are based upon the My Pyramid government guidelines. With “My Pyramid” people on a 2,000-calorie-per-day diet have 267 discretionary calories. (512 for active young people, 200 for dieters) The AHA decided that allocating half of the discretionary calories for added sugar was a proper course. More than that risks displacing necessary nutrients sugar.

Most foods contain some natural sugar and this is already calculated in the My Pyramid plan. What the AHA is asking us to limit is the extra sugar added to soft drinks, fruit drinks, candy, and desserts like cake and cookies. Also found in sweetened dairy products like ice cream and yogurt. The sugar in alcoholic beverages also counts as added sugar. Consuming added sugar in drinks is particularly problematic because it doesn't make you feel as full as calories in solid food.

The AHA says added sugars "offer no nutritional value other than calories to the diet. … The majority of Americans could reduce their risk of heart disease by achieving healthy weight and the evidence is fairly clear that reducing the amount of sugars can help with that."

Note that the AHA is not banning sugar use. Instead they recommend using the added sugar allotment to make healthier foods more tasty, such as adding sugar to whole-grain cereal, instead of consuming it in candy.

Bottom Line

Trying to figure out how much added sugar is in foods and drinks is challenging. Current food labels don't list sugar content in calories or teaspoons and don't distinguish between natural and added sugars. See Added Sugars for more sugar facts.

Often added sugars are given different names to avoid being listed as the number one ingredient. Check product labels for added sweeteners under these names:

• Corn sweetener
• Corn syrup
• High-fructose corn syrup
• Dextrose
• Fructose
• Glucose
• Lactose
• Maltose
• Sucrose
• Honey
• Sugar
• Brown sugar
• Invert sugar
• Molasses
• Malt syrup
• Syrup