Sugar, ah Honey Honey!
- chericeaingram
- Nov 18, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: Dec 2, 2024
Have you ever considered the actual true pull and control that sugar has over our lives? The Archies sang it perfectly in their song, Sugar Sugar in 1969, “Sugar, ah honey honey! You are my candy girl, and you've got me wanting you.” Now of course this song isn’t truly about sugar, but what if it was?
Sugar has a hold on us. It sweetens foods and beverages, leaving us wanting more and more. Biologically there’s a reason for that desire of wanting more sweet. When we consume sugar, it triggers the release of dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that associates pleasure and reward in our brains. For our children, research shows that sugar alters their gut microbiome, which then alters the signals to their brains. With the gut bacteria altered, the signals sent to the brain helps keep them addicted to sugar. According to Dr. Nicole Avena,
“Sugar addiction can carry into teenage and adult years and can cause other issues from skin to heart health.”
So, our kids take a bite of that tasty treat, and bam, they are flooded with pleasures and rewards in their brains. Their bodies signal for more, and they eat more, feeding the addiction cycle. Now here’s where it's really concerning: the food companies know this is a biological response, so sugars have been added to most of our foods and drinks to get us to want to consume more of them!
Added sugar on a food label is any sugar added to a food that is not naturally occurring. Sugars are added to foods by manufacturers to make them more addicting. They are hidden in our foods and drinks in the least unsuspecting places; chips, breads, yogurts, salad dressings, spaghetti sauces, energy drinks, granola bars, cereals, fruit drinks, hydration drinks and many more. Our children are consuming sugar all day long with many of us not even realizing it.
Eating too much sugar has been linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes and chronic inflammation which can increase our children’s chances of developing cancers, acne, skin diseases (think eczema) and many autoimmune diseases.
It is so frustrating as a parent. We count on our foods to be healthy, or at least trustworthy for our kids and the marketing on the label can be misleading. For example, my child is hungry and needs a snack, so I hand him a Quaker Chewy Granola Bar. It says right on the box that it's made with 100% whole grains with no artificial preservatives, flavors or colors. It’s healthy, right?
Flip that box over and be a label reader! One bar has 7g of added sugars! That’s 14% of the recommended daily sugar intake for adults. However, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) says children should consume less than 6% of their calories from sugar. Well, we more than doubled that with one little granola bar! It is so easy for our children to be eating way over the recommended sugar intake in a day, and we do not even realize it. The food industry wants our children addicted to their products. So we have to do our part in looking for the added sugars on the labels and make alternative choices.
We will help you with many alternative food and drink suggestions. Nourished Knights labels a healthy food choice as Friend and the bad choice as Foe. In order to do your own label reading, you will need to know the names of added sugars that are put in our foods (hint: it often does not have the name sugar in it). Below is a list of many of those names you will find on a nutritional label.
Dextrose | Glucose | Maltose |
Sucrose | Lactose | Galactose |
Fructose | Corn Syrup | High Fructose Corn Syrup |
Sorghum | Maltodextrin | Corn Syrup Solids |
Dextrin | Barley Malt | Brown Rice Syrup |
Molasses | Evaporated Cane Juice | Malt Syrup |
Sucanat | Fruit Juice Concentrate | Ethyl Maltol |
Invert Sugar | Cane Sugar | Rice Syrup |
Caramel | Carob Syrup | Refiner’s Syrup |
Be sure to check the total sugars and added sugars portion of the nutrition label. The total sugar portion identifies naturally occurring sugar in the food, as well as the added sugars. For example, the total sugar listed on an applesauce label is the sugar that comes from the fruit plus the added sugar.
One more thing when looking at the added sugars portion of the nutrition label: If you see one of these sugars listed in the ingredient list but added sugars says 0g, it’s because the USDA considers .5g or less of added sugar to be insignificant.
It’s time to cut the added sugar out of our children’s snacks, drinks and meals. We will help you with alternatives throughout the week on our Instagram (@nourishedknights), and you can start by reading labels and saying no to foods and drinks with added sugars!
Comments