Sugar, Sugar Everywhere

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Yogurt and bran are foods that provide us with nutrients like calcium and fiber. But depending on what specific foods you choose — fruit-flavored yogurts, say, and a bran muffin — you're probably ingesting plenty of sugar too.

Sugar sneaks its way into our diet at every meal.

According to a Reuters article, we shouldn't consume more than 40 grams (or 10 teaspoons) of sugar a day, based on a 2000-calorie diet. That's the amount of sugar in one can of soda.

The World Health Organization recommends added sugar not make up more than 10 percent of our daily caloric intake, according to the article, but the average American eats about double that. A muffin could have 11 teaspoons of added sugar, and a Starbucks' grande vanilla latte has about seven teaspoons.

There are a few ways sugar can be identified: sucrose, essentially table sugar; lactose, a naturally occurring sugar found in milk; and fructose, the sugar naturally found in fruits and vegetables and also the type that's used to make high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which is an inexpensive sweetener found in many of the processed foods we eat.

Dr. Richard Johnson, a researcher at the University of Florida, said in the article that we are currently eating about three times as much fructose as we should. It's no wonder, when HFCS is found in items as wide-ranging as soda and candy, ketchup and salad dressing, and breads and cereals.

In his book The Sugar Fix, Johnson advises people to cut dietary fructose to a bare minimum for two weeks, then add it back to only a third of the previous intake, and preferably from natural sources like fruit instead of junk food.

Sugar rehab, anyone?

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