In our last +1, we did some detective work and discovered that sugar is often disguised with 61 different names.
Note: The one name that the clever food marketers (ahem) don’t use is the one they probably should: “candy for cancer cells.” 😕
I promised we’d do some math Today.
So let’s get to it!
First, let’s note the fact that 1 pound of sugar is 454 grams of sugar. If the average person consumes 150 pounds a year, that’s roughly .41 pounds per day or 185 grams of sugar per day.
Note1: 500 years ago, when we were consumed only 5 pounds of sugar per day, that was, if my math is correct, .14 pounds per day or 6.35 grams per day.
Note2: 1,000 years ago, when we consumed roughly ZERO pounds of sugar per day, that was, if my math is correct, 0.0 pounds per day or 0.0 grams per day. 🤓
So…
Let’s see how fast it all adds up.
Can of coke = 44 grams
Oh, wait. You’re going for the healthy juice alternative, right? Let’s say you grab an Odwalla Lemonade Pure Squeezed All Natural.
According to CalorieKing you just got: 41 grams of sugar.
Or, maybe you’re giving your kids “healthy” fruit juice.
Oops.
That apple juice has 37 grams of sugar.
And, very importantly, as this site points out: “So, if a child has apple juice with breakfast, low-fat chocolate milk with lunch, a sports drink after school and lemon-lime soda with dinner, they could consume 130 grams of sugar in drinks alone. That’s more than five times what pediatricians recommend for a child’s total daily sugar intake.”
EEK!
130 grams that fast?
OMNotGoodness.
We’d only need 55 more grams of sugar in all the rest of our food to hit the 185 gram daily threshold that’ll lead to the 150 POUNDS of sugar that leads to chronic not-awesomeness?
Yep.
It adds up.
FAST.
Obviously donuts and candy bars and cookies have a ton of sugar. But so does yogurt and salad dressing, and ketchup and pasta sauce and, well, pretty much everything that was made in a factory that you’re eating out of a jar or a box.
Which is yet another reason why Michael Pollan tells us “If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t.”
That’s Today’s +1.
How’s your sugar math?
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