Hidden sugars

We all eat carbohydrates in all kind of different forms. Bodybuilders eat a lot of carbohydrates (carbs) in their “Bulk” cycle to gain weight. They eat carbs to lean out and they are timing eating macro-nutrients such as proteins and carbs to grow musclemass and to get energy to be stored for the next training. But talking about carbs for bodybuilders and recreative bodybuilders I mean nutrient dense foods that adds great value to your health.

Sugar as an additive to sweets or sodas adds nothing to a good healthy diet, except empty calories. Sugar is very addictive and it has been linked to diabetes, cancer, and a host of other illnesses. A carb is not just a carb, it should be part of a whole food that also contains other valuable micronutrients, fibers, vitamins and anti-oxidants. That’s why our parents always taught us that an apple was better for our health that a piece of candy. The difference between natural and processed food.

A research journalist (Michael Moss ) spent years working out how big food companies get away with churning out products that undermine the health of those who eat them. He interviewed hundreds of current and former food industry insiders – chemists, nutrition scientists, behavioral biologists, food technologists, marketing executives, package designers, chief executives and lobbyists. What he uncovered is chilling: a hard-working industry composed of well-paid, smart, personable professionals, all keenly focused on keeping us hooked on ever more ingenious junk foods; an industry that thinks of us not as customers, or even consumers, but as potential "heavy users".

How do the food giants do it? Moss's central thesis is that junk food is a legalised type of narcotic. By deliberately manipulating three key ingredients – salt, sugar and fat – that act much like drugs, racing along the same pathways and neural circuitry to reach the brain's pleasure zones, the food and drink industry has created an elastic formula for a never-ending procession of lucrative products.

The exact formulations of addictive junk foods (and drinks) are not accidental but calculated and perfected by scientists "who know very well what they are doing". Their job is to establish the necessary "bliss point", the precise amount of sugar, fat or salt guaranteed to "send consumers over the moon".

Sugar, with its "high-speed, blunt assault on our brains", is the "methamphetamine of processed food ingredients", he believes, while fat is the opiate, "a smooth operator whose effects are less obvious, but no less powerful". Without salt, he observes, "processed food companies cease to exist".

Identifying Hidden Sugars in Your Food

Try finding out how much sugar has really been added to your yogurt, cereal, bread or energy bar, and watch the hours fly by!

Although the FDA (and the USDA) has certainly acknowledged and tried to define the term “added sugars,” or those sugars that aren’t naturally occurring in foods (for example, fruits), the government is leaving it up to us to be food detectives and learn all the various names for sugar and, more importantly, how much of it we’re actually putting in our mouths.

Sugar masquerades under a variety of guises, such as dextrose, fructose, fruit juice concentrates, glucose, invert sugar and maltose, but trying to figure out what percentage of calories these sugars represent in a packaged food product is akin to scoring a concert ticket to Lady Gaga — it’s pretty much impossible.

That’s because the FDA has refused to add an “Added Sugars” line (in grams) within the “Sugars” section on the nutrition facts label. Instead, added sugars are only mentioned in the ingredient list — and only in decreasing weight order, not by percentage of calories.

Realizing this loophole, some food companies seem to be taking some extreme liberties. Not only are they using some of those tricky sugar synonyms in the ingredient list, but they’re also using several of them, in a single product. Added sugars are added sugars. No matter what you call them, they do pretty much the same thing to food (make it taste sweeter). So by dividing the total amount of added sugars into three or four different sugar names instead of using just one type of sugar, companies are able drop their added sugars further down the list (the less the weight, the lower the rank on the ingredient list).

So for example, if a manufacturer wants to sweeten up a certain brand of crackers, it can either do this using 15 grams of “sugar” or, 5 grams of “malt syrup,” 5 grams of “invert sugar” and 5 grams of “glucose”. Some manufacturers seem to be choosing this divide and masquerade method, placing these ingredients lower down on their products’ lists, making us believe that the amount of sugar in the product is smaller than it is. Bingo!

Here are four examples of foods that have divided their total added sugar content between several confusing synonyms (note where these names are positioned on the ingredient list).

Chocolate Chip Bars

Granola (whole grain oats, brown sugar, crisp rice (rice flour, sugar, salt, malted barley extract), whole grain rolled wheat, soybean oil, dried coconut, whole wheat flour, sodium bicarbonate, soy lecithin, caramel color, nonfat dry milk), corn syrup, semisweet chocolate chips, brown rice crisp, sunflower oil, oligofructose, polydextrose, corn syrup solids, glycerin. Contains 2 percent or less of water, invert sugar, salt, molasses, sucralose, natural and artificial flavor, BHT, citric acid

Nutrition Bars

Soy protein nuggets, Yogurt coating (sugar, palm kernel oil, nonfat dry milk solids, Yogurt powder, soy lecithin, salt), corn syrup, milk protein isolate, fructose, almonds, palm oil, water

Wheat Thins

Whole grain wheat flour, unbleached enriched flour, soybean oil, sugar, cornstarch, malt syrup, salt, invert sugar, monoglycerides, leavening, vegetable color

Club Crackers

Enriched flour, soybean oil with TBHQ for freshness, sugar, contains two percent of less of: salt, leavening, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, cornstarch, soy lecithin

Why should we be concerned about added and refined sugars anyway? Because we’re getting way too much of it.

I should note, all sugar isn’t “bad”. When we think of sugar or carbohydrates in our diets, we have to think about the overall intake from the day, the week, and overall sources used- you know, the big picture of things! Sugar is one of the most “hated on” components in the diet, some for good reason and some just being dramatic. Too much sugar in someone’s diet may lead to: impaired glucose and insulin function which may lead to diabetes, if lifestyle and high sugar intake is left unchanged, liver dysfunction, can be highly “addictive” from the large amounts of dopamine released while eating (dopamine is that “feel good” hormone), may contribute to obesity or general weight gain (there are many factors that lead to weight gain, consuming excess sugar is just one of them), and increases cholesterol and triglycerides (not the saturated fat as we once thought), and also a possible link to heart disease.

A couple of things to ask yourself when deciding what foods to purchase or eat that contain sugar is, how nutrient dense is this overall food? Example, is this a whole foods brownie recipe using maple syrup to sweeten or are these store bought brownies with triple the amount of refined sugars? The quality and quantity of the sugar used does matter. Most likely, that whole food recipe is also going to contain healthy fats, fiber, and protein, all of which are great to combine with carbohydrates in general to keep your blood sugars fairly stable. From a nutrient density standpoint, sugar is on the bottom of the chain. Rarely does sugar contain nutrients. I say rarely because there are a handful of sweeteners that contain small amounts of nutrients such as, honey and molasses being a couple.

In early 2014, however, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for a reduction of daily sugar intake to 5% of total daily calories in order to tackle public health problems, such as obesity and tooth decay.

Nutritionists strongly recommend against consuming more than 13 teaspoons a day.

Sugar content in common foods and drinks

To help you keep track of how much sugar you're consuming we've listed some common everyday foods and drinks, together with their sugar content. Some of these may surprise you:

How much sugar is in a chocolate bar?

With high sugar content, chocolate should always be viewed as an occasional treat.

Milk chocolate bar (44g) - 5.75 teaspoons of sugar

Snickers bar (57g) - 7 teaspoons of sugar

Milky Way bar (58g) - 8.5 teaspoons of sugar

Marshmallows (100g) - 14.5 teaspoons of sugar

Caramel piece (10g) - 1.7 teaspoons of sugar

Butterfinger bar (60g) - 6.9 teaspoons of sugar

Dove chocolate bar (37g) - 5 teaspoons of sugar

Starburst packet (45 grams) - 5.5 teaspoons of sugar

Twix bar - 2.75 teaspoons of sugar

M&Ms packet (45 grams) - 5.75 teaspoons of sugar

Boiled sweets bag (100 grams) - 11.5 teaspoons of sugar

How much sugar do soft drinks contain?

Soft drinks often contain a high amount of sugar.

Coca cola (one can) - 7 teaspoons of sugar

Red Bull (one can) - 7.5 teaspoons of sugar

Lemonade (one glass) - 5.5 teaspoons of sugar

Orange squash (one glass) - 2.5 teaspoons of sugar

Hot chocolate (one mug) - 4.5 teaspoons of sugar

Fruit smoothie (one glass) - 3.5 teaspoons of sugar

A study published in Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association, identified a link between drinking more than one soft drink a day and increased risk of developing heart disease and diabetes.

How much sugar is in your breakfast cereal?

*(per 100 grams)

Froot Loops are said to contain 106 times more sugar than Shredded Wheat.

Alpen - 5 teaspoons of sugar

Cheerios - 1.1 teaspoons of sugar

Corn Flakes - 2.4 teaspoons of sugar

Cocoa Krispies - 9.6 teaspoons of sugar

Froot Loops - 10.6 teaspoons of sugar

Raisin Bran - 7.8 teaspoons of sugar

Frosted Flakes - 8.9 teaspoons of sugar

Honey Smacks - 14 teaspoons of sugar

Rice Krispies - 2.5 teaspoons of sugar

Special K - 3 teaspoons of sugar

Wheaties - 3.8 teaspoons of sugar

Trix - 8 teaspoons of sugar

Lucky Charms - 9 teaspoons of sugar

Rice Chex - 2 teaspoons of sugar

Wheat Chex - 2.6 teaspoons of sugar

Corn Chex - 2.8 teaspoons of sugar

Honey Nut Cheerios - 8.25 teaspoons of sugar

Reese's Puffs - 8.9 teaspoons of sugar

Golden Grahams - 8.8 teaspoons of sugar

Cocoa Puffs - 9.3 teaspoons of sugar

Cookie Crisp - 8.7 teaspoons of sugar

Shredded Wheat - 0.1 teaspoons of sugar

Cocoa Pebbles - 8.6 teaspoons of sugar

Banana Nut Crunch - 4.7 teaspoons of sugar

How much sugar does fruit contain?

Fruits contain fructose, a type of sugar. Fresh fruit have no "added sugar", but as you can see below, their levels of sugar range from 1 teaspoon per 100 grams in cranberries to 4 teaspoons in grapes.

*per 100 grams

Bananas contain approximately 3 teaspoons of sugar (fructose).

Mangos - 3.2 teaspoons of sugar

Bananas - 3 teaspoons of sugar

Apples - 2.6 teaspoons of sugar

Pineapples - 2.5 teaspoons of sugar

Grapes - 4 teaspoons of sugar

Lemons - 0.6 teaspoons of sugar

Kiwi fruit - 2.3 teaspoons of sugar

Apricots - 2.3 teaspoons of sugar

Strawberries - 1.3 teaspoons of sugar

Raspberries - 1 teaspoon of sugar

Blueberries - 1.7 teaspoons of sugar

Cranberries - 1 teaspoons of sugar

Tomatoes - 0.7 teaspoons of sugar

How much sugar do cakes and desserts contain?

A medium slice of carrot cake contains approximately 3 teaspoons of sugar.

Banoffee pie (1 medium portion) - 4.25 teaspoons of sugar

Carrot cake (1 medium slice) - 3 teaspoons of sugar

Custard (1 medium portion) - 3.25 teaspoons of sugar

Chocolate mousse (1 medium portion) - 3 teaspoons of sugar

Cornetto (1 cone) - 3 teaspoons of sugar

Donut (1 jam doughnut) - 3.5 teaspoons of sugar

Fruit pie (1 medium portion) - 3.5 teaspoons of sugar

Fruit cake (1 medium slice) - 5 teaspoons of sugar

Muffin (one chocolate chip muffin) - 4.75 teaspoons of sugar

Ice cream (1 scoop) - 3 teaspoons of sugar

Rice pudding (1 portion) - 3.75 teaspoons of sugar

Sponge cake (1 medium slice) - 5.5 teaspoons of sugar

Swiss roll (1 roll) - 2.5 teaspoons of sugar