4 Health Foods with More Sugar than a Twinkie

Anthony Gucciardi  - Natural Society - April 11, 2012

Is sugar the last ingredient that has not been slammed by health conscious activists? Numerous crusades have been waged against GMOs (genetically modified organisms), aspartame, high-fructose corn syrup and trans fat, but where does sugar reside in the equation? Excess sugar consumption, which has now become an ‘average’ amount of sugar consumption for many families, has been linked to everything from DNA damage to excessive cancer growth — so where is the anti-sugar movement?

Some scientists and health experts are certainly declaring a health crisis over a large-scale ‘sugar epidemic’, but are you truly aware of how much sugar you intake on a daily basis? Even if you are consuming many health foods that are really free of other toxic offenders, chances are they may be containing a whopping amount of sugar — or at least enough ‘small’ amounts to set you over the edge throughout your daily nutritional intake. It is recommended you eat less than 16 grams of sugar per day (from natural sources) — even less if you are suffering from a serious health condition. A Twinkie has 18 grams of sugar in the processed form, and exceeds the daily sugar maximum in one health-threatening serving.

But what about health foods? Many contain just about as much or more than 18 grams, and it’s important to know which. Here are 4 health foods with more sugar than a Twinkie:

1. Yogurt

You may be consuming yogurt in order to take in some beneficial probiotics, but the truth of the matter is that yogurt is oftentimes loaded with sugar — it can even be added  in larger amounts by the manufacturer. The natural amount of sugar is about 12 grams of sugar per 6-ounce serving, which is below the daily allotment. One 6-ounce container of fruit-flavored yogurt, however, can contain 32 grams of sugar, which is way more than the daily recommended amount.

In order to avoid a high sugar content, look for high quality organic Greek yogurt (or avoid dairy altogether).

2. Tomato Sauce

Tomato sauce can be used for a number of different food items, but the amount in which it is used often exceeds the designated serving size. While the intended serving size is about half of a cup, many individuals use the entire cup for pasta or other meals. Many brands contain 11 or 12 grams per serving, which means a full cup can exceed 22 grams of sugar on average — more than a Twinkie.

3. Granola Bars

Granola bars can be loaded with sugar. Granted, it may sometimes be in the form of evaporated cane sugar. More often than not, however, it will be white sugar. I’ve personally witnessed many health-conscious individuals integrate at least one granola bar into their daily life without even thinking about how much sugar they’re taking in. In one instance, the sugar from the granola bars alone totaled around 50 grams! That’s way more than a Twinkie, and that’s from just one source.

Some products like Clif Bar contain around 22 grams per bar, which surpasses the daily intake level.

4. Pre-Made Smoothies

As with juice, you simply should not be buying pre-made smoothies from the grocery store or restaurants. Make your own instead; the nutrients will actually reach your body instead of degrading over time, which ultimately makes the juice nothing but a tasty load of sugar. Smoothies from places like Jamba Juice can exceed 77 grams of sugar, while Smoothie King has options that top 117 grams. These are certainly way beyond the healthy levels. 

The Dangers of High Fructose Corn Syrup Is This Disguised Sugar causing and/or affecting diabetes, especially in children?

Is This Disguised Sugar Affecting and Contributing to Diabetes?

Christopher R. Mohr, MS, RD, LDN

 from Diabetes Health 

(My Note: Please take a few minutes and watch this video that tells you the truth about the 30 Billion dollar campaign out there that is trying to convince that High Fructose Corn Syrup is safe. AMA tells us its safe but their own studies say differently, FDA says its safe but their own studies say its not. Please don't trust the government with your health, do your own research and you decide, make and INFORMED decision. : end My Note) 

One of the more popular aliases for sugar today is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)—a corn-based sweetener that has been on the market since approximately 1970.

You know how important it is to control the sugar and carbohydrates in your diet. So you read food labels and listen to your body cues to make sure you’re getting what you need to stay healthy.

But what happens when a manufacturer disguises sugar as something you don’t recognize?

Unfortunately, this is not uncommon. In fact, one of the more popular aliases for sugar today is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)—a corn-based sweetener that has been on the market since approximately 1970.

According to a commentary in the April 2004 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, between 1970 and 1990, the consumption of HFCS increased over 1,000 percent.

“HFCS now represents more than 40 percent of caloric sweeteners added to foods and beverages and is the sole caloric sweetener in soft drinks in the United States,” write George A. Bray, Samara Joy Nielsen and Barry M. Popkin, the authors of the commentary.

HFCS—It’s Here to Stay

Today, food companies use HFCS—a mixture of fructose and glucose—because it’s inexpensive, easy to transport and keeps foods moist. And because HFCS is so sweet, it’s cost effective for companies to use small quantities of HCFS in place of other more expensive sweeteners or flavorings.

For these reasons and others, HFCS isn’t going away any time soon.

That is why, to best manage diabetes, you need to know what HFCS is and how to identify it in products.

Understanding Glucose and Fructose

Since HFCS is a blend of glucose and fructose, it’s important to understand the role each plays in your body. All sugars, indeed all carbohydrates, have four calories per gram.

But that is just part of the story.

Glucose (dextrose) is a monosaccharide (basically, a simple sugar), which is the form of sugar that is transported in the blood and is used by the body for energy. This is what you measure when testing your blood glucose or blood “sugar.”

Fructose is also a monosaccharide and is often referred to as “fruit sugar,” because it is the primary carbohydrate in most fruits. It’s also the primary sugar in honey and half the carbohydrate in sucrose (table sugar). However, fructose does not stimulate insulin secretion or require insulin to be transported into cells, as do other carbohydrates.

What It Means to You and Your Diabetes

As a person with diabetes, you know how important it is to control your blood glucose and insulin levels to avoid complications. So, it would seem that a lack of glucose and insulin secretion from fructose consumption would be a good thing.

However, insulin also controls another hormone, leptin, so its release is necessary.

Leptin tells your body to stop eating when it’s full by signaling the brain to stop sending hunger signals. Since fructose doesn’t stimulate glucose levels and insulin release, there’s no increase in leptin levels or feeling of satiety. This can leave you ripe for unhealthy weight gain.

The Fate of Fructose in the Body

Fructose requires a different metabolic pathway than other carbohydrates because it basically skips glycolysis (normal carbohydrate metabolism). Because of this, fructose is an unregulated source of “acetyl CoA,” or the starting material for fatty acid synthesis. This, coupled with unstimulated leptin levels, is like opening the flood gates of fat deposition.

Should Fructose Be Eliminated From the Diet?

It’s not that you should eliminate fructose from your diet, but you should be aware of how much you’re consuming. After all, fructose is the primary sugar found in fruits, which provide valuable nutrients. In this case, a little fructose is fine. It becomes a problem only when someone consumes high levels of fructose or HFCS, which is now present in virtually all commercial foods (see below).

Check the Food Labels

While there is no way of knowing exactly how much HFCS is in a given product, you can read the food labels to gauge sugar levels. So, for example, if HFCS is one of the first ingredients listed (in soft drinks or syrup, for example), it is safe to assume there’s a lot in the product. If HFCS is in the products you buy, make sure it is either low on the ingredient list or that the products list very few total grams of sugar (which is how HFCS is shown on ingredient labels).

What Does It All Mean?

If HFCS is one of the first ingredients listed on a food label, don’t eat it. Make a mental list of the worst culprits, such as regular soft drinks and many highly sweetened breakfast cereals. HFCS alone won’t make you fat, but when HFCS is high on the ingredient list, the food is not the best choice. As part of a lifestyle that has many of us eating too much and moving too little, we’re putting our health at risk if we don’t choose our foods carefully.

So what’s the answer? It’s easy. Avoid HFCS by reading food labels and shopping the grocery store’s perimeter: Produce is on one side, seafood, meat and poultry on another, and dairy products, eggs and bread on the third. Avoid the center aisles, which are mostly stocked with highly processed foods.

The more you stick to fresh whole foods and avoid commercial and highly processed foods, the less HFCS you will consume.

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Common Foods High in HFCS

• Regular soft drinks
• Fruit juice and fruit drinks that are not 100 percent juice
• Pancake syrups
• Popsicles
• Fruit-flavored yogurts
• Frozen yogurts
• Ketchup and BBQ sauces
• Jarred and canned pasta sauces
• Canned soups
• Canned fruits (if not in its own juice)
• Breakfast cereals
• Highly sweetened breakfast cereals

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Problems Caused by Too Much HFCS

• It can lead to higher caloric intake
• It can lead to an increase in bodyweight
• It fools your body into thinking it’s hungry
• It increases the amount of processed foods you eat, thereby decreasing your intake of nutrient-dense foods
• It may increase insulin resistance and triglycerides

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Data Is Scarce . . . But Telling

Although data on humans is scarce, it does exist.

According to a study published in the October 2002 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, people who consumed 28 percent of their total calories from sucrose (half the carbohydrate in sucrose is fructose) as opposed to artificial sweetener had a higher caloric intake, body weight, fat mass and blood pressure after 10 weeks.

This is no mystery since higher caloric intake leads to greater weight gain. In the sucrose group, there was an increase of a little more than 400 calories, which would result in an approximate weight gain of almost seven pounds during the 10-week study if all other factors were constant. However, there was only about half that weight gain in this group. Therefore, the authors estimate that 48 percent of the excess energy intake from sucrose was used for other energy-demanding body processes, such as lipogenesis (the creation of fat).

To make matters worse, fructose consumption is tied to insulin resistance in rodents and increased triglyceride secretion (suggesting that it may have the same effect on humans, too). Considering that type 2 is a common co-morbidity of overweight and obesity, insulin resistance is common. Therefore, if fructose does, in fact, have the same insulin-resistant effect in humans as it does in rodents, individuals would be exacerbating the issue by consuming too much of it.