Is sugar the new tobacco?

Sugar and it’s impact on our bodies has certainly been in the news over the last few months. The UK’s Daily Mail, for instance, likened sugar to tobacco.

Just yesterday, Mercola.com, outlined the findings of a major new report by Credit Suisse Research Institute which found that we eat and drink an astonishing amount of sugar .

For instance, according to the research, ‘the average person consumes 70gsm of sugar and high fructose corn syrup per day’ – that’s 17 tsp, up a whopping 46% from three decades ago! Given that this is an average, the truth is that many people are eating a lot more than this!

Part of the problem is that sugar is hidden in so many places that you wouldn’t necessary expect to find it as the chart shows.

Similarly, all of items below contain more than 10 grams of sugar – hardly a cake on the list! Instead you have ‘health foods’, like nutrition bars, fruit juice and vitamin water:

  1. Luna bar: 11 grams of sugar ( Grande Starbucks latte: 17 grams
  2. Subway 6″ sweet onion teriyaki chicken sandwich: 17 grams
  3. Tropicana orange juice, 8 ounces: 22 grams
  4. Yoplait original yogurt: 27 grams
  5. Vitamin Water, 20 ounces: 33 grams
  6. Sprinkles red velvet cupcake: 45 grams
  7. California Pizza Kitchen Thai chicken salad: 45 grams

I was interested too, to see the major sources of added sugar in the typical US diet:

  • Regular soft drinks (33 percent)
  • Sugars and candy (16.1 percent)
  • Cakes, cookies, and pies (12.9 percent)
  • Fruit drinks (9.7 percent)
  • Dairy desserts and milk products (ice cream, sweetened yogurt and sweetened milk) (8.6 percent)
  • Other grain-based products (cinnamon toast and honey-nut waffles) (5.8 percent)

As I always say, becoming aware of your situation is the first step to taking action to improve where you are.

From a sugar consumption perspective, that means reviewing how much sugar you eat and drink on a typical day.

With that insight, you can decide whether you’re happy with that or not. In other words, is it helping you to become a better version of yourself, or would you like to change… bearing in mind the growing body of evidence that links sugar with chronic conditions such as obesity, heart diseases and even cancer.

I know how easy it can be to say ‘yes, I want to change’, but without the systems and tools in place, it’s also very easy to start down a road that isn’t sustainable. That’s exactly why I wrote a short book: Sugar:Sickly or Sweet (available as an ebook, kindle edition and printed copy) to help you:

  • understand the impact sugar has on your body;
  • discover which sweeteners you can eat;
  • learn the truth about fruit juice;
  • find out what you can do to reduce your dependency on sugar.

Depending on how fast you read, the book shouldn’t take you much more than an hour.

That’s ONE HOUR to build knowledge that could potentially transform your life.

For more info on sugar and healthy snacking, download our free eBook. Also available in Kindle.

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