Ask a Dietitian

With so many sugar alternatives being pushed at us by the media, sugar is starting to get a bad reputation. However, it is being framed for many of its supposed crimes. Sugar does not ‘cause’ obesity, or heart disease, or diabetes. In fact, the only thing sugar directly causes, according to the FDA, is dental caries. However, over use can lead to many problems, affecting weight gain and retention, as well as bone health and blood sugar levels.

About 90% of sugar produced in Canada is from sugar cane from South and Central America, Australia and the Caribbean. The remaining 10 % is from Albertan sugar beets. The sugar we are used to consuming is sucrose, a disaccharide. Brown sugar is just moist, granulated sucrose with a bit of molasses added. Sugar is a source of carbohydrate and energy. It provides 4 calories per gram or 16 calories in a level teaspoon (4 g). Glucose is the monosaccharide that table sugar is broken down to for absorption into the body. The phrase ‘blood sugar’ refers to the amount of glucose circulating the bloodstream. Historically, people used to chew sugar cane for its sweetness. It was a luxury product until the eighteenth century, when its use became more wide-spread.

The BC Sugar Institute maintains that sugar consumption per capita has not increased since the 1940’s. However, many sources claim that sugar intake is on the rise, especially due to fast food and sweetened soft drinks. Sugary calories are also starting to replace high-fiber calories. These sugary calories tend to come with very little nutritional value, coining the phrase ‘empty calories’. Children, especially, are obtaining more and more calories from added sugar and less from nutrient rich foods. Added sugars are not the same as sugars found naturally in fruits and dairy products. Added sugars are mostly found in baked goods, desserts, fruits drinks, soft drinks and candy. These sugars are actually inserted during manufacturing and baking. The recommended intake of sugar per day is about 10 teaspoons in a 2000 calorie diet. However, average consumption is closer to 20. Oprah’s Dr. Oz suggested avoiding foods with sugar in the top five ingredients. Replacing simple sugars in candy with complex sugars in fruit will also prevent the sugar highs and lows.

People who love sugar-fat mixtures are more likely to binge or yo-yo diet. The sugar-fat craving is more common among women (who are also more likely to diet), which leads to an overconsumption of sweet, fatty foods, increasing triglyceride storage in the body. However, the idea that sugar consumption leads to diabetes in women is false. It is now being suggested that a high caloric intake and a sedentary lifestyle is a more likely threat. Investigators found ‘no definitive influence of sugar intake on the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.’ People who consume more sugar in their diets are not more likely to develop diabetes than those with low consumptions. Actually, people who eat less sugar may have a tendency to consume more fat and cholesterol. This is not to say that eating plenty of sugar will decrease your fat intake and therefore your waistline. Moderation on both counts is best, but indulging your sweet tooth once in a while will not give you diabetes. The American Diabetes Association has stated that everyone, including diabetics, does not need to cut sugar from their diet. Moderate amounts of added sugar can be enjoyed in the diet, so long as you keep it to a minimum. While obesity and an inactive lifestyle are more likely to lead to diabetes, many sugary foods also contain a fair amount of fat, and enjoying your sweet desserts a little too much can lead to over-eating, which can lead to weight gain and all the ensuing problems.

A quick search on the internet reveals a number of sites warning you about sugar and how it feeds cancer. While technically speaking this is true, it feeds cancer only so much as any nutrient. Insulin-like growth factor, a hormone, induces cell growth as a result of high blood sugar. The key to reducing this effect is simply to reduce sugar intake, not eliminate it, and to keep to ‘good’ sugars, such as those in fruit and whole grains. These complex carbohydrates do not affect sugar-related growth hormones to the same extent. Sugar is necessary to all cells, and therefore removing them entirely from the diet would have a detrimental effect. Substituting complex carbohydrates for simple sugars reduces the risk for cancer, as well as heart disease.

Most people are familiar with the sensation of a sugar rush. Eating simple sugars leads to a spike in blood sugar, whereas eating complex carbohydrates release the sugar more slowly into the blood. However, eating a candy bar before gym class or at the beginning of a long day will not help you out. You may experience a sugar rush, but it will be followed by a crash. A high energy diet in the form of fruits and whole grains will give you a more lasting energy source.

Many people look at the implications of sugar and skip straight to artificial sweeteners. However, that is not always as helpful as it may seem. Sugar-free ice cream with sucralose may have just as much fat as regular ice cream. Sugar-free does not necessarily make something ‘healthy’. People tend to also eat more of these so-called ‘healthy’ foods, with the illusion that ice cream without the sugar isn’t bad for you and therefore you can have it as much as you want with impunity. This way of thinking also ignores the fact that sugary foods should be replaced by nutrient rich foods. Desserts sweetened with artificial sweeteners don’t have any more nutrients in them, so while they may sometimes help your waistline, they will not help your overall health and, as discussed, may not even always help you keep trim.

Lastly, many people have concerns about the safety of artificial sweeteners. There are adverse reports for just about all of them, detailing some sort of negative effects achieved in this or that study. Are they reliable? It’s hard to tell, in many cases. Looking on the internet and in magazines, sugar producers sing the praises of sugar and slam the potential negative effects of other sweeteners, and vice versa. Right now, we can only know what food and health organizations across the world are telling us, and most seem to be in agreement that aspartame, sucralose, and a few other replacements are totally safe. In most cases, there have been studies with derogatory results, but these may have had extraneous influences. For that matter, however, the same may apply to studies with positive results. No sweetener can really be classified as ‘healthy’, including sugar. Sugar has been used for thousands of years. We are already quite familiar with its derogatory effects, and also how to control them. Sugar is a natural caloric sweetener, while sucralose, for example, is a non caloric but man-made sweetener. Which is best depends on your criteria. Both sugar and artificial sweeteners should be used in moderation, regardless of which you prefer.

There are many ways to replace simple sugars in the diet.

-courtesy of theDietChannel.com

There are also ways to simply distract yourself from any sweet cravings that you might get. Keeping a bowl of freshly washed berries or grapes, or any other fruit or vegetable that is bite sized close by allows you to eat something to control your cravings that is sweet with the right kinds of sugar, and also includes many other nutrients that sweets don’t. Eating several smaller meals a day also lessen the tendency to snack in between, and as most of us are much less careful about what we eat for snacks, this allows us to pay more attention to what we are eating during the day, as well as avoiding blood sugar spikes. Other possibilities include going for a walk, taking a bath, or writing that much procrastinated email to a family member. Indulging your cravings once in a while is not a bad thing, but overindulgence tends not to be worth the end result.

The Bottom Line:  If you don’t have diabetes avoid artificial sweeteners and just eat less sugar.