Reasons to Avoid Sugar
By Sara Butler
You can find a lot of nutrition information online and it doesn't always line up. But one thing that many nutrition experts agree on is that added sugar is problematic in the diets of many people, contributing to widespread health issues seen in American, such as obesity.
Sugar is easy to find in a variety of foods -- many you often wouldn't expect to find it in such baked bread. With the average American eating over 50 teaspoons of sugar each day, it's important to understand how sugar can impact your overall health and wellness. Here are a few reasons you should avoid added sugar in your diet.
Reasons to Avoid Added Sugars
Here are a few reasons to avoid added sugars in your diet:
- Sugar can impact the bacteria that live in the mouth that can then impact the teeth and cause tooth decay.
- Too much sugar in the diet can cause the pancreas to have to work harder to produce insulin to keep the blood sugar in check. Over time this could lead to issues with your body using insulin to digest sugars in the body and eliminate sugar from the bloodstream effectively.
- Sugar can make it difficult to reach and maintain a healthy body weight, causing the body to store excess calories as fat.
- Sugar can increase feelings of anxiety, irritability, and cause mood swings.
- Eating excess sugar can mess with blood cholesterol levels, causing bad cholesterol levels to rise and good cholesterol levels to go up.
Be on the Lookout
You should always read the nutrition labels of the foods you buy in order to help you avoid added sugars in your diet. You should avoid obvious sugars you see on the labels such as high fructose syrup and cane sugar, but that's not all to look for. You should also avoid sugar that goes by these names:
- Sucrose
- Glucose
- Sorbitol
- Fruit juice concentrate
- Molasses
- Lactose
- Dextrose
- Caramel
- Beet sugar
- Malt syrup
- Barley malt
- Dehydrated cane juice
Don't get fooled into eating sugar when it's disguised in these other forms.
Watch For Added Sugar
Sugar is simply not good for you and you must pay attention to how much of it you eat. Added sugars should be avoided as much as possible while natural sugars such as those found in fruit should be eaten as long as they're part of the whole fruit.
To learn more about your health, wellness, and fitness, see your local chiropractor at The Joint Chiropractic in Katy, Tex.