SubscribeHow Much Sugar Do You Consume?
We like it sweet. Too sweet - and I can't help wondering how our obsession with sweetness is tied to our expanding waists.
Food mega-giant Kraft recently scored a hit in China with Oreos cookies - but not the kind that Americans eat. According to the Wall Street Journal: "Kraft learned that traditional Oreos were too sweet for Chinese tastes".
So they reformulated the flavor - and Oreos are now the No 1 cookie in China.
A UK food industry book (McCance and Widdowson's The Composition of Foods) helps to highlight our desire for sweetness. The Daily Mail compared the 1978 version with the 2002 version and found that even in so-called 'healthy' foods - sugar is increasing - and the trend continues through to 2007.
Increases in sugar in the UK
'We naturally have a sweet tooth and manufacturers have been quick to use that to try to increase sales in a crowded marketplace.Here's the thing: As manufacturers strove to decrease fat and salt content - they simply replaced it with sugar. If something is low-fat it's likely to be high-sugar.'It's cheap to use and it's been one of the first things to be added when companies want to make a product a bit different.'
Statistics from FAO food lists show that calorie intake (in the US) from added sugars increased by 29% between 1961 and 2000.
By now we have a generation (or two) with a palate that has been weaned on sweetness. It's no surprise we struggle to get children to eat vegetables and other less sweet foods.
Although we must take responsibility for what we put in our mouths - I believe that food manufacturers have an obligation to begin reversing trends of the last few decades. Stop lining the aisles with sugary foods.
However such a thing is unlikely to happen unless sugar production and prices are compromised.
Do you have an insatiably sweet tooth?
I do have a rather sweet tooth, alas.
Something I've found great for satisfying it are fruits (juicy ripe strawberries, fresh chunks of pineapple, and little satsumas are all gorgeously sweet!)
Another absolute favourite of mine is roasted vegetables; carrots and courgettes in particular. I'd probably be quite happy with just a plateful of those for dinner!
Nothing quite beats chocolate, though. As a teenager, I much prefered milk chocolate to dark, but over the years, I've adjusted to dark chocolate to the point where I definitely favour it now. But I do manage to keep my chocolate-eating in check by satisfying sweet cravings with the natural sugars in fruits and veggies.
Ali
ReplyFruits are my sugar fix too. Unfortunately I've heard that they are bred to contain more and more sugar (albeit natural, still extra) as time goes on. Nothing is safe :(
ReplyI hope we get a good season out of our apple trees. We don't spray or do much with them (we don't know where to start XD), but they've been blooming like crazy, and mum says that we might use just a bit of a spray to keep the wormy worms out and bugs off. We get good sized apples out of them, but they're full of worms usually.
I've always preferred dark chocolate, but I think that was part of my rebellion against my mother's habits that started when I was a toddler. Basically, if my mom told me something was gross, or that I couldn't (or shouldn't) do something, I had to prove her wrong. So I started eating hot peppers at age 4, loved my dark chocolate, blue cheese and avocados, like my muscle tone, and swear like a sailor! LOL!
Fruit satisfies my sweet tooth a lot. Growing up, I never had strawberries without sugar on them (seriously - my mom would cut up a pint of strawberries, cover them in sugar, let them sit for a few hours, and that's how we ate them), and so it's only been in the last few years thatI've realized how sweet and yummy so many fruits are, and can't figure out why the heck people feel the need to sweeten fruits?
ReplyInteresting data... even more frightening is that high fructose corn syrup consumption has risen 1000+% in that same time period.
Completely agree that food manufacturers need to curb the amount of sugar in their foods. I also agree that we need to vote with out $$ and curb our purchasing of the offending products.
ReplyI have a sweet tooth. But I keep it under control.
I am the type however to crave sweets-- never salty or anything (chips or whatever)...
Still, Oreos are incredibly nasty so at least I have no trouble staying away from those!
ReplyI used to really like Oreos, but after I ate a whole package of them at once, I really couldn't even stomach looking at them for a while. Now I stay away from them because they're not exactly great for you.
ReplyI have stopped eating table sugar. It is amazing to look at cookies and sweets now and think how sweet they are. They are way too sweet for my taste now.
I think in the past sugar has been used as cheap calories. In times when there was not that much food available, it was suggested to supplement ones food intake with sugar. That idea definitely back fired. Now we don't have money anymore because we have dentist bills and doctor bills. Just look at all the people around you that suffer from diabetes.
ReplyThe things in that graphic aren't "food" - they're manufactured food-derived substances. Corporations won't stop manufacturing it, alas, until we stop buying it.
I have sugar or honey with my coffee, and use honey in my whole wheat bread. Beyond that, I take in few added sugars. Like Ali and Linds, I love to get my sweet fix from fruits. That's been a big benefit of going vegetarian and organic; I eat more fruits than I ever have. I get fiber and nutrients, but don't feel like I'm depriving myself.
ReplyI agree...the foods that are listed in that chart are highly processed and are ways that food manufacturers add "palatability" to the products they make. Breakfast cereals can have a lot of sugar in them, which is why I tend to buy oatmeal and add my own sugar to it. Condiments like ketchup usually have a lot of sugar too.
ReplyAs I've grown older my sweet tooth has definitely changed. 10 years ago I would have jumped at a Pecan pie, but now just thinking about that slab of pure sugar makes me cringe. Deserts, candies, etc... just don't do it for me.
I'm actually on a low-carb plan right now so I get next to no sugar at all. After the first couple weeks of havoc on my system, my blood sugar is waaaay better off than it was before that. And my mouth feels so much cleaner, and minor aches in it have vanished.
If I get a little sweet craving I'll usually just grab one Splenda sweetened drink.
ReplyI do have a sweet tooth, but it's better than it used to be. Maybe I should just call it a "carb tooth" - I get weird cravings for things like plain multi-grain pasta, plain corn tortillas, rice.
We eat few processed foods, and the few we do don't usually have added sugar, so we're okay on that front. I'll admit to doing a fair amount of baking. That's one of my ways of dealing with a sweet tooth - if I get a craving for something sweet, I have to bake it from scratch, which makes me consider how much I really want it - is it worth going to the trouble of baking it?
The other thing I've been doing lately is baking half-batches, or giving away some of what I make - mailing cookies to family members, making up baggies of goodies for our mailman. And I've been trying to cut the sugar in half in recipes, and most of the time you don't notice at all!
ReplyI like to add cinnamon a lot, especially fruits (strawberries) , coffee.. It really makes things so much sweeter.
ReplyI love oreos. Is there anyway I can try these less sweet oreos in the states?
ReplyI have a pretty bad sweet tooth. If I crave anything, it's usually something sweet. Fruit usually satisfies my craving, but sometimes I like something sweeter, so I'll grab some raisins or something. I do try to keep my portions in check though. If I DO want to put sugar on anything, I'll put Splenda or Nutrasweet in it instead. I'm not too worried about the whole "fake sugar" thing because I don't eat enough of it.
Food manufacturers generally add a lot more sugar to their formulations than they used to because that's what they figure consumers like. Plus, it's generally well-known info among the food industry that if you get kids eating high sugar foods early, they'll be primed to eat sweeter foods all their lives. It's devious, but it's business for them. Your best defense is to just not buy a lot of processed foods for your kids.
ReplyI think sweetness is all what you are used to. I would give Oreos a few years in China until they are slowly upping the sugar. When kids start eating them at a young age their tolerance will slowly grow to eventually what we have in North America.
Replyway too much....until I dont.
:)
sadly Ive found NOT EATING much at all doesnt mitigate my LOVE o'the sweetness.
MizFit
Replyi want to say about the making cakes and how to maked
Replyits hard for me to get the thought of sweets out of my head sometimes. And when that certain time of the month comes around something it triggered inside of me to go right for the sweet stuff. I look to fruits and 90 cal snacks to stop that craving. Even though i'm losing weight i'm not going to cut out chocolate or sweets completly or i will just go crazy and eat them all day! keep up the good work everyone!
ReplyAs a former statistician, I eat up this kind of news with a big heavy dessert spoon. Luckily that's all I eat with a dessert spoon... I don't have much of a sweet tooth after I binged on Tom Collins during my junior year of college in 2000. For a while I couldn't even bear fruit. But I'm starting to wake up to sugar again, but only the fruity kind - I LOVE apples and grapefruit. Mangos are too sweet.
That said, I don't recommend my technique for curbing a sweet tooth. Unless you really like the taste of regurgitated sour mix!
ReplyI've been surprised more than once about the Japanese and Chinese approach to sugar. I've heard many people from there exclaim about how sweet western desserts are. But, I've known this since my grad school days when I studied Japanese, which was in the 80s. So, while western food may have become sweeter in this period, we were already sweeter than Asian tastes back then.
I'm no expert, but from my travel in China and eating out with Chinese born students, instead of having sweet dishes as dessert, they're eaten along with savory, which means that they can't be overpoweringly sweet... but, then again, it's not exactly low fat cuisine.
ReplyI don't eat sugar on a regular basis. When I do eat it, I enjoy it and don't feel guilty.
Replyi was an sweet addict during my childhood,being in indian community i guess we indians consume lots of sweet than rest of the world.
ReplyIf I completely cut out sugar, then I have a major sweet tooth and will be more likely to go for cake, cookies or something sweet when it's around. So I always have something on hand that I can have a small portion of if I "need" it. Mostly it's just fruit though.
ReplyMy mom has made all her desserts with less than half the amount of sugar called for since I was a little girl, and they're way delicious. You really don't miss the extra sugar.
i actually dont like sweets at all...i'm a complete savoury nutter. I'd sooner eat a head of brocolli for breakfast than a fruit salad. I do eat fruit though, mroe so now than i used to, i like sour fruits :)
Its good at restaurants as i'll order an entree and skip desert and my boyfriend will skip the starter and order deseret, and then we pick/share eachothers (mine).
ReplyToo sweet, and I'll feel sick. But I guess I'm just lucky. I can't eat much food that's high in sugar, high in cholesterol, or high in sodium. I'd feel horrible! I wish that more people could be like me, and feel immediate repercussions of unhealthy living.
ReplyI noticed when my husband and I went to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic that their dessert sweets were much less sweet than what we have in the states. We are so accustomed to the sugary treats in the US that when we tried their version--we didn't like it! Even though we know it's not good for us we both said "more sugar!"
ReplySugar cravings are just survival instincts....that were designed millions of years ago when sugar was only seasonal in the summer and you needed to fatten up for the winter. Staying up late with TV and artificial lighting is messing with our melatonin response and therfore causing wrong signals for the body to consume sugar...thinking it is the long days of summer (Lights Out is a good book to read about that theory of evolutionary design). Ever notice why most cravings happen at night?
ReplyInteresting concept, Mike...I never thought about it that way, but that does make a lot of sense.
ReplyMike, I read that book for the first time about 5 years ago. I highly recommend it. It's loaded with excellent info. Since making my sleeping envirnonment at home more "cave- like" (LOL, those who haven't read the book yet won't understand that remark!), whenever I travel I'm amazed at the brightness in which people sleep! The seanonal info re: recreation, food abundance, hibernation, etc. is informative and intriguing.
I was absolutely a sugar junkie until I lost 100 pounds with the Zone Diet about 13 years ago (I've kept it off even since). If I could change my tastes, anyone can! Most foods containing sugar are now too sweet to me. On the infrequent ocassion when I choose to indulge, I feel sick afterwards. Fruits and the ocassional bite of a high cocoa content OG chocolate bar (like Dagoba Eclipse bars) provide me will all the sweetness I need now. Since I've given up my sugar habit, all food tastes better, more flavorful, and I truly enjoy a much greater variety of foods.
ReplyIt's an addiction. Somehow food tastes better with some sugar. If we add all the sugar we have taken, we should be guilty.
ReplyEverybody love sweets but it depends on how much we take, we must aware on how much sugar we take everyday. Me I only consume sugar whenever I drink coffee. and that is once a day.
Replyi suppose i do cause i cant stop drinking lots of pop my mum says its rotting my stomach away and i cant stop eatting lots of sugary things
ReplyOoh, I love sugar. I eat some (refined sugar) everyday. It's usually dark chocolate or some other type of candy, but no more than 1 oz. a day. However, I also eat fruit and organic yogurt (sweetened) in the morning, lots of raisins, wine occasionally, soda and rum, rarely. The sugar yogurt really can add up. I should just stick to plain yogurt. Does this all seem excessive to anyone else? Sugar does end up constituting about 15% of my daily calories...
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