Non-Nutritive Sweeteners and Added Sugars: A Comparison of Food Categories

added sugarOverview

Following on from our original post – Non-Nutritive Sweeteners by Food Categorya subject that was identified for future investigation was the relationship between non-nutritive sweeteners and added sugar ingredients. This post will investigate this relationship, concentrating in particular on the combination of the two sets of ingredients and their food category distribution.

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The Goodness of Grapes

grapesby Shereen Jegtvig

According to the Journal of Nutrition, eating grapes and grape products may have some powerful health benefits. Grapes might help to prevent cardiovascular disease, diabetes and tooth decay, plus eating grapes may help to keep your immune system strong, which is important as we head into flu season.

Grapes contain phytochemicals, which are natural chemical compounds that your body uses to protect your health, including the well-known resveratrol. You’ll get the health benefits from grapes when you eat them fresh (or frozen as a sweet treat) or if you drink the juice. Grape juice is naturally sweet, but that doesn’t mean some food manufacturers won’t water it down and add high fructose corn syrup. Be sure to read the labels to buy 100% juice. Read more

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Food Tip – Choosing Canned Fruit

applesby Shereen Jegtvig

Fruits are sweet and delicious – and so good for you. Most fresh fruits offer lots of vitamins such as folate and vitamin C and minerals such as potassium. Unfortunately, fresh fruits aren’t always that convenient – they perish quickly – so many people prefer the ease of canned fruits.

There are a couple of things to think about when you’re buying cans of fruit. More nutrients are lost in canning as compared to freezing, especially vitamin C and folate, so you lose a bit of the nutrition. Canned fruits often contain added sweeteners, like high fructose corn syrup, and flavor enhancers and preservatives. These usually aren’t artificial enhancers and preservatives – usually pectins and vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Read more

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Cutting Back on Added Sugars

sugarby Shereen Jegtvig

This week the American Heart Association released new guidelines on how much added sugar is acceptable in a healthy diet. Added sugars include sweeteners such as table sugar, honey and high fructose corn syrup that are either added during the production of foods or at the table.  In general, the guidelines suggest no more than about 150 calories per day (based on your daily calorie need) come from added sugar.  That’s approximately the same as 6 teaspoons of table sugar.

This may be less than many Americans are consuming each day.  In fact, one 12 ounce can of soda might exceed your limit – and just imagine how much sugar is in a giant super-sized soda.  It’s important to watch your sugar intake because eating too much sugar can easily cause you to take in more calories than you are able to burn each day.  That leads to being overweight, then obese and increases your chances of having high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.   Another consideration is that added sugar really has no additional nutritional benefit – nothing but simple carbohydrate calories that are easy to absorb and your body has no trouble converting the extra energy to fat. Read more

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