Non-Nutritive Sweeteners and Added Sugars: A Comparison of Food Categories
Overview
Following on from our original post – Non-Nutritive Sweeteners by Food Category – a 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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Cutting Back on Added Sugars
by 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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Staying Awake with Energy Drinks
by Shereen Jegtvig
You’ve probably seen beverages like Red Bull, Monster, Rockstar and other energy drinks. They’re hard to miss – in their brightly colored, hip’n happening cans – usually sold close to the check out lanes or prominantly displayed at gas stations and convenience stores. They promise to keep you awake, alert and energized so you can live a high energy life and feel like a rock star or an athlete. So what makes them so popular? Probably great marketing to be honest, but they’re really not any better than a cup or two of coffee…maybe even worse?
Energy drinks are usually heavily caffeinated, just as much or more than coffee. They often contain herbs such as ginseng or guarana, and sometimes a combination of B vitamins and amino acids such as taurine. And sugar, usually lots of sugar or artificial sweeteners. The caffeine is a strong stimulant and is the main reason energy drinks will perk you up. The vitamins aren’t any different than what you’ll get from your foods and the dosage of herbs may not be strong enough to do anything. The reason for using taurine in Red Bull escapes me completely – it’s actually more of a depressant than a stimulant in larger doses – so it probably doesn’t do anything at all. Read more
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Enrichment and Fortification of Processed Foods
by Shereen Jegtvig
Food manufacturers enrich their products when they replace nutrients lost during processing. For example, adding B vitamins to the white refined flour used to make bread. Enrichment doesn’t necessarily make the refined flour as healthy as whole grain flour because the fiber isn’t replaced, but adding the B vitamins back into the flour is certainly better than nothing.
Fortification is when food manufacturers add nutrients to foods that wouldn’t normally be present. This can range from the well accepted (vitamin-fortified breakfast cereals and vitamin D added to milk) to the just plain odd (Diet Coke with vitamins?). Some fortified foods are called functional foods, which mean they provide some health benefit beyond the usual nutrition profile for that food. Like margarine made with plant sterols that have been shown to reduce cholesterol levels with regular use. Read more
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