Surprise! How much sugar is hiding in your favorite foods?
We all know the drill that if we want to cut down on sugar, especially for our children, we need to keep the candy treats and soda pops to a minimum. But the healthy eating game is actually way more complicated than that. There is all kinds of sugar lurking in foods that sound as if they ought to be healthy. So before you pack that school lunch, check out this.
As Prevention notes, a half a cup of spaghetti sauce (7 grams) may be packing almost as much sugar as a plain cake donut (8 grams). Doh! And that harmless looking half cup of raisins is packing a whopping 43 grams of sugar.
Other fun facts: Did you know that a serving of apple juice can have more sugar in it than a Snickers bar? I’m not saying you should choose chocolate as a healthy option, but you’ve got to know the sad truth before you go grocery shopping.
One bit of advice: Some nutrition experts point out that foods that claim to be low-fat are often highsugar because manufacturers are trying to distract your taste buds.
So how much sugar should we consume in a day? Here’s how the experts at UC San Francisco break it down: For a 2,000-calorie diet, the World Health Organization suggestion would be 5 percent, about 25 grams. That means limiting daily sugar to 6 teaspoons (25 g) for women, 9 teaspoons (38 g) for men.
Yet, the average American consumes 19.5 teaspoons (82 grams) every day. That’s about 66 pounds of added sugar each year, per person. Coke: 39 grams of sugar Snickers bar: 20 grams Apple juice: 28 grams Granola bar: 18 grams Milk — 1 cup of 1 percent: 13 grams Yoplait yogurt: 26 grams (Source: USDA) Contact Karen D’Souza at 408-271-3772.