Ramblin' Jan: Cutting out sugar? Good luck!

When most think about cutting out sugar they immediately think ice cream, cake, cookies, pies, things along those lines. They ditch them but spend their time craving those sweet things and sooner or later talk themselves into "just one piece of candy"...and then it's all over.

One of the reasons many continue to crave sugar is they don't realize just how much sugar is in the everyday things they eat. I read one estimate years ago that said roughly 80% of the food in the center aisles and frozen sections contained one or more forms of sugar. A more current study said 74% of our processed foods contain sugar. The decrease could simply be due to the fact that more and more of us are clamoring for healthy products.

Yours truly is a sugar-addict. The only way for me to curb my desire for sugar was to cut it out entirely. That meant I had to learn a lot about sugar.

I've been sugar-free off and on since I was around 19. My interest in sugar, and being sugar-free, started when I walked into my dentist's office and he had a display of annual sugar consumption per person --- real sugar being used, not just photos. He started with a small baby jar with a tiny bit in it.

I couldn't tell you the year he started but it seems it was around the time of the founding of America. The amount increased every year until the five pound bags (now I think they only sell 4 pound bags?) were 2 or 3 rows deep, maybe 3 wide and about my height. I don't remember exactly but it caught my attention. He was trying to prevent tooth decay. It was an eye-opener for me!

Back then the Internet and all the easy info at our fingertips didn't exist. I hit the library. I learned about what sugar did to our body, about how it was produced, about the countries that cultivated it and more. I read the book Sugar Blues (still have it). I went sugar-free for the first time.

Over the years I've done some back-sliding. It's hard to resist my mother's caramel cake, ice cream, and my biggest challenge...brownies. OK, OK, anything chocolate can tempt me!

Somewhere along the line I realized that one of the reasons I kept backsliding was that sugar was in almost every product I bought. Crackers, mayonnaise, blue cheese dressing, and pretty much every packaged or processed food. It kept my system tuned into sugar and it kept my cravings alive.

So, I started reading labels closer. I did more research. I learned that there are over 60 names used to hide sugar. Some of the products I bought had 3 or 4 different kinds. I knew they listed the ingredients in order of highest weight content down. Sneaky. They could put sugar as the 4th ingredient, then another type as the 6th, another as the 8th... Altogether the amounts were whoppingly high.

I did look at the amount in the top portion, the Nutrient Content, but if I was looking at something like raisin bran one would expect to see a higher sugar content, right? Why would someone add two or three other kinds of sugar to something so sweet? Yet they do.

Manufacturers weren't required to differentiate between naturally occurring sugars and added sugars in the Nutrient Content until recently (finally). The percentages are based on serving size so be sure to take a good look at the serving size first if you watch what you eat. The serving sizes are often ridiculously small and thus the content per serving of many things is skewed if you're just using that alone. Sometimes I'll look at the number of servings in a package and just roll my eyes.

Also, if amounts are below a certain threshold per serving they are allowed to put zero (0). Want to bet they play around a lot with serving sizes, what they want to promote and what they want to hide?

Now I wander through stores reading labels, looking at the list of ingredients first. I look at the oils, the sugars, and for other key things I avoid. I generally eat like our ancestors on the farm ate or earlier (aside from the fact that I don't eat meat...another blog for another day but it's mostly habit now that they sell meats without all the crap in them). I'm a mix of paleo, keto, plant-based, vegan, vegetarian --- in other words I've come up with a diet specific to my body and health.

I don't think I really need to go into all the reasons sugar is bad for us, do I?

I did post a story (press release) on why sugar was good for you way, way back. No, not to ingest, but to heal wounds. I note that in one study cited they mixed sugar with iodine. (https://ramblingjan.blogspot.com/2008/10/healing-power-of-sugar.html)

Wondering what kind of names hide sugar in products? Generally, to make it easier, if something ends in "ose" or has syrup attached then it's sugar. However, they do get sneaky with the names as you'll see in this list of some sugars in our foods:

Agave nectar
Barley malt
Barbados sugar
Beet sugar
Brown sugar
Buttered syrup
Cane juice
Cane sugar
Caramel
Carob syrup
Corn syrup
Corn syrup solids
Confectioner’s sugar
Carob syrup
Castor sugar
Date sugar
Dehydrated cane juice
Demerara sugar
Dextran
Dextrose
Diastatic malt
Diatase
Ethyl maltol
Free flowing brown sugars
Fructose
Fruit juice
Fruit juice concentrate
Galactose
Glucose
Glucose solids
Golden sugar
Golden syrup
Granulated sugar
Grape sugar
High fructose corn syrup
Honey
Icing sugar
Invert sugar
Lactose
Malt
Maltodextrin
Maltose
Malt syrup
Mannitol
Maple syrup
Molasses
Muscovado
Oat syrup
Palm sugar
Panocha
Powdered sugar
Rapadura sugar
Raw sugar
Refiner’s syrup
Rice syrup
Rice bran syrup
Sucrose
Treacle
Turbinado sugar
Yellow sugar

If you're concerned about high fructose corn syrup be sure to read this article. They have gotten sneaky about including it! https://livelovefruit.com/new-names-for-high-fructose-corn-syrup/

Here are names used by manufacturers to hide fructose: