Food Facts: Influential Information

10 Surprising Facts About Sugar!

1. Sugar can cause heart disease

2. Eating sugar can give you wrinkles

3. The average american eats about 76.7 lbs of sugar a year

4. Low-fat sugar can contain up to 47 grams of sugar

5. Glucose, fructose, and galactose are all different forms of sugar

6. It increases the risk of kidney disease.

7. Sugar can cause your liver to resist insulin

8. Honey is only slightly better for you than sugar

9. Some 100% fruit juice can contain more sugar than soda

10. The more you hydrate, the faster you will get the added sugars out of your digestive system

What Is Sugar?

Sugar is a common sweetener found in countless food and drink products. The sugar found in your common sugar is constructed of different elements. Sugar includes fructose and glucose. It is extracted from cane sugar as well as sugar beet. Sugar cane is found all across the globe, however mostly in the tropics/subtropics. In the United Kingdom, over half of the sucrose we use is produced. This sucrose comes from sugar beet. Sugar beet is a big, pale, and brown root thats appearance is similar to parsnip. When harvested, this beet has a sugar content of 16%.

What are the Drawbacks?

Sugar contains lots of calories, and it increases the amount of blood sugar in your body. This can lead to heart disease or type 2 diabetes. Blood sugar is usually balanced out by insulin, but someone with diabetes (who either doesn't produce insulin or is resistant to it) is more vulnerable to over consuming sugar. Although sugar has the same kind of calories as any other type of food, it is dense with these calories. This is why products containing sugar have more calories than their sugar free counterparts. If someone consumes sugar, it can do one of two things to their diet. It will either replace the nutritious food that they would've eaten with sugary products or it will be eaten in addition to the person's normal diet. If the former occurs, you are denying your body the nutrients that it needs and are replacing it with unhealthy snacks. If the latter occurs, you are just adding on to your calorie count and giving your body more food than it needs.