Sugar Article

Sugar – the sweet truth

Sugar was once a luxury good that only wealthy people could use to sweeten their food. In the meantime, sugar has become a staple food for many people due to its low price and constant availability. An average adult consumes 34 kilograms of sugar per year. This equates to almost 100 grams of sugar or 31 sugar cubes per day. Is that still healthy?

According to the WHO, if we want to live a healthy life, we should optimally reduce our sugar consumption to 5% of the total energy intake, which is equivalent to about 25 grams or 8 sugar cubes. The daily sugar consumption should in any case be below 10% of the total energy amount (< 50 grams), since scientific studies show that there is a close connection between increased consumption of free sugar and increased body weight. This refers to added, so-called “free” sugars, for example in the form of household sugar or industrially produced fructose (e.g. “fructose-glucose syrup”). You can easily tell if sugar has been added by looking at the ingredient lists. Excluded from the directive is the sugar that is naturally found in fresh fruits and vegetables and milk, as this form of sugar has no negative impact on our health. These are foods where you won’t find the word “sugar” or its aliases in the ingredients list.

Have you ever decided to eat just one piece of chocolate and suddenly the whole bar was gone? Scientists still disagree about whether this craving can be called an addiction. What is certain is that the desire for sweets is innate. Even mother’s milk tastes sweet, which is why our sense of taste is programmed for sweet even before birth.  Sweet foods are considered nutritious and harmless to health – in contrast to bitter foods, which are often associated with being toxic and inedible. However, the preference for sweet is not only innate, but also learned behavior.  Emotions associated with certain foods play an important role. If, for example, we are comforted, rewarded or reassured with chocolate in childhood, we will always associate chocolate with positive feelings.

Sugar is not a drug like cocaine or heroin, yet the effect of sugar in the brain confirms that sweet things lead to addiction-like reactions in our bodies. Sugar activates the brain’s reward center, where the happiness hormone dopamine is released. This spreads a calming and relaxing effect. The problem with dopamine: the body gets used to the high dopamine level and wants more and more of it. So in order to achieve the same feel-good effect, our brain needs more and more sugar. When we make the resolution to eat less sweets, the brain reacts to the lack of dopamine release and our body is more or less on withdrawal, which can be noticeable through headaches, restlessness or unease.

Fructose is the sugar that occurs naturally in fruit. Since fruit is considered healthy, the sugar it contains also has a rather positive image, but the truth is unfortunately a little different. Unlike glucose, fructose can only be metabolized by the liver. If we take in too much fructose at once, part of it is converted into fat and stored in the liver. Possible consequences can be: Fatty liver, obesity, gout or diabetes.

Don’t worry, at the recommended daily amounts of fruit, the benefits clearly outweigh the risks. However, you should reduce the consumption of concentrated fructose, e.g. in ready-made products and soft drinks. These usually contain high amounts of added fructose in the form of fructose-glucose syrup, corn syrup or similar. You should also reduce your consumption of juices or drink them only in the form of juice spritzers in a ratio of three parts water to one part juice, because here, too, you are consuming large amounts of fructose.

Instead of asking how to replace sugar, the real question should be whether we can get by with less sweetness. The more often we eat sweet foods, the more sweetness we need to still perceive a type of food as sweet.

By consuming less sugar and less sugar substitutes, we sensitize our taste receptors and are able to taste the natural sweetness in foods again. To do this, you can harness the sweetness from real fruit. Sweeten your dessert with dates or other dried fruits or use ripe bananas or apple puree when baking. Sometimes a little cinnamon, vanilla or nutmeg is all you need for a sweet note.