What's Up With Sugar

By Phillip Percival

Research has shown that consuming excess sugar is detrimental to health. The implication is that the food pyramid might be upside down.

When people talk about sugar they are referring in part to the sugar that is added to processed foods to make them taste better or to mask the bland flavour of a fat reduced product. However, it's not just the cane or beet sugar bought in packets from the supermarket that are the problem, fruit sugar from purees and juices are potentially even worse. An innocent glass of orange juice is equivalent to eating four or five whole oranges. However because the juice has been "freed" from the fiber and plant material of the whole fruit the fructose is absorbed much too quickly.

Additionally, anyone trying to eat five whole oranges might struggle. Even if they manage to do it, it takes time for the digestive system to extract the fruit sugar from plant fiber. In the meantime the whole fruit takes up space that helps to satiate appetite so reducing the amount of food that can be eaten at the next meal.

By drinking a glass of juice however, a person begins to absorb the calories and sugar from the oranges immediately. Hunger often returns quickly so that appetite is largely unaffected. That person might even drink juice with their meal increasing their intake of dietary carbohydrates and sugar without limiting how much they eat. This essentially leads to over-eating. Consumption of high quantities of sugar and carbohydrates in general, raises insulin levels. When this dietary excess is repeated enough times the body's fat and muscle cells can become less sensitive to insulin, a condition known as hyperinsulinemia. When sugars can't be absorbed effectively they remain in the blood, causing high blood sugar, a symptom of diabetes-2.

Follow the link for more information: 10 Things You Don't Know About Sugar.