Good news! The FDA is about to require food manufacturers and packagers to indicate the amount of added sugar on product labels. Fabulous, right? Like many people, you're probably looking to cut the sugar in your diet so you might be really excited about this. But "added sugar" is only half the story and that's why this girl isn't popping the champagne cork just yet.
Let's take a look at where our sugar comes from.
An 8 oz glass of orange juice has 21 grams of sugar. Coke has 23. Orange juice is comprised of fast-acting sugar. Yes, it's "natural" but it's still sugar and your liver responds to "natural" sugar the same way it responds to added sugar. In fact, the sugar in orange juice is fructose, which our body doesn't produce on its own. Its glycemic load is high and further, fructose doesn’t affect satiety in the same way as glucose, making you eat more total calories automatically if your fructose intake is high.
My point is that, pretty much without exception, "sugar is sugar is sugar" whether naturally occurring or added. Your body responds the same way (more on that later). So to my way of thinking, when you read a label, you should be most concerned with the total sugar count, not just the added sugar. (That said, something with a lot of added sugar is probably also empty of any nutritional value, so in this way, the new information may be useful for those looking to eat fewer "manufactured" foods.)
Further, and I need to read more about this, but I'm wondering how the FDA labeling will this address this situation...your kids' "100% juice" in the little boxes. Hey, it's 100% juice so it must be healthy, right?
Damn right you should care!
As a person who knows exactly what everything I eat does to my blood sugar, I know that my body would respond to the 21g of sugar in orange juice exactly the same way it would respond to the 23g of sugar in a Coke or the grape juice concentrate in those "healthy" juice boxes.
"But wait! I'm not diabetic," I hear you cry!
It may surprise you to know that up to a point, our bodies will respond the same way. Your body and mine will turn all that sugar (fructose, dextrose, sucrose, etc.) into glucose to be used for energy. Your body responds by producing insulin to convert it to energy. Mine does not.
But what happens when you, a non-diabetic, are eating foods that cause your body to produce insulin? If you're constantly putting sugar into your body, you are causing your body to produce insulin. Too much sugar can create a situation called hyperinsulinemia. (This result occurs not just from sugar but ALL carbohydrates, even those "good ones" you've been eating...again, more on that in a different post.) So what happens to your body with all that insulin floating around? The current hypothesis on carbohydrates is that the resultant elevated insulin acts on fat cells to cause fat storage, leading to obesity. And the state of obesity creates insulin resistance. So here you have the double jeopardy of carbs; eating more carbs causes you to produce more insulin, which leads to fat storage, which leads to insulin resistance, which leads to your body producing even more insulin. The result? A dangerous cycle that has Americans, who have been taught that fat is the enemy, fatter and sicker than ever. What's the most important thing to take away from this post? Whether the carbohydrates you are consuming are from added sugar or HFCS, a banana, a cookie, a coke or a bowl of brown rice, the result is the same. Your liver can't tell the difference between added and natural sugars. So while the new information is "nice to have", it's not the metric you should be most concerned with if your goal is good health and normal blood sugars. Questions? Post in the comments!
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